According to "The Straight Dope" you say bless you started in the dark ages because people were afraid that you may have aquired the plague.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1958/why-do-we-say-god-bless-you-after-a-sneeze
Nah, you don't die, even for a nanosecond, when you sneeze. There's a myth that says that your heart stops when you sneeze. It doesn't. Even if it did, it wouldn't mean that you "die" and then "undie" for that period of time. It would just be an arrhythmia.
The reason why people say "Bless you" is because you die for about a nano second when you sneeze. So when you "undie", they say "Bless you". Great strip. Chuck Norris, Pig.
Rat *could* have said: "Wiley Miller", the cartoonist of Non Sequitur the strip, but Stephan's legal training rose to save him -- wouldn't want to get the big guy going ;^)
