God bless you!

We were having dinner at a friend's home last night and the subject of sneezing and blessing came up.
My friend said she does not bless those who sneeze and doesn't feel bad about it. She knows it stems from superstition and refuses to continue the tradition and feed into it.
I felt that it didn't matter how it started. It is polite and good manners and should be done because it shows you care, even to a stranger. Now, this was a game of devil's advocate but it got me thinking.
For me the world is such a hard place sometimes so to extend a blessing on someone, I think, helps to keep us caring and compassionate. In Puerto Rico there is a tradition that I enjoy and continue with my children. It is customary for children (young or adult) to ask their elders for their blessing. Every time you see, say your parents, you say 'Bendicion', which literally means 'Blessing', and they respond with, 'Dios te bendiga', or 'God bless you'. It is considered disrespectful not to do this. When I was young, this always made me feel very special because I was always reminded that God was with me.
Maybe that is why I like to bless those that sneeze... hmmm...
In true form, I set out to research this phenomenon and found some things about the Black Plague , (blessing people so they wouldn't lose their soul through the sneeze), and blessing to keep evil spirits from re-entering the body once they were expelled through the sneeze, or blessing because one belived that the person's heart stopped momentarily when they sneezed.
The earliest date I found was in a writing dated 150 AD where someone blessed someone sneezing several times. But I could not find any info on the exact start of this tradition.
I like being blessed when I sneeze. For me, it shows that people are being empathetic and considerate.
To bless or not to bless... what do you think?