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Sadly, this page is not about the excellent manga/anime.
No, this page is about the New-Agey use of "Goddess" in place of "God," especially in relation to interjections.
Now, I don't want to step on anyone's religious toes here (that's another article), so I'll preface this by saying that praying to a Goddess and using the phrase "Oh my Goddess" would be perfectly fine. In fact, that would make perfect sense.
The usage that upsets me is mostly in fiction. Occasionally, I'll come across characters in fiction who, most often because of the author's religious convictions, substitute "Goddess" for "God" when using the phrase "Oh my God" as an exclamation. For example:
- She watched, horrified, as he was crushed by the semi-truck. "Oh my Goddess!" She screamed.
Now, does this sound natural to you? Of course not. If you say a friend get crushed by a tractor-trailer, you'd scream out "Oh my God!" even if you were a militant Atheist. The problem comes from the fact that the use of "God" in this phrase isn't religious at all. It's just a vulgarity. Replacing "oh my God" with "oh fuck" or "oh shit" or any number of curse words doesn't change the meaning of the line - it may change the tone slightly, depending on the character, but not the meaning.
So why do some authors feel this need to emphasize their alternative religions in their writing? To put it another way, why emphasize this conspicuous break with established culture if it doesn't add anything to the character? We've established that saying "oh my God" in this context is divorced from religious feeling. It's not a rational expression at all.
There are a few places that "oh my Goddess" is appropriate. If the story deals with pagan/goddess worship directly, it'd be useful as a device to show the reader just how different their society is, that their vulgarities are different from ours. Fantasy tropes in particular can use this. But modern-day writing? It just stands out as the author being different for the sake of being different, and not as a character trait.
So don't use "Oh my Goddess" as a vulgarity. It just reads badly.