Surreal Etymology

I should know that everything under the heaven would boil down to something like this - doesn't have to be precisely like this, but there are countless situations like this before:

Clementine: This is it, Joel. It's gonna be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it. Say GOODBYE.

Within a day, imagine how many times the word 'goodbye' is being uttered by the world's population. Ranging from saying goodbye to whoever in the house when you leave for work in the morning; sick people too weak to go out and get food to pizza guys when delivering their orders; death sentenced prisoners to whoever watching them slowly die behind one-way-glassed rooms before the executors press the buttons to let suffocating gas enter the small chambers; lovers to each other when they finally have enough of hurting one another; crying kids to their dead dogs; old women to the dresses they wore for a first date with their dead husbands because the maids accidentally shred them during ironing; to unfaithful wives to their foreign lovers when seeing them off at airports.

Although 'goodbye' is said in many different human languages, but still the meaning is all the same. While it's not necessary - but like beers best drunk with good friends, there are usually tears accompanying the word before, during, or long after it's being said. It's like the word itself driving the tears to come out of the eyes then roll down the cheeks. Magical, isn't it? It's even more powerful than voodoo, I think.

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the etymology of the word 'goodbye' is the alteration of 'God be with you'. Oh! So after saying or hearing the word, one is expected to count on God to ease whatever pain as the effect of the certain word being chanted like an ancient, sacred prayer? But what about those who don't believe in God? Should they be destined to hear or say the word more and more until at a certain point they finally believe in His existence?