>>A wish or a greeting should be handled as such to the first. A friendly, peace making gesture.
>>Only if the greeter knows by fact that the other side is affronted, this will change.
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>Which actually works here. After I've responded to that kind of greeting (and "bless you" and such) with "sorry, doesn't apply, not a member", the people really stopped doing that and I respect that. The implication behind those is that regardless of our (un)belief, we are, in their eyes, the creatures of their imaginary friend, willy nilly and without any choice in the matter. Well, I didn't think so and asked for that kind of opinion to remain undelivered. And we lived happily ever after.
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>>We have here the problem that bavarians commonly greet with "Grüß Gott" (God greets you). They mean normaly nothing with it - it offends me and a lot easterners anyway.
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>Are they offended if you tell them to deliver the greetings to the sender? As in "Send him my regards, then". BTW, I've heard this in other parts of Germany as well (I think both around Düsseldorf and Stuttgart), but then those may have been cousins of my hosts.

Sometimes it really is just common usage as "Bless You" when sneezing is now. I can't speak for today, but when I was in Germany for 3 years around Bavaria, Grüß Gott was so common among all ages and when I inquired about it, it was almost never meant with it's literally meaning.