Question to Atheists

[tr0psn4j]

Do any of you atheists celebrate religious holidays?

Christmas is just good times and I kind of look forward to it every year. I've been to a few other holidays too and they all are fun. Maybe I'm just a holiday whore.

[DanBlather]

Hell yes, I'm big on Christmas. I give gifts, put up a tree, hang stockings, the whole 9 yards. I like to color easter eggs and bake a ham too (on Easter).

[Pasta]

In the US at least, Christmas and Easter (despite their historical roots) are largely non-religious holidays. Perhaps someone with hard numbers will come along, but my impression is that pretty much everyone who doesn't practice a religion for which Christmas and Easter are contraindicated (e.g., Judaism) celebrates these two. Atheists included.

Today's secular nature of Halloween is a good example of Holy-Day-turned-holiday. Halloween's origins are religious, but (in the US) everyone celebrates it except some actively religious groups (due to some of the naughty overtones of the holiday.)

[GorillaMan]

'Celebrate religious holidays', no. Go along with a certain amount of expected social routine, yes. Refusing to be present at a particular family meal, or not buying presents, would be imposing my opinions on religion on others, a behaviour which I find highly offensive when on the receiving end.

Same reason I'll join in with singing hymns at somebody's wedding. I won't join in any recitation of prayer, though, as I feel that would be overstepping the boundary into hypocrisy.

(I don't enjoy this time of year, though, for other reasons, beyond a hatred of commercialisation, Christmas music, and enforced jollity!)

[Gfactor]

Moved from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.

Gfactor
General Questions Moderator

[velvetjones]

I celebrate christmas but more out of obligation..same with easter. Personally if both of those holidays disappeared I'd be happy. I dislike obligatory gift giving.

but I have to admit that I'm a sucker for a sappy christmas movie. I watch my favorites every year.

[Leaffan]

Originally Posted by GorillaMan

'Celebrate religious holidays', no. Go along with a certain amount of expected social routine, yes. Refusing to be present at a particular family meal, or not buying presents, would be imposing my opinions on religion on others, a behaviour which I find highly offensive when on the receiving end.

Same reason I'll join in with singing hymns at somebody's wedding. I won't join in any recitation of prayer, though, as I feel that would be overstepping the boundary into hypocrisy.

(I don't enjoy this time of year, though, for other reasons, beyond a hatred of commercialisation, Christmas music, and enforced jollity!)

Yep. That's pretty much me. I could go with Christmas being on a 4 year rotation: like the Olympics. My kids wouldn't go for it though.

[Jack Batty]

I celebrate the secular holiday of Christmas -- as in presents, candy canes, arguing with relatives -- not the religious version.

I disagree with Pasta that, "pretty much everyone who doesn't practice a religion for which Christmas and Easter are contraindicated (e.g., Judaism) celebrates these two. Atheists included."

Easter is nothing but a Sunday to me. Even my quasi-religious relatives don't really do much for Easter. My sister does to an extent mostly because her kids are still young enough for Easter Egg hunts -- but don't get me going on her oddity. She, like I, was raised areligious (not specifically atheist); she is still very critical and skeptical of religion and yet she sent her children to a Catholic School. Her reasoning was that it was a better education than public school -- that and her husband went there when he was a kid, but even he is more of a lapsed Catholic.


I think what it boils down to is that adult atheists without little kids probably won't give Easter a second glance. Outside of coloring eggs, what interest could it possibly hold for a non-Christian?

[B. Serum]

I celebrate whichever holidays I please in a non-religious manner.

[Skald the Rhymer]

I ignore Easter & celebrate Christmas. Thanksgiving is the one that gives me problems. Though it's not explicitly religious, it tends to be celebrated as such in my family, and I don't care to thank Someone who doesn't exist.

[Hanna]

Like others that have posted here, I do get together with family to celebrate Christmas, but there is nothing religious about it. We don't pray, there's no church; just a little food and a gift exchange. I personally don't put up a tree or decorate, but I do enjoy looking at others decorations.

I skip Easter totally.

[Der Trihs]

Originally Posted by Jack Batty

I celebrate the secular holiday of Christmas -- as in presents, candy canes, arguing with relatives -- not the religious version.

That's pretty much me. Like a lot of families, with mine Santa Claus and sleigh is much more central to Christmas than Christianity.

[Pasta]

Originally Posted by Jack Batty

I think what it boils down to is that adult atheists without little kids probably won't give Easter a second glance. Outside of coloring eggs, what interest could it possibly hold for a non-Christian?

I should have been clearer. Yes, without kids, you aren't going to notice Easter one bit, except when you go to the drug store and are blinded by the pastel. But that is sort of different from not celebrating it; it's just that this particular holiday sort of doesn't apply to people without kids. I posit that these same adults, with kids, would celebrate Easter. (I was viewing it like, say, Fathers' Day: Someone who isn't a father (and doesn't have a father around) isn't going to do anything on Fathers' Day, but if they suddenly have a kid, then they probably would. The previous non-celebration of the day is of a different type than I think the OP is after.)

[Philster]

They are all just social events to me. Even a wedding in a church. Secular/social stuff. Heck, they are such for believers, too, more often than not.

[Silver Tyger]

My parents are Christian. The rest of the family is pretty much secular. Yes, I celebrate Christmas, because I get stuff. And food.

I don't celebrate Easter, although I'll take candy where I can get it. Halloween and Thanksgiving should be secular anyway, although some people try to make it into something (it's about goodies, just deal =^.^=)

[DigitalC]

Sure do, don't see why not. I can't remember ever associating christmas with religion, christmas has always meant good food, family, hot chocolate, trees, lights and presents. Jesus has never entered the picture and i believe its the same for most religious people also.

[Rubystreak]

I don't do Easter at all, though I love Cadbury creme eggs and that's the only time of year you can get them. Love Halloween, but that's a pagan holiday. Christmas is a social obligation that I would gladly skip entirely if I could, but parental units have expectations. If I had a kid, we'd do Xmas as a secular gift-giving occasion, with no Santa or Jesus involved. Hadn't thought about Easter re: kids, but it would probably be a secular candy-giving holiday if I 'em I'd explain to the kid the religious myths behind these holidays, but only as myths that other people believe in.

[fifty-six]

Jesus's birth and death are both religious holidays.

Christmas and Easter are not exactly religious.

Christmas trees, stockings, reindeer, Black Friday, Easter eggs, bunny rabbits, fake grass, ham and round robins have nothing to do with Jesus.

Of course Atheists celebrate those days. Why do you think we have these things?

[Jack Batty]

Originally Posted by Pasta

I should have been clearer. Yes, without kids, you aren't going to notice Easter one bit, except when you go to the drug store and are blinded by the pastel.

We are mostly in agreement.

I guess I'm a bit of a special case. I am a parent, but non-custodial, and in fact I didn't even know of my kids existence until they were around 5 (they're twins -- long story).

But I've never celebrated Easter with them. I've just never gone out of my way to make an issue out of it. And it hasn't seemed to phase them. Now that they're older (16) they pretty much know my views on religion, so it's even less an issue.

[GorillaMan]

Originally Posted by Leaffan

Yep. That's pretty much me. I could go with Christmas being on a 4 year rotation: like the Olympics.

Good idea...or maybe every two years, alternating between summer and winter?

[Kyla]

I celebrate Christmas only in the sense that I enjoy holiday parties and giving and receiving presents. I don't have a tree or voluntarily listen to carols or anything like that. Can't be bothered.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Sure, I do Christmas and Easter. We do the trees, the stockings, the presents, the eggnog, the Easter egg hunts -- all that jazz. It makes the kids happy. I just don't go to Mass when my wife takes them later in the day.

[mwbrooks]

Some would call me an Athiest, although really I don't accept as truth anything that anybody says about God, including Athiests. Call me a fire-breathing Agnostic.

But I enjoy Christmas and Easter and so forth as celebrations of life, and family, and, well, celebration. Joyful and faithful and magical feelings are real feelings, and I believe in them, even if I don't believe any particular way people try to explain, or justify, or "prove" them.

If the person to my left is partying about the the birth of a teacher, and the person to my right is partying about an oil shortage survived, and the person across the table is partying about the solstice, that's all OK by me. It feels good to be around people who feel good, so I try not to worry about their reasons.

I realize that isn't the whole picture. There are problems that arise from people's feelings, and they way people try to explain or justify their feelings through religions, or logic, or strange mixtures of both.

But I don't feel like talking about those problems, just now. In fact, that's another thing to celebrate on holidays--especially secularized ones. It seems holidays help a lot of us forgive each other our differences, so we can all share in the celebration. Isn't that cool?

[Hari Seldon]

My wife and I are both complete atheists, born Jewish (although our parents were not particularly religious either). We pretty much ignore Christmas and Easter. We do, to some extent, observe Jewish holodays. We fast at Yom Kippur for no discernible reason, but I never took off work (my wife did). We enjoy seders if someone invites us. We gave our kids and now give our grandkids "Chanuka gifts", and sometimes one of us makes homantaschen at Purim, but the religious significance is ignored. Does all this seem contradictory? Very well, it is contradictory.

[olivesmarch4th]

I am an atheist Buddhist, and I actually find the Christmas Story and Easter concept very spiritually significant. I get very emotional and nostalgic (as a former Christian) and seek out opportunities to sing hymns and think about what Christmas means to so many. I grew up with all of these traditions and I cherish them from a purely cultural and social perspective--but just watch how I weep when the choir sings The Little Drummer Boy.

[FallenAngel]

Originally Posted by olivesmarch4th

I am an atheist Buddhist, and I actually find the Christmas Story and Easter concept very spiritually significant. I get very emotional and nostalgic (as a former Christian) and seek out opportunities to sing hymns and think about what Christmas means to so many. I grew up with all of these traditions and I cherish them from a purely cultural and social perspective--but just watch how I weep when the choir sings The Little Drummer Boy.

Wow. Just when I was thinking I was the only one. Okay, I know there are lots of atheist Buddhists in the world, but you don't often stumble across one.

While I don't sign hymns, Little Drummer Boy and well-performed gospel standards still get me choked up and misty.

I make a point around Thanksgiving to list the things I'm glad and grateful to have in my life. Just because I'm not grateful to a deity doesn't mean I'm not grateful for the good things and people around me.

Easter is just a Sunday I make damn sure I don't have any plans to eat out. Same with Mother's Day since she died in 01.

[GuanoLad]

For me, Christmas is for giving presents to the kiddies, and for having dinner with my family.

Or it would be, if I didn't live in a different country to my family. Though I do visit every so often.

[Onomatopoeia]

I fulfill the obligations of my SO, who's a Christmas fanatic, but nothing more. I finally have her to where she only buys me socks and underwear, but it took years.

I admit to hating everything about Christmas, from decorations, to gift-giving, to special meals, to churchvertisements, to the never-ending, mind-numbing, teeth-shattering, ubiquitous, monotonous, saccharine Christmas music that bores right into my bone marrow.

I pay absolutely no attention to Easter.

[PopeJewish]

I look at christmas as a celebration of the winter solstice more than as the birth of the Christ, as I don't really believe in god, I was raised Jewish, and Jesus wasn't born in winter anyway. Still fun to go to parties though

And I LOVE Easter for one reason and one reason only: The Cadburry Cream Egg. Seriously. Last Easter-ish time I'd completely forgotten what time of year it is (come to think of it, I don't actually know when easter is...) but I was in a drug store and my eyes happened upon a box of Cadburry Cream Eggs, I literally yelled "Oh Sweet Jesus they're BACK!!!" which scared a fellow shopper who was next to me. I bought ten of the bastards. Sweet cadburry overkill

[obfusciatrist]

Most years I successfully do nothing for all of the religious holidays (and most of the secular ones) beyond not going to work on that day (though if the option were available on many days I would so I could use the day off some other more convenient time).

When it comes to Christmas I'm of the view that when you force secular society to observe your religious holiday, you don't get to bitch when it ends up secularized. So I don't have a problem in those years when I get dragged into family Christmas stuff, it just doesn't happen most years (I live a 1000 miles from the nearest family member).

Easter is just a Sunday (and it isn't uncommon for me to realize it passed without me noticing).

Thanksgiving is probably the holiday I do something for most reliably (since usually there is an "orphans" dinner going on somewhere and I like my friends) but that isn't particularly religious.

Those are the only two religious holidays that I can think of that might intrude on my calendar.

[Queen Bruin]

I only do stuff 'cause everyone else is. I usually cook all the holiday meals, but dislike gift giving (in another thread, I mentioned that I only give gifts to my Mom/Stepdad and Inlaws. Everyone else can go hang.) I generally like the atmosphere of the Christmas season. I suppose I still have lingering traces of neo-Paganism in that I just generally celebrate the change of seasons.

I also have a nativity scene that I would love to have the space to set up. It was my Grandma's and I have a lot of happy memories of putting the creche up with her. Plus my husband's Catholic. I go to mass with him on the holidays (He's a CEO Catholic).

[Sublight]

I send gifts at Christmas, but don't do a whole lot else. This year we're holding off the "celebrating" part until Saturday the 27th.

For New Year's my wife and I do a few things, mainly because my MIL is a relatively observant practitioner of Shinto, but mostly it involves remembrance of immediate family members who've passed away.

I'm trying to be a Halloween missionary in my neighborhood and start up some local trick-or-treating, at least among the families in our condo.

That's as religious as my holidays get. No Easter, no nativity scenes, no saints days.

[Sage Rat]

Originally Posted by tr0psn4j

Do any of you atheists celebrate religious holidays?

I fear to inform you that the religious aspect of the few holidays that are intended to be religious not only isn't present for almost all Americans, but historically probably wasn't really there to begin with. Your religious holidays are really window dressing on the Spring and Winter solstices.

[DanBlather]

Originally Posted by Sage Rat

I fear to inform you that the religious aspect of the few holidays that are intended to be religious not only isn't present for almost all Americans, but historically probably wasn't really there to begin with. Your religious holidays are really window dressing on the Spring and Winter solstices.

I just get so tired of hearing this. So, what the fuck does it matter? The pagan spring and winter solstice traditions of one culture drew from the one before, and on and on. Humans probably stole it from the habits of chimps who took it from lemurs and on and on.

[pepperlandgirl]

I have slowly become a Scrooge over the years. Now every time I see one of the many movie adaptations, including the classic Scrooged, I think that poor Ebenezer was right and just very, very misunderstood. Why couldn't all those jerks just leave him alone?

Unfortunately, I am only one person against a tide of Christmas sentiment. Every year I declare we will not have a tree. Every year, my husband makes it until Christmas Eve andthen snaps, and up goes a tree. Ever year, I say no gifts. Every year, there are gifts. Every year, I say "Can't we just chill out at home" and every year, I am coaxed, goaded, guilted, and pushed into family festivities. I hate the forced gift-giving aspect, I can't afford good presents anyway, and I don't particularly have fun. My sister loves the song It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year and thinks I should, too. I pointed out that that song, as all Christmas songs, are a big fat lie. None of those things ever happen, the thing everybody is celebrating didn't happen, but at least I get to be hundreds of dollars in debt over it!

Bah humbug indeed.

Now, don't get me wrong. I do not go out of the way to ruin everybody's holiday. I don't bitch about it to anybody. I buy everybody gifts. I make sure to visit my whole family. I watch Christmas movies with them. I try not to be too Grinch-like. I don't behave like Scrooge, I just empathize with him a hell of a lot.

[Rubystreak]

Originally Posted by DanBlather

I just get so tired of hearing this. So, what the fuck does it matter? The pagan spring and winter solstice traditions of one culture drew from the one before, and on and on. Humans probably stole it from the habits of chimps who took it from lemurs and on and on.

Yes, but try saying that to a true believer: "What?!? It's the birth of our Lord and Savior, not some pagan tree worshiping winter holiday, and how dare you suggest otherwise." It sort of puts the whole thing in perspective, when you think that Christmas is just the most recent incarnation of a celebration of an astronomical phenomenon. Takes some of the hoodoo out of it. Makes me enjoy it more too, actually.

[Sage Rat]

Originally Posted by DanBlather

I just get so tired of hearing this. So, what the fuck does it matter? The pagan spring and winter solstice traditions of one culture drew from the one before, and on and on. Humans probably stole it from the habits of chimps who took it from lemurs and on and on.

Just because you have heard it over and over doesn't mean the OP has. He obviously hasn't or he wouldn't have started the thread.

The holidays have never been particularly religious, so there's no particular reason to think it odd for an atheist to enjoy them. It's not a vast leap of logic unless you grew up in a very religious house where the holidays really were consider and presented as holy-days, and you've not been exposed to anything else. But if you did, the explanation is short and sweet and yes, often said.

[Sunrazor]

Here's the deal: I don't believe a single word of the Nicean Creed is literally true, but there is a lot about Anglicanism that is very attractive, probably because of the good memories and warm fuzzies that I associate with it. Plus, the little Episcopal church here in town that my brothers and I all grew up in is struggling just to stay alive, and they desperately need experienced chalisters and lay eucharistic ministers. So, I help out because they're really good people and I love them, even if I don't believe anything in the Bible is literally true. So yes, I celebrate the religious holidays. I cannot explain how the communion experience makes me feel good, it just does, so I go. Sometimes.

[madmonk28]

I like Thanksgiving and I don't really see it as a religuous holiday. I absolutely loathe Christmas, so much so that being around Christmas stuff puts me in a funk, but I try to keep it in check for people around me who like it.

[Maastricht]

Sure do.

Here in the atheist Netherlands, we don't celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving, but for cultural reasons. But we celebrate St Nicholas day on December 5 th with gifts and poems for our extended families; then Christmas with a tree, family dinners and perhaps going to night mass.

In the spring, the Dutch celebrate Easter with a lavish breakfast, chocolate eggs and bunnies, egg painting, and an egg hunt. Personally, I often seek out to go to a Catholic Easter Mass for the candles, the singing and the blssings, although I cringe at the sermons which mention peace&love and, in the same sentence, "Oh Lord make the Egyptians drown in the Red sea"-prayer.

[Helen Jewett]

My whole immediate family is atheist (brother and I were raised that way), and we do celebrate Christmas and Easter. We like Christmas trees and colored lights and presents and chocolate. I really don't see any reason why that would be weird or wrong. My friends who do come from religious families don't seem to see Christmas and Easter as religious holidays either - maybe they go to church with their grandparents, but other than that they do the same things we do, and Christmas is mostly about presents and family for them too. As has already been said, Christmas is so secularized anyway that there isn't any reason for atheists not to celebrate it.

[Derleth]

Christmas is a great time to come together with family and exchange gifts and eat wonderful food (my family's women are great cooks) until we're about ready to explode. Nothing religious at all, and none of my mom's side (the side I usually have holidays with) is especially religious.

Easter I pretty much just give a pass these days. I might get some candy but that's about it. My brothers and I used to hunt eggs and get little presents back when we were just kids, though. Again, it was never a religious observance for us.

And that's about it. Neither Halloween nor Thanksgiving are even ostensibly religious anymore: Halloween is traditional* and Thanksgiving is historical. The only other holiday I really celebrate is the Fourth of July, another historical holiday, and that's just to barbecue something and shoot off fireworks with relatives.

*(Meaning its origins are completely lost on most people. If pressed, they might mumble something about old beliefs about ghosts or similar, but the majority of Americans don't know anything more specific.)

[panache45]

At the ripe old age of 63, I just put up my first Xmas tree. I got a beautiful 7.5-ft. artificial one with 800 white lights, then added three strings of blinking ones. I've been thinking of getting a tree for the past few years, so have been buying ornaments the day after Christmas, when they're on sale. Man, a 7.5-ft. tree takes a whole lot of ornaments!

For some reason both of my cats like to lie under the tree when it's lit. Gotta take some pics of them.

[Staggerlee]

I spend the day walking the streets alone, muttering and cursing to my fellow man - the few I can find - before retiring at dark to a stable where I drink pernod from the bottle, dressed in oily swaddling clothes, with just the cows' lowing for conversation.

[yojimbo]

I enjoy the 4 day weekend at Easter and enjoy the days off at Christmas with my family and friends.

Everyone needs a break every now and then.

[I, of the Tiger]

Originally Posted by tr0psn4j

Do any of you atheists celebrate religious holidays?

Christmas is just good times and I kind of look forward to it every year. I've been to a few other holidays too and they all are fun. Maybe I'm just a holiday whore.

I love me some Christmas. The trees are pretty. Presents all wrapped up with bows are pretty. Even the fake ones under the tree at work - there could be something in them, you don't know. Lights sparkling off the snow (hopefully) are pretty. I love ham.
I wish Christmas was, like, at the end of January so we could spend more of the winter anticipating it. As it is, the season now starts too early and overlaps too many other holidays to really settle down and enjoy it. People just go "Well, that turkey was nice. Let's spend the next month at the mall, or circling the parking lot of the mall, or in a traffic jam on the road outside the mall."

If Christmas was at the end of January, we could relax into it more, and then once it was done, there wouldn't be too much of the "cold dark slow boring" part of winter left before we could start anticipating spring.
Note that this would also require moving New Years to mid-February. I believe there is precedent for this, and then we could also eliminate Valentine's Day, which is just horrible.

My partner claims to not do Christmas at all. This is our first year together, so I'm going to attempt to un-scrooge her.

[pbbth]

Any holiday that provides me with an excuse to buy candy for 75% off the day after is something I will gladly celebrate. I will celebrate double if I also get a day off from work in the process.

[Swallowed My Cellphone]

Originally Posted by Pasta

In the US at least, Christmas and Easter (despite their historical roots) are largely non-religious holidays. Perhaps someone with hard numbers will come along, but my impression is that pretty much everyone who doesn't practice a religion for which Christmas and Easter are contraindicated (e.g., Judaism) celebrates these two. Atheists included.

Heck, my co-worker's dad is a rabbi and they still put up a Christmas tree at home every year.

[Dangerosa]

I'm not Christian, but not an atheist either. Brainiac4 is.

We celebrate Christmas and - to a less extent - Easter. But Christmas is a huge deal for everyone on both sides (Easter is a 'my Catholic family' holiday and the kids do the egg and Easter basket thing).

[Lanzy]

I celebrate xmas because I like it. Presents, cookies, etc.

But I celebrate all other holidays that I get the day off for, by uh..taking the day off.

July 4th doesn't count, we blow stuff up and drink beer.