# Religious/Secular holidays in America (mostly Christmas, split from the Columbus Day thread) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 5, 2021, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138 "2021-11-05T20:10:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/362 "2021-11-17T16:39:32Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I don’t see how spending time on the secular aspects of Christmas invalidates the time spent on religious aspects. I think that’s the major divide here. That, and also I think @MrDibble is forcing a dichotomy between the religious and the secular, and insisting that every activity is either entirely religious or entirely secular. It’s not so simple pinning down what counts as “religious,” and I think there’s some overlap. There are people who do “secular” things for “religious” reasons, like putting up Christmas decorations that have no explicitly religious content as a way of celebrating the birth of Christ (even though nonchristians might put up those same decorations for nonreligious reasons). ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/363 "2021-11-17T16:39:58Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > So no amount of secularity is going to be enough for you, clearly. That’s right. I don’t give a fig how much secular celebration is going on. If I’m judging “is this a religious event” I am only looking at how much energy goes into the religious aspect. If it’s nearly zero, as if it for Valentine’s day, then sure, it’s a secular holiday. If it’s a large amount, as it is for Christmas, I’m calling it a Christian holiday. I don’t care if you spent enormously more hours growing the flowers you planned to use to decorate the church than you spent praying at that church. i don’t think the person who only shows up to pray is more religious than the person who spends the same amount of time praying, but also tends to their flower garden all year to provide the Easter lilies. I think the whole idea that you can invalidate religious expression by also celebrating in secular ways is weird. And I said up-thread that in some other countries, like Turkey and Japan, it looks to me like there is a secular holiday of Christmas. There’s a celebration but essentially no Christian content. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/364 "2021-11-17T16:42:17Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > All I’m hearing here is “They’re doing all those things…but they’re really thinking of Baby Jesus while they do them” which is not very convincing. But they are. The world is not chopped up neatly into “secular” and “religious”. Most religious people don’t compartmentalize in that fashion. Some don’t compartmentalize their lives at all. Washing one’s hands after taking a piss can be a religious act. What clothes one puts on in the morning can be a religious act. What work one undertakes or doesn’t can be a religious act, and one’s religion can imbue every part of that work. Not all religious people take it that far; but even for those who don’t, chopping a religious celebration up into bits and declaring some of them secular because they contain actions that would be secular in another context is absurd. Do you think that Sabbath dinner isn’t religious for religious Jews because most of the time is spent eating and only a little bit on saying blessings? > [@Telemark](#): > > spending money on gifts doesn’t invalidate the reason for buying the gifts. Exactly. Is buying the food and the napkins and the fancy tablecloth for somebody’s birthday dinner not part of celebrating their birthday? > [@MrDibble](#): > > Are you saying your community spends more time on the religious side of Christmas than it does on the secular aspects? We are saying that for people celebrating the religious holiday they are _not separable_. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/365 "2021-11-17T17:01:34Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Are you saying your community spends more time on the religious side of Christmas than it does on the secular aspects? Or that your community is immune from the holiday spending spree? Why do you think that any of this is relevant to the underlying religious nature of the holiday _as the people who celebrate it recognize it?_ ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/366 "2021-11-17T17:11:20Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > Absolutely, we had a nice Catholic Cathedral from 1872 in a small Indian town. I used to go pray there before major exams - I am a Hindu atheist now. I visit the cathedral even now when I visit India, because it is very quiet and calming for me. > > So if you take out words like Injunction, Deity, Divinity - which have specific meaning in Abrahamic religions, - and not fully translatable into Indian languages / philosophy, in essence most Hindus will respect / revere Jesus. I’m enjoying this side commentary. I have a Hindu friend who finds no contradiction in celebrating Divali and putting up a Christmas tree, but I was surprised that she took her (devout) parents to a Christmas Carol service at her local Cathedral. Your explanation goes some ways to answering my questions about that. I just assumed they were just curious, but this thread (which obviously focuses much more on Judaism) has made me question my assumptions, as the Jewish people on this thread suggest that would be, at the very least, a strange thing for a Jewish person to do. Sorry, hijack! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/367 "2021-11-17T17:16:51Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > And what you’re encountering in this thread is that the people who live in the culture and celebrate the holiday in question put the bar in a very different position than you do. Most consider the holiday religious, even those who don’t consider themselves particularly religious. What makes your opinion more significant? I live in the culture and celebrate Christmas. MrDibble’s original statement, while overly simplistic, is quite close to what i have seen- although I admit it has been all California. Has anyone here stated they celebrate Christmas as a primarily Christian holiday? From what I have seen it is mostly strongly NON-religious people decrying any trace of Christian influence in the Holiday. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/368 "2021-11-17T17:19:12Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Has anyone here stated they celebrate Christmas as a primarily Christian holiday? Most of the people I know don’t separate the secular and religious from being Christian. Putting up Santa and reindeer is just as Christian as going to midnight mass. They don’t see a dichotomy. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/369 "2021-11-17T17:21:11Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Tell me the 67% of the people who say their celebration of Christmas is _Strongly or Somewhat Religious_ is made up? You’re cherry picking evidence and excluding the experiences of the people involved. Again, people answer polls in the manner they would like to be thought of, not their actual results. And my experience here in CA match closely with those Mr Dibble claims. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/370 "2021-11-17T17:30:38Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Or is it that by “knowledge” in this context, you mean not only “intellectually knowing what the traditional halacha is” but “having been told by your parents and teachers that you are obligated to follow it?” That’s exactly what I mean. The earliest generations of Reform leaders - Geiger in Germany, Isaac Mayer Wise and Stephen Wise (not related to one another, in case you were wondering) in America - certainly would be considered apostates by Jewish law. Later generations, who were raised on and taught their definition of Judaism (and the degree to which the historical definition is relevant to them) not so. > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Yes, I knew the Shulchan Aruch is binding, but the only text I have available is unfortunately sparse in commentary, so I couldn’t say exactly why some of those laws are clearly not observed today in their most literal form, while others certainly are. I am certainly grateful to have someone who actually knows what they’re talking about participating in this discussion! If you have a specific law that you want answers about, I’ll do my best to explain. (And I’m sure Keeve would as well.) ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/371 "2021-11-17T17:52:42Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Unless that $1 trillion _isn’t_ mostly being spent on tree trinkets, turkeys and toys… True, Christianity’s central doctrine is that you can buy your way to heaven. So if being a Christian doesn’t cost you money, it means you don’t really care. That’s just basic theology. Telling the grandkids the nativity story is free. Buying them a Nintendo Switch isn’t. Concluding from this that people who do both care more about the gift than they do about passing on a central religious tradition is… kind of weird? It’s just an innate property of acts of religious worship that they don’t come with a price tag attached so there’s no great hay to be made from the fact that people don’t spend money on them. I mean, I’ve spent more money this year on toilet paper than I have on going for walks in the park with my family. You can conclude a lot of things from that but if you land on “Stanislaus would rather wipe his arse than spend time with his kids” then you’ve gone astray somewhere. There are a lot of people on the Dope that I’d expect to argue that the true value can only be measured in dollars and cents, but I’ve got to admit you were not one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/372 "2021-11-17T17:54:50Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > True, Christianity’s central doctrine is that you can buy your way to heaven. No, that’s Led Zeppelin’s central doctrine. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/373 "2021-11-17T18:24:57Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > > [@puzzlegal](#): > > > > I don’t see how spending time on the secular aspects of Christmas invalidates the time spent on religious aspects. I think that’s the major divide here. > > That, and also I think @MrDibble is forcing a dichotomy between the religious and the secular, and insisting that every activity is either entirely religious or entirely secular. It’s not so simple pinning down what counts as “religious,” and I think there’s some overlap. There are people who do “secular” things for “religious” reasons, like putting up Christmas decorations that have no explicitly religious content as a way of celebrating the birth of Christ (even though nonchristians might put up those same decorations for nonreligious reasons). 100% correct here. A lot of religious folks are buying gifts for others with the thought that this is what the magi did for Jesus or that God was the gift that was provided for us 2000 years ago, and so we honor God’s gift by mutually giving presents. The trees and lights are so associated with the Christian festival that Churches have those decorations up in the sanctuary throughout Advent and all the way to Epiphany. I think that makes it a religious act, even if one personally thinks the act itself is non-religious. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/374 "2021-11-17T18:33:50Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > The world is not chopped up neatly into “secular” and “religious”. Most religious people don’t compartmentalize in that fashion. Very well said. I think there is this somewhat strange notion that some people have that people’s religious natures and secular natures are completely separate and they can just cleave it apart. For a lot of religious people those parts are all combined together and their secular actions are guided by their religious beliefs, which are a strong part of their identity. How I celebrate Christmas ties back to my Christian faith (which for example, means I start the observance at Advent I, which is when the tree goes up - no earlier). Gifts are provided as a thanksgiving for the gift that God provided to us and as a representation of the gifts of the magi to Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/375 "2021-11-17T19:01:20Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Again, people answer polls in the manner they would like to be thought of, not their actual results. > > And my experience here in CA match closely with those Mr Dibble claims. I’m curious whether you have many friends who are religious Christians. I know plenty of people who enjoy a secular Christmas celebration, but all my religious Christian friends take it fairly seriously as a Christian festival. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/376 "2021-11-17T19:05:41Z")
I scrolled through a fair chunk of this thread, and failed to see evidence that Xmas is “entirely secular” for most people who celebrate it. Seeing that Pew polling just a few years ago showed that 46% of Americans said they observed the holiday as mostly a religious observance rather than a cultural one, and that a lot more people undoubtedly observed or at least gave thought to _some_ religious component, and it would be accurate to say that Xmas still has religious significance to most Americans. Mrs. J. and I only pay obeisance to the evergreen tree, the exchanging of gifts, a ritual loathing of overplayed Xmas music and a special meal on the appointed day, but neither of us would be foolish enough to claim that it’s become an entirely secular holiday for most people. I endorse the war on Xmas though. > **[Log into Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/provaccineshills/photos/a.961808747203554/4667676029950122/)** > > Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/377 "2021-11-17T19:53:17Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > > [@MrDibble](#): > > > > So no amount of secularity is going to be enough for you, clearly. > > That’s right. I don’t give a fig how much secular celebration is going on. If I’m judging “is this a religious event” I am only looking at how much energy goes into the religious aspect. If it’s nearly zero, as if it for Valentine’s day, then sure, it’s a secular holiday. If it’s a large amount, as it is for Christmas, I’m calling it a Christian holiday. I don’t care if you spent enormously more hours growing the flowers you planned to use to decorate the church than you spent praying at that church. i don’t think the person who only shows up to pray is more religious than the person who spends the same amount of time praying, but also tends to their flower garden all year to provide the Easter lilies. I think the whole idea that you can invalidate religious expression by also celebrating in secular ways is weird. > > And I said up-thread that in some other countries, like Turkey and Japan, it looks to me like there is a secular holiday of Christmas. There’s a celebration but essentially no Christian content. I think I want to expand a bit on this. I would say a holiday is religious, or at least has a significant religious component, if a significant fraction of the people who celebrate it spend a significant amount of emotional energy on the religious aspects of this holiday. Exactly what fraction of celebrants, or how much emotional energy they have to spend to “count” as religious is certainly up for debate. I wouldn’t say “one drop”. That is, if there’s one person who spends 5 minutes contemplating the religious significance of April Fool’s Day, that certainly wouldn’t make me think April Fool’s Day has a significant religious component. But if a third of the US spends several hours a year thinking about the religious significance of Christmas, yeah, that counts, at least in the US. And it really doesn’t matter how much time those same people spend putting plastic reindeer on their roofs, nor how much money they spend on the plastic reindeer. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/378 "2021-11-17T21:01:22Z")
A couple, and also a few pagans, some atheists, and several Jewish, including one Observant. The Observant couple celebrate the day “Just for their kids” with a Hanukkah bush, etc. None of the pagans have a issue, and they are the biggest celebrants I know. Decorations up the wazoo, etc. Of course Christmas has quite a few Pagan trapping tacked on. One of the Catholics admits to being a total Grinch and wont celebrate anything, even his own birthday, but not for religious reasons. He does Mass, but never on a holiday. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/379 "2021-11-17T21:12:01Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > They need to sue their wallets and their media representatives for slander, then. Why are you so convinced that this is the best way to measure religiosity? What a silly metric. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/380 "2021-11-17T21:29:36Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > If you think that someone putting plastic reindeer on their roof somehow means they aren’t deeply religious you are sorely mistaken. It doesn’t mean they _are_ either. Really, no conclusions can be drawn from this activity except it is (probably) something someone is doing in December. I am not sure I’ve read every post, but if I had to summarize this thread, it would go something like Some Americans, no one can say how many, who are not Christian, whether they practice another religion or not, find Christian part of the mixed secular and Christian holiday of Christmas, to be oppressively ubiquitous. Others don’t. Those that do, object to the opinion or observation that the secular part appears to have gained strong pre-eminence over the religious, as they feel the opposite. There is no way of measuring things like how many people feel Christmas is predominantly a religious experience for them. It’s all anecdotes. This is why the discussion has no way of concluding except people losing interest in rehashing and wandering away. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2021, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/381 "2021-11-18T04:32:21Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > Why are you so convinced that this is the best way to measure religiosity? It’s not. It’s the best way to measure the _secular_ aspect. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138.md?page=20)