There’s a rationale, but I don’t consider it valid: “Christmas, as the majority of society celebrates it, is now entirely secular”. Given that stance, I don’t consider objecting to the roots of it as a valid objection to its existence as a holiday now.
Cultural normalization, sure. Religious significance? Naah.
Unless, by including “overtly” in there, you’re saying that this is actually covert religious practice. Which is, quite frankly, conspiracy theory territory, so I don’t think that’s what you’re saying. If it’s not religious practice (overt or covert) then it’s not religiously significant.
Your view seems to be that they reinforce a Christian-only cultural context. My view is that they indicate that Christianity is a part of the shared cultural context, which, yes, it is. And sure, that’s “normalization” - so what? No-one’s required to celebrate these holidays, so it’s not like anyone’s religious freedom is being touched by the normalization of now-secularized symbols.
So it looks to me your objection is to any whiff of a hint of a suggestion that Christianity is part of the shared cultural context, which is, in my non-Christian-raised theological noncognitivist view, just ridiculously extreme.
“Christian-culture bias”? What is that, exactly, other than a description of the mere pervasiveness of Christian symbolism? Are you of the view that seeing these symbols is forcing you to engage in involuntary religious worship? Or that the normalization of these symbols prevents you from displaying Jewish ones?
I agree that Western society is steeped in Christianity, that its symbols and iconography are everywhere around us. I’m also quite emphatically non-religious. And yet I still fail to see the actual problem of modern secularized Christmas existing just because it retains non-practice Christian trappings. Not being forced on anyone, but just existing.
Again with this bullshit, that I’ve explicitly said is not the case. I do not come from a “Christian community”, I come from a very mixed-religion community, in fact more Muslim than not. My high school stopped for Friday prayers, FFS.
That’s not what I was saying. I said when they don’t do that, he’s wrong to call them not part of the same nation. I’m not talking about some perceived aspect, I’m talking about actual practice. You know, like how the actual practice of Christmas is largely secular.
The difference, of course, being that the non-Blacks are wrong here, but the religious non-Jews are not. Because slavery was racial oppression, but Chrismas tree angels are in no way worship.
Also, interesting that you map my “worship” onto your “racial oppression”. Mere worship is not religious oppression, but it’s telling that you seem to think the mere presence of Christian worship in public is some form of oppression…
There’s a world of difference between actual slavery and a tree trinket. In fact, the comparison is pretty damn odious.