# Religious/Secular holidays in America (mostly Christmas, split from the Columbus Day thread)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138>\
**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:** 1\
**Showing post:** 55

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**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 10, 2021, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-secular-holidays-in-america-mostly-christmas-split-from-the-columbus-day-thread/954138/55 "2021-11-10T15:31:17Z")

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> [@Kimstu](#):
>
> The point is that many American non-Christians don’t like being expected to just blithely accept Christian religious symbols as neutral “background”. Even if they’re not being used for actual worship, such symbols are continuing to normalize the assumption of Christianity as the universal shared cultural context.

Yup. It’s exactly the back-of-the-head assumptions that are the problem.

Good luck, though, Kimstu. We appear to be dealing with somebody who can’t tell the difference between saying that angels are a Christian religious symbol and saying that Christians worship tree ornaments.

> [@Columbus Day v Indigenous People's Day v Leif Erikson Day](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-day-v-indigenous-peoples-day-v-leif-erikson-day/952323/360):
>
> “Christmas, as the majority of society celebrates it, is **now entirely secular** ”.

That is just plain not true. (Maybe it is in, say, Japan. That I don’t know. But it is most certainly not true in the USA.)

Because people buy Christmas presents doesn’t mean they’re not also celebrating a religious holiday.

> [@Columbus Day v Indigenous People's Day v Leif Erikson Day](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-day-v-indigenous-peoples-day-v-leif-erikson-day/952323/362):
>
> Some people are wrong.

I think you’re one of them.

> [@Columbus Day v Indigenous People's Day v Leif Erikson Day](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-day-v-indigenous-peoples-day-v-leif-erikson-day/952323/363):
>
> “Tidy mutually exclusive categories” is the very nature of categorization -

And the major flaw in it.

Categorization is useful for some purposes. Thinking that because it’s useful for some purposes those nice neat lines actually exist, and that they couldn’t just as well be drawn in other places or removed altogether for purposes for which that’s more useful, is a problem.

> [@Columbus Day v Indigenous People's Day v Leif Erikson Day](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-day-v-indigenous-peoples-day-v-leif-erikson-day/952323/363):
>
> the explicit purpose of distinguishing _U.S._ history from other history.

Can’t be done.

U.S. history does not exist in a vacuum, separate from all the rest of the world.

Now because in a given year’s course of study (or a lifetime’s, for that matter) it’s not possible to discuss all at once everything that ever happened everywhere in the world, particular courses concentrate on a selection. But by its very nature, such selection leaves things out. It’s necessary to do so, but it’s also necessary to realize that this is happening, to recognize that to some extent the lines being drawn are arbitrary, and to re-evaluate from time to time what the selection for a given course ought to be.

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