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

[robardin]

I’m not sure where the pushback is coming from on @MrDibble’s part that “Christmas isn’t Christ’s Birth any more for most people” means that its origins are therefore irrelevant to modern Jews, in particular.

It’s not like, say, in Japan, where Christmas has become a HUGE deal despite very few of their population being Christian - it’s become a winter holiday to decorate, to exchange gifts, and to have dinner together, usually with a romantic bent, more like a Valentine’s Day in overtone than anything religious. An angel (Annuciator) on top of the tree, versus a star (of Bethlehem), means as little to them religiously as putting a Smurf or a baseball up there would be.

But that is how Christmas was introduced to Japanese culture: secularly, and the way it is done now was largely constructed after WW2. In fact, one aspect of the “Japanese Christmas Dinner” is that it be comprised of Western food, especially fried chicken, and especially (thanks to successful advertising) KFC. I am not joking. People book reservations at KFC for Christmas weeks in advance in Japan, to have a Christmas date with their girl/boy friend.

Now think about the history of Jews in Europe over the past 2000 years. Many pogroms erupted around Eastertime, for obvious reasons (often intentionally inflammatory sermons about how “the Jews killed Jesus” and Passion Plays depicting them demanding his death of Pontius Pilate, abusing Jesus on the way to Calvary, etc.), but there is a list of Christmas pogroms as well. Basically, it was a time where being not-Christian was not just a “eh, so don’t go to Church then” thing, but an active reason to hunker and bunker down in mortal fear for your life and possessions.

And not all pogroms took the form of mobs chanting “kill the Jews, take their stuff, and burn their homes/stores”. Some were mobs doing forced conversions. Which is another terrible form of violence.

So, yeah. Two thousand years of that kind of fear - even if “not every year” for 2000 years - that doesn’t just go away because it’s 2021 in America! Ha ha! Nobody does that any more! … For now!

I mean it has for some, I can’t say it hasn’t, but I fully understand the Jewish take that “Christmas is fundamentally non-Jewish” in way that goes way, way beyond “because it expresses celebration of Christ as Savior”.

I do know of “secular Jews” who put up Christmas trees and wreaths and tinsel door/house decorations, burned a Yule log, who treated it as a Winter Solstice holiday while specifically dodging the relgious corners (specific carols like “Silent Night”, no angel iconography or Nativity setup, etc.).

But far more common is the pointed non-observation of Christmas. At least in conventional ways. Have you never heard of “Jewish Christmas”? It means “we go out to get Chinese food and then see a movie”. Because Chinese restaurants in the US didn’t close on Christmas, and movie theaters have always operated on Christmas Day evening - it’s even a common opening night for some blockbuster movies.

[Thing.Fish]

Adventures in Assimilation: when my wife was a kid, her family didn’t celebrate Christmas, of course, because they were Jewish. They lit a menorah and exchanged presents on Hanukkah, as all good Jews do. But because they found it too hard to keep track of when Hanukkah fell in any given year, they just always celebrated it on Dec. 25.

[DrDeth]

Not measuring religiosity- measuring commitment and resources spent.

[Jackmannii]

The OP seems to have retreated from saying most Americans have zero interest in Xmas as a religious holiday to acknowledging there’s at least a smidgen of religiosity in that population, so progress?

@MrDibble

The fundamental disconnect is with those who think a few hours of prayer somehow renders a two-month orgy of spending and partying (where 70% of the participants aren’t even doing much, if any, of that praying) into something more religious than secular.

Speaking of disconnects - the idea that religious observance during the holidays is confined to a single Xmas service is faulty.

I am not a Christian and do not partake in any religious observances, but it’s easy to find examples of Xmas-themed services at churches beginning long before December 25. One such:

http://elkhartcc.org/content/december-sermon-themes

While there’s general agreement that adherence to organized religion continues to erode, there’s still a shitload* of churches everywhere you look around the Midwest and upper South (regions in which I’ve recently lived and traveled), and undoubtedly elsewhere as well. And they keep building new ones. Someone is attending those services and paying the reverends/pastors, when they’re not worshipping Mammon at the mall or participating in online Black Friday extravaganzas.

*possibly a disrespectful term.

[DrDeth]

@Ulfreida

They may say they are Christian but they are certainly way less Christian than Jews who may never set a foot in Temple are Jewish, since Christianity is not about being genetically and/or culturally Christian, but about practice

Christianity is about belief and daily acts, not church attendance. That’s Religion, not Faith, You can be the most sincere Christian in the world, and never set foot in a Church, or you can go to Church three times a week and be a faithless Christian.

And the Jewish people have not set foot in the Temple for about 2000 years.

[Thing.Fish]

Liberal Jews also use “Temple” as a synonym for synagogue. Orthodox Jews refuse to use the term, precisely to avoid confusing them with THE Temple.

[Yookeroo]

@MrDibble

It’s not. It’s the best way to measure the secular aspect.

Which you then compare to religiosity. It’s not the size of the secularist part of the holiday that makes it “secular”, it’s the importance of the religiosity. If there’s a significant number of people who think of it as religious, then it’s reasonable for outsiders to consider it a religious holiday. The size of the secular “portion” of the holiday is irrelevant. This isn’t difficult.

@MrDibble

To put it simply :If people “feel religious” about something but still engage largely in secular actions , that makes the holiday secular.

This isn’t true.

@MrDibble

The fundamental disconnect is with those who think a few hours of prayer somehow renders a two-month orgy of spending and partying (where 70% of the participants aren’t even doing much, if any, of that praying) into something more religious than secular.

Who the fuck are you to tell people how religious they are based on their enjoyment of the secular aspects of the holiday? This is very obnoxious behavior.

[BippityBoppityBoo]

@Yookeroo

This is very obnoxious behavior.

How right this is.

[Thing.Fish]

Well, that hardly seems to be in the Christmas spirit.

[RickJay]

@MrDibble

The fundamental disconnect is with those who think a few hours of prayer somehow renders a two-month orgy of spending and partying (where 70% of the participants aren’t even doing much, if any, of that praying) into something more religious than secular.

Are you proposing that you will determine how religion someone else is in defiance of their own self identification as being religious?

[MrDibble]

@RickJay

Are you proposing that you will determine how religion someone else is

No, I’m going to determine how religious the holiday is.

I’m going to drop out of this thread, because it’s quite clear people just want to make this personal - when I’ve been talking about the holiday not being religious, you’ve all seemingly read it as me saying people aren’t religious, and offer personal insults as a result of that strawman.

Well, I can’t compete with that level of mass disingenuity, so congrats, enjoy your One Drop echo chamber - which BTW is an analogy about the argument, not the people making it, but whatever…

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@MrDibble

I’m going to drop out of this thread, because it’s quite clear people just want to make this personal

Wow. Just…wow.

[SanVito]

@Yookeroo

Who the fuck are you to tell people how religious they are based on their enjoyment of the secular aspects of the holiday? This is very obnoxious behavior.

How are we measuring ‘secular aspects’ anyway? People have feasted, decorated houses and given gifts for religious feast days (clue’s in the name) since year dot. Just because we don’t see Jesus and Mary figurines all over the place doesn’t mean these aspects don’t originate from a religious observance. There’s more to Christian practice than praying in Church, even if people (including me) aren’t conscious of it.

[What_Exit]

@Yookeroo

Who the fuck are you to tell people how religious they are based on their enjoyment of the secular aspects of the holiday? This is very obnoxious behavior.

Warning for Yookeroo: Did you forget this was Great Debates and not the pit or just not care? This was very much against the rules and egregious enough for a warning.

---

@BippityBoppityBoo

How right this is.

Modnote here: Agreeing with a personal attack is still basically a personal attack.

[ISiddiqui]

@MrDibble

I’ve been talking about the holiday not being religious, you’ve all seemingly read it as me saying people aren’t religious

If people aren’t celebrating the holiday then who is? This is a silly distinction to make.

And then you leave with a personal insult as a result of your strawman, lol.

[thorny_locust]

@MrDibble

when I’ve been talking about the holiday not being religious, you’ve all seemingly read it as me saying people aren’t religious,

Agreeing with @ISiddiqui on this.

That’s not a separable issue either. You’re still trying to argue based on distinctions that don’t exist.

[Max_S]

@MrDibble

My argument is that it’s sufficiently secularized to not count as a religious holiday for e.g. Establishment Clause purposes.

As I understand you, there are two Christmases: a religious Christmas, and a secular Christmas. The majority of Americans celebrate secular Christmas, and secular Christmas is the one recognized as a federal holiday should anyone sue the government for respecting the establishment of religion. The religious Christmas does exist but is celebrated by a minority of Americans (who coincidentally tend to celebrate secular Christmas as well) and is not, at least in modern times, recognized by a federal holiday.

Is my synopsis correct?

ETA: whoops, just read that he’s left the thread.

~Max

[Yookeroo]

My first warning. Yay me I guess. Let me put it this way, more generally. Anyone who dictates to people what their religiosity is based on, well, anything besides the person’s own statements is acting obnoxiously.

[BippityBoppityBoo]

@What_Exit

Agreeing with a personal attack is still basically a personal attack.

Duly noted. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

[yarblek]

@Max_S

The religious Christmas does exist but is celebrated by a minority of Americans (who coincidentally tend to celebrate secular Christmas as well)…

It would interesting to know how many Christians don’t celebrate “secular” Christmas (if such a distinction really even exists for most Christians). I would guess that there aren’t very many Christians that don’t partake in at least some of the putatively secular aspects of Christmas and would balk at claims they’re celebrating anything secular or in a secular way when they do. But if indeed a significant group of Christians did celebrate Christmas without any of the “secular” parts, that would lend more credence to MrDibble’s opinion.

I think the big pushback against MrDibble comes from this claim that most Christians (and non-Christians), according to him, participate in the Godless parts of Christmas. But many or most of said Christians don’t consider those parts of Christmas to be Godless, perhaps just not explicitly religious but still an integral part to their religious Christian celebratory experience.