I think the biggest pushback in claiming Christmas is a completely secular cultural holliday IMO is the rational or ‘not bad’ reasons needed to not celebrate it seem difficult to make if it was, especially if one still celebrates other secular hollidays like The Fourth of July.
It’s true that nobody has to celebrate any holliday, but lets say if a family celebrates other (more) secular hollidays, the fact they don’t celebrate an allegedly completely secular Cristmas would make them seem irrational, daft or at least some kind of scrooges. (Bah! Humbug). If it’s indeed still a Christian holliday (at least to some extant), than it’s easier to justify not celebrating it in any way when one is an atheist or a (devout) Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist etc.
Saying that Christmas is completely secular and (a quintessentially) cultural American holliday suggests not celebrating Cristmas is downright un-American the same way someone might claim not celebrating The Fourth of July is un-American. Of course, if someone doesn’t celebrate any national hollidays this should not apply to them (although many Americans might still call them un-American I think).
Surely, the fact that many people choose not to celebrate Christmas, on religious grounds (because they’re not Christian) is absolute proof that the holiday is not, in fact, completely secularized. “Mostly secularized”, sure, you could argue (though you’d have to come up with some way to quantify that “mostly”), but if it were completely secularized, by definition, people of all religions would celebrate it equally.
I mean, I guess you can argue that Jews should celebrate Christmas, because it’s so secular, but that seems awfully pretentious to me, to tell members of a religion that you’re not a member of how they should draw the boundaries of their own religion.
There are places outside of America that celebrate a completely secular Christmas. My parents were in Turkey near Christmas, and saw rugs for sale that pictured Santa. They were told it was an image of “Baba Claus”. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t anything religious going on. Similarly, i gather that Japan celebrates a secular holiday called Christmas.
But in the US, Christmas is a religious holiday. That’s why we have fights every year about how the evil secularists are trying to remove Christ from Christmas, because there are aspects of secular celebration intermingled with a holiday that many Americans care about religiously, and the Christians are fighting that tendency.
Anyone who lives in America and didn’t grow up culturally Christian sees that.
No, the tree topper isn’t religious, it’s just a decoration. The gefilte fish that i serve every year on Passover isn’t religious, either, it’s just a tradition. But Passover is a religious holiday in my household. And for most Americans, so is Christmas.
I don’t see any doubt there is a purely secular Christmas and there is a religious Christmas. I think the same is true for Hanukkah, Valentines Day, and Easter as well as other holidays. I think it’s fine for the government to recognize our shared secular holidays and it should in fact be encouraged too.
The pegan lights of Christmas or menorahs should be especially encouraged to light up a dark time of year. The city should also be focusing the commercialization of the holiday and encourage people to buy presents like crazy to support the local economy. Small business Saturday is a great example of a secular Christmas celebration that should be widely promoted by the city.
I’m sure there are people that argue that religious jews should celebrate Christmas. I’ve seen whole Christian secs not celebrate Halloween because it is a devil worshiping holiday and I’ve see people argue with them that they should let their kids celebrate the secular holiday.
True. The word is even used sometimes in an entirely secular sense. Associating them specifically with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth makes them Christian angels, though.
That was also not my point in the post you were responding to. Because the angels on a Christmas tree are among the indicators that mean Christmas is a Christian religious celebration doesn’t mean that Christians are worshipping tree ornaments; any more than the fact that a particular group of buildings are Christian churches and are therefore religious buildings means that Christians are worshipping buildings.
I was going to post some statistics here, but I see that @Max_S has done it for me in post #81.
Well, mostly. Not sure what Pew Research means by “relatively few are bothered by this trend” of increasing, but extremely far from total, secularization of the holiday; but The Hill appears to disagree, unless by “relatively few” one means “46% of voters”, which is not how I (or they) would describe that figure:
We’re trying. The voting system is rather stacked against us.
Who on earth said I was trying to take it away?
What I’ve said, quite clearly, is that I don’t think it should be a Federal holiday (which also would in no way be ‘taking it away’), but that I acknowledge it’s entirely impractical to try to make that change; for exactly the reason that it would get people for whom it is a religious holiday up in arms. Probably some of them literally.
Someone might claim that while a Jew is not obligated to celebrate Christmas, if Christmas is a fully secular holiday then they can’t give the fact that it’s Christian as a reason for not celebrating it since it isn’t one. They have to provide some other reason(s). Therefore if, as most Americans believe, Christmas and celebrating it are good and positive things, they can only provide bad reasons for not celebrating it which puts them in a bind since few people want to not do something because of bad reasons.
Not for me. But I’m not one to tell the people who celebrate is as a religious holiday that they can’t. Nor will I tell people of other faiths that they’re wrong for seeing it as a religious holiday. Especially since there are a big chunk of people who do see it as religious. It’s a perfectly understandable view. It seems like obnoxious behavior either way.
Oh, i celebrate the secular aspects of Christmas, too. I like lights and presents. But i acknowledge that a lot of people are celebrating a religious holiday of the same name on the same date. And i don’t begrudge non-Christians who want to avoid it so as not to be taken for celebrating that religious holiday.
I think this is more of the issue. Some non Christians would be embarrassed to be thought of as Christians so they don’t want people to accidentally confuse them. That is obviously insulating to the group you don’t want to be mistaken for and sets the conversation off on a poor foot.
It’s got nothing to do with that, at least for me. It’s that I don’t want to have their holiday imposed on me. Being invited to it, sure, that’s OK. Being told that it has to be ubiquitous, unavoidable, and even backed by the government is annoying.
Sure and that’s why you said you celebrate secular Christmas. I was responding to the others that you don’t begrudge their feelings of not wanting to be taken for Christian. That is obviously a different feeling than not wanting Christmas forced on you.
Has somebody said in this thread that they’d be embarrassed to be taken for Christian?
It’s a long thread; I might have missed it. I’ve just never heard anybody give embarrassment as a reason. ETA: or not wanting to be taken for Christian, for that matter. Not being Christian, yes; but that’s not the same thing.
If someone told me Easter was a religious holiday, I’d agree with them. The degree of secularization (mostly around chocolate) is great, but still a lot less than the religious aspects, IMO. It’s the inverse of Christmas, where the secular and secularized aspects culturally overwhelm the religious ones.
One example - Several popular movies focus on the religious aspects of the Easter story, the Passion etc. I’m struggling to recall any about the birth of Jesus other than some animated kid’s stuff - and The Life of Brian. Plenty of movies about The Fat Man, though. Clearly in the zeitgeist, Easter is still about Christ, but Christmas is about Santa.
Not what it’s all about for all Christians. I know plenty of Christians for whom that’s what it is about. They don’t go to special services, they don’t spend the day in prayer - they do the same things the non-religious do : they have a turkey, they go to Christmas markets, they put up a tree, they exchange presents, they pull crackers, they watch The Holiday or Santa Clause or Arthur Christmas, they go to the beach*. They participate fully in the secular aspects of the holiday.
Now, I understand the argument is going to be that the secular aspects for most Christians isn’t what it’s all about, and I won’t argue with that. But I will say it doesn’t matter, the degree in which they participate in the secular aspects is the same as the non-religious do. So in my view they’re celebrating a secular Christmas and a parallel religious one.
Well I’ve spent at least one Christmas on the beach. A cold, rainy day on the coast of Brookings in SW Oregon.
I’ve been atheist my whole life and I’ve never cared much about the origins of Christmas. I like the holiday with all its trappings, though. Christmas decorations, the music, gift exchanges, etc. I also like having the day off from work.
Interesting to me is how I perceive some of the Christian iconography associated with Christmas. Nativity scenes and hymns only come around during Christmas so I see them as more of a Christmas thing than a Christian thing. Hell, despite having his name right in it, I don’t really even associate the word Christmas with Christ.
That’s just me though. Let all do what they will (or won’t) for the holidays.
Do you celebrate Passover because not celebrating Passover would make you antisemitic? No? Then why do you expect non-Christians to celebrate Christmas?
