There’s no confusion; religion is part of culture, albeit in most quarters an increasingly less significant part. Dreidel is not intrinsically religious, but it is associated with a religious holiday. Even if there are no prayers recited at a Hanukkah gathering of ham-eating Jewish atheists, they still wouldn’t be partying together on that particular night if their ancestors hadn’t attached religious significance to doing so.
it is true that atheists, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists put up Christmas trees, but it is equally true that other atheists, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists would never dream of doing such a thing. You seem to be having a hard time crediting the idea that other people’s lived experience may differ from that of the people you know personally.
I don’t even know what’s going on with the Japanese…whole other thread.
I would certainly concede that the majority of Americans do celebrate Christmas in ways that involve little or no overt Christian theologizing. Those who insist on saturating their holiday with religiosity and those who refuse to participate at all due to religious scruples are both minorities. But that doesn’t mean their opinions about what the holiday “really” means are somehow objectively wrong, they’re just minority opinions.
That doesn’t make their current practice a religious one, even if it takes place in a religious holiday (and for those atheist Jews, only religious in origin.)
I’m picking up that when some people here say “religious holiday”, they mean “religious in origin”, which I’ve been specifically pointing out is not what I’m arguing against. But when people think modern Western St Valentine’s Day is a religious holiday, there’s obviously too vast a gulf to cross, there.
And also many Christians. Hence Christmas trees aren’t a Christian thing. They’re just a Christmas thing.
No, I’m well aware that some people’s experiences differ. What I’m disagreeing with is whether those people’s perceptions actually decide the truth of the matter of the degree of secularization of Christmas, rather than what we actually see happening.
And I am arguing that you can’t meaningfully discuss the “degree of secularization of Christmas” in a vacuum; it depends on who you’re spending it with. There are majority and minority perspectives, but there is no objective “truth of the matter”.
Their opinions are their opinions, and opinions are subjective. So in that sense they’re not “wrong”.
But when they then say other non-religious people giving their opinions are “Christsplaining”, they’re closer to the “can be ignored” end of the spectrum than the “have to be accorded equal weight in a debate” end.
Agreed there’s no objective truth here, but to circle back to the original debate - when it comes time to decide if the US as a whole should get a day off, should the minority cultural outlier perspectives be the determinant, when secular Christmas neither picks their pocket nor breaks their leg?
Acknowledging the reality that a huge part of the population wants to take the day off, even if their motivations for doing so are entirely religious, doesn’t constitute a violation of the Establishment Clause. If Christmas weren’t a Federal holiday, almost all private businesses would still close, almost all Federal workers would burn a sick day, the number of workers who would show up would be too few to get anything done; what’s the upside here?
Likewise I have no problem with non-Christian religious holidays being officially recognized in those few American jurisdictions where they are widely observed.
I don’t think anyone in this thread was arguing against Christmas being a federal holiday. I certainly wasn’t. Most of the country wants to take it off from work, and staffing that day would be a bitch if it weren’t a holiday.
My town gives kids Yom Kippur off from school because they couldn’t hire enough teachers that day. No one argues that Yom Kippur isn’t a religious holiday. But it’s practical to close the schools. They shut the schools on Good Friday in the same decision. A third of the students were taking Good Friday off, and that was also an administrative nuisance. No one claimed that Good Friday wasn’t a religious holiday, either. I think either claim would have been offensive, frankly.
Christmas is also a religious holiday, albeit one that has popular secular elements taken up by many non-Christians. There’s quite a lot of Christianity pushed on non-Christians in the US during the “Christmas season”, and it goes well beyond trinkets. It’s awkward to reject Christianity openly when Christianity is on parade.
@MrDibble , you really do sound like someone talking about their “southern heritage” and the historical importance of statues of confederate heroes. Yes, minorities often develop a chip on their shoulder. I can’t imagine why that might be.
Not sure I agree with this. The tree was popularised as a decoration for Christmas at a time when there was no doubt whatsoever about the Christian nature of the festival, so, as such, it takes on Christian overtones, even if it doesn’t have an angel on top, or began its life as a decoration because pagans looked for hope in evergreens in winter.
I’ve read pretty much the whole thread - let’s not lose sight of the fact that the star as a tree topper is also a Christian symbol (North Star) and also Santa (St Nicholas). Strikes me that the pro-secular crowd are doing a lot of hand waving in this thread.
I’m atheist, as were my parents, though culturally Christian. I have no problem wrapping my head around the fact that, whilst the majority of my celebration of Christmas is entirely secular, that it is still a Christian festival wrapped in Christian symbolism (eg angels on trees) and practice (eg hymn singing).
There are obviously two forms of Christmas. The traditional, Christian Christmas has all the religious elements associated with Christmas. This is not allowed in our school district. However, we do celebrate the secular form of Christmas without ever having any complaints, and that’s with Christmas trees, Santa, etc.
I can’t support shoving my religion down people’s throats by planting a manger scene on government property. Their justification is that this is a Christian nation. No, it is not, it is a nation of religious freedom guaranteed by a separation of Church and State. I have to wonder how they would feel if a group of Muslims showed up on the White House lawn to celebrate Ramadan.
That would never have been allowed in our school district; Santa was clearly Christian. He certainly wouldn’t have been seen as secular by the Jews in the district. A decorated tree would have been borderline. You’d only have Santa if it was celebrating all the religious holidays of the season - so it would have been displayed with other religious symbols like a menorah.
Again with this dumb comparison. Repeating it isn’t going to have it make any more sense. I’m not the one talking about what Christmas was and its importance, I’m the one talking about what it is now. Confederate statues are odious because of what they still represent, not just for their history. They aren’t comparable to a glittery tree topper.
That’s what they represent TO YOU. A southern heritage type will argue that no, they actually represent southern pride. You would not agree with that person.
Well, TO YOU, a Christmas tree represents only commercialism. To people who don’t have your culturally Christian perspective, a Christmas tree 100% represents Christianity.
You steadfastly insisting everyone else is wrong doesn’t make you any more convincing than the Southern Heritage guy.