So we rename it “Santa Day” or “Conspicuous Consumer Consumption Day”.
But really, the holiday has so much momentum behind it, even renaming it, let alone abolishing it, is extremely unlikely. Even the most die-hard (but politically savvy) athiest isn’t going to waste time on this because the effort is so monumental and the desired result is so neglible.
What it would do is force the state to obey the Constitution and refrain from endorsing a specific religion.
Why should Christians be outraged if the name is changed on official language? No one is telling Christians what they have to call it? How would they be injured or have their free practice abridged if the goverment called it something else?
Can anyone tell me when putting “resolved” in the title of an OP has ever had any sort of positive impact on any discussion?
-Joe
And allowing a national holiday–even one with a religious origin-- is NOT the same as endorsing one religion over another. This holiday can easily be justified on practical grounds, for the greater good of the populace.
:rolleyes:
Ah, the old classic: “I disagree with you therefore let me encourage you to go and find some enlightenment! When you come back I’m sure you’ll see the errors of your ways and finally agree with me.”
It’s right here in this thread! Proposing that we rename Christmas to the “winter festival” or such is indeed the notion of someone on the wacko, secularist left. This is the kind of stuff that is way outside the mainstream and 99% of American’s out there would not only disagree, they would laugh at the notion.
The OP misses a key point - the fact that the federal government declares thus and such a day a holiday imposes no obligation on the private sector to observe that holiday. The rest of us could go about our lives normally, and our employers could require us to work on Christmas, if they so chose - and thought they could get away with it. There are plenty of employers who don’t recognize Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, and Martin Luther King Day, to name a few.
So, it doesn’t affect the private sector. The question is, does shutting down a good deal of the public sector on Christmas constitute an endorsement of religion? I’d say probably not. Recognition that many/most government employees do not wish to work that day, combined with the tradition of granting other, decidedly secular, holidays, probably takes making Christmas a holiday outside of the Establishment Clause.
Sua
I certainly don’t see any entanglement of religious doctrines with how the national affairs are conducted in celebrating Christmas. What’s the problem?
Agreed. That’s exactly why I say that it is observed for practical reasons, rather than exclusively religious ones.
That, however, does not mean that the state can’t or shouldn’t make practical concessions to a religion. When a high school valedictorian is forbidden to talk about her religion in her graduation speech, or when Christian children are not allowed to read from the Bible when the teacher asks students to give a short reading from their favorite book, the cause of religious liberty is not served. Moreover, the state must be even-handed in such matters.
It is just as important to protect the majority from minorities. What some minorities really want is the power to bully the majority. A large part of the first amendment purpose was to protect the majority from minorities–may I remind you that the religious right is a minority?
I really do get tired of this “tyranny of the majority” mantra. Almost anyone can plausibly claim to belong to one minority or another.
I agree with this. On the contrary, being a Doper too, it gets my hackles up and makes me want to disagree. In this case I genuinely disagree, for the reasons others mentioned. Not only that, I think we should get a day off for Diwali, too, and maybe a week off for Ramadan - I know it’s a month, but we can’t take a month off and some get time for Easter, don’t they? Which is much mor eof a religious holiday than Christmas nowadays.
I guess it’s invisible to the people who share its prejudices, just like the liberal bias in the mainstream news media that some folks around here claim not to see.
If you did some research you would find that the Establishment Clause prevents the government from doing a lot more than just literally establishing a state church. If you did any reading on the matter, I’m confident that you would see the errors of your ways.
No one is proposing that “WE” do it. I’m only saying it should be changed in any official state language about the holiday. WE can call it whatever we want. Nothing would change in practice except the words on a few pieces of paper.
Outside the mainstream does not mean wrong. The Constution says what it says. It can’t be overruled because of the ignorance of the majority.
Do you watch a lot of Bill O’Reilly, by the way? He also spends a lot of time hiding under his bed waiting for the “secular forces” to attack. There is no conspiracy against Chrsitianity. Relax. Trying to keep the government in line is not the same as trying to abridge the free practice of individual citizens.
Or maybe they’re only visible to people who are already led by paranoid, irrational, persecution complexes.
It shouldn’t have any impact whatsoever, positive or negative, as it is a traditional way to kick off a formal debate. It doesn’t even imply that the originator of the topic is pro or con - it’s just the standard opening line. In debate course in high school or college, this is usually the format followed. As in this hastily googled example:
http://www.econoclass.com/debatetopics.html
As for the OP - it’s become a traditional holiday. I was raised by atheist Trotskyists and we still observed Christmas :).
December 25th has always been some sort of holi/Holy-day in the northern Hemisphere - breaking the back of winter and all that (Stonehenge’s purpose, apparently, to the chagrin of the dickheads who celebrate the summer solstice there.)
So the date itself is all nice and inclusive. The name just needs tweaking to allow anyone to put their preferred word before “mas”. Xmas does just fine, especially if you pronounce the X “criss” as in “criss-cross”.
(W)easily Resolved!
But the -mas part is derived from the word * mass, * meaning in this context a religious ceremony conducted by many Christians.
What are you talking about? Not only did I not say the things which you seem to be referring to, but nobody else in this thread did either.
You know exactly what I meant. The “we” in my statement obviously refered to the government.
If you’re only talking about changing a few words on a piece of paper then why does the change matter?
I’m not saying that the majority is always correct. It just happens to be in this case, though. You are wrong that the first ten words of the bill of rights prohibit the government from recognizing Christmas.
I don’t think anybody on the boards watches him as much as you seem to. You refer to him more often than anybody else does.
I am relaxed. I’m not a Christian. I’ve got no dog in this hunt. However, I’m perfectly capable of recognizing silly political correctness run wild. That’s what this is, pure and simple. It’s actually quite amusing that you think the government recognizing the Christmas holiday is a matter of being “out of line”. There’s plenty of actual real issues regarding religion and government that you could focus on. Why waste energy on this one? It’s A.) Something you’re never going to win. and B.) It makes you look like an anti-Christian nut.
As an atheist friend of mine said when challenged about his observance of Christmas, “Hell, I want the sun to come back.”
What do you mean by “national holiday”? If you just mean a holiday that the whole nation observes, what’s that got to do with “state” or its separation from “church”?
On the other hand, if you’re referring to the fact that the government shuts down on Christmas Day, so what? Members of any religion should be allowed a day off on their major holidays. And if the majority are members of that religion, it’s easier just to call it a day off for everybody. For instance, I wouldn’t see a problem with giving Jews the day off on Yom Kippur and, if that meant there would be hardly anybody left at work, with just closing down completely.