you’re not seriously suggesting that a tree is a symbol for Jesus are you?
Interesting to note that in your link, the Santa we think of is really a product of someone at Coke’s ad firm.
I get that your aversion to Santa, trees etc., might be purely an intellectual pursuit: that you’re probably not out vandalizing Christmas scenes. The problem is, I think you’re wrong. As LHOD has pointed out, Christmas has really split off into two distinct holidays. And neither is completely ominous. There is a message of hope in the religious tale, whether you choose to “believe” or not; likewise, even the secular holiday brings us together on the back end of another trip around the sun to enjoy the company of family, reminisce, give to others or at the very least, take a day off. When I pass you in lobby and say Merry Christmas, I’m not saying “Merry day we recognize the birth of our true Messiah.” I’m saying “Merry day we try to be nice to one another.”
What does it mean to you for something to be a religious holiday? To me, it’s not a universal description: it’s only a description that applies to a certain set of people.
The Fourth of July, for example, is NOT a day all about the independence of the US: just ask a Brit. You can even aska Brit who goes out and gets pissed on the fourth. It’s not a patriotic holiday to her, because she’s not celebrating it in such a manner.
Now, Ash Wednesday: that’s a religious holiday, because virtually nobody celebrates it in a nonreligious fashion. (If I’m wrong–if there is a group that celebrates it secularly–then it’s also a religious and a secular holiday).
YOu seem to be suggesting that Christmas’s status as a religious holiday is independent of how folks celebrate it; and that seems bizarre to me. Does a holiday have any reality at all independent of how people acknowledge it?
Look out, man: there’s a pantheist behind you.
Rather than use that standard, which seems completely unworkable to me, I’d suggest a different standard, one that seems to be endorsed by a certain court: the governmnet cannot put up a display specifically for the purpose of promoting a religion or religion in general.
(I know you said you were going to leave the thread, but I hope you’ll change your mind! And I have no idea why I thought you were Israeli–I’m thinking of somone else who was probably in the same thread you were in a long time ago dealing with teh Israel-Palestine conflict)
Mr Moto, the only person I EVER heard describe it as a holiday tree was someone in government who was presiding over the lighting of the annual Christmas tree (don’t know if it was at the White House or not) and he said, “Well, since I’m Jewish, I like to think of it as a ‘holiday tree.’”
I don’t get what’s so horrible about that-if he wants to think of it as a holiday tree, does that really harm anything?
That doesn’t change the fact that the tree at the U.S. Capitol was officially designated a holiday tree for several years. Earlier this year it was re-renamed a Christmas tree.
A similar dustup happened in Boston, where the farmer in Nova Scotia who supplied their tree observed a few weeks ago that had he known he was giving them a “holiday tree”, he would have fed it into a chipper instead. Boston’s mayor has since re-renamed the tree a Christmas tree.
Again, having it officially designated a holiday tree smacks of sanitizing Christmas from the Christmas season, and there simply is no reason to do this. And the fallout affecting the relatively innocent phrase “Happy Holidays” is entirely due to a justified reaction against this nonsense.
First let me say that y’all have gotten me to reconsider my position. I still think I’m right, but I’m looking at my conclusions to see if perhaps I’m wrong.
And if I were doing something other than posting to an anonymous message board, I’d agree.
Yes and no. As far as I’m aware in many German households, or American-German households, he does have religious significance. But that’s just the impression I’ve gotten from speaking to a bunch of Texas-Germans.
I still don’t think so. I do think that the government should go to great lengths to avoid anything which is symbolic of a religion. That many non-theists put up christmas trees in their houses (which would properly be called holiday trees) doesn’t change, for me, that it’s a symbol of a religious holiday. I’d feel the same way if schools were giving out apples and honey on Rosh Ha’shanah.
Nope. I’m just putting forth a position for what I believe and kicking the idea around via the Dope. If nobody else agrees then nobody else agrees.
No, that it’s a symbol for a religious holiday.
The image we associate with Santa was created by coke, but the concept itself hasn’t changed all that much.
This is the kind of strawman that the religious right has been thriving on, and we should keep our debate above it. I have no ‘aversion’ to any of those things, at all. I do believe that they shouldn’t be in a government setting. That’s all. But yes, I’d hope it was obvious that I’m not advocating the destruction by violence of christmas paraphanalia.
The standard for inclusion in a governmental context is not, in my view, whether or not the religious message is positive.
I guess I’m not quite sure how to answer that. I mean… Christmas is a holiday started by the Christian faith to celebrate the birth of Jesus. While I can accept that many people don’t celebrate it that way, I do think that the fact of the religious nature means that the government should stay away from it.
But in America, that’s what the holiday’s significance is. It might not be that to someone who doesn’t observe it, but that’s still the reason for it.
Not indepepdent, exactly. I believe that the religious nature is more important than the secular nature when deciding if it should be included in government/school activities. I also believe that the purpose of a holiday is important, but sometimes difficult to quantify. Thanksgiving seems to be somewhat problematic in that respect, for instance.
Do pantheists even have symbols?
I’ll be the first to admit that my standard is more based on my intuition and ‘grokking wrongness’ than any standard that’d be tremendously easy to follow in terms of jurisprudence. But I do think that, to a degree, it would be workable. If anything is a symbol of a religious event/holiday, even if the symbol itself has secular meaning, then the government should stay away from it.
I will admit that there is an inherent weakness in my formulation if, for instance, we look at the use of say, Greek Gods as motifs in various buildings. But there I’d think that was a religious symbol of a secular concept, not vice versa. Although I suspect many would see this as semantic tap dancing.
Eh… I’m still not sure how much actual debate there can be. I’d wager I’m not going to convince anybody else, and personally I hold a rather… severe view of the seperation of church and state.
So it sounds as if you’re basing your judgement of whether something is religious or secular on its history; is this correct? That is, whether I celebrate a particular day as a secular day is irrelevant if the day’s trappings originally had a religious undertone?
I don’t find that to be a strong position. As I suggested earlier, the word “Goodbye” is derived from the expression “God be with you.” That’s an explicitly religious expression, and I’d be pretty annoyed if a judge (for example) said, “God be with you!” to me every time I left the courtroom. But saying, “Goodbye!” wouldn’t bug me at all: it’s very clear to me that our judge is speaking secularly. The word’s history is not nearly as important as how the word is currently used.
The same thing applies to a holiday. I’m no fan of church-state interaction, but if a holiday is being celebrated in a way completely devoid of religious trappings, I think it doesn’t make sense to refer to it as a religious holiday, any more than it makes sense to refer to “goodbye” as a religious phrase.
I listed before those trappings of Christmas that I considered religious and those that I considered to be secular. As long as the government draws solely from the second list, I have no problem at all with governmental celebration of Christmas.
Naw. If it was simply an historical curiousity I wouldn’t have a problem. But I do believe that since it is still celebrated as a religious holiday by a bunch of folks that it shouldn’t be supported/endorsed by the government.
How many people must celebrate it as a religious holiday in order to ruin it for the rest of us, and why?
If, for example, a significant number of people place religious trappings around Thanksgiving (wearing clothes typical of Puritans, praying before the meal, etc.), may the government no longer offer turkey dinners to soldiers stationed overseas? Where’s the dividing line?
For me, the dividing line is simple, and not based on numbers: when a holiday is celebrated by some people in a secular manner, others in a religious manner, and others still in both a secular and a religious manner, a secular government may include celebration of the holiday, but only in a secular manner. When they do so, they are not violating the separation of church and state.
The government has an interest in providing for the well being of people in their direct care, which include some hospital patients, prisoners, and the military. And providing for their personal well being does mean that religious services and materials ought to be made available to them, even if this has to be done at government expense.
Failing to do this is a First Amendment violation, as it interferes with the free exercise of religion. And again, this is fairly well settled law. Only a few cranks think that the chaplain on my ship, who was a Navy officer earning government pay, constituted an establishment of religion by the government.
Good point. Instead, let’s change the example to public school cafeterias, which often serve Thanksgiving-themed food on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Better?
I have to admit that I do not have a hard and fast schema complete with percentages and such. Maybe I’m just granting myself wiggle room, but I’d say if there is a “significant” percentage of the American populace who places a religious connotation on an event then that government should not endorse it. As for the why, I believe that the government should go above and beyond when it comes to making sure that it does not intersect with religion.
Just curious, but would anything other than Christmas apply here?
I do recognize that my belief is somewhat fringe, but I honestly feel that the government should go out of its way to avoid even the impression that it is supporting or endorsing any religion or religions.
But again I must say I’m not sure how much can be accomplished in this thread via debate. I very much doubt that anybody is going to be convinced on either ‘side’. A few more “logic please”-es and I’m not sure if civil discussion will remain the order of the day anyways.
So, are you opposed to turkey and cranberry sauce at schools right before Thanksgiving? I would bet lots of money that the majority of Thanksgiving celebrations in this country are preceded by a prayer of thanks.
Easter bunnies are A-OK with me, as are easter egg hunts. St. Patrick’s Day parades don’t bother me at all. Hallowe’en began as a religious holiday, and a lot of fundamentalists treat it as an occasion for religious hocus pocus (see the phenomenon of Hell Houses).
I just don’t see much value in its doing so, since that impression isn’t shared even by most atheists, and the government’s going this far out of its way would be a big old bumer for a lot of people. I don’t think that your impression is accurate: if you get the impression that the government is supporting/endorsing a religion by having a Christmas tree, it’s your impression taht is mistaken in my opinion, and the government can’t be accountable for mistaken impressions held by a tiny minority of its citizens.
