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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Holidays in Atheistan
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
Wikipedia describes the official public, and other widely observed, U.S. holidays.
Of these, Christmas Day is an official public holiday and the pivotal occasion for a week or two of school vacation during which many other people take it easy, travel, and carouse as they are able. Easter Day is widely observed. When I was a child, it meant that school was out for a week. Thanksgiving Day is also an official public holiday moved by godly sentiments. Saint Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, Saint Patrick's Day, and Hallowe'en are other milestones on the calendar which, although they don't usually mean a chance to play hooky, help to keep life interesting.
In the Middle Ages, quite a few more holidays, during which people prayed and played instead of working, were observed on account of the church calendar. The very word, of course, derives from "holy day." I would speculate that they disappeared from business and common everyday life because people neglected their purpose.
This thread is an opportunity for our atheist or non-observant Shipmates to express their feelings about these occasions and to propose alternatives. Since they derive from a religion that you deny, how do you observe them (or their counterparts elsewhere)? Would you be happy if some or all disappeared? If you ruled your present country, would you abolish them? If you designed your own country, what would you put in their place to make people consider moving there? Dawkins' birthday, anyone?
[ 06. April 2010, 19:06: Message edited by: Alogon ]
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We are part of the earth and it is part of us... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth --Chief Seattle
Posts: 7708 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
You must be joking! Almost none of the holidays you list are seen by religious people as religious holidays.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 7831 | From: Ashburnham, MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
I think holidays are important. In the past, the church provided with plenty of holidays, usually at a heavy cost (such as the very strict fasts that preceded them). Today the fasts have been abandoned by most people, the joyous part of the holidays remains. I think this is a good thing.
However, I think Western societies have moved at large beyond what those old holidays signified. Which is why the old holidays need to be dropped, and new holidays need to get instituted, or new holidays replace the old holidays. After all, new holidays replacing old obsolete holidays is what Christianity did when it instituted its own holidays over the holidays of the old gods...
The secular world has it's own ethos and ideals, and I think these ideals should be celebrated in the West. Martin Luther King Day is a great example of such a holiday.
At the moment, the secular world lacks a big unifying spiritual framework. In my view, our thinkers should work on that, and provide with the spirituality that is appropriate for the secular world. And, of course, holidays and celebrations should accompany this new view of the world.
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11283 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
You must be joking! Almost none of the holidays you list are seen by religious people as religious holidays.
True, but (with the possible exception of Thanksgiving Day) without the Christian religion, they would never have existed. Hence I would think it rather problematic for a philosopher-king who believes that they originated in mere error or fantasy to retain them in any form. Maybe not-- that is what we now get the chance to find out.
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We are part of the earth and it is part of us... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth --Chief Seattle
Posts: 7708 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
I would think it rather problematic for a philosopher-king who believes that they originated in mere error or fantasy to retain them in any form.
I think the philosopher-king idea of yours describes very few atheists. Heck, it doesn't even describe Dawkins.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
Exactly because the system works in a democratic way and there is no philosopher in charge of how things work, the issue of holidays has little to do with the prevailing worldview of the Western societies and things may continue as they are for a long time.
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11283 | Registered: Apr 2005
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
I would think it rather problematic for a philosopher-king who believes that they originated in mere error or fantasy to retain them in any form.
I think the philosopher-king idea of yours describes very few atheists. Heck, it doesn't even describe Dawkins.
If Saturnalia is any indication, it doesn't even describe Christians...
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 7831 | From: Ashburnham, MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
True, but (with the possible exception of Thanksgiving Day) without the Christian religion, they would never have existed.
You think Thanksgiving might have existed without religion? Without religion, who is being thanked?
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 16791 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
True, but (with the possible exception of Thanksgiving Day) without the Christian religion, they would never have existed.
You think Thanksgiving might have existed without religion? Without religion, who is being thanked?
Moo
This is a strange bone to pick with me. I have no problem personally with attributing Thanksgiving Day to religion, and specifically the Christian religion. Yet it is a national holiday which (unlike Christmas) began life as such. I can easily see citizens of another persuasion celebrating it by thanking the sun... Gaia the earth... farmers (which wouldn't be a bad idea at all, in passing)... or good cooks.
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We are part of the earth and it is part of us... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth --Chief Seattle
Posts: 7708 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I don't see that this is an issue of profundity. We have three public holidays which don't signify anything at all. One of them used to be the Monday after Whit Sunday but then got fixed as the last Monday in May. So now it doesn't represent anything. Then there is the last Monday in August, that used to be the first Monday in August, but even then, that was just a holiday. It has never represented anything. And for the last forty years or so, we've also had the first Monday in May.
New Years Day isn't a religious holiday, but it doesn't commemorate anything civic either. And to come to think of it, Easter Monday is the day after Easter, rather than Easter itself.
I would regard it as much more controversial if new holidays were added to commemorate people who one might agree or disagree with. While it's always nice to have an extra holiday, adding 6th May because it was Tony Blair's birthday, for example, would stick in a lot of peoples' craws.
Posts: 3106 | From: Bristol UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by El Greco:
Exactly because the system works in a democratic way and there is no philosopher in charge of how things work, the issue of holidays has little to do with the prevailing worldview of the Western societies and things may continue as they are for a long time.
But does it work in a democratic way? Holidays, both official and unofficial, the Roman Empire certainly had, but I wonder how many of them could be enjoyed by the slaves. How many were granted to wage slaves in the "Satanic mills" of Victorian Manchester or Pittsburgh?
I submit that employers generally have an interest in recognizing as few holidays or other non-work-days as they can. Although one hopes that an enlightened case can be made for time-off as enhancing productivity and morale during time-on, suffice it to say that it has never been universally appreciated. Labor unions have had to fight hard for holidays; but labor unions aren't doing so well these days, at least in America. Several public holidays, such as Columbus Day or Washington's Birthday, mean nothing to anyone working in the private sector. The future is a little precarious IMHO.
So I still want to ask, what holidays might you both declare, and garner enough popular support for, that they will actually be accompanied by leisure time (or failing that, extra pay) such as we tend to cherish today due to Sundays and other holidays of religious origin?
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We are part of the earth and it is part of us... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth --Chief Seattle
Posts: 7708 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crśsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
New Years Day isn't a religious holiday, but it doesn't commemorate anything civic either.
Nonsense! New Year's Day is the celebration of the selection of new Consuls for the Roman Republic, a very civic and marginally religious observation. The fact that none of us actually lives in the Republic of Rome seems to be irrelevant to the celebration of this holiday.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 6612 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
So I still want to ask, what holidays might you both declare, and garner enough popular support for, that they will actually be accompanied by leisure time (or failing that, extra pay) such as we tend to cherish today due to Sundays and other holidays of religious origin?
Trafalgar Day. The UK calendar at the moment has a lot of public holidays in the spring, and rather too few in the autumn. Moving either the May Day or the Late May holiday to Trafalgar Day would be fairly popular and widely supported, and keeps being suggested.
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blog
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4480 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
My life continues pretty much the same whatever the day or holiday!
I would, however, very much recommend The Atheist Guide To Christmas which has about 40-50 chapters, each written by a different person. Many of them are not strongly atheist and there are many which are very funny.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 1632 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crśsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
New Years Day isn't a religious holiday, but it doesn't commemorate anything civic either.
Nonsense! New Year's Day is the celebration of the selection of new Consuls for the Roman Republic, a very civic and marginally religious observation. The fact that none of us actually lives in the Republic of Rome seems to be irrelevant to the celebration of this holiday.
1st January is of course the Feast of the Circumcision and as such provides a suitable opportunity for recovery to those who are half, er, cut from the night before.
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2182 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
The premise that public holidays make no sense in Atheistan is silly. The social significance of such events is simply and obviously that they provide for a large part of the population with time off work, not the symbolic commemoration of some ancient mythological phenomenon. The observation of ritual practices relating to particular religious annual festivals in the UK is quite incidental, on the whole. I can enjoy Christmas just as much as the Pope, and I consider Good Friday to be an extremely good Friday.
In my Atheistan, we’d still have Christmas and Easter holidays, though I’d shorten the former and put the extra days into public holidays during the summer months, when people could use the time better. I wouldn’t bother changing their names to secular ones because they already have no more significance as Christian festivals than Thursday has to Thor. Christianity doesn’t own our holidays any more than the Roman gods do our workdays.
Now stop worrying and enjoy your bank holiday.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7027 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Jonathan Strange
Shipmate
# 11001
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Posted
I'd quite like it if Midsummer's day was always a holiday. Spiritual or not, being in tune with the turn of the seasons is special.
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"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bears his teeth, winter meets its death,
When he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again"
Posts: 1324 | From: Wessex | Registered: Feb 2006
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five
Shipmate
# 14492
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Posted
Certainly in the USA (which since you're talking about Thanksgiving seems to be where you're talking about) quite a few of the holidays seem to be entirely secular. Thanksgiving is "Christian" but there's very few Pilgrims around left to celebrate it, and since there is no tradition of going to church on Thanksgiving (or the singing of Thanksgiving carols) I think most people would hesistate to call it religious. There are no federal holidays for Easter, which does seem to keep surprising people in America, and what religious connection is there for Martin Luther King Jr Day, President's Day, the 4th of July, Labour Day, Memorial Day, Columbus Day or Veteran's Day?
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And Jesus said 'the greatest commandments are these: Love the Lord your God with 10% of your time and energy, and Pamphlet your neighbour with tracts' - Birdseye
Posts: 1250 | Registered: Jan 2009
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Carys
Ship's Celticist
# 78
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Custard:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
So I still want to ask, what holidays might you both declare, and garner enough popular support for, that they will actually be accompanied by leisure time (or failing that, extra pay) such as we tend to cherish today due to Sundays and other holidays of religious origin?
Trafalgar Day. The UK calendar at the moment has a lot of public holidays in the spring, and rather too few in the autumn. Moving either the May Day or the Late May holiday to Trafalgar Day would be fairly popular and widely supported, and keeps being suggested.
Why move one? Just create a new one; we have far fewer than most already.
Carys
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O Lord, you have searched me and know me
You know when I sit and when I rise
Posts: 6671 | From: Bryste mwy na thebyg | Registered: May 2001
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
For the edification of those Shipmates with the misfortune of not living in MA, I will mention an eastern-MA (Suffolk County, to be precise)holiday -- Evacuation Day. This is the day that the British left Boston in the Revolutionary War. It also happens to be St. Patrick's Day. Apparently, someone complained about celebrating St. Patty's Day because it was a religious holiday [sic], so the good legislators decided not to make an issue of it. They found another holiday to celebrate, which by the most remarkable coincidence fell on March 17th.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 7831 | From: Ashburnham, MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Crśsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
For the edification of those Shipmates with the misfortune of not living in MA, I will mention an eastern-MA (Suffolk County, to be precise)holiday -- Evacuation Day. This is the day that the British left Boston in the Revolutionary War. It also happens to be St. Patrick's Day. Apparently, someone complained about celebrating St. Patty's Day because it was a religious holiday [sic], so the good legislators decided not to make an issue of it. They found another holiday to celebrate, which by the most remarkable coincidence fell on March 17th.
--Tom Clune
A similar tack was taken in some parts of the old Confederacy with states observing "Lee-Jackson Day", in honor of Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, on the same day as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 6612 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
True, but (with the possible exception of Thanksgiving Day) without the Christian religion, they would never have existed.
A claim I find ... ironic given how many Christian holidays are coopting dates for previous observances. Winter Solstice -> Saturnalia -> Christmas -> Santanalia, Spring Equinox -> Passover -> Easter, Autumn Equinox -> Haloween + All Saint's Day.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3315 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Birdseye
I can see my house from here!
# 5280
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Posted
quote:
A claim I find ... ironic given how many Christian holidays are coopting dates for previous observances. Winter Solstice -> Saturnalia -> Christmas -> Santanalia, Spring Equinox -> Passover -> Easter, Autumn Equinox -> Haloween + All Saint's Day.
Passover is a Jewish Theistic festival -don't think you can count that, especially as the events of the first Christian Easter took place over the period of that festival -hence the fact they were all in Jerusalem.
What is Santanalia? If it is supposed to be a precursor to Christian events then why does it have 'Saint' in the title? Is it a joke about 'Santa' which of course refers to 'Saint Nicholas' an early Christian saint.
Also the relationship between Easter and Christmas is partly due to the fact that prophets (traditionally speaking) were said to die on the anniversary of their conception -so birth in December= conception approx nine months earlier... so date of death (which is scripturally the day before Passover) should be roughly nine months before date of birth. Of course Passover and Easter the dates change, but for the sake of human organisation the others go with the calendar.
Really Easter is the big one in the Christian calender -though Christmas is charming -but 365 days is a long time and God knows people need parties!
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Life is what happens whilst you're busy making other plans.
a birdseye view
Posts: 1611 | From: West Yorkshire | Registered: Dec 2003
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Choirboy
Shipmate
# 9659
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Posted
The biggest difference I see between old and new holidays is that there are no shared cultural tokens or practices on a civic 'day off'. Apart from being off work, what cultural significance is there for the community? This is true whether the 'old' holidays are leftover pagan or agricultural/seasonal commemorations or Christian ones.
Maybe in a few hundred years time, MLK day will have something like it. In this country, there is a tradition of non-denominational 'prayer breakfasts' on the day, mimicking the practice at the White House, and other commemorations of the man, himself. While I'm strongly in favor of the commemoration, most people don't really participate in these activities and just use the holiday as an opportunity for travel on a 3 day weekend or to get that extra load of laundry in. You may as well give just a random floating vacation day to everyone - which is what a number of employers do.
Posts: 2994 | From: Minneapolis, Minnesota USA | Registered: Jun 2005
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Crśsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
Most human societies have felt the need to have major holidays sometime around the spring equinox, the winter solstice, and the summer solstice. In Christian cultures the first two slots are obviously taken up by Easter and Christmas respectively. There have been a few contenders for the midsummer slot (e.g. Corpus Christi), but nothing really took off on a widespread scale.
In the U.S. the midsummer 'holiday slot' is taken up by Independence Day, a civic observance with no overtly Christian significance.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 6612 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Avila
Shipmate
# 15541
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Birdseye:
What is Santanalia? If it is supposed to be a precursor to Christian events then why does it have 'Saint' in the title? Is it a joke about 'Santa' which of course refers to 'Saint Nicholas' an early Christian saint.
Saturnalia was a roman festival (named for Saturn). Basically a no holds barred binge and orgy... so not so far from some people's approach to the secularised christmas season!
(eta - typo correction)
[ 07. April 2010, 16:17: Message edited by: Avila ]
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http://aweebleswonderings.blogspot.com/
Posts: 978 | From: west midlands | Registered: Mar 2010
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Choirboy
Shipmate
# 9659
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Posted
Damn. I'm missing out on the orgy part.
Posts: 2994 | From: Minneapolis, Minnesota USA | Registered: Jun 2005
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
Nobody invites you to their orgies? Man, that sucks!
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11283 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
Be an atheist then. We get up to all sorts of filthy stuff.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7027 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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coniunx
Shipmate
# 15313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
You must be joking! Almost none of the holidays you list are seen by religious people as religious holidays.
Really? Let's look at the ones listed:
Christmas Day: I think most of the religious people I know would regard that as religious: even those who are not Christian would recognise it as a Christian celebration.
Easter Day: ditto.
Thanksgiving Day I can't comment on, it not being one we have in England. However, Wikipedia indicates that it's a harvest festival, and the term 'harvest festival' would be associated by most religious people with church;
Saint Valentine's Day: well, the name is a bit of a giveaway; it's certainly celebrated in our church (with quite a big do at the cathedral this last year).
Mardi Gras: is the day before the first day of Lent. Lent is a religious season; I doubt that many religious people would disagree. Since Mardi Gras depends on a religion for its very date, I think it's far from unreasonable to regard it as in some sense 'religious'.
St Patrick's Day, er, again has a bit of a giveaway in the title, and is certainly widely celebrated in a religious context.
Hallowe'en: is the eve (or indeed vigil) of All Saints' Day and again is certainly widely celebrated in religious circles. The vigil Mass of All Saints appears to have been celebrated as early as the feast itself.
So which of these festivals did you think religious people would not count as religious?
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Coniunx
Posts: 250 | From: Nottingham | Registered: Nov 2009
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by coniunx:
So which of these festivals did you think religious people would not count as religious?
All but Christmas and Easter. In my neck of the woods, St. Patrick's Day is a drinking holiday; St. Valentine's Day is a romantic holiday; Mardi Gras is a day to get a peek at college girls' boobs in exchange for plastic beads; Halloween is a day for kids to get candy; and Thanksgiving is a day when you watch football with relatives you don't much care for. Maybe those are religious observances where you live, but none of them (except maybe Mardi Gras) say "Christ" around here...
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 7831 | From: Ashburnham, MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
It's easy. Instead of Easter, you have the first day of Spring. Instead of Christmas, you have the shortest day of the year and so you throw a little party to fend off the chill. There are no shortage of secular "saints" to commemorate (Darwin, Einstein, etc.) You could even throw in people who did great things "in spite of" being a Christian like MLK.
Labor Day, Memorial Day, President's Day, Father's Day, Mother's Day, New Year's Day...none of these have anything whatsoever to do with God.
And let's not neglect all those Christians (I know a few) who think that all "Christian" holidays are non-biblical pagan-in-origin bunk.
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lazy man come to the table/make some food for those who ain't able
pretty winner swallow your pride/drink the ugly loser who for all died
make sure everyone gets some/then we'll see the kingdom...
--psalters Dumpster Divers
Posts: 7291 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Coniunx, you must be lucky in Nottingham. Valentine's Day, Shrove Tuesday, St Patrick's Day and Halloween are not holidays here. Nor is St George's Day, which is our own patron saint, rather than someone else's.
Alas we have to work on all of them, though we do get the various statutory Mondays I mentioned in an earlier post.
Posts: 3106 | From: Bristol UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Jessie Phillips
Shipmate
# 13048
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Posted
In my opinion, the idea that there's a line of demarcation between a "religious" and a "non-religious" holiday is itself derived from conversionism - that is, the phenomenon by which religions tend to define people as being "in" or "out" - you're with us you're against us. Seems the early Christian writers thought you were either a Christian, or a Jew, or a pagan - you couldn't be half-Jew half-Christian, and you couldn't be half-Christian half-pagan.
Similar conversionism exists in Islam, and I'm led to believe it may also have existed in Stoic philosophy. But there's little evidence of conversionism in pre-Hellenistic Greek philosophy or cult practice. Well, I suppose you could count the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Point I'm trying to make is that you might call the celebration of St George or St Patrick a "religious" holiday - but what if you had a celebration of Arthur? Or Lancelot? Would that be religious? or not? Would it be a holiday that atheists are any more or less likely to want to participate in than a holiday for St George?
Going back to El Greco's point:
quote:
The secular world has it's own ethos and ideals, and I think these ideals should be celebrated in the West. Martin Luther King Day is a great example of such a holiday.
Are you aware that there are Christian churches in which Martin Luther King is regarded as a martyr and a saint?
Admittedly the churches in question don't have a formal canonisation process. But does that mean that their saints are not proper saints? Is it any wonder that different church denominations have different saints? For example, while William Tyndale is widely regarded as a martyr in Protestant tradition, he's certainly not a Saint in the Catholic Church. But with Thomas More, author of Utopia, it's the other way round.
But how many of us really want to get into playing Tyndale and More off against each other?
My point is, if we're going to call St Patrick's Day and St George's Day a "religious" holiday but Martin Luther King day a "non-religious" holiday, we are fuzzying over the distinction between religious and non-religious holidays - unless we are to claim that there's only one organisation which has a right to call itself a "church", and which has a right to name "saints", and that there's therefore only one organisations which has a right to say which holidays are religious and which aren't.
Posts: 2244 | From: Home counties, UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
My point is, if we're going to call St Patrick's Day and St George's Day a "religious" holiday but Martin Luther King day a "non-religious" holiday, we are fuzzying over the distinction between religious and non-religious holidays
First of all, I don't agree with that. St. Patrick and St. George explicitly worked for the glory of Christ. Martin Luther King worked for an ideal transcending his religion, and fought for the rights of all black people that were oppressed, no matter what their religion was. And I don't think he explicitly said that his motivation for his work was the glory of Jesus Christ his God Amen. But I might be mistaken.
Secondly, getting the distinction fuzzy is a mark of secularization. Religions made some big claims on people's lives. The people no longer paying attention to what the celebration is supposed to signify is important in itself, because it shows the passage from a society regulated by religion to a society indifferent to the established religions.
Thirdly, what I meant was that Martin Luther King Jr. Day could get assigned a secular meaning, in accordance to the secular ethos, just like Saint Patrick Day was assigned in the past a Christian meaning in accordance to the Christian ethos. It's what the day signifies that matters, not where the day comes from nor even the historicity of the events the day celebrates.
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11283 | Registered: Apr 2005
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by El Greco:
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
My point is, if we're going to call St Patrick's Day and St George's Day a "religious" holiday but Martin Luther King day a "non-religious" holiday, we are fuzzying over the distinction between religious and non-religious holidays
First of all, I don't agree with that. St. Patrick and St. George explicitly worked for the glory of Christ. Martin Luther King worked for an ideal transcending his religion, and fought for the rights of all black people that were oppressed, no matter what their religion was. And I don't think he explicitly said that his motivation for his work was the glory of Jesus Christ his God Amen. But I might be mistaken.
Secondly, getting the distinction fuzzy is a mark of secularization. Religions made some big claims on people's lives. The people no longer paying attention to what the celebration is supposed to signify is important in itself, because it shows the passage from a society regulated by religion to a society indifferent to the established religions.
Thirdly, what I meant was that Martin Luther King Jr. Day could get assigned a secular meaning, in accordance to the secular ethos, just like Saint Patrick Day was assigned in the past a Christian meaning in accordance to the Christian ethos. It's what the day signifies that matters, not where the day comes from nor even the historicity of the events the day celebrates.
Fourthly, and I think most importantly, MLKJr Day was secular from the start. Judging by the Wikipedia page on it, the fight to it recognized was not religious in nature. While a sect can try to co-opt the secular nature of this day, or canonize MLKJr, that comes nowhere near making this a religious holiday.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
Here in France we still do have many explicitly religious (Catholic) holidays that are also public holidays/days off - straight off I can think of All Saints (November 1st), the Ascension (variable but always a Thursday) and the Assumption of the Virgin (August 15th) plus the Mondays following Easter Sunday and Pentecost (although not Good Friday - which has always seemed odd to me, given that we get all the others). Then we get other holidays for various national events like VE Day and the 14th of July (storming of the Bastille).
As a non-Catholic, getting a day off in honour of the Assumption of the Virgin doesn't bother me all that much to be honest. As far as I'm concerned, a day off is a day off. The fact that it's in honour of a religious festival that I don't believe in has never seemed like a big problem to me.
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"Is she smooth or what? I mean, we are talking FRICTIONLESS BEARINGS here. If the beer here were that smooth, I'd be in the bar ALL DAY, dude, and I'm an AI construct, man!" - Demosthenes 0.9, brought to you by Eliab
Posts: 2425 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Jessie Phillips
Shipmate
# 13048
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Posted
El Greco says quote:
First of all, I don't agree with that. St. Patrick and St. George explicitly worked for the glory of Christ.
That may be - but the question is, who is it who decides whether a given person or not has worked for the glory of Christ?
It seems to me that the thing St George is most well-known for is being a dragon-slayer. But the same thing is true of Lancelot. So, is it slaying dragons that makes you a worker for the glory of Christ? If so, then why is Lancelot not considered a saint?
I don't think it's because a lot of people don't believe Lancelot ever existed. A lot of people don't believe St George ever existed either. And even among those who do believe he existed, I think very few believe that he actually slayed literal fire-breathing dragons. And I suspect the same is true of Lancelot.
So then, what, actually, is the difference between Lancelot and St George?
Seems to me that the only difference is that there's a big, centuries-old organisation which had had varying levels of political and military autonomy through the ages, and which today still has hundreds of thousands of members among the ordinary rank and file, and which certainly isn't short of a penny or two - and that organisation happens to be called the "Catholic Church". And that organisation has a slow, creaking, bureaucratic process by which the label of "Saint" gets slapped on some long-dead people but not others. And that's the reason why some holidays are regarded as "religious" but not others.
Then again, the example of the holiday of Lancelot remains hypothetical until someone actually institutes it.
quote:
Secondly, getting the distinction fuzzy is a mark of secularization. Religions made some big claims on people's lives. The people no longer paying attention to what the celebration is supposed to signify is important in itself, because it shows the passage from a society regulated by religion to a society indifferent to the established religions.
I agree with you there. However, the question of whether the commemoration of a saint (such as St George) can also be thought of as a commemoration of the death of Christ is something that Catholics and Protestants are quite likely to disagree over. Catholics generally regard all saints as imitators of Christ, and that the saints all therefore remind us of Christ - whereas Evangelicals sometimes think that it's idolatrous to even remember the saints.
Mind you, that didn't stop Evangelicals thinking of William Tyndale as a hero. But I think some Evangelicals might frown slightly if a large cult of William Tyndale were to develop - although realistically, you're far more likely to get cults of the US televangelists than of William Tyndale.
I can see the point that the question of whether a holiday is regarded as "religious" or not depends on the identity of the organisation that kick-started the holiday. However, while the Catholic Church may have been the organisation that slapped the "Saint" label onto St George, was it also the Catholic church which first had the idea of having a holiday for St George? I suspect not.
But then again, perhaps we're mistaken to think of the Catholic Church as being a single autonomous organisation. Canonisation is done centrally, but the process of deciding if and how particular saints should be remembered (such as by having a holiday named after them) is usually done locally or regionally (for example, St George's Day certainly isn't celebrated all over the world, even in other Christian countries). I don't think people necessarily have to have been canonised as saints by the central system in order for local churches to decide to create icons and feast days out of them.
Posts: 2244 | From: Home counties, UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
That may be - but the question is, who is it who decides whether a given person or not has worked for the glory of Christ?
I didn't say anyone should make such a decision. Rather, I pointed to what the historical figures themselves said they were doing.
In fact, one of the accusations against Martin Luther King by religious nutcases is that he rather if ever mentioned the God Jesus Christ in his speeches and he did not say that his motivation for his cause was his Christian faith.
St. Patrick, on the other hand, travelled through Ireland to guide his people to Christ and St. George gave his life for Christ. These people worked and suffered explicitly for Jesus Christ whom they worshipped.
But anyway, my main point is that it's whether the holiday reflects the secular ethos that matters and not the religious persuasions of the people involved (if it involves any people at all). After all, the people are celebrated in a symbolical way, rather than in a historical way.
[ 08. April 2010, 10:54: Message edited by: El Greco ]
Posts: 11283 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Jessie Phillips
Shipmate
# 13048
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Posted
quote:
St. Patrick, on the other hand, travelled through Ireland to guide his people to Christ and St. George gave his life for Christ. These people worked and suffered explicitly for Jesus Christ whom they worshipped.
Thanks for that El Greco, but it still seems to me that you're overlooking the importance of biographers, historians - and even journalists - in the question of who comes to be regarded as a saint - both officially and unofficially - or, indeed, who comes to be thought of as a hero, a celebrity, or as any kind of cultural icon whatsoever.
Martin Luther King may have written his own speeches, but didn't the media industry, and the subsequent establishment of museums and publication of history books, play a part not just in his rise to iconic status but also in the fact that he hasn't been forgotten since, and that we're still talking about him now?
And how is that different to St George? Did St George write any speeches? Did he write any homilies, or epistles, or other sorts of literature? I don't think he did. So how did we come to hear about St George in the first place? Simple. Because people wrote about him, and painted pictures of him. They painted pictures of his dragon too, but I very much doubt that George and the dragon posed in an artist's studio for that one.
We've clearly got much more content from the mouth and the pen of Martin Luther King than we have of St George. But as for St George, we've got no auto-biographical claim by which he said he was working for Christ. The idea that he was working for Christ is something for which we depend entirely upon what other people have said about him.
My point is, your belief that St George gave his life for Christ depends entirely on what hagiographers have said about him, and not on any writings that can be traced back to St George himself.
We are in a much better position to be able to judge whether Martin Luther King thought he was working for Christ or not than we are to judge whether St George thought he was working for Christ or not. But because we can't reliably judge what St George thought about himself, we therefore also can't reliably say whether he thought he was working for Christ any more than Martin Luther King did.
So it's clearly not a saint's or a martyr's own self-image that determines whether the holiday that gets pinned on him is regarded as "religious" or not.
quote:
But anyway, my main point is that it's whether the holiday reflects the secular ethos that matters and not the religious persuasions of the people involved (if it involves any people at all). After all, the people are celebrated in a symbolical way, rather than in a historical way.
I agree with that though. But again, traditions change, and symbols don't consistently mean the same things throughout their life.
I think tclune's point about St Patrick's Day morphing into Evacuation Day illustrates that. Trying to nail down the original symbolic meaning of any given holiday, or indeed any symbol at all, gets harder and harder as time goes by. That's also the reason why the KJV is a lot harder to understand these days than the TEV Bible.
Some might say that the attitude towards the meaning of cultural symbols and artefacts that I'm trying to explain here is "post-structuralist". I readily admit that popular writings on the anthropology of language, such as Tore Janson "Speak", have affected my attitude towards language - and I realise now that such works are based on 20th century linguistics, which in turn is based upon the structuralist philosophy of Ferdinand de Saussure. Once you start to view language itself in that way, it's hard not to take the same attitude towards literary criticism, Bible study, and cultural artefacts of any kind whatsoever.
Posts: 2244 | From: Home counties, UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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Pewgilist
Shipmate
# 3445
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
You must be joking! Almost none of the holidays you list are seen by religious people as religious holidays.
--Tom Clune
Au contraire. On Holy Saturday, I went into the bicycle shop and walked into a conversation between the young owner and a 40-ish urban academic (hobo clothes, ratty beard, expensive bike) who was ticked off that the shop had been closed the day before.
The shop owner explained "It was a holiday, so it was illegal to be open. Good Friday; something to do with Jesus."
"Jesus? Since when is Canada beholden to Jesus?"
I couldn't help but ask 1) what's wrong with a holiday, a chance to give the working man a day of rest? and 2) if not for Jesus, then for whom? I didn't really get any answers.
This is not the first time I've met people who sneer at keeping Christian holidays as civic holidays. The sneerers are generally critics of our "material, capitalist society" and so should be all for these breaks from commerce but I've found little agreement as to what we should celebrate _instead_.
So I think that I'm encountering anti-Christian/establishment/parent humbuggery, not thought-out opposition to traditional holidays with a rational alternatives.
As an aside, I might mention that the sneering academic was American, not Canadian. I'm on the verge of forming the opinion that many Americans who come to Canada do not want to live in Canada as it _is_ but rather want to live in America as it is _not_. Thus the preponderance of republicanism among ex-pats, and the discomfort with such things as the line "God keep our land glorious and free" in our English national anthem.
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Pewgilist
Hamilton, Ontario
Posts: 119 | From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada | Registered: Oct 2002
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kankucho
Shipmate
# 14318
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
True, but (with the possible exception of Thanksgiving Day) without the Christian religion, they would never have existed.
You think Thanksgiving might have existed without religion? Without religion, who is being thanked?
Moo
Take your pick: the universe, mother nature, Fisons - it matters not. Gratitude is as much a benefit for the giver as for the receiver.
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"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself" – Dr. Carl Sagan
Kankucho Bird Blues
Posts: 1222 | From: Kuon-ganjo, E17 | Registered: Nov 2008
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Benny Diction 2
Shipmate
# 14159
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Posted
By coincidence, I got the following in an email last week. The usual jokey things that do the rounds. I have no idea whether the story is true and can't be bothered to find out. But it is pertinent to this thread:
FLORIDA COURT SETS ATHEIST HOLY DAY
In Florida , an atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover Holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians and Jews and observances of their holy days.
The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days. The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, "Case dismissed!"
The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, "Your honor, How can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays."
The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, "But you do. Your client, counsel, is woefully ignorant ."
The lawyer said, "Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists."
The judge said, "The calendar says April 1st is April Fools Day. Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that, if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned."
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Benny Diction
"The Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it - a bit like Christians in the Church of England." Tony Benn
Posts: 859 | From: Home of the magic roundabout | Registered: Oct 2008
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
As a non-Catholic, getting a day off in honour of the Assumption of the Virgin doesn't bother me all that much to be honest. As far as I'm concerned, a day off is a day off. The fact that it's in honour of a religious festival that I don't believe in has never seemed like a big problem to me.
That's fine for you, of course, being you. But isn't it driving on fumes? If a holiday honors something that few believe in, it will eventually be gainsaid. As pointed out before, holidays are not universally loved. Suppose, for example, that you run a sweat shop, and a day off for your employees isn't good for your bottom line. Will it still be a leisure day for your children? These festivals have been on the church calendar all over the world for centuries, and used to be regarded as days off, but no more in most countries.
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We are part of the earth and it is part of us... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth --Chief Seattle
Posts: 7708 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
Tangent alert: in high school I had learnt that Christmas was superimposed on the Roman pagan feast of Saturnalia, but subsequently I have repeatedly seen the pre-Christian festival that inspired the Church's dating of the Feast of the Nativity of OLJC as having been that of Sol Invictus -- the unconquered sun, feted at the time of the winter solstice. Anyone know more about the history/anthropology of this issue?
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Pradžioje buvo Žodis. Tas Žodis buvo pas Dievą ir Žodis buvo Dievas. Jis pradžioje buvo pas Dievą. Visa per jį atsirado, ir be jo neatsirado nieko, kas tik yra atsiradę.
Šventai Kazimierai: Melsk už mus.
Posts: 6916 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
Sol Invictus was Dec. 25, says Boris Johnson in The Dream of Rome (p.33). This is not a scholarly source, but I assume that the author is knowedgeable.
However, as someone pointed out above, another reason for the date of Christmas is to fit the ancient belief that dying on the same day of the year as one had been conceived is a mark of perfection or divine approval.
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We are part of the earth and it is part of us... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth --Chief Seattle
Posts: 7708 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
There is at least one document observing the date of Christmas (granted in a small bit of the empire) as Dec 25 that predates the institution of the Sol Invictus feast on Dec 25. The Wikipedia (that fount of all knowledge) page on the question takes an agnostic stand. It's not really all that clear-cut.
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Dunstan of Canterbury
-- Saint of the Day (19 May) on The Onion Dome
The Story of Boyling and Girlchen: A Fairy Tale
Posts: 53059 | From: ecotopia | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gentleman Ranker
Shipmate
# 15518
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Posted
The OP proposes: quote:
This thread is an opportunity for our atheist or non-observant Shipmates to express their feelings about these occasions ...
Late to the party, sorry. I've been out of town with no easily-accessible connectivity.
Growing up, "religious" holidays were Christmas and Easter, with no real awareness of any others (the occasional religious acquaintance might mention some, but there were no others known in our family). Christmas was a tree and presents, Easter was candy. Both were accompanied by big dinners when we were younger, though Easter dinner gradually fell into disuse.
I suspect that these were holdovers from my mother's ethnic Catholicism rather than any kind of belief ... I never heard her say anything positive about growing up Catholic.
Not surprisingly, that experience as a child formed my current attitude. I view public religious holidays as cultural artifacts, nothing more. I wish people "Merry Christmas" (as long as I know they aren't Jewish or something) and have no problem with public creches and such. If I know the appropriate greeting for someone else's holiday, I will give it if I know them.
Personally, I do absolutely nothing (not even a tree) for Christmas, I'm just not hostile to it. No other religious holidays so much as enter my mind unless someone I know is doing something for one. quote:
... and to propose alternatives.
I see no need for any.
Most non-religious people I know consider them inoffensive cultural artifacts. Let those who wish to observe them do so in peace. Let those who don't wish to observe them refrain from observing, also in peace.
I suppose one could complain about them, but why? It's a day off, take it. My company observes all the official Federal holidays, including the ever-popular Presidents' Day and Columbus Day. I don't see anyone complaining that there's no Leif Ericsson Day or Judiciary Day (there probably are such things, but no one knows/cares about them).
Nothing exciting in all this, but opinions were asked, and those are mine.
regards,
GR
Posts: 66 | Registered: Mar 2010
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