I think that is is important to note that there is very little real evidence for Christmas being taken from saturnalia. You can google christmas and saturnalia and come up with plenty of web articles, but looking at the actual history of it makes it pretty clear. Christmas takes place around the same time of saturnalia, sure, but that does not make it a Christian stab at replacing it. Saturnalia was traditionally observed between the 17th and 23rd of December, not the 25th. It was a 5-7 day festival, not a one day festival. Additionally, the church is said to have gotten the 25th by taking the day John’s father was told he would have a son (shortly after the day of attonement), the new testiment statement that Elizabeth was 6 months pregnant when Jesus was conceived, and adding 40 weeks to the end for the average pregnancy. This would put Jesus born in late December. This general time line was documented as being calculated as early as CE 200s.
Well, to be fair, I’ve had people get annoyed with me for saying Merry Christmas in the past (I’m not particularly religious, but I was raised to say it and it’s a habit to break)
It’s all subjective. Just because you haven’t had something said to you, or even haven’t seen or heard of someone saying it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
You’re not being oppressed. It’s just that saying merry Christmas to a crowd of diverse backgrounds is like wishing your mum a happy fathers day. She won’t be mad or offended, she’ll just think she should have breastfed you.
Or telling someone “happy birthday “ when they’re in a group of people who aren’t having birthdays themselves. Only a three year old would get upset that they’re not included.
Most “traditions”, including holiday traditions, food culture, etc, are incredibly recent things. But people cling to it like they are the totality of their identify.
Maybe it’s different in the US and other cultures, but as an atheist I’ve never seen the phrase as a very religious thing. I say “merry Christmas” and “happy holidays” indistinctly and I’ve never seen anyone offended by the use of either, independtly of their faith (or lack thereof).
I say “merry Christmas” on the actual Christmas day though.
No one is offended besides the hardcore Christians. No muslim or orthodox Christian or whatever would be mad if you wish them merry Christmas if that’s the thing where you both live. As always, it’s fake fabricated outrage.
At work in my department they told us we can put decorations in our (at home!) office but to try and stay religiously neutral. Meanwhile in my friend’s department (same employer) they got an email to wish employees a happy Easter back in April, happy Mawlid (celebration of Muhammad’s birth) back in September and happy Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah in October…
I’m an atheist so I don’t celebrate any of these things and to me holidays should just be spread equally to give people long weekends, but I can’t help but laugh at the hypocrisy when it comes to Christmas compared to all other holidays through the year…
That’s honestly refreshing to hear that your friends department encouraged them to celebrate multiple different religious holidays. There shouldn’t be any problem celebrating religious holidays as long as they are all given equal considerations and the company doesnt play favorites.
To me anything religious should be treated as such, something private that has nothing to do with your workplace and only secular holidays should exist considering holidays are imposed by the government and there’s supposed to be a separation of religion and State (in my country anyway), but I know my opinion on this subject is pretty extreme.
The holidays we have are so commercialized they hardly feel religious to me. Christmas and Easter are just times to spend with family, nothing to do with Jesus.
Then people should have no issue with them being moved around so the holidays are equally divided throughout the year, right? There’s no importance to them happening on the specific dates they do at the moment, right?
There’s only five true public holidays applied throughout the whole of Canada
Quebec has their National holiday but no civic holiday. Only four provinces out of ten (two of those only for government employees), the territories and jobs under federal jurisdiction have the truth and remembrance day.
Even counting all of them there’s a big hole after the new year and the next one is… Good Friday which is 100% religious…
But at the federal level that’s 12 holidays that could be separated to get rid of religious holidays and to give everyone one long weekend every month!
What annoys me, and I’m Jewish ethnically but I’m an atheist, is the commercialization of Hanukkah. It wasn’t even a major Jewish holiday. People just decided, “well, it’s near Christmas and they used to give raisins. Good enough.” I mean just make up a new holiday or something.
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