Holidays are an integral part of many religions, so when an atheist leaves a religion they frequently leave behind the holidays as well. This often means leaving behind an important aspect of their social and family lives. Some atheists, though, continue to celebrate religious holidays -- do you?
It might seem obvious to say that if you no longer adhere to a particular religion, and in fact even regard the entire system to be a mass of superstition, then it would logically follow that you would also not observe the relevant holidays. Some atheists do take this position, but I think that the matter is a bit more complicated. Many, albeit not all, religious holidays are a great deal more on both the individual and the social levels than simply acknowledging religious beliefs.
Holidays can serve to form a connection to your own past by evoking memories of past celebration. Holidays can form and reinforce connections with the friends and family with whom you celebrate. Holiday events can also create connections across an entire society as people develop parallel experiences which forge subtle bonds. Rituals and celebrations, as long as they are not empty of personal meaning, can be worth preserving.
The way in which an atheist might best approach the question of religious holidays and the creation of new atheist holidays is to ask: "What might this mean to me?" Are you going to let Christians "win" by allowing them to decide what holidays like Christmas mean to everyone else, or are you willing to stand up and decide what it means for yourself?
Many religious holidays have become secularized enough that I, for one, don’t have much problem celebrating them. I just skip the overtly religious parts like church services or prayers.
Which is not to say that they’re secularized enough to allow for gov’t endorsement of them….
Any excuse for a party.
only if someone invites me
The problem with your poll is that it does not distinguish between celebrating a holiday qua holiday and celebrating it qua government subsidized social occasion. No to the former, yes to the latter.
by Christmas you mean Saturnalia, right?
Ok – so here is my view on religious holidays.
I don’t do the church and religious service thing. Not religious, don’t do it. those of my family that ARE religious may try to argue me into it occasionally but have come to accept that.
But I do celebrate spending time with family and loved ones. And also double time or double time and a half if I am working
As a retired Marine, I celebrate the Marine Corps Birthday, 4th of July, Memorial Day and Veterans Day – none of those are based on mythology.
Happy solstice everyone…
at Christmas that is.
Christmas/Yuletide, as an opportunity to enjoy family, food and tradition, is fine by me. I have fun with the holiday spirit but we don’t involve any religious aspects with our celebration, it’s a cultural holiday for us. This needn’t step on any religious toes or involve church or religious ceremony. No other religious holidays have such strong cultural elements and we ignore them for this reason.
It’s February 14th, happy V.D.!
Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter, all in completely secular ways. Presents and parties at Christmas, parties and turkey at Thanksgiving, and the occasional egg hunt (if my younger cousins are around) or nothing at all for Easter.
And Halloween, in it’s secularized “National Cosplay Day” form.
The only celebrating I do for holidays is to not go to work. And that assumes it is one of the holidays for which I get the day off.
I celebrate many of the Jewish holidays with my family. They are part of my earliest and richest memories. I don’t attend services. unless I’m invited to a bar mitzvah or some such and I go to funerals.
Holidays have been celebrated in a very secular way in my family, anyway. So for me there’s no conflict in continuing to take part in our holiday traditions, like exchanging gifts and eating turkey.
I treat Christmas and Thanksgiving as secular holidays since I see nothing religious about giving gifts or eating turkey, respectively. I did used to celebrate Easter as a kid due to the egg coloring kits, but not anymore since I tend to think of it as a kid’s holiday much like Halloween. However, I still like to get the chocolate rabbits and creme eggs.
Independence, Memorial, Veterans, MLK, President’s Days… Anything to do with my pride in being a US American and our rights as such. I don’t mind New Year’s or Thanksgiving either, though TG is just an excuse to spend (more) time with my family!
As a life-long atheist, holidays have no religious meaning to me. After all, they are holidays, not holy days. It’s possible that the non-religious celebration of holidays will do more to erode religion than the “boycotting” of holidays by the non-religious – so party on!
I’m like a French Catholic, which is to say an atheistic existentialist. But like those of my cultural heritage I can still like the art, the churches as buildings and the food and parties that accompany.
I have little problem integrating these excuses to gather and party with secular ones like Memorial Day, New Year’s Eve, Forth of July etc.
I believe in good food, good cheer and partying. It’s god I don’t believe in.
besides most of these holidays were appropriated from the polytheists to begin with so I find it perfectly acceptable for atheists to appropriate them after all like monotheists before us we just believe in fewer gods.
take one more out, then you’re an atheist
we had took so many out, why stop?
Most of the religious festivals were originally Pagan festivals (Christmas and Easter for example), and were stolen from the Pagans so that the people would be more willing to accept Christianity.
The Easter festivals not only took-over the spring-time festivals of the Pagans, but also the new-year which used to fall on the 1st of April. The Christians then labeled anyone celebrating the new-year at this time as “fools” hence April Fools Day.
So I, as an atheist, have no problem nicking these holidays back.
I was born Jewish but dont ask me when the holdidays are. I have gone so far as to say when I die I do not want a funeral,god must not be mentioned or prayers said. I am not a hypocrite I just want everyone to have a joyace day and watch a Liverpool football game and play jazz in the background.
Holidays should be for giving tothose less fortunate than yourself.
I wish I could work on Catholic holidays that fall in the week. The whole world shuts down on a Christian holiday, one that I don’t celebrate. Yes I do get paid for that day off….but I’d rather work.
Although I was born jewish (and became an atheist in 1976 at age 13), I have not observed any of those holidays beyond attending a seder (or, as my cousin once said, “throwing” a seder LOL) – and not since 1999 at that.
I do visit family for Thanksgiving but for a few years after my mother passed away in 1995 I had boycotted that event (family spat since resolved).
My ladyfriend is mildly Christian so I do spend X-mas, (and Valentine’s Day, and New Years Eve) with her.
The rest of the holidays have no real meaning for me whether they are religious or secular.
Is Thanksgiving even considered a Xian holiday? Churches don’t make nearly as big a deal about it as they do Xmas and Easter (or at least not here in Virginia).
Thanksgiving is a solely American holiday isn’t it? Based on the pilgrims being grateful (ok, to god) for surviving their first year?
I celebrate Thanksgiving, X-Mas (secularly), Halloween, and Independence Day. I fly a flag on Veterans and Memorial Days. A couple of years ago, my college’s Community Action Network hosted an Easter Egg hunt for homeless children that I was happy to be part of.
I’ll convert to Pastafarianism as soon as the government recognizes their holiest of holy days, Friday. Every Friday. Paid, baby!
I still celebrate all the traditional holidays with family and friends, but in a completely secular way. We gather with family for dinners and only exhange gifts with those under 18, hey I liked Xmas as much as any kid and I won’t deprive my family’s kids the same fun, but there is no talk of religion or the “reason for the season” stuff goes on in our house. I’ve asked all family memebers to NOT get me anything for xmas, but if they feel inclined anyway, I suggest they make a donation to their favorite charity instead and I would do the same for them. Its been working out great for the last 4 years since I came out as an atheist in my family, since we’ve never been all that religious anyway. Giving to charities is much better IMHO than getting some crap sweater I’ll never wear, not to mention its a good tax deduction a few months later. I feel much better giving to charity than giving crap people don’t want or need within the family. Hopefully someday, if the need should arise, the good karma (for lack of a better term) will come back to me.
It is ok to experience the effects of Mythological holidays.
Mythology is interesting as long a one doesn’t take it seriously.
Most Holidays are Pagan in origin and were never to meant to be considered literal truth.
Raised without religion, I have no need to cut holidays out of my life, because they never had any religious significance to my family. However, I also don’t get that excited about them, and we don’t make a big deal of them to our children either.
I’ve kind of stopped celebrating Xmas since my kids grew up. Even when they were little we celebrated in a completely secular way. My mother thought it was terrible that my kids didn’t know the (religious) Xmas story but it didn’t mean a thing to them. I stopped gift exchanging when the adolescents would say “money” when you asked them what they wanted and when I realized that their gifts to me were little more than obligations or afterthoughts (e.g., some piece of junk that I would never want nor use). What good is a gift if it has no thought behind it? Remember that old saying, “it’s the thought that counts?”
i celebrate christmas because of the gift giving. and celebrating joy. santa clause and fun. i just dont see it as jesus birthday or whatnot. i like the season. i just dont do the religous part. i am atheist. not freakin’ a satanist. i do love and have compassion. i just dont believe in god.
When our parents were still living, we celebrated Christmas and Thanksgiving with them uncritically. But easter was for us and our kids. We have a spot we call the camp near the creek that runs through our place. I keep it mowed and have a picnic table built from a cedar log I split and sawed into two inch planks. On Easter Saturday the kids would dye eggs and my wife would make cinnamon rolls. On Sunday morning I went out to the camp, started a fire, and hid the eggs. Some Easters it snowed, and some were rainy and cold, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.
The camp Easter was on hold for a few years, but our grandchildren have hunted eggs and enjoyed cinnamon rolls with us since then. Some of the grandchildren have about outgrown it, but it’s a part of their memories. It’s possible they’ll help prepare for the little ones this year.
Thanksgiving ?? most Australians wouldn’t know what you are on about. Christmas? Time for a booze up. Easter? time for another booze up. New years day? (Holiday here)yet another booze up.Queen’s Birthday (holiday) another booze up.
Melbourne Cup day? Booze up, especially in Victoria. Australia day?Booze up. Remembrance day? Booze up Week ends. Who the heck needs an excuse, let’s have a drink.
P.S. I’ still the odd one out, I’m teetotal.
Not the odd one atheistically, most of the country is. Just that drinking is the national religious ritual.
tomedgar@halenet.com.au
I work six days a week, every week. No holidays off. To me, they are just days that affect the traffic flow. Birthdays and anniversaries are most important to me for celebrations.
Anyone else annoyed by the fact that everything is closed on the major xtian holidays here in the U.S.?
What does a parent do with the magic, even secular magic (?), of the easter bunny, the tooth fairy, Harry Potter, dragon books, Twighlight vampires, etc.
We no longer put up a manger scene but a part of me still wants the kids to enjoy the wonder of magic to a certain adolescant degree.
Is this being an ‘uncle tom’?
“What it means to me” is for morons. Let people celebrate something without watering it down to your half assed excuse to party. You are not doing anyone a favor by pretending to celebrate a holiday. Why take all the same things from a day and change the meaning? Make your own day if you want one. You can make one like Christmas and call it gimme day, I want day, or retail day. Instead of using a tree you can use your LCD TV.
Why?
So, if people don’t celebrate a holiday the way you tell them they should, they are only “pretending”?
Why not?
Why?
Ah, sorry but that’s what Christmas already is. No one is currently trying to “change” Christmas to that. Christians voluntarily turned it over to commercialism and materialism long ago.
I am ready to tap a keg and celebrate on any holiday.
The two I pay (or paid) most attention to are Victoria Day and Labour Day. And I don’t buy into the supernatural mumbo jumbo, but hallowe’en offers a great chance to dress up and party.
Victoria Day is a national holiday in Canada, the last Monday on or after the 24th in May. Its origin is the “queen of England’s birthday”, but most Canadians view it as the unofficial beginning of summer. The day after Labour Day schools and colleges start the new year, but it’s also the unofficial end of summer in Canada.
I sort-of have fun with New Year’s, but I’d change the calendar if I could and make the winter solstice the first day of the year.
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Holidays have been completely secular for me for probably 30 years despite that I have only been an avowed atheist for 1.5 years. For me, holidays are a celebration of yummy chocolates and treats!
Now ask me HOW I celebrate
Xmas is completely secular, with presents and too much food and spending time with family whom I can’t see otherwise because of work schedules.
Thanksgiving is too much food and spending time with family whom I can’t see otherwise because of work schedules (taking advantage of that national day-off, regardless of why everyone else takes it off).
Easter is actually spent intentionally being blasphemous, again, with my loved ones (in this case, lovers) because of the day off from work. We spend the Easter weekend at an “adult” convention and dedicate the time to hedonistic pleasures that the fundagelicals would be horrified to hear about. I’d do it anyway, but knowing that it happens on Easter Weekend adds a delicious irony to spice the otherwise already-spicy occasion.
I celebrate other holidays too. If they are secular in origin (i.e. 4th of July), then I celebrate them as they were intended. If they have religious overtones, then I merely take advantage of the day off from work and do something blasphemous or irreligious just for fun and spite.
….here goes…stumbled across your intense, disturbing, miserable blog. My appologies….who am I to judge. To put so much time and effort into promoting the question of Christmas itself is an insult to all humanity….do you have any hope at all?? You and I both, no matter what our beliefs may be, are the unfortunate people that get to watch, first hand, our entire world fall apart. What’s left to rip apart?? Oh wait…the last thing we have worldwide that promotes good f@;&cking cheer between anybody and everybody. Good work. But I’m sure you have good reason for your opinion.
Merry Christmas
St. Jude
Whereas you’re such a cheerful, kind, compassionate person.
You’re a Christian. That’s all many Christians do when they encounter someone who doesn’t immediately agree with everything they say.
OK, prove it.
Someday I hope that more Christians will learn to use reason instead of just getting indignant every time others disagree with them.
I’m sorry you’re life is so horrible and hopeless. Mine’s going quite well.
You’re life must be pretty pathetic is Christmas is the only thing you can think of to promote good will. Then again, you yourself must be pretty pathetic if you need Christmas to promote good will and can’t do it any other time of the year.
Actually, my opinion is based on reason in the first place. You must know that because you demonstrate absolutely no ability to offer a reasoned, substantive response. Emotion and insult are the best you can muster.
I celebrate spring and winter solstice and Yule which occur the same times as Easter and Christmas. Although I do not attend church with family or friends I am not annoyed with religious displays. I just lump them with belief in the Easter Bunny and Santa only they are adult fairy tales. Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday for most. When I have been asked to give the blessing I thank all the people associated with growing and providing the meal…. not some god… and to be honest most people fail to notice I left got out.
Enjoy the music and lights and celebrate the birth of a good Jewish boy.
Jude; I hope some light will shine on your pathetic life. Maybe one day you will be able to look beyond your turned up little nose and see that you are a speck of dust in an immense desert, as we all are. There are vast regions of the world where Dec. 25th is just a day with no special meaning.
The question is asked if we celebrate any religious holidays.
I celebrate the passing of the winter solstice, which happens to coincide with Xmas. I don’t celebrate it in the way Christians, and many others, do. I just spend time with family and friends when possible. I spend almost all of my time traveling so I don’t see either very often.
The next one on the list is Thanks Giving. But there is nothing religious about Thanks Giving? Again I spend it with family and friends by preparing a feast, by eating way too much. Of course TG is only an American holiday but I try to do something no matter where I am, with varying enthusiasm from others.
There are several other holidays, that have nothing to do with religion, that are just as big like the 4th of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc. I celebrate those when in the states.
Celebrate Christmas? Kinda/sorta. I visit with family, have meals, give presents to the kids but do not exchange gifts with family members. Certainly do not attend any religious services.
I enjoy the Christmas Holiday. I do a big light display with music at my house. It is all secular with Christmas Trees, Frosty, Rudolph, etc. I have no problem with Christmas as long as our government doesn’t put a nativity scheme on public property. My house is all decked out for Christmas yet my evangelic friend, who buys into the fake war on Christmas, doesnt put anything out. Yet he complains about the lack of nativity decorations. I ask him why doesnt he put one up as you have that right but of course he makes excuses. I wonder if the throngs of people who visit my light display every year would think about it differently if they knew an Atheist put it on?
I just take the “holy” out of holiday and enjoy friends, family and my dog. Feel no need to get adversarial with others who don’t push their views on me.
There is nothing wrong with taking time off during the winter solstice and enjoying time with friends and family, regardless of one’s religious beliefs. This practice occurred way before the Christians made it “their” holiday.
I could give a rat’s a** whether a holiday is religious or not. For me it is tradition. Christmas, Thanksgiving (USA) hell even Easter. Then there is Super Bowl Sunday, Indy 500, you get the picture. Holidays should be enjoyed for the chance to spend time with family and friends.
Something both Theists and Atheists should keep in mind. If the idea is to promote the ideal of peaceful coexistence is that really a bad thing in today’s world. I think not.
I agree with some of the previous participants that Xmas for atheists is merely a secular holiday. I always attend my family’s annual Xmas dinner wearing a “Happy Solstice!” sweatshirt. As for Thanksgiving, I’m only thankful for the company and generosity of my family and friends, and that’s where my thanks are appropriately directed. I’m certainly not beholden to any imaginary deity. I always mark Thanksgiving on my calendar as Turkey Day, when we pay homage to our American Bird of Feasts.
we are going to celebrate a normal non christian yule like we have done for years in my family
I’m with John (#4). Party? I’m pretty much good with it. You can choose whatever reason you wish, as can I.
I don’t know of any important Christian religious holidays that do not have an origin in a pagan observance – as Christmas is based on Roman Saturnalia as well as other pagan holidays observed in northern Europe in antiquity. Easter MAY be a “big” holiday but many of its popular symbols (bunnies, chicks, eggs) are all pagan – and as we don’t get a day off I don’t take this seriously as much of a holiday. At least some other cultures have some kind of nature reawakening or fertility holiday around the time of Easter as well. Halloween too is based largely on ancient pagan rituals absorbed by Christianity to allow the pagan practices to continue. Thanksgiving and all others strike me as entirely secular – though some religious people seem bent on pulling some of them in.
So even though Christians like to say Jesus is “The reason for the season,” this is just not the case.
Any excuse to eat/party w/ friends–and you did forget about “Solstice”.
I’m happy to take the day off. We usually go on vacation.
I see I commented to this thread in 2008, but I didn’t say this. Anything that gives working people a day off to be with their families is good for me.
My children are in their forties now, and there are grandchildren and in-laws we love. We’re very close, though we’re physically so far apart we don’t see each other often. Christmas is the only time we all have enough time off to get together. None of us cares a hoot about the “reason for the season,” but we care deeply for each other.
I hope our small grandchildren can come to the farm this year for an Easter egg hunt, and to enyoy the traditional cinnamon rolls my wife has prepared on Easter Saturday for many years now, but I don’t know yet whether that’ll happen. There are other grandparents in the mix now, and some of them remain religious. Regardless, I repeat, I favor days off for working people. The demise of unions has made them fewer, but I have hope that that’ll turn around.
While I’m not Wiccan I tend to celebrate the Wiccan holidays which are seasonally based.
While I don’t believe in a conscious any sort of conscious”god” I am in awe of nature and the universe, the connectedness of life on a primal cellular level, the Gaia Principle.
Therefore the celebrating of harvest time and the changing of the seasons feels natural.
On the whole though I rather read Edward Abbey than the bible.
I choose to celebrate each day as important. I have no need for a “party” to recognize something that has become economic in nature at every turn.
Celebrate in a minor fashion. Nothing I would initiate. I usually get invited to some friends’ for San Gibbens (Thanksgiving), will probably eat some turkey at Xmas, have been invited to some Passover Seders by some fellow atheists.
I do christmas in the secular sense of getting together with friends and family. The same goes for Thanksgiving. Just because Christians make a religious ceremony out of the end of the harvest and the solstice is no reason for me to forgo a chance to party. After all they borrowed from someone else’s traditions. I will, however, let them do all the praying.
I don’t celebrate any holidays myself, but I have been invited to Passover seders for many years (my background is Christian). Despite the god-talk in the seders, my hosts are also atheists.
this past year, the humanists of the treasure coastFL) celebrated Humanlight/.Solstice along witg treasure coast atheists. We marked the natural joy of a returning sun. Our organizations often get together; many of us belong both groups. .Our next celebration will be the spring equinox—a picnic in a local park. We are making plans to celebrate arbor day and darwin day, too. Hey, we love to party! We rejoice in each other and in our natural world.