thread creep: happy happ tomorrow, Joe!And now, back to the show:
Well, ask a question, go away to await an answer, and look what you get! Good discussion, all, and some immediate responses… sorry for the long post, but this IS a very interesting discussion, as someone mentioned…
MMArio – Ummm, how does noticing physical reality, like the fact that our orbit is elliptical and our planet's axis of rotation tilted from the orthogonal to the plane of that orbit, become religion? The days DO get shorter, nothing religious about that, in the fall. Also, I explained our take on presents – it's a physical demonstration of love of family, which is again, not religious. One can love without positing supernatural beings.
Jeri – good song suggestions! And in your second post, I wondered that too…
WYSIWYG – our midwinter would be pro-family, pro-love, pro-Spring Will Come Again; the celebration isn't anti-Christian or anti-faith, just Christ- or Faith-INDEPENDENT. I do admit that the thread title doesn't bear that out, but I'd hoped that my intro paragraph would. We incorporate a lot of Kwanzaa, just without the exclusionary language (PEOPLE should have unity, not Americans of African Ancestry should have unity, and so on).
Ron Olesko – the reason Why Bother is that having the vestiges of Christianity in our hitherto-thought-of-as-secular midwinter holiday, which we did call Christmas, bothers some of us, most notably the (one) religious Jew and some of the (many) atheists. It would NOT bother the others NOT to celebrate Christmas, so that is why bother, I guess! Might as well not have anybody unhappy at the outset, or feeling excluded which my nephew certainly does more than I… and I have no arguments with celebrating the Solstice, after all, it really happens whether you are a theist or not, but we don't all have the solstice OFF, so we HAVE to do it at Christmas. We just don't want to DO Christmas then. And we're not trying to sell others on it, I am asking for opinions and guidance in how to do it and still have it MEAN something to us. Also, as a committed (or suitable for being committed?) decaf drinker, let me tell you, decaf has ALL the psychological Up power of coffee, AND just enough caffeine for the physical lift if you're caffeine-sensitive…
Mark Clark – thanks, interesting article!
MMario – yes, indeed, but many solstice things are real, not supernatural, so I have no argument with including them. I like the evergreen, especially, as a celebration of the human intellect, which possibly alone on the planet can realize, in the depths of winter, that Spring will come again. I love that.
Joe Offer – I noticed that too, my kids are doing Hanukkah and Kwanzaa stuff at school, but can't do anything Christian-Christmassy… in high school once I did a paper on comparative religion, comparing the origin myth in ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and modern Christianity, and got in all kinds of trouble for treating the Christian myth as mythology! Ridiculous. Unfortunately, it's the basic assumption of Christianity as NORMAL and of everything else as mythology/superstition that is at the crux, pardon the pun, of what bothers both Nick and me so much. We aren't Christians but that should not make use deviates, by definition, the way it seems to, and seems even more to at Midwinter. So in answer to another of your questions, just because something real, like an evergreen, also has religious connotations, doesn't mean it has to be eliminated. But the things that are ONLY religious and have no basis in actual physical reality, like Christ, angels, etc., are what I'm trying to circumvent. So much of the basic ancient Solstice stuff is fine, we just don't WORSHIP the planet as it orbits, we NOTICE and celebrate the breakpoints; I also note the equinoxes and the summer solstice…
SharonA – you'd be AMAZED at what people in my family can take the wrong way! The ongoing argument with the very Jewish nephew all circle around the basic fact that WE are doing nothing to exclude him but nonetheless, what we do DOES leave him feeling excluded, and I am on his side to a great extent. I agree with you that people OUGHT NOT take things the wrong way, but we are dealing with an already dysfunctional group, remember! LOL! I wish I could say that all songs of peace and goodwill are fine; but I really mind the ones that say it's So you'll go to heaven later, or So some supernatural being will be happy with you, OR that it's the angels who brought this idea to humans, and all the other devaluing-of-humanity garbage, sorry, there really is no better word, that putting religion between people and reality does. Rant off for now…
RON Olesko, I'm going to try again… there already IS a holiday that is being celebrated on Dec. 25th. We don't want to have NO holiday where the whole family gets together, overeats, and gives presents to each other. The trick is to have a holiday that includes our whole family, some of whom are Moslem, some Jewish, one Christian (unless you count the extendeds, which includes Catholics, Mormons, Quakers, and others), and the large majority is atheists. Giving gifts is NOT tied to religion by definition, how did you make that leap of logic? Yes, birthdays and anniversaries are nice, but they do not include the whole family, who travel for hundreds of miles once a year to be together and share presents. We can't call an entire-family holiday just because one or two people are having a birthday, or a couple is having an anniversary. Just because the evergreen ALSO has religious connotations doesn't make it religions, it's a real-life tree. Do I make more sense now?
SharonA said it for me, but I hadn't read that far yet…
And RonO, it isn't that we are unwilling to get together, it's just that because of the basic assumed Christianity of this country, yuletide is the only time of year we all have off from work. And I thought I was trying to do the exact opposite of "taking the symbols and themes of the holiday and making [them] serve another purpose" – I'm for keeping the holiday and changing the symbols and themes!
53 – see all above
Jerry Rasmussen – BINGO. That is one of the things I'm asking for advice on – I was willing to call it Midwinter, but that isn't accurate as was pointed out, so how about NeoWinter? New celebration, new winter, etc?
McGrath of Harlow – You say re: minding all the Christmas stuff as Jpe Offer mentioned – "I can't. I've don't feel the least bit uncomfortable about Muslims celebrating Ramadan and Id-al-fitar, or Jews celebrasting Passover and Hanukah , or Hindus with Divali and Holiand so forth. The more celebrations the better, and the more we all feel invited to join in them the better still." I would normally agree with you BUT Hanukkah and Kwanzaa are so visibly afterthoughts, with everything DEFAULT being Christian; I have NEVER anywhere in the US seen a Sears doing Ramadan sales. I have never anywhere seen a store even doing a Hanukkah sale. If all were treated equally, I wouldn't mind. What I do mind is the ASSUMPTION that Christianity is the norm, the default, and that anything else is "something else" – and atheism isn't even a possibility. Yuck. And again, we are stuck with Dec. 25th because this assumption is our own governments' as well. Double yuck.
MMario – and well it should be!
Liz the Squeak – I was hoping to hear from you on this one! Yes, Yule is OK with me – even if it has religious CONNOTATIONS it isn't BY DEFINITION a religious thing – and yes, we do need a secular word for holiday! How about Great Day? It would sound like a Southerner swearing, but hey, I hear a lot of that anyway… to become greday eventually, à la holy day becoming holiday.
Lepus Rex – if it was just me being atheistic, I'd agree with you, but there is that pesky fundamentalist nephew, who isn't atheistic, so it DOES offend his whatevers, unfortunately…and no, nobody had mentioned Festivus! Whazzat? But about Santa, for some reason, he's OK with the nephew at issue, go figure. I'd rather eliminate him too except for the goodness it's worth in December (don't do that, Santa might see you!)…
CapriUni, good explanation of solstice etc. Yes, logistics are logistics, gender remaining irrelevant. But the solstice is planetary, not hemispherical, it's just our winter one is their summer one. They have their winter solstice in our summer.
Clint Keller, if only it were so easy! Some of us, you see, care. And I think all of us, not just CapriUni, will be quoting that art/critic phrase! Very good one!
Joe Offer – them Catlicks sure know how to throw a wedding! They didn't mind the likes of us at all, it will be excellent, my well-wishes will be with you though I will not…
Misophist – actually the plan is that the holly represent evergreens, the tree represent evergreens, and the mistletoe represent evergreens. Evergreens are the symbol of humanity's ken, that despite the physical appearance of the world, we have the knowledge, or foreknowledge if you will, of the future coming of Spring and the greening of what is now appearing to be dead. Baldur the Beautiful, Thor, Christ, or other mythological figures are not involved.
MartyD – I actually had been wondering about Columbus day, why not call it Kill off the Indigenous populations day? Exploration day indeed, that alone implies that nobody knew of this land before the Europeans got there… what, the natives had no maps? (sorry! But that is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about!)
Rolfyboy6 – Second the motion!
JimmyC – exactly! That is why I don't want to CALL what we do Christmas!
Dave the Gnome – I think you've been answered?
McGrath again – yes, Groundhog day is ubiquitous in the US, but I don't think it's exactly CELEBRATED, more noticed.
Dani – beautiful, but not for me. Let's allow for some high days to be NOT holy. Freedom FROM religion! What an immaculate concept!
Spaw – a better idea than you know, probably! I'm against the use of the year numbers we use, as they are based on Christianity; but then again, apparently anybody who counts the years starts them SOMEWHERE – and that somewhere is basically religious in all calendars. I'd like to see the years numbered according to reality, say they start with the uprise of humanity (nobody else cares what year it is), we'd be in, oh, say circa 5,002,002, so then the 2002 would be OK, just rounding error…???