Do you recognize and celebrate "Columbus day"? Why?
If I got the day off from work, I would celebrate it like most minor holidays, by goofing off, watching TV, or playing on the Internet. Since my employer does not give me the day off, I go to work like any other day.That said, although Columbus did some pretty horrific things during his life, he did accomplish the discovery of American for Europeans. This connection was extremely significant, probably the most important of the millennium (ok at least in the top ten). It made an incredible change in the course of history.Absent Columbus, there probably would have been no chance that my mother, an American of German origin and my father, an American of Irish origin would ever have met and married. Therefore, I probably owe my existence to Columbus.I think we can acknowledge someone who has made great contributions to the course of history, even if they did have selfish motives, or other grave moral flaws.
Why do we celebrate or recognize President's Day, instead of Washington's birthday as it originally was set up to commerorate?
The big lie. It is the late sixties and there are thoughts of adding a federal holiday. The debate is who to honor. The candidates are varied. FDR is solid but the president is Richard Nixon. There are votes for John Kennedy but like FDR, he was a Democrat. Close to half the country already has Lincoln’s birthday as a holiday AND he was the first Republican President. But the south has never honored Abe’s birthday. A decade earlier it probably would have been a done deal and the solidly democratic south would have been told “that is what happens when you decide to leave a country and lose. However with the Civil Rights act of 1964 the south is no longer as solid and no longer as democratic. So, Nixon speech calls the new holiday “ Presidents Day” to honor all Presidents! The reason I said it was a lie? Because officially it is Washington’s Birthday and there was only one change. Rather than celebrating Washington’s Birthday on February 22nd, it will now be observed on the nearest Monday to provide workers with a 3 day weekend. Don’t worry though this will have no effect on state holidays. Except it did and within a few years almost no one was celebrating Lincoln’s birthday except car dealerships!
What are some holidays celebrated by Jehovah Witnesses?
The Watchtower Society basis it's belief of not celebrating "holidays" from multiple scriptural proof texts. The proof text used depends on what holiday we are talking about. Keep in mind that there are a couple of exceptions to the rule which are not consistently applied. 2 Cor 6:17 ""Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.."This is typically the scripture used by JW's to abstain from the majority of holidays. This is also the reason JW's do not celebrate Birth-Anniversaries [birthdays]. However they will celebrate Wedding-Anniversaries.They do not celebrate the birth of Christ [Christmas] but will celebrate the death of Christ [on Nissan 14 / before Easter]For the vast majority of witnesses, these are the two exceptions to the rule. But I have experienced some further exceptions as well. For Example, culturally you may have many JW's who love to watch the fireworks on the 4th of July. Does this constitute "celebrating?" Or have BBQ's. Also there are many witnesses who have turkey dinner on Thanksgiving..is this also "Celebrating?"There is no hard and fast standard for what a Witness will or will not "Celebrate" or to what degree they will participate. Some are more strict then others. Some will push the standards to the limit.I hope this helped
Should Halloween be recognised as a purely atheist holiday?
Halloween is short for “all hallows evening”, which is to say the night before All Hallows day, a religious holiday which doesn’t get a lot of attention. But I can’t see how this makes it “purely atheist”It also is traditionally treated as a Wiccan holiday, and a Satanist one, and I’ll wager there are some others I’m not thinking of.As these are also religions, again, the “purity” of the atheism is questionable.Worse, there are no atheist statements to the holiday. Not one of the customs of scary costumes, costumes in general, witches and black cats and skeletons, ghosts and vampires, so on and so forth, proclaim “I don’t happen to believe in God” or anything of the sort.At best you could say it is a secular holiday, which is to say religion is not involved at all. The fourth of July is such a holiday, any mention of Gods is merely shoehorned in where it doesn’t belong, there. But Halloween can be celebrated with or without religious overtones, it just depends on how you want to take it.If you want an Atheist holiday, you should consider Xmas. This holiday has all but had the “God” component scrubbed off of it, and the idea of knowingly falsely promoting belief in a supernatural arbitrator of “good and bad”, complete with rewards and magical powers, which will inevitably be seen through as the “victims” mature, is a wonderful way to promote the freethinking which often results in atheism.But taking the Christ out of Xmas would not help with that end, since His very nominal inclusion only helps the idea along. Wait, they discover, not only is this God claim as unfounded as the Santa Claus one, but this isn’t even His birthday? And all these things we do to celebrate it came from prior pagan rituals? WTF, is this Christ guy even real, either?It’s a beautiful thing. Not sure why the Christians play along.
Why do christians celebrate pagen holidays?
Christmas is a pagen holiday why do Christians claim its religious. For the Christians, the most important day of the year is Christmas in which supposedly they celebrate the birth of Jesus. Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of people celebrate this religious holiday. The irony of Christmas is that its origins are actually pagan, and completely antithetical to Jesus who deplored pagan practises. . Jesus was not born in the winter. December was actually the time in which the pagans used to celebrate Saturnalia in honor of the pagan god Saturn. Christians adopted the pagan German holiday of Yule which took place on December 25th. "Yule" and "Yuletide" are the archaic terms for Christmas, and this is the meaning of "Yule" in both the full Oxford English Dictionary and the Concise Oxford Dictionary. In many foreign languages, people still use the word "Yule" as opposed to Christmas. . The ritual of decorating one's house with a Christmas tree is also from pagan origins.
Do you celebrate May Day?
Yes, I celebrate it. While it's not an officially recognized holiday in the US, it is celebrated by pagans here. We refer to it as Beltane more often than May Day.
If you celebrate christmas as a traditional or secular holiday...?
Do you think that we should at least recognize Jesus from human a human point of few? A hugely influential figure of history that shaped the future the way it is today? Image if Jesus never existed, our current society could have turned out completely different, better or worse. Like the idea or not, we are where we are today because of event's of our past that shaped today, Jesus as a human being was one of them. While I love the Christmas tree's, light's, decorations, giving and receiving presents, Family, friends etc I also like the religious side. I raised Catholic but I admit Im not really a big church goer. I do like the religious side of the holiday though: Midnight Mass (there's always a great atmosphere), Cribs, The nativity, Christmas carol's (Silent night, O holy Night, Come all ye faithful etc and general ones). I suppose my point is Christmas was started by celebrating the birth of Jesus, a man who had a message of peace and love. Even if your not religious, shouldn't that be remembered at least at some level at Christmas?
Why do some employers not recognize Martin Luther King Day as a holiday?
Martin Luther King day is a relatively new holiday. It is not a traditional holiday like Memorial Day or July 4th. Further, Americans are expected to put in far more hours than most people in modern industrial nations. Two weeks off a year for vacation and seven or eight paid holidays or nothing is not unusual. Some employers view the any holiday as another excuse for taking money out of their pockets.Further a minority of employers are African-American. They presume that their mostly white employees don't particularly care. I think they also believe that there is no actual celebration and employees only take the day off. Employers of a large number of African Americans might allow a day off.Finally, there are quite a few other legal holidays where most people work: Washington's Birthday, Columbus Day, and Veteran's Day.
Do Jehova's Witnesses do anything at all on holidays?
Jehovah's Witnesses only celebrate one day a year, the day of Jesus Christ's death. Why? Because this is the ONLY celebration that true Christians are commanded to observe. On these days, we do have special arrangements for going into our field ministry at certain times, but other than that these "holidays" as celebrated by the country or the world is viewed as nothing more than another ordinary day. Holidays such as Christmas, Halloween, and others have strong roots and origins from pagan, false religious worship. As such, we have no share in these god-dishonoring events. Our heavenly father is well aware from where these celebrations and customs began, and would not be pleased by our taking part in them. These holidays can be viewed in this way: suppose you see a lollipop in a trash heap. Would you pick up that lollipop and eat it? Definitely not. In the same way, the lollipop may still seem sweet as the celebrating of such holidays may seem good and "sweet" to many, but consider where it came from. It came from the trash, from the dirty false religious ideals and practices that are out of harmony with Bible truth.
Do you think that Christmas day being a federal holiday is discriminatory and favors Christianity over other religions?
I feel mixed about this, personally. Ideologically, I believe in separation of church and state, but practically it would not work very well to change it.On one level, it’s important to recognize that Christmas has been diluted into largely a cultural holiday. While some churches have their “keep the Christ in Christmas” campaigns or truly ridiculous moves like “happy holidays” or the Starbucks Red Cup stupidity from a few years ago, what do you think of when you think of Christmas? Probably mistletoe, Christmas trees, snow, the endless songs…there are people who observe Christmas traditions which aren’t even Christian. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still definitely observed by churches today as an explicitly Christian holiday, but at this point, that’s not all it is. Easter is the Christian holiday that is still very religious.For better or for worse, Christmas as the day when the entire country comes to a stand still has become the theme. If the government decided to take it back as a federal holiday, businesses and services would probably still continue their practices of closing on Christmas out of habit. Not to mention, it would cause another moral panic among the crowd that thinks our country needs to be explicitly religious. I really don’t want to see that happen.One of the main things that a federal holiday does it means government offices will be closed. If Christmas wasn’t a federal holiday, offices would be open…and all the staff would be expected to come in. But in reality, most of the staff would take the holiday off. Practically speaking, it just works best when a holiday the majority of people do observe in some fashion, is recognized so that offices aren’t opened unnecessarily.