Things We Learned Today... | Page 135 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I just 1) recalled the bassline and 2) learned the rhythm guitar part from All My Loving (I still can’t play the latter at speed), and I have to say, I think I’ve learned that John Lennon had SERIOUS rhythm chops. Holey houses. (I would say I also learned that the Beatles were arrangement geniuses, but I’m pretty sure I already knew that, I had just forgotten a bit. )

No one’s forcing you to observe a holiday you don’t celebrate; it mostly just means you get an extra paid day off. Christmas is more of a secular institution at this point anyway, and it’s such a big deal culturally that it would be weirder if the US didn’t recognize it; most agnostic or atheist Americans, and even some of other religions, celebrate Christmas as well as Christian Americans.

Apparently there was a court ruling over this in 1999 which came to largely the same conclusion I did.

50yearslate said
But that’s what I meant when I said they were forced to observe it. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have paid days off on the holidays I celebrate than those I don’t.

To be clear, I don’t necessarily think that Christmas shouldn’t be a federally observed holiday, I just think that if it is they should recognize other ones too.

  

Totally agree. Catholicism isn’t the only religion, it would be appropriate to recognise some other major religions… you know, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism…

@50yearslate said
But that’s what I meant when I said they were forced to observe it. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have paid days off on the holidays I celebrate than those I don’t.

To be clear, I don’t necessarily think that Christmas shouldn’t be a federally observed holiday, I just think that if it is they should recognize other ones too.  

The question is, are these holidays major enough as cultural American events to warrant federal recognition? The reason Christmas is a big enough cultural deal is because America was (and still is, to a lesser extent) made up of a majority of Christians, leading to what is arguably Christianity’s biggest holiday* becoming ingrained in the culture to the point of secularity, whereas holidays such as Ramadan or Hanukkah are still predominantly religious in nature and practiced by a relative minority. I have no problem with other holidays being recognized, but only if there is good reason to do so, and I would consider “good reason” to be when enough of a majority of people celebrate them so that they become part of America’s cultural institutions rather than specifically being just religious holidays. It’s kind of a numbers thing; culture is rather democratic in that whatever trend has the most (and loudest) people behind it will be considered mainstream. And, really, when all is said and done, it’s about getting a paid day off more than anything. We already have many protections in place for religious institutions/practitioners and workers, so I doubt the lack of federal recognition for, say, Hanukkah is presenting a huge practical problem with getting off work to practicing Jews.

TL;DR: when it comes down to it, despite being of Christian origin, Christmas is a cultural holiday more than anything for the majority of Americans… others are more specifically religious and don’t have enough secular cultural clout to warrant federal recognition.

also @The Hole Got Fixed I think you meant Christianity when you said Catholicism…?

*There are those who will make the case for Easter, but Christmas is, I believe, rather more secular than Easter at this point, for whatever reason, so I would argue that Christmas is Christianity’s most successful holiday insofar as it has infiltrated the general culture.

Beatlebug said
also @The Hole Got Fixed I think you meant Christianity when you said Catholicism…?

Yep… Of course I did!

No one’s attacking Christmas, Wigwam. We are simply calling for more (hell, equal!) recognition for the other religious holidays.

Basically, even though it isn’t necessarily  holiday for the majority, it would also help change the negative attitudes to the other religions over time, purely by fact of having a holiday. Just for this reason I would advocate for at least one day of Hannukah and Ramadan, as well as Holi and Chinese New Year (which isn’t just Chinese) being a public holiday, to name a few.

Honestly there are too many public holidays that don’t really mean much, at least these days – swap Labor Day for, say, Chinese New Year. I feel like that’s a good net result – more minority recognition, the public still get paid holidays, and there aren’t too many public holidays that bog down the economy (or whatever the reason is for not having 28 holidays like Cambodia)