Seculareligious Holidays: How Unbelievers Approach Holy Days

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“Seculareligious” Holidays: How Unbelievers Approach Holy Days

Alain de Botton, in his TED talk “Atheism 2.0”, identified various attributes from religions that he thinks atheism, the non-religious community, would do well to emulate. Of these attributes, one that stood out was how all religions, almost as a universal rule, each have a calendar by which believers adhere to. These calendars typically mark days, or even weeks, that carry some importance and meaning to followers of a given religion, and serves as a reminder for the values of which these religions stand for. For instance, the Christian calendar has a season of Lent, whereby Christians all over the world choose to give up worldly comforts and fast for a period a little longer than a month, as a time for self-reflection and penance to prepare for Easter. Members of these religions all across the world would be able to stay synchronized regardless of any geographical limitations using a unified calendar. According to Botton, having a calendar that is observed by all followers of the religion enables the religion to be “multinational, branded, and possessing an identity so they don't get lost” (de Botton). Therefore, it is unsurprising how the secular world have adapted various religious holidays and integrated it into their own culture.

Of all religious holidays that have been adopted by secularists, one of the most popular would be Christmas, originally meant to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. With the exact date of Jesus' birth unknown during ancient times, Christmas was initially assigned to January 6th, but was changed to December 25th under the influence of the winter solstice (Nothaft 903). Peculiarly however, is the universal celebration of Christmas al...

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...erial online]. October 2012; 39(3): 530-544. Accessed 20 April 2014.

Martin A. Don’t Eat in The Living Room. New Statesman [serial online]. December 13, 2004;133(4718/4719):52-53. Accessed 22 April 2014.

Moellinger T. Santa or The Grinch: Paradoxes Presented by the Use of Today’s Popular Media. Human Studies [serial online]. June 2010;33(2/3):205-220. Accessed April 21, 2014.

New International Version. [Colorado Springs]: Biblica, 2011. BibleGateway.com. Web. 3 Mar 2011. Accessed 22 April 2014.

Nothaft, C. The Origins of the Christmas Date: Some Recent Trends in Historical Research. Church History [serial online]. December 2012; 81(4):903. Accessed April 20, 2014.

Smith, J. Becoming an Atheist in America: Constructing Identity and Meaning from the Rejection of Theism. Sociology of Religion [serial online]. Summer 2011; 72(2):215-237. Accessed April 20, 2014.

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