A student at my school claimed Halloween isn't a holiday, because it has no religious affiliation. It's true most holidays have a religious affiliation, but what do you think?

Tags: halloween, holidays

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You are completely misunderstanding the discussion.  Completely.


No, no-one here is bitching about religious (or any other) holidays.  What we're doing is discussing whether or not holidays can be secular.  Seems like you've come to this forum with some kind of anti-atheist/anti-American agenda that is clouding your reading comprehension.

I think Godfried Huxley is upset because he found out there is no Santa Claus so he's taking it out on Atheists.

Right, like Europe is on a 60hr work week like me.  And for most people that's 40 to 50hrs per week and 2 people in the family doing those hours each, while the kids are in the care of someone else.  We have it sooooo easy.

They’re called National Holidays. Since you’re in school a quick look at the academic calendar should point out several non-religious holidays. Erik listed several. There are also Civic Holidays which may be specific to individual states. Here is a description of the civic holiday:


A civil holiday, civic holiday, legal holiday, or work holiday is a day that is legally recognized and celebrated as a holiday in a particular sovereign state or jurisdictional subdivision of such, e.g., a state or a province and may be known as a public holiday. It is usually a day that the legislature, parliament, congress, or sovereign has declared by statute, edict, or decree as a non-working day when the official arms of government such as the court system are closed.


“Patriots Day” is such a holiday and is only celebrated in New England.

Holiday does derive from Holy Day, and Halloween derives from All Hallows Eve the day before All Saints Day, in its present form with a tip of the hat to Samhain.

However, any linguist will tell you that the meaning of words change over time.  Consider the word "suffer" used to mean "allow".

That institution is using a grossly outdated definition of holiday.  The meaning of holiday means vacation in the UK and means a day of great significance in American English.  It doesn't mean merely religious days anymore.  It hasn't meant this for a while.

your peace sign created by roman catholic's ... wikipedia :)

the power of symbols, words ... religion has created so many "holiday's" now ... turning the torcherious death of a human being into divine gift, this is repulsive, simply madnness. p.s. research "holiday" "the peace sign" both created by catholicism ... 



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