Bearing in mind that Wikipedia is not 100% reliable (though it tends to be fairly close on non-controversial well documented matters.)

The article I linked quotes "The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher" describing (from eye witness accounts) a thanksgiving celebration in Canada in 1578, well before any Englishmen in what is now the US were celebrating thankgiving or doing anything else, since none arrived there until about 30 years later. Wikipedia does not provide the page number, but Google Books maintains a redacted online version here:

http://books.google.no/books?id=3F9MJjZN638C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Three+voyages+of+martin+frobisher&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false


It sounds like you are saying the federal Thanksgiving holiday was more at odds with the predominant church within Quebec, which stands to reason, but that does not make its establishment of an overtly religious holiday any less so. At most, it could be called a case of (pre-existing) religious schism, and a federal religious holiday whose religious aspects most of one provinces populace rejected as the product of a different religion. That does not make it any less religious, just as Christmas is no less Christian just because many non-Christians exchange gifts and spend time with their family while completely ignoring the holidays inherently religious aspects. It simply means some participate solely in the non-religious aspects of what remains first and foremost a religious holiday.


It sounds more like the church never adopted it, to be expected if they viewed it as the product of a different religion and, to some extent, even culture.


If nearly all celebrations have a religious aspect, that supports rather than refutes my argument; it means Thanksgiving would almost inevitably be a religious holiday even were it not explicitly declared one (though the fact it was certainly drives home the point.)


That is actually my view of much pagan mythology, particularly those involving miraculously born and resurrected saviors. The orthodox Christian view is that the pertinent parts of the gospel were no secret centuries or even millennia before the birth of Christ, only obscured by so much figurative language and general ignorance of future specifics they were impossible to comprehend. Hence the common reference to Genesis 3:15 as the "Protoevangelium;" if one accepts it as valid, all other miraculously born and resurrected saviors must be subsequent to it, and have a convenient explanation: The most obvious details were preserved but the substantive meaning increasingly lost as sin made the relationship between God and man (if any) increasingly distant.

All that said, if one values the civil and filial celebration and symbolism but opposes the religious aspects, the natural and logical response is to preserve the former as something more palatable than the latter. Sweden replacing one of its religious holidays with a secular one held on the same date is a fine example, the kind of thing I expect to be more common; the only strange thing is that they and similar countries have not done it more.


That sounds more like a post-organized religion era than a post-Christian one. Our native countries made conscious efforts to avoid the traumas of Europes religious wars (which I personally think another example of Europe learning the wrong lesson from its psychic scarring: Not that people should not kill each other in Gods name, but that belief in God should be discouraged because it inevitably leads to killing.)

Still and so, my response is much the same: If non-religious people wish to retain non-religious aspects of religious holidays, there is nothing to stop them, but is inexplicable to think of them retaining the religious aspects they dislike. Again, North America is actually a good example of that (I have not checked the state holidays in South America,) but what is odd is that North American countries are significantly more religious (privately and publicly) than Western European ones, but have far less explicitly religious holidays. One would expect the most religious nations to have the most religious holidays, and the least so to have the least, but the reverse is true. The latter could easily continue enjoying the secular pleasures of those holidays and retain them as state holidays without the religious aspects to which most are indifferent when they are not actively hostile—yet, with the single exception of Sweden converting one religious holiday to a secular one, none have done so.


Fair enough then; I had not read or thought of Lenten fasts as an austerity measure in the last months of winter, but it makes sense on that basis.


I am unsure how much it is waning in the States, but when it wanes to the point of being negligible, and when many, even most, are antagonistic toward religion, it seems almost inevitable that they would retain what they dislike and expel what they dislike. The biggest argument that religious holidays remain just that is that they retain their religious basis even when many or even most do not subscribe to the religion: They accept the religious holiday for its non-religious elements DESPITE its continued religious ones. They do not alter it to a purely secular observance; we annually hear the fundamentalist right bewailing a "war on Christmas," but there is very little evidence for it outside their claims, despite many non-Christians observing the holiday to varying degrees. Non-Christians are content to enjoy the non-religious elements while leaving it very much a religious holiday.


Well, were I to become a Norwegian citizen I could still enjoy July 4th, too, but that would not change its basis; much of that enjoyment would still stem from having BEEN an American citizen even though I were one no longer. Millions of Americans using Cinco de Mayo and St. Patricks Day to be drunken fools does not alter the nature of those holidays either; it just makes many of the celebrants ignorant when they are not downright insulting. If a lot of your values and ethics remain Christian, so does a lot of your Christmas, by tradition and habit if not observance and adherence. There is nothing wrong with preserving those elements for their own sake, but why needlessly invoke a deity when one is indifferent, at best? Indeed, you have amply cited many examples of earlier Christians retaining or even adopting non-religious aspects of holidays henceforth observed as Christian ones: They kept what they liked, including the dates, but in a holiday divorced from beliefs they rejected and incorporated into those they accepted.

Again, I think it not only inaccurate to say Christmas (et al.) are no longer religious, but dangerous. It gives undue weight to alarmist cries of war on Christmas (and by extension Christianity, the allegations real point,) that secularists/pagans are "stealing" our holiday in a covert assault upon our faith.

Personally, I am a bit uncomfortable with even the two state religious holidays America has, though Thanksgiving is not a big deal, because non-sectarian. The whole issue could be avoided by simply adopting the state mandated vacation days standard in every other industrialized state. People would have ample days off to devote to any religious observance they chose, or none. That is a far more democratic arrangement than telling those of all religions or none the government and most businesses WILL be closed for the holy day of one religion, but they must come to work on the holiest days of their religion if they do not happen to subscribe to that the state endorses. In many cases, it would only standardize and make universal the practice already common in many businesses, and nearly universal now for government employees.