Are there any movements in your country to remove religious holidays from the government/schools?

10 comments

1. Not any mainstream massive movements, no. It is debated from time to time in the labour movement and amongst progressive politicians, to replace the 11 national holidays—Denmark _only_ has religious national holidays, defined by the Evangelical-Lutheran Church—with 2 extra weeks of vacation, or with 11 days off, workers themselves can control the planning of, but it is not anything massively or majorly discussed for the time being.

   If it was to become a national subject of debate, the lines would likely be along progressives vs liberals and conservatives; as it with a lot of things in Denmark. Liberals are likely to oppose anything that questions the status of the national church, or the narrative that “Denmark is a Christian nation;” an argument also often used in the debate about minority rights and immigration.

2. I haven’t heard of such a thing here. Especially christmas and easter are part of our culture and I don’t think many people see them as ways to brainwash children. Those who aren’t religious might have a nice lunch (easter) or dinner (Christmas) with the family and enjoy their time off. Only 34% is christian, 10% have another religion and 56% is not religious, but I’m fairly sure the percentage of people who enjoy Christmas is higher than 34%.

   **However**, many people want to get rid of 1 Christian Holiday to make liberation day a holiday every year. Now it’s only a holiday once every 5 years (really weird). So they aren’t sacred (hehe) but I haven’t heard off people who want to get rid of them because they are christian holidays.

3. No, I’ve not heard of this here. We have seats in our national legislature which are reserved for bishops, our head of state is also the head of the state church, we have religious services in schools, we have faith schools, schools can discriminate on the basis of religion when admitting pupils, religious communities are exempt from animal welfare laws, some householders can be forced to pay for repairs to local churches, etc. The fact that the winter school break is called “the Christmas holidays” just isn’t a priority for secular campaigners here.

4. This is discussed from time to time in left-wing newspapers. However, there are no real political movements to abolish Christian holidays; in reality, only a few years ago, in 2017, a new Christian holiday, the Protestant Reformation Day, was introduced as a new holiday in some northern German states.

   However, with the current accelerating collapse of the Catholic and Protestant churches, this could well change in the future.

5. Those holidays are still big in Ireland, even though we have more people of other religions here now. Freedom of religion and recognising other ones, should not mean suppressing your own. Usually people of a particular religion are not offended by other religions, and it is other people who try to say there is a problem. Most Muslims or Jews or Buddhists etc. have no problem with Christmas or Easter, but people not of any of those religions are afraid they will be offended. Most Christians have no problem with the special celebrations of other religions either, so there is no reason to suppress our own beliefs in order to respect others.

6. Christmas and Easter in Slovakia are full of old pagan traditions, some are older than the Christian ones and have Slavic roots more than a 1000 years old, so even if these are Christian holidays, there is more to them than just the Christian part, it’s a Christian-Pagan mix with magical rituals. It’s not Santa, but Baby Jesus the one who brings the gifts, non-religious people usually don’t have any problem with it. [Christmas](https://www.welcometobratislava.eu/christmas-slovakia/) is also the most popular holiday, an important family holiday (with great food) and a huge day for kids especially. The Christmas market is something everyone enjoys. Those who are non-religious just don’t practice the religious traditions. The main Easter tradition is very pagan. But also, we are almost exclusively a Christian country, other religions are small.

   The only religious holiday that is not seen particularly well by the atheists is 15 September, Day of Our Lady of Sorrows, Patron Saint of Slovakia. The government tried to cancel a few holidays because we have “too much of them”, but I don’t think it would be the religious ones, at least not the big ones. There are 6 national holidays (1 religious) and 10 public holidays (8 religious). Anyway, people are usually happy that they can stay home for the holiday and don’t have to go to work and kids to school (it makes 15+ days a year).

7. Many nondenominational states (countries) have the following trick up their sleeve:

   There is a number of public holidays to be allocated each year. Each year the allocation is decided and announced. there is national days (independence days, discovery of the Americas, winning WWII, etc…) and some religious festivals are made holidays on the ground of a majority of people celebrating them; if it were no longer the case, those days would be allocated elsewhere. No need to officially even refer to the religious name but just spring break, new year holidays, etc…

8. I am not aware of anything like this. Majority of people considers any public holiday above all as a free day, hardly anything else. This means there is no strong opinion in general public about their purpose. As very non-religious country we have four religious holidays. Our Easter and Christmas are considered to be a nice tradition, but only few connect it with religion.

9. Sounds odd to me, because, though the recent history of these festivals are partly Christian, they are much older than that, and really reflect ancient aspects of living on a planet in nature and with the seasons and so on. But I suppose by downgrading the specifically Christian elements, much of Europe is showing that we have in effect already done what you are talking about: the Christians will go to church, the rest get a day off (and maybe a bible story at school).

   What you are certainly more likely to get in Britain (other European countries may have their equivalents; for my kids in Germany there was almost nothing like this I think – they went to very potato schools) is schools marking Diwali or Eid or Hanukkah. That can be controversial, but rather for reasons I would see as usually narrow-minded and xenophobic.

10. In France we have multiple christian hollydays but the country is very secular. They’re more part of our culture, like old cathedrals or mentions of Roman gods than anything else.

    If they were removed, people would be pissed of because they still serve a purpose outside of religion. Christmas or Easter for example are a big part of family reunions and making fun childhood memories for kids. They’re also a strong benefit for the off season tourism which is good for our industry.

    It all makes sense considering these hollydays existed before Christianity and I don’t think we should cancel them just because a dying religion took credit for them.

    It would be like burning all of the art and architecture done by the church when it was in power. It would just be a loss and wouldn’t serve any purpose.