Holiday

[JurseyRider734]

Recently I've gotten into an arguement with a classmate about whether or not Kwanzaa is a holiday. My parameters:

Holiday literally means "holy day"
Kwanzaa = festival of life
Life=/=holy

So I told him Kwanzaa wasn't a holiday, and he argued.

Thoughts?

[Tasselfoot]

RE: Holiday

Is he black?

Frankly, I have no idea the origins of Kwanzaa, which religion it is for, or why it is celebrated. I've always thought that it was a recently added holiday to "compete" with christmas and hanukkah for muslims.

I'd like to know the origins before commenting fully, as to do otherwise would be the words of the uneducated, which are fairly meaningless.

[talisman]

RE: Holiday

sounds symantic... depends on your definition of holiday. Do you think that the fourth of july is a holiday? According to that position you wouldn't... same for basically every other state-declared "holiday".

edit: just wanted to let everyone know that, thanks to norton, I spelled semantic wrong in this post. Thanks norton. I don't even use you anymore, and yet you still corrupt my thinking.

[FishFishRevolution]

RE: Holiday

But talis you could argue that those who made it a holiday believed that God had a hand in the separation of this country and our independence.

[talisman]

RE: Holiday

fish that makes no sense.

A holiday in jurs' definition is something that directly celebrates the religion, NOT something that may or may not have been influenced by the religion. If that were the case then you could argue that every day is a holiday... since surely (using christianity as an example) God has a hand in everything that happens on the day to day basis.

[Tasselfoot]

RE: Holiday

Martin Luther King day is a federal holiday, Presidents Day, Labor Day, New Years, Thanksgiving...

all are "holidays". none are religious. all relate to events in our country's history.

[Grandiagod]

RE: Holiday

While holiday may be a combination of holy and day, holidays do not specifically have to be holy
or belong to any specific religion.

[esupin]

Re: RE: Holiday

I've always thought that it was a recently added holiday to "compete" with christmas and hanukkah.

That is why I don't think it is a legitimate holiday.


On another note, there has been all this crap about "Holiday" sales instead of "Christmas" sales, "Holiday" trees and "Christmas" trees. Personally, I think those idiots should shut their face because there is such a thing as too politically incorrect.

Plus, the founding fathers might have wanted to keep religion free from state, but they were pointing to the Catholic Church at that time. They did not mean no one should be able to name the tree in the town common a "Christmas tree." The founding fathers believed that religion was nessecary in keeping the morality of politics.

Like those Target of Macy's ads I've been seeing on TV. It just seems really weird to be having a holiday sale as opposed to a Christmas sale.

Not to mention those creepy twins in those Target commercials.

[elalcalde]

RE: Re: RE: Holiday

For Tass and others: Kwanzaa is not a Muslim holiday. In fact, it has nothing to do with religion at all. It is a cultural celebration, as opposed to a religious one, for African Americans (aka "black people") that was created in the 60's by a college professor and doctor in Berkeley, California. It's a week long, and begins on 12/26, in order to coincide with Christmas. (Wikipedia is great for filling holes in one's knowledge, btw )

@esupin: The founding fathers did not mean to exclude only Catholicism from government (after all, those who left England for America were Puritan, fleeing both Protestantism and Catholicism). If they meant that, they would have said that. What they actually did, though, was to totally separate church matters from state matters. Now it's impossible that their religion, that was so fundamental to their character, remained totally out of their viewpoints. But I doubt they thought that religion is necessary to keep politics "moral." First off, politics is not moral. It's about grabbing power and hanging on to it (see Machiavelli, Huey Long, realpolitik, and just about anything from European history). Second, why can't someone be moral without being religious?

[Tasselfoot]

RE: Re: RE: Holiday

I'm aware of wikipedia... and would have checked, had I actually cared. But, I'm glad my general understanding was fairly accurate in its origins...

and yes, it does seem to merely be around to give random black people an extra thing to celebrate, which is not necessarily a bad thing, they don't have much else to celebrate about the rest of the year. (lol... racism).

[elalcalde]

RE: Re: RE: Holiday

No offense or implication of your ignorance of Kwanzaa or Wikipedia was intended. I just responded to your first post, and the others, since nobody else seemed to know anything about Kwanzaa (which apparently has the second "a" at the end just for kicks).

[Grandiagod]

Re: RE: Re: RE: Holiday

yes, it does seem to merely be around to give random black people an extra thing to celebrate, which is not necessarily a bad thing, they don't have much else to celebrate about the rest of the year. (lol... racism).

Hmmm... when you think about it most holidays are just made up off of some other celebration. Vetrans day, Arbor Day ect. So if black people want their own "holiday" fine with me

[Shadow_of_fear]

Re: RE: Holiday

While holiday may be a combination of holy and day, holidays do not specifically have to be holy
or belong to any specific religion.

Yeah...I agree...

[Tasselfoot]

RE: Re: RE: Holiday

1. Only post if you can contribute something to the topic/debate. This means no more: "What <insert name> Said" , or "I agree/disagree".

Shadow... please adhere to this and please read the main stickied rules. The majority of the posts I've seen from you are extremely lacking in content.

[esupin]

Re: RE: Re: RE: Holiday

The founding fathers did not mean to exclude only Catholicism from government

True.

But I doubt they thought that religion is necessary to keep politics "moral."

A quote from George Washington(I just did an essay on his farewell address): "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports."

I know you mention real/welt politick and whatnot, but that wasn't me point. Those are European ideals, not American. I'm just trying to say that the founding fathers wanted to keep politics moral, unlike what they believed their European counterparts were doing.

So Kwanzaa was created by Americans...