Why is it that your family gathers on Christmas in order to celebrate peace? Why not Eid? Why not Rosh Hashanah? Why not a million different holidays from the literal thousands of existing religions?
The reason you’re celebrating on Christmas of all holidays is because you’re culturally Christian. It’s not something to be ashamed of – you just need to be aware of it.
Huh. I’d never thought about it that way.
I know, right?
To be honest, I hadn’t either, not on any bone-deep level, until I started seriously considering converting, and it was only when I started realizing it on a personal level. But, then, I am also lucky in that we live in a school district where Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah and several other non-Xian holidays are given days off, which is just not the norm anywhere but in those gosh darn liberal enclaves on the coast. 😛
This feels really relevant to me too. I stopped being Xian over a decade ago, and I felt…annoyed, honestly, that I was still expected, by family and friends both, to celebrate all of the major Xian holidays even despite being at that time an atheist/pagan. And that’s only increasing my discomfort now that I’m converting to Judaism.
I don’t even know if I can keep having conversations about religion with my parents anymore, our views on faith and holidays and deities are so different now.
My parents basically just ignore the fact that @dadhoc and @mistresskabooms and I all converted. I hoped right up until the last second that they would show up to our Adult B’nai Mitzvah, especially knowing I was giving the sermon, but, welp, they didn’t.
Our class has gotten close though so it was okay. My mispacha was there, and one of the other converts in the class, her dad came, so that was good.
Off topic, so anyway.
I’d also like to add (for the fellow Gentiles out there) it’s NOT just the “obvious” things like Celebrating Christmas, either.
It is so, SO many “little things” that you don’t realize ARE Christian-influenced, that you might not even if you stopped and thought about it, because they’re SUCH a part of “secular” culture that you just assumed That’s The Way It Is For Everybody.
I had no idea for example, that the idea you had to have a witness in order for a marriage between two people to be “valid” was something not all religions and systems shared, until a Jewish person over on the NaNoWriMo forums corrected me and said “actually, you can do it just by the two agreeing if they’re above a certain age, in Judaism; it’s still considered religiously valid”.
In the USA, for a marriage to be LEGALLY recognized by the State?
It HAS to have both an Officiant (not necessarily a Priest or Pastor of your own religion; sea captains, judges, and anybody who gets the right piece of paper, can do that), and a Witness. I know this, because I am Legally Married and it was part of the process; I had to get a friend to Officiate and a second friend to sign off as Witness on the paperwork.
And I knew on some level this was partly from “religions” “traditionally” requiring it…but I had NO IDEA this was really a Gentile thing, a Goy thing, in specific!
I just….assumed that since verifying it happened was “logical”, all religions would naturally require at LEAST an Officiant OR a Witness if not both, “though I could be wrong” I (very thankfully) admitted. Which in hindsight, is a big Assumption, thank goodness I left myself open for correction lol.
And see, I wasn’t even RAISED going to Church; my parents were ~liberals~ who basically raised me Agnostic.
But I was raised by a dad whose parents were Protestant, and a mom who went to Catholic school as a kid. I grew up in the American South. I grew up in America, and America is so darn Christianized, that it doesn’t matter that such things aren’t a requirement in Judaism, because they’re a requirement in Christian practice, so they become a requirement in the secular realm as well.
Even the very definition of “religion” is often mistaken for REQUIRING a “belief in the supernatural or a literal higher power” – not because this is in any way anthropologically accurate (not only does Judaism technically allow for the opposite, so do some variants of Hinduism; There’s posts on that blog that covered it better actually but you might have to dig for them; at least those both mention it), but – ding ding!
That’s still how many people in the West think it’s “defined” because that’s the requirements of the Christian religion. A belief in a literal higher power.
Like, I have seen Culturally Christian atheists INSIST that you cannot possibly be “religiously Jewish” AND an atheist/not believe in a literal higher power, only to be corrected by actual Jewish people that “uh, no? That’s not how it works, you’re thinking of CHRISTIANITY?”.
Because they were so entrenched in the Christian Definition of Religion, it never even occurred to them that there was such a thing as a “religion” that did it differently than that.
Because even “secular” society in the West usually defines it that way, because Christianity does.
Heck, the idea of “Judeo-Christian” is…heh, well. Ask a Jewish person or two and if they have the energy you’ll probably get a nice rant on why that term is a serious misnomer; but it’s VERY common to treat Judaism as if it was just the “precursor” to Christianity, as if Christianity is just an extension of Judaism with an extra set of Books, and it’s…it’s not. It’s REALLY not. That thinking stems from Christian cultures trying to simultaneously erase actual Jewish culture (where it actually differed from theirs), and pretending that theirs ~supplanted~ it and ~took its place~ like the New and Improved version, which… of course, being that most Christian sects insist that Christianity is The One True Religion, of COURSE they did.
Even the idea of weekends is pretty much derived from the habit of most Christians to make Sunday a Sabbath and “day of rest” (some Christians do actually use Saturday instead – much like Jewish folk do – but Catholics and a majority of Protestant sects use Sunday).
Even some Really Big “little things” are more Christianized than you think though.
There’s…I mean off the top of my head, that’s it, but there’s definitely more I’m not even remembering and I’m sure quite a few that I’m not even personally aware of yet.
Personally, I’ve found that the more I learn about other cultures, religions, history, etc, the more I realize how very insular and Very Specific and perhaps even culturally weird in the grand scheme of things, my own upbringing was. That’s not a bad thing though! As far as I’m concerned, it’s just helping me learn what my biases and assumptions are, so A+ 10/10 recommend expanding your awareness of this stuff. ❤
I’ve noticed this in the way people talk about assassinations. They say Martin Luther King “died for our rights.” I don’t know what that means. He lived for civil rights, and then someone killed him. The idea of a savior’s death causing salvation for all generations thereafter is alien to me. That concept is a result of growing up with a religion where it’s the core of the faith, but to me it doesn’t make logical sense.
Made this because of yet another Tumblr fiasco! Im a queer witch trying to find a new home that offers the same quirkyness as tumblr. But without the problems :)
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