Answering the questions at "Challenging Atheism"

hat tip to I'm the Mama for this stupid set of questions:

The questions we, at The Refiner's Fire, would like to pose are as follows:

"Since you are an atheist, why do you celebrate Christmas or Easter? Why do you take vacations during that time? Why do you sing Christmas carols?"

There is a clear delineation between religious Christmas and Easter and Secular Christmas and Easter. As an Atheist I do not celebrate the religious aspects of either. Christmas is strictly the Santa Clause version and if I sing a Carol it’s “holly jolly Christmas”. I don’t pretend to believe for the sake of believers, nor do I sing songs to celebrate Christianity. I sing about Rudolf - and quite poorly.

Christmas is a time to get together with friends and family. If religion comes up (and it does at times), I check out and pour a good Scotch.

I take vacations for practical reasons. Last years trip to Hawaii during my plants holiday shut down was expedient. Employees at my company are of nearly every race, religion and creed on the planet. We celebrate our hard work every year by shutting down for a week ( I took a month off last year – it was great). I take a vacation in summer too – but normally around other secular holidays – because they are free days.

Easter is the official ham eating holiday. I don’t get time off for Easter except for “golf day”, which is the Friday before Easter ham day. Easter tends to be social pain, but we combine it with other events like birthdays. We eat a bunch of chocolate, drink beer and spend a lot of time talking. Some in my family choose to observe religious services – they do so without impinging on our secular pursuits.

"Nearly every American partakes of the pagan holiday of Halloween. As an atheist, do you allow your children to partake of this "fun" holiday? If so, you are, in essence, bowing down to pagan gods!"

Halloween is great fun – but my atheism does not discriminate between the Christian god and the pagan gods. I don’t believe in anything. So in essence I am bowing to no god. Halloween is just another great secular holiday, second only to the 4th of July in overall secular goodness.

"Why do you take a "day of rest"? Do you take off Saturdays and Sundays, or some other day of the week? Why? It was YHWH who commanded us to rest on the seventh day. Since you're an atheist, why bother taking a day off from work at all?"

I can see the “gotcha” in this question – only it does not take much common sense to realize that after working hard, one enjoys time off. Perhaps you should try working – honest work is good for the soul “they say”.

A 40 hour work week is the law of the land. If my 40 hours covers a Sunday, well then, I work a Sunday. Industry stops for most weekends, only the service sector is 7 x every-day of-the-year. So, like a soldier, I take my rest when I am able. God, YHWH, and/or the sabbith have nothing to do with it. If I were able to work every day –that is if somebody would pay me to work an extra 16 hours. I would work more. Money = good - No money = bad.

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