Do you celebrate holidays that are deemed religious but have no religious connection to them?

We get together, eat good food, enjoy each others company and have a great time as well. We do not celebrate pagan holidays. In any encyclopedia you can read the origins of these holidays and realize they are all pagan and have NOTHING what so ever to do with Jehovah but with Satan . Have a great day. JW Miami, FL

Humans have ALWAYS taken religious celebrations, renamed them, rededicated them to their own interests and promptly announced them new. The Christian religions did this to Pagan celebrations and the modern day non-religious do this to religious ones. The non-religious (or even the atheists), do exactly as the Catholic church did hundreds of years ago, they take ancient religious celebrations, promptly pronouce them non-religious occassions, change the reason they are doing them and rebaptised the religious celebration "a 21st century securlar family occassion" and while keeping all the trappings (the hot cross buns, the easter eggs, the little baby Jesus or angel on the tree) call it "new" and are stunned and amazed when someone points out the obvious, namely that you are following an ancient religious custom. The understanding is if *I* perform a religious celebration for a different reason, that celebration is instantly purged of all its former religious meaning. If he performs an ancient Buddist ritual as a Jew, does it instantly become Jewish? if she follows a Islamic celebration as a Hindu does it intantly lose its ancient Hindu significance? And if I celebrate a Christian holiday as an atheist does that make it a secular one? After having perfomed and ancient native American raindance around an totem pole, someone can be forgiven for failing to understand it was just for exercise your legs and had nothing to do with the weather. You are shocked because not everyone shares this extremely myopic worldview of history or customs.

Humans have ALWAYS taken religious celebrations, renamed them, rededicated them to their own interests and promptly announced them new. The Christian religions did this to Pagan celebrations and the modern day non-religious do this to religious ones. The non-religious (or even the atheists), do exactly as the Catholic church did hundreds of years ago, they take ancient religious celebrations, promptly pronouce them non-religious occassions, change the reason they are doing them and rebaptised the religious celebration "a 21st century securlar family occassion" and while keeping all the trappings (the hot cross buns, the easter eggs, the little baby Jesus or angel on the tree) call it "new" and are stunned and amazed when someone points out the obvious, namely that you are following an ancient religious custom. The understanding is if *I* perform a religious celebration for a different reason, that celebration is instantly purged of all its former religious meaning. If he performs an ancient Buddist ritual as a Jew, does it instantly become Jewish? if she follows a Islamic celebration as a Hindu does it intantly lose its ancient Hindu significance? And if I celebrate a Christian holiday as an atheist does that make it a secular one? After having perfomed and ancient native American raindance around an totem pole, someone can be forgiven for failing to understand it was just for exercise your legs and had nothing to do with the weather. You are shocked because not everyone shares this extremely myopic worldview of history or customs.

We get together, eat good food, enjoy each others company and have a great time as well. We do not celebrate pagan holidays. In any encyclopedia you can read the origins of these holidays and realize they are all pagan and have NOTHING what so ever to do with Jehovah but with Satan . Have a great day. JW Miami, FL

Christmas, Easter and Hallowe'en were all originally religious festival - Christian ones. If it weren't for those religious roots, you would not have them to celebrate at all. That's a connection to religion. The Jehovah's Witnesses deny these historic festivals because they need to show how much better they are than other Christian denominations. They have, therefore, invented stories about how the other churches have been subverted by paganism and adopted pagan customs. These stories have no basis in fact, but that doesn't stop them spreading around eagerly.

First Jehovah wants us to have a strong family bond but in a way that is approved by Jehovah. Let me give you an example why we dont celebrate holidays and why origin matters. Suppose you found and piece of candy and it was washed and clean looked good to eat but knew the origin of the candy being found in the gutter making it unclean would you partake of it. No i dont think you would. Same as holidays we know the origin of these pagan holidays being unclean so therefore we dont participate in the celebration of them. We get together with our families at i do to just have a meal or talk or laugh and dont need a holiday to do this which makes it to me more special.

First Jehovah wants us to have a strong family bond but in a way that is approved by Jehovah. Let me give you an example why we dont celebrate holidays and why origin matters. Suppose you found and piece of candy and it was washed and clean looked good to eat but knew the origin of the candy being found in the gutter making it unclean would you partake of it. No i dont think you would. Same as holidays we know the origin of these pagan holidays being unclean so therefore we dont participate in the celebration of them. We get together with our families at i do to just have a meal or talk or laugh and dont need a holiday to do this which makes it to me more special.