All Christians are off work during the holidays

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Chroelle
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All Christians are off work during the holidays

Post by Chroelle »

Well I simply starting thinking about this...

My workplace is shut down during the holidays. We close on 22nd of December and open up again on January 2nd. I have two muslim co-workers, and lots of muslim children. They all have holidays too, but during Ramadan (Muslim holiday) nobody got off from work or school.

Why is it that we can state that church and state are divided, when holidays are still only depending on one religion.
I know that someone once made some test that proved that if all religions holidays, were work-free days, then man would never get anything done... This is not what I am suggesting. I am simpy suggesting - To each his own.
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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

I think it´s much cheaper for companys to close completely for certain holidays. They don´t have to spend money for electricity, water and other things. If all workers would do their holidays according to their religion the companys would have the costs all the time, but they would work with a reduced effectiveness.

The same for children. How should school work if all the children would have holidays according to their religion? It would be chaotic because the teachers could never teach the stuff to all the children at the same time. And who should teach muslim children during christmas time? Only muslim teachers (all the christian teachers would be on holiday)?

I think these are the reasons why most companys and offices in western europe close during christmas time or have easter holidays.

But I understand what you want to say in your post and agree with the idea. In my oppinion if more than 5% of a population are members of a certain religion there should be a work-free-holiday (one or two days a year) in the country as well. This would also be a sign that the state accepts and tolerates all religions the same.
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Post by eMTe »

Well, first if you want to be politically correct you should give free days to people of all religions. If I believe in Big Chicken With Pulley In The Middle and I hear his voice in my head saying "thou shall not work on Thursdays" then you should allow me not to work on Thursdays...

But this is absurd of course. But not so absurd if you look at this this way:

Why you cant make free days for followers of all religions? Because there's too many of them, belonging either to official, "registered" Churches or unofficial. Each country's obligation should be to give special rights at least to followers of all "major" religions. What is major religion in given country? This one which has most followers, biggest influence on society, more money... Conclusion - if you are a Muslim your Church in given country must fight for your rights... And if you belong to 4% minority forget about any privileges.

In Polish schools "religion" is a school subject however you can attend "ethics" classes (that probably depends on parents if your adolescent, or there's certain age from which you can choose yourself, am not sure though) which is de facto religion, but without God. Do any minorities in Poland protest against religion classes and crosses hanging in classrooms? No. Imho they dont for one reason - faith and catholicism in Poland are so shallow that real impact of Catholic Church on people's choices and morality slowly, but constantly tends to zero. Christmas in Poland for HUGE MAJORITY of people calling themselves "catholics" have nothing to do with religion and some rituals are obeyed rather to keep tradition and have no spiritual meaning.

Why do I say it? Because probably if you'll look at Danes work-free days for many of them are only work-free days and nothing more. Now look at Danish Muslims and tell me if all of them obey Ramadan laws. I'm only guessing, but I can bet that quite big part of them doesnt (or they dont obey all laws). So my question is - do Danish muslims really want work-free Ramadan and do they want it so badly that they can fight for it (for example in parliament). It's the matter of faith's depth, not this or that religion. If The Chicken's voice will be loud enough you wont force me to work even if youll threaten me with job loss. And if Muslims work during Ramadan as you say...well... ;)
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Post by Chroelle »

Oh, but at my school we simply look the other way when students don't attend classed ruing Ramadan. We know we can't morally defend telling them off, when a month later all the other kids get to have their holiday off.
We have quite a few believers on our school, since most of them are immigrants from smaller towns in f.e. Turkey (Kurdistan) and refugees from Iraqi villages, and Iranian Villages and so on. They are not from the big cities of their contries, and some of them come straight from a feudal society where religion is everything.

REligion as a class was a big matter of arguemtent a few years back in Denmark. We called the class Christianity before that, and even though it was actually religion being taought, then the class had to be renamed. Now it is called Religion, and still has emphasis on Christianity trhough, but noone complains... :rolleyes:
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Post by SFault »

Generally I think that people should have the right to believe in whatever they want, even big pulley chicken, as long as it doesn't make any harm or discomfort to others. I'm pretty pissed off with some holy holidays in the middle of the week, because to me it's only a normal school work day, except all the shops, libraries etc. are closed.

All religous holidays should be abolished nation wide, but it shouldn't be outlawed for shopkeepers or workers to have their religion based holidays. Depending on nation they can keep some of the holidays, such as Christmas(which should be named Yule), because they have long traditional meaning in the nation. If somebody claims to have every thursday free because of pulleychicken it's up to employer to give 'em. If he thinks it doesn't suite to the business policy, then it's time to change job, country or religion. Perhaps there could be a law that gives every religion 10 holiday days to choose from and after the days have been chosen then those days would be holidays for some religious cult by law.

I find it too strange that a nation with long traditions should change them, because an extremely small amount of people find them offensive to their beliefs. On the other hand I find it strange too that all the people in the nation should do or not do something, because the majority of the nation believes so. And while I'm at it, I'll say that nation and church should be separate, even if 99% of the people would follow the church.

edit: religion->nation
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Post by Chroelle »

Religion and church should be seperate? How would you do this?

Actually I think it is rather weird that muslims (to take an example) have to take the x-mas time off. This must be very weird. And especially when you then have to explain them that it is actually the birth of one of their prophets we are celebrating... :)
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Post by SFault »

Chroelle wrote:Religion and church should be seperate? How would you do this?
Whoops! I ment nation/state/goverment and church/religion should be separate. (This is what you get, when you spend weekends studying engineering mathematics.)
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Post by eMTe »

SFault wrote:I find it strange too that all the people in the nation should do or not do something, because the majority of the nation believes so.
You dont like democracy, huh? :P
Chroelle wrote:REligion as a class was a big matter of arguemtent a few years back in Denmark. We called the class Christianity before that, and even though it was actually religion being taought, then the class had to be renamed. Now it is called Religion, and still has emphasis on Christianity trhough, but noone complains... :rolleyes:
Exactly what I said. No one complains because real impact of these classes on school community is probably too little to make Muslims worry about their children beliefs. Btw, do Muslim children attend these classes too? :shock:

I know nothing about Muslims situation in Denmark nor I dont know any Muslim personally so it's easy to express opinions sitting in comfy chair in Cracow. So correct me if I'm wrong, but I can bet majority of assimilated Danish Muslims dont think even about silent protest against current situation.

Btw, do you know opinions of Muslim parents visiting the kindergarten you work in?
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Post by Chroelle »

Oh, they attend - but they are allowed to not do so, and instead attend other classes.
Parent in my area dont do silent protests no. They live with the conditions given. I think they are just glad that their kid is getting an education and a life without terror in some cases.

I know the oppinions yes.. And BTW it is not a kindergarten - kualle makes this same mistake all the time, so I better correct it. I work with after school offers for children age 6-10. I am primarily in charge of 26 children in one class. It is an institution like a kindergarten where kids can choose what to occupy themselves with. Sort of like a youth club, only for younger kids.

The immigrant kids do however attend some things after school, like sometimes they have extra Danish lessons, or they have to attend the school psychologist, or even have to follow around a pedagogue (social educator) like myself and learn stuff about how kids play, and how to get into their games and interacting in a positive social way.
So I couldn't care less if they attent religion and learn about Christianity, as long as they learn about Danish customs then I have absolutely no problem with them not attending religion. Knowledge of Danish customs are more likely to give you an understanding of your surrounding society than religion will.
It is good however to let them know at least why they are off work/school for the next 2 weeks.
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Post by SFault »

eMTe wrote:You dont like democracy, huh? :P
In a certain way, no I don't. For example, 51% of the population thinks that some solution sounds quite ok and 49% thinks it's the ultimate worst solution ever. Result: half are ok and half are in pain. Also I have come into conclusion, that many of the voters doesn't know shit about politics. They just vote for someone who has funny face, but totally opposes their thoughts. Stupid people make life worse for everyone. It would be better to also give a negative vote to those you don't like.

But since it works in practice pretty well compared to eg. communism or dictatorship, I'm ok with democracy. (Going a little off-topic here)
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Post by eMTe »

This is not even a bit off-topic. In fact that's exactly what we are talking about.

Half are in pain? However I agree that some people may dislike certain laws or social norms in country they live in I havent heard about any people that are "in pain" because of this. Also I see here too strong simplification: while dividing people in "halves" has sense when we talk about simple choices (Bush or Gore f.e.) the results of these choices are so complicated that it's impossible to say that society is divided "in halves". It's not even divided in million parts, especially that various political decisions create different divisions.

Returning to the topic, problem of Danish Muslims is in fact the problem of assimilation. If you arrive to foreign country you can live there only if the basic social norms are generally the same as in your country (that of course depends also on age, beliefs, ability to survive in hostile circumstances and so on). There's so many Muslims in European countries and in USA that I can say, relying only on statistics, that these basic social norms are not different enough from the ones existing in Muslim countries to prevent their settlement. That's the explanation of their silent agreement to work during Ramadan.

Of course everything can be even more easily explained with social contract theory, but this would require new thread I think... ;)
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Post by Chroelle »

Feel free to create it eMTe :) I would go into that one...

At teh same time there is another issue, which is regarding people being ok with things in practice, but as long as it is going down on paper they have a problem with it.

Every one is ok with the kids taking Ramadan off and them not sowing up for religion classes that center around Christianity. Then what is the problem with actually making it the law that muslim kids participate voluntarily in religion classes, or religion classes are to take their focus off of Christianity and onto other religions. After all we are a nation with freedom of religion.
And why is it that it is not in the law that muslim kids can take days off from school during Ramadan for example. I only acdress the problem with kids here, since the parents can work up vacation-days at work (or hours) and spend them on the "vacation". Christian adults do this already so no use in making affirmative action on this one... But the kids have no way of chosing this.
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