It is a somewhat extreme argument. Many scientists past and present have been religious, and a large percent of religious people aren’t fundamentalists- but 100% of atheists are not religious by default. Of course, the initial argument ignores the fact that one can still celebrate a religious holiday without observing religion. Christmas is a perfect example- the one US federal holiday that can be said to have a direct religious connection- but the Supreme Court has ruled that Christmas is observed as a secular holiday enough that a Christmas holiday is not religious by nature. In fact many non Christians and countries with little Christian population or influence celebrate a Christmas holiday. So both arguments are flawed.
Most religious holidays are arguably pegan or some other religion. You can see in most religions through history a copying or carrying over with edits of details of entire stories, important dates, concepts, so on. Newer religions tended to borrow, build, or take things from others for various reasons such as to help with acceptance of a newer faith, because someone thought it was “cool,” to piggy back on existing emotions, or for other reasons lost to time. It’s largely irrelevant for several reasons. The modern link to ancient holidays is through recent history, but with many holidays we have no way to know precisely when they were originally celebrated, differences in calendars aren’t often accurately observed, and the accuracy and validation of historical records isn’t absolute. It also doesn’t fubdamanetaly undermine the concept of a “holy day” since it just builds evidence that others also held the day as holy and thus can be used to reinforce the significance of a given day.
On the one hand, there's the argument that scientists (even atheist ones) were inspired by God or were instruments in His hands to bring about the miracle of modern medicine and that science is just as much one of God's works as are unexplained miraculous phenomena. On the other hand, a holiday is a holiday whatever the reason. You could have no idea that there even is a holiday and it'd still be a holiday. Of course atheists should also get the day off work! Unless they want to protest religious holidays by continuing to work, but that's their protest to make, not yours to start for them.
Ok but a lot of Christian holidays are hijacked from the pagans. So if you really wanna be genuine, you have to stop celebrating Easter in accordance with the pagan tradition (rabbits, eggs... Easter was originally a celebration of fertility) and start celebrating it by... raising the dead I guess? Oh and Christmas is moved to June.
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