Cultural festivals

[angell1]

is it wrong to celebrate festivals that used to be religious in nature?

for example, my mom is chinese, so we have midautumn festival and Chinese new year.

now, these are mostly cultural in nature, due to extreme secularization of china from communist government in the last 40 or so years. but they started out as religious festivals, with tributes to buddhas and other mythical goddesses, way back in the day. but most of that is gone now.

what do you guys think?

what about other things like ramadan, or indian fesitvals of dawali for ezample? those are still religious in nature. let’s say a large population of muslims or Indians became cahtolics, hypothetically, could those festivals somehow be given a different meaning, or would that be wrong?

I’m interested to know to what extent a culture can be preserved if it differens from a culture that is traditionally not comprised of a lot of catholics.

many people have seen the “baptizing” of traditions as wrong, like arguments against yoga, for example,but then you have instances where the church is associated with European culture only.

opinions please?

 

[Christy_Beth]

Sometimes God asks us to leave behind those things that don’t lead to Him. I think that Ramadan, which is a 30 day “fasting,” is something to doubt. Yes, we are called to fast at times. But for 30 days? Especially when it’s ok to eat all you want after dark. Fasting is fasting. And we aren’t called to fast to such a great amount of time. During lent we fast on all Fridays and on Ash Wednesday. And we can fast at other times as we are called to. Like, when we (or someone we know) has a great need and we feel led to fast.

I’m not sure if that’s the best answer, but it’s at least part of my opinion on this. Some secular days we observe, like Columbus day. That isn’t in itself bad, but we shouldn’t assign any spiritual significance to it.

 

[phil19034]

Sometimes God asks us to leave behind those things that don’t lead to Him. I think that Ramadan, which is a 30 day “fasting,” is something to doubt. Yes, we are called to fast at times. But for 30 days? Especially when it’s ok to eat all you want after dark. Fasting is fasting. And we aren’t called to fast to such a great amount of time. During lent we fast on all Fridays and on Ash Wednesday. And we can fast at other times as we are called to. Like, when we (or someone we know) has a great need and we feel led to fast.

I’m not sure if that’s the best answer, but it’s at least part of my opinion on this. Some secular days we observe, like Columbus day. That isn’t in itself bad, but we shouldn’t assign any spiritual significance to it.

Just a clarification… we do not “fast” on all Fridays during Lent and Ash Wednesday. We abstain. We fast on Good Friday.

 

[UpUpAndAway]

We fast on Good Friday.

And Ash Wednesday.

 

[angell1]

I’m just wondering, since culture is quite important, sometimes other cultures have been disregarded and not valued just because they were different, case and point, colonizations of the first nations and strict assimilation policies, at least, wher I live, that’s what happened. “kill the indian in the child” for a good 100 years.

and the church has adapted several things in the past from prexisting cultures. so I’m wondering where to draw the line, obviously, immoral things like human sacrifices and funeral burnings of widows have to go but I think there are good things that can be kept, right? everything does point to god even in indirect ways, doesn’t it?