Ability to Opt-out of Religiously-tied Events

heya! i found a few blog posts in the topic of cultural christianity! these specifically focus on christmas and how many do see it religiously. to add my own two cents, i went to two catholic schools for a combined nine years and i live in the US midwest, OH. I am speaking  from personal experience, personal opinion, what I have learned through nine years of (Christian, Catholic specifically for five and general Christianity for four) religion class + a Comparative Religions class, a Folklore class, & an anthropology class (last two relevant as they discussed cultural norms, origin and evolution of). As someone planning to convert to Judaism, I have been researching it independently for three years, around, which involves learning more about the community and culture through involvement. My personal opinion, from hearing the opinion of others and from my research, is that Christmas is not a secular holiday. (Also, Christmas movies typically rely upon a similar proselytizing method as Christianity, which adds to the cultural ties between them). 

https://progressivejudaism.tumblr.com/post/189838087321/pssss-pass-it-on-hanukkah-is-not-jewish

https://keshetchai.tumblr.com/post/169622410494/ive-been-thinking-of-converting-but-my-spouse-is

https://keshetchai.tumblr.com/post/168628010149/is-it-okay-to-answer-that-anon-through-your-inbox

https://keshetchai.tumblr.com/post/154074526174/its-that-time-of-year-again-a-rant

https://returnofthejudai.tumblr.com/post/153260734198/hey-in-case-you-havent-noticed-christmas-is

https://keshetchai.tumblr.com/post/152734194034/notaaronsroommate-returnofthejudai

https://jewishconvertthings.tumblr.com/post/183462637758/my-immediate-family-is-atheistagnostic-but-being

https://jewishconvertthings.tumblr.com/post/169740151453/hi-im-considering-conversion-and-reading-up

https://progressivejudaism.tumblr.com/post/171980153978/as-a-convert-raised-in-loosely-observant-catholic

https://progressivejudaism.tumblr.com/post/168791872453/this-is-only-my-personal-jewish-opinion-but-i

https://progressivejudaism.tumblr.com/post/168774816353/what-do-you-personally-feel-about-secular-xmas

Not logging in wouldn't work either, as it would put our accounts at a disadvantage- essentially punishing people who do not want to celebrate Christmas. We would lose log-in streaks, and the game would still continue without us.

Personally I'm not religious but still celebrate Christmas/Easter etc. and I know a lot do the same thing. For a lot of people it really has turned into more of a family event and excuse to gather instead of a religious celebration. Although being that it is based off of religious events I certainly can understand why it may be an issue. So an option to opt seems to be a nice part of the site to be available to users.

Also, now that I'm thinking about it. Why did no one have a problem with getting turkeys on Thanksgiving?

No one complained about the turkey toms because it was something you could actually opt out of if you didn't want them. It was a button you had to press. 

The news post about it:

Everyone that logs in today and visits the news page may claim a free gift of 3 x Turkey Tom Carcass to feed their pack. The button will disappear tomorrow, so be sure to grab it today for your freebies.

It was something we actually had the option to opt out of so if we wanted so it was a relative non-issue compared to the current Christmas tied event where we have to use a workaround to turn the gifting off on our pages.

heya! first off; i have a source for cultural christianity; aka, the explanation for the prevalence of non-religious or members of non-christian religions celebrating christmas.

en.m.wikipedia.org

en.m.wikipedia.org 

i also have here links to blog posts and personal testimonies from people who discuss this in some way shape or form, particularly the emotional stress one can go under when being forced to celebrate christmas.

https://sheisawonder.tumblr.com/post/634526425863618560/hi-gail-if-youre-still-bored-ive-been-mulling

https://squiddish.tumblr.com/post/634410688768507904/i-legitimately-hate-how-comfortable-cultural

https://musings-of-a-prodigal.tumblr.com/post/636864259318480896/ive-been-seeing-a-lot-of-posts-on-tumblr-lately

https://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/post/190969193259/cultural-christianity-christian-appropriation

https://adira5780.tumblr.com/post/634635769664995328

wenevergotusedtoegypt.tumblr.com

please keep all of these perspectives in mind when claiming that christmas is not a religious holiday. to many, it is, and being forced to celebrate it often comes at the expense of other religions (ie;, the prevalence of 'holiday' parties that only have religious traditions from christmas, which portrays christmas as the only important holiday then among a host of other concerns.). for members of minoritized religions, culture is often something that they have to fight in order to hold on to, because of forced assimilation and cultural genocide. the very thing that christian holidays are the ones that people have days off for is the effect of this cultural christianity; members of other religions have to request for their holy days to be taken off. sunday being a rest day is rooted in christianity as well- and this is seen in that in the usa, mail is not delivered on sundays. cultural christianity permeates much of the usa, and is seen especially in its holidays. that christmas and easter are seen as secular despite the origin- and not just the origin, but that they are still celebrated within christianity- otherizes people who do not celebrate said holidays. 

I am still in support of an official opt-out for those who just don't want to see the imagery - but RatKing's latest post reminded me of something I was helping out with recently.  I help out at work with an event calendar and a holiday celebration webpage that we've been using in lieu of in person events.  I took special care to include imagery from different cultures, as well as including as many winter holidays from different cultures as I could find - though I missed the Shinto one, I'll have to add that.  I think it's kind of fun to make things as inclusive as possible, actually.  Maybe in future the gift giving could happen on winter solstice instead, since that's an astronomical event and truly is universal!  Pagans celebrate it, yes, but you don't have to be Pagan to do so - it's the shortest day of the year for EVERYONE in the Northern Hemisphere!

:)

I agree with the option to opt out. As someone from the Caribbean i find it a bit odd and offensive for people to claim that Christmas is not seen as a religious holiday any more. While in some parts of the world Christmas has literally no religious meaning (like some places in Asia), there are millions of people all around the world who go to Christmas eve and Christmas day mass. Just because you and your family do not celebrate christmas religiously or you live in a country that doesn't does not mean other people don't.

Personally i tend to hate how pet sim sites have this very americanized view of holidays (like Thanksgiving, independence day etc) however the religous religious holidays tend to annoy me the most, and I say this as someone who is catholic and hence most of the religious holidays align with my upbringing. There is a reason that saying "happy holidays" has become so much more popular and why many sites and stores now have "winter sales" and "holiday sales" instead of saying Christmas sale.

Not gonna lie, some of the reponses to this suggestion have disappointed me, as they come off as "since it doesn't affect me why change it".

I support a option to opt out, or even choose what holidays you celebrate to trigger relevant events. I would PREFER to see more inclusive events with the options to choose what you celebrate, rather than focus on one set of holidays with opt out choices ultimately.

@RatKing I'm sorry, but your sources will not change my opinion on Christmas being a secular holiday to me. You have decent sources, but I reserve the right to still keep my original opinion.

I just stated my two cents, and what I said isn't necessarily wrong, just like what you said isn't necessarily wrong either. @QueenOfFrowns seems to hold very similar thoughts about the holiday as myself and that's fine. To those who have experienced trauma and such when referring to this holiday, you have my condolences. 

As far as the actual suggestion goes by itself, if that's what helps you feel more comfortable with the game, that is fine. It wouldn't affect me any as regardless I am going to partake in it. If me partaking in it makes you or others think that I am somehow Christian of some kind then all I have to say is nobody knows me better than myself and I don't have to prove that. If that's your opinion, then we can agree to disagree without neither of our positions being absolutely wrong.

Support. It's something simple that doesn't effect those who want the events but mean the world to those who don't believe in or support these events.

Side note, one of my friends made CSS to disable it if anyone wants it Here

Support. This code already exists, since you have no ability to gift users who have been inactive for a long time. It's just a matter of adding the option to enable the code for a user.