Forum:MA celebrating religious holidays

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I'm wondering since when (and why) Memory Alpha is celebrating religious holidays such as Christmas. I'm pointing to the change of our logo on December 24th. Isn't this contradicting the essence of Star Trek and doesn't this prevent and subdue other religious holidays such as Hanukkah or Eid ul-Fitr? Not to talk about all the millions of Gnostics who won't celebrate one of the major holidays or Buddhisms or Bahá'í who have completely different beliefs. We should, in honor for all different spirits and according the spirit of mainly non-religious Star Trek, not celebrate our personal holidays here. That's just my feeling about this. — Florian - ✍ talk 14:26, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if you're partially joking or not, but if you're not joking I essentially agree. Picard(o) 14:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I find the changing of MA's logo to be offensive; Wikipedia does not change its logo to endorse a belief system. I delete my bookmark to the Daystrom Institute every December for the same reason. -- StAkAr Karnak 14:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

We even have an article about Christmas, meaning that even in a "non-religious" future as depicted in Star Trek (and even that has changed with times), the holiday itself still plays a role. If you can come up with any non-Christian holiday that was depicted or mentioned on-screen, I personally wouldn't be opposed to honor that as well, if all we do is a very small and unobstrusive modification of our logo. -- Cid Highwind 14:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Chtistmas is canon, as is the Festival of Lights. I don't see the problem with adding four colourful lightbulbs to the logo at all. There's no message on the frontpage wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, the image of the day is not Christmas related or anything else. Only four colourful lightbulbs guys, ""There... are... four... lights!"... --Jörg 14:44, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The Picture of the Day for 25 December actually did say "Merry Christmas!" and was a picture of the Christmas tree from Picard's Nexus experience. All Star Trek references. Anyway, I put it there and I'm agnostic. "Deleting the bookmark every year" because a site wishes you Merry Christams? That's kindof silly. As though you are punishing them. You keep going back in January, right? It's very much like this certain IRC situation recently, but that's off topic. Also, there is the thing about honoring cultures, which you don't really do by ignoring Christianity as well as the seperate secular Christmas culture that is even bigger than the true Christian one. Culturally tolerant means that when someone makes a good wish for you like "Merry Christmas", you say "Thank You", not "Never say that to me again! Your saviour is dead and you believe a lie!" --Bp 15:21, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Obviously you've never seen the Daystrom Institute decked out for Xmas. I'm not sure how deleting the site punishes anyone; I'd just rather not be reminded of how annoying the site's animated circus is. The site is diseased for a month, so I go back when it's cured. This is a tangent, anyway. I didn't say what my opinions of Christmas and/or Christianity are (which are two seperate issues and irrelevant anyway); I'm just saying that a secular reference should be neutral and doesn't have the responsibility to honor anyone. Doing so, IMO, is POV and damages credibility. As for Xmas being canon, MA doesn't honor Rumarie every year. -- StAkAr Karnak 16:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

MA doesn't know what day Rumarie falls on, doesn't have any pictures or symbols. It might be fun if we did. That's the main point as well: Christmas is fun, a real secular holiday with references in Trek, it's nice. There is nothing religious about how it was "honored" on MA. --Bp 16:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Written at the same time as Bp's comment above:

Well, the Rumarie reference is silly, of course, because a) it is a fictional holiday not related to anything we're discussing here and b) we don't know the date of it being celebrated. Going back to existing holidays, such as the Festival of Lights Jörg mentioned above, why don't we use existing features of our website to make people aware of the fact that something they may experience in real life has some connection to Star Trek? As Bp said, being tolerant is absolutely not the same as bein ignorant... :) -- Cid Highwind 16:35, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

WE ARE CELEBRATING STAR TREK GENERATIONS WHEN CAPTIAN PICARD CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS AND LOOKS OUT THE WINDOW AND HIM AND GUINAN SEE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS TAHT'S WHY THEY ARE ON THE LOGO! DON'T YOU STUPID PEOPLE KNOW ANYTHING ABUT STAR TERK!?!?!?! -- Captain M.K.B. 19:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your input; Mike: Your "Caps Lock" is damaged; Jörg: I'm sorry you met Gul Madred. I don't doubt Christmas is canon nor that we should and do celebrate it (on our own). I just want to say, that if Memory Alpha celebrates Christmas, we might even celebrate Captain Picard Day and Tal-Shanar. Is this the right direction? It's canon, yes. Christmas being secular is an interesting off-topic discussion on it's own, perhaps we can meet up, having a tea and a chat. Besides, my "non-religious" idea of Star Trek is based on Gene Roddenberry's personal beliefs as agnostic. Furthermore we should not place Christian beliefs or holidays before those of other persuasions such as Islam, Judaism or Hinduism. Yet again: My intention was not grinching XMAS away but open your mind for other cultures. — Florian - ✍ talk 02:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Good grief. My mind is certainly open to other cultures, but the fact of the matter is, in most western countries, Christmas is a nationally recognized holiday. From a legislative point of view, not really that different than Memorial Day in the US or a Bank Holiday in the UK. Still and all, it has been and still is a more culturally significant holiday, again for most of the western world, and so more likely to be celebrated here, considering that while not-US-centric, MA is most definitely dominated by Western culture. When Hanukkah and Ramadan become nationally recognized holidays, let me know. I'll not oppose a Minoreh logo. --TimPendragon 05:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)