It's odd, here.
Even 5+ years ago, people still respected this day, more than now. Even in Melbourne, nothing, and I mean almost completely nothing, was open.
Even more than Christmas, this was always the day when the shops stayed closed (including bottleshops).
Now? Unless you're actually a true, attending Christian, it's just a day for sport (two games of Rugby League on TV!), charity fundraising (hospitals, specifically, for whatever reason), and events - music festivals, food markets, etc.
Oh, and the highest rates of hourly pay for the whole year.
Even my own, theoretically Christian family insisted on opening and eating Easter chocolate today, much though I thought that was... Fairly inappropriate.
I dunno, just feels weird, man.
My favourite place to be, on this day, has always been one of two multi-day music festivals held over this time (yes, I know..)
At those, there was always services held somewhere, if you wanted to go to them. But it was just... Good, to be away from all the bullshit, for the weekend..?
I never felt more at home than I did at those events.
But that's not an option this time (thanks Uni/life! :-( ), so I'm just... At my parent's house, doing an assignment. God it feels shit to be "working" today, but that's just reality.
It just makes it much more apparent to me how little "normies" care about this day, for the most part, anymore.
You hardly even hear about the "religious" aspects of today on the news, at all. It's like it barely exists.
Very strange.
Obviously this will vary by country, and even within countries, but I imagine, in Catholic-majority places, at least, today must still have more meaning than that which has been stolen from it, over here?
Just curious, really.
Here in Germany Friday and Monday are official holidays, so everything's closed.
Quite frankly I'm expecting the far-left government to get rid of those holidays "for the climate" or "for Ukraine". And our churches are so aligned with leftism that they'll clap like happy, retarded seals. Denmark recently did something like that.
My family isn't overly religious so Easter, Pentecost and Christmas are more of a family holiday where we come together and cook traditional food on Sunday.
Yeah, Friday is very much like that, here.
But we don't do the "closed on Sundays" thing, as much as you do, so Monday, while being a holiday, is kind of... Nothing. It's just a day off. But without most private businesses being closed. shrug.
Same deal with us for Christmas. I barely even know what Pentecost is, though, ha...
Oh yea, all Sundays are holidays here.
As far as politicans and news go not much happens around Easter. Everything slows down a bit in a no news is good news kinda way.
Pentecost is a bit vague. As I understand it, it marked the end of a 50 day celebration of the resurrection of Christ. It also represents spiritual rebirth. Pentecost Monday is a holiday in Germany.
More broadly to what I've already said - living in a country where "God" has been largely corrupted and excised from public life (including by ostensibly Catholic politicians - weirdly both our current PM, and more than one state premier, describe themselves thus) is... Very empty.
So I hope that you guys can hold onto that.
We've replaced what religion represents with the pseudo-religion (cult, really) that is woke politics and ideology. At the current rate, I see that tearing the country apart not too long after it probably does the US, Canada, NZ and the UK...
I guess this is a "uniquely" Anglosphere problem, at the moment, but it's real fucking bad. So I'm glad that you guys haven't "given up" that part of your national identity, yet!
After all, Germany, or what is now Germany, is arguably up there with the heart of Western Christianity, at least from the Middle Ages through to the 19th, so...
Hold onto that, because the void that "replaces" what Christianity gives humans is clearly something fundamental, which is why wokeness so easily moves in as its replacement, I suppose!
Unfortunately it's the same here. There are only remnants left to hold onto and it feels like it's only a matter of time.
The Evangelical Church is already a far left clown show. They are indistinguishable from leftists on Twitter: rainbow flags, pro-Islam, pro mass migration, LGBT/trannies, climate hysterics, Antifa, pro human trafficking, etc. You name it they support it. The only slightly encouraging thing is that they've lost record numbers of members last year.
The Catholic Church is a little bit better in that regard but they've been jumping the rainbow bandwagon, too. And there's a movement opposing the Vatican so they can push even more shit.
Politicians are just the usual mix of leftist and globalist scum. The biggest party with "Christian" in the name is primarily responsible for flooding Germany with muslims.
All parts of public life have been gleichgeschaltet. If you want to hang on to something you have to do it with friends and family.
Public (radio) broadcaster here is currently blasting out a recording of Handel's Messiah, which seems... Wildly inappropriate for this day.
We truly have lost the plot, somewhere along the way, lol...
Like, surely someone looked this programming over, and thought "Wait, isn't that a Christmas thing..?" Or at the very least, "Should we not wait until Easter Sunday, to play that?"
Like, there's no way that isn't intentional, at this point...
No fucking way, lol.
What is this evangelical church you speak of? Half the damned problems in the Church is people using retarded ass buzzphrases and not even knowing what the hell they're talking about. You're literally not a Christian if you're not evangelical because the only way to salvation is through Christ and his Gospel. Stop saying stupid leftist buzzwords and perverting language
It's literally one of the two major Christian churches in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Church_in_Germany
The other, slightly bigger being the Catholic Church: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_Germany
For some reason, it is the favorite skin suit of the vile and wretched ruling class the world over, despite the fact that they fail to meet even the most lax of Protestant standards and are actively denounced and barred from attendance by priests and bishops in their districts.
Yeah, that's definitely pretty different then!
South Australia (most German settlers in Aus) has less stuff open on Sundays, but even then, I don't think it's anything compared to what you guys have for that.
As I said in the comment below, I actually didn't know about the Pentecostal stuff, until I looked it up.
We definitely have Pentecostals, here, but they're seen as a bit "weird", if anything. That's about the limit of my knowledge, there...
There definitely isn't any sort of official holiday for Pentecost, over here. In fact, I genuinely did not even know when it was, until you mentioned it, lol...
So I looked Pentecost up - I literally did not know what that was, at all, apparently.
So I guess that tells you something about my upbringing/religious conviction, ha!
Well, it's kinda the birthday of the Christian church. No a big deal :D
I probably wouldn't have know it either if it wasn't a holiday.
Here in Paraguay, everything is closed. It's awesome.
I know in America stores would close in my parents and grandparents day. I live in a pretty Christian heavy area and stores are open and it’s kind of like a normal day. I’ll go to Good Friday service. My company may let us off early
Oh, there you go..
That's very different to here, then, but I think that has more to do with US "work culture" than it does relative rates of religious adherence...
You guys do holidays, leave, etc, quite different to us, and different to Europeans, too, so that's interesting!
But yeah, it sounds like what you describe as being like in the past - it's kind of still like that, here, now - even in super left wing places like Melbourne...
Interesting...
Good Friday starts at night mostly nowadays. Services aren't until 6:30 so just stay open.
Well all my life stores were always open so I never experienced it when stores were closed. My service tonight starts at 630 exactly. I gotta be there earlier to sing in the choir
It's like the Christian Passover, we treat it like a normal day until the evening and then it's Good Friday.
Different here. Services are usually in the morning.
I think 3 - 6 (PM) is considered approximately the "holiest" part of the day, though, at least here... shrug
Well Jesus actually died in the evening so it makes sense to start then.
Where I live is ultra conservative but heavy blue collar work, we're all on mega overtime right now. Given that, my boss will still let people off this Friday if they ask and they canceled work Saturday.
Most businesses still open, but I think everyone grants time off if requested, which I think is the best of both worlds. The religious get their time, everyone else can still work and do stuff.
Interesting...
That's a different system, then!
That's just not how leave/time off works, here.
You can work public holidays, if your business is allowed to open (so in your case, factories and the like, and vital blue collar jobs, almost certainly can), but you will get, in the case of today, at least double time and a half.
But yeah, leave requests just don't generally work like that, here. It's sort of more... State-controlled, I guess. Much more "all or nothing", for most industries, blue (largely) and white collar (with very few exceptions).
Most people will just take the day off, though. Hardly anyone is going to choose to go in and work today.
Well, unless they want to virtue signal about how they hate/ignore Easter (I know some people like that). I'm sure they'll probably work throughout, lol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday#:~:text=Good%20Friday%20is%20a%20widely,somber%20nature%20of%20Good%20Friday.
This is actually quite interesting, and things are not necessarily how you might expect, based on the respective "religiosity" of the country...
So what I'm used to, in terms of holiday, day off, everything's closed, etc, is far more of a Protestant thing...
Hence it is much more of a thing in the UK, Northern Ireland, Canada to some extent, Aus + NZ, Germany and Scandi, as opposed to, say, the Republic of Ireland, the US and other parts...
But also, that isn't consistent, because fucking Cuba does it, as does Malta, but Italy doesn't... Spain does, parts of South America don't. You get the general idea...
There really isn't any logically reasoning as to where does it, and where does not.
Just seems to be one of those things.
But it's always been seen as like, a pretty big thing here, which stands in sharp contrast to what some of you describe.
I like that, at least. I hope that tradition stays, even as we become increasingly "Americanised"...
Religious fasting is a ritual pseudo-scarcity period, because humans left unchecked in constant aboundance get too fat and unhealthy.
Many Christian rituals have forgotten purposes that are needed for a healthy life. Like period of fasting or abstinence before strict monogamy.
Not observing them without figuring why they exist and how to substitute for them ( most people seem to be too dumb or lacking in self-control to put an effective substitute in their lives) leads to negative consequences.
I'm old enough to have witnessed how the vast majority of people need religion to keep their stupid in check, and I write this as someone who does not have faith. I recognize its purpose for the majority though, seeing everything go to shit now.
Everything is closed in most places, its actually a problem right now.
Why is it a problem, lol?