Tag Archives: humanism

Break’s Over

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I was listening to Morning Edition this morning when they played a story on HumanLight. For those too lazy to click on links, HumanLight is a Humanist (secular) winter festival that celebrates reason, hope and compassion. It is an attempt to include agnostics, atheists and humanists into the “holiday season.”

I hate this season, and I am constantly looking for new traditions to replace the ones I’ve lost since my parents passed away. So I listened to this report and found myself saying, “hell yeah, this could totally be it!” when I heard the song from the story. It was Tom Waits meets Ellis Paul singing seventh grader poetry. I found my interest in the festival waning.

I like the idea of a non-religious festival celebrating humanistic ideals. I do not like the idea of soppy poetry with gruff lyrics. My favorite Christmas Song, Fairytale of New York, is not your typical “holiday song” but it has more meaning to me than Silent Night.

So while I search for replacement traditions, fill me in on your own: When do you open presents? What kind of presents do you give and receive? How does your family celebrate this season?

What do you believe?

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Prayers Today

Originally uploaded by marrngtn (Manuel)

The posts regarding Christian Nationalism has led me to ask, what do you believe and why?

I was raised Roman Catholic and I want to believe in the tenets of the church. I really do. At the same time, I am drawn to Secular Humanism as well. The question I consistently deal with is “Do I still believe in God?”

So, dear reader, what do you believe. If you want to quote something, please expand on the quote. I am extremely interested in reading about other’s beliefs. I’ll write up more about mine after work tonight.

update 1:
Anonymous sent this to me in an email. Here is a snippet of this person’s insightful thoughts.

I’m also incredibly sensitive to (and rather put off by) very public displays of faith, but I think that’s a personal overreaction to where I went to college (a private, southern baptist university) than anything else. It was blatantly obvious when I was there that often the loudest proponents of anything (public displays of faith in particular) were often the people I most disagreed with about what it means to “walk the walk”. I think being told by well-meaning but … not well-thinking people that they would pray for my mortal soul to not be tempted into Hell by the doings of Those Damn Catholics had a lot to do with it too, really.

I’m a huge fan of Chesterton (and Lewis, but less so, and not particularly Narnia), and his way of explaining how faith makes sense in this world. He argues that rather than the world being sane, and Faith being madness, that instead it’s the world that is mad, and faith that brings us a breath of sanity in the midst of the madness. He’s oft called the “Apostle of Common Sense” – which endears me to him all the more.

“There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.” -GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy