talon | More Holidays, Please

Replying to Susan_Jacoby<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/community/mypost/index.html?newspaperuserid=susan_jacoby&plckuserid=susan_jacoby> , The Secularist's Corner, WaPo:
As an atheist and a humanist, I have to admit it: I don't want my "own" holiday. I don't want any more holidays.

I love holidays - all holidays. I make up holidays when there aren't any just so I can celebrate them. Holidays are marvelous bonding times where we get together with friends and family, share stories, eat good food, and re-connect with one another.

Replying to:
How about an atheist-run soup kitchen to feed people in a nation in which, according to the Department of Agriculture, more than forty million Americans are having trouble putting food on their tables? We could hand out literature explaining humanism, secularism, and atheism at the same time.

Oh, ick! Handing out indoctrinational literature to people who are desperate is despicable. Why not do as our group does, just feed the hungry without dragging religion or politics or philosophy into it. Our Sandwich Saturdays (which aren't limited to Saturdays anymore) is a simple thing - hand out food to people who are hungry with no more than a sympathetic "Are you hungry? Here, eat." No literature, no sermons, no lectures, just food.

Replying to:
Do you want a holiday set aside for the nonreligious? Do you think it is a worthwhile effort for those of us who are not religious to proclaim that we can be "good without God?"

I think the message that goodness is not a purely religious trait is an excellent one. We don't need religion to tell us what is right and wrong. I think a day to celebrate our inherent goodness is a Good Thing. A "Nice Matters" Day, or a "Random Acts of Kindness Day" would be fun. Thanks for the suggestion!

Replying to:
Matthew D. Staver, founder of the Liberty Counsel, a right-wing religious law firm, and dean of Liberty University Law School, has called it "insensitive and mean" to suggest in public signs that there is no God "during a holiday when millions of people around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ."

If I were religious, I wouldn't consider it "insensitive and mean", I'd pity the ones who felt compelled to buy those ads because I'd be secure enough in my beliefs that ads couldn't shake me, whereas they obviously aren't as secure in their beliefs as they think they are. On the other hand, learning of differing points of view can be a bonding and strengthening experience for religions. These ads are excellent teaching aids. Instead of denigrating them, I applaud them.

As for more holidays, yes, please. And I don't mind at all if Hallmark creates cards for them and the stores sell special candies and cookies and trinkets to mark the occasion. I don't have to buy them, but the free advertising is always nice.