The nonreligious need to celebrate

Meanwhile, yes, nothing but net here:

""As I've written before, if you believe that tens of millions of Americans can't be good without God, that's not just ignorance, it's prejudice.""

That's. What. That. Is.

Using the Yuletide as an excuse to 'sin' and then blame others for your own actions...

It's prejudice. It's defamation.

As I told Mr. Opus Dei, if the holiday's become 'secular,' it's not cause people, or humanity, 'lost the meaning of the holiday,'

It's cause 'Christians' have. Turned it into something angry and exclusionary and anything but what it was before Christianity even showed up.

IVR:

"""

"As I've written before, if you believe that tens of millions of Americans can't be good without God, that's not just ignorance, it's prejudice.""

"There is quite a difference between doing good things and being intrinsically good. The burden of proof is on you, Mr. Epstein, to demonstrate that the latter follows logically from the former.

Posted by: ivri91208 " ""

No, it doesn't. Actually. Not outside *your* religion, it doesn't.

Actually, 'cowan' holidays tend to be *miserable* for you cause of all the expectations piled upon them. When you can't buy the Norman Rockwell holiday, you scapegoat someone else out there 'doing it wrong' ...blame someone else for what you bought into never being what the baggage says it should be judged to be 'supposed' to be.

People who want to 'Put Christ back in Christmas' don't necessarily *pray,* or anything, they go to the local mall and protest the commercialism not being sanctimonious and exclusionary enough.

"As I've written before, if you believe that tens of millions of Americans can't be good without God, that's not just ignorance, it's prejudice."

There is quite a difference between doing good things and being intrinsically good. The burden of proof is on you, Mr. Epstein, to demonstrate that the latter follows logically from the former.

Why do they continue to use him an a commentator? There are so many other, articulate, people who share a similar view. While surely a nice guy, he is a poor choice to represent Humanist ideals effectively.

Daniel, you lost me at part two. Anyway, if my carousing gets in the way of your reverence, bang on the wall.

Humanist Chaplain?...sounds pretty Orwellian to me or is it just a case of God-envy? ___________________________________________

It's just gentle irony.

To Khote14. Look below. That is the message being sent by secular humanists.

"No God? . . . No Problem! Be good for goodness' sake. Humanism is the idea that you can be good without a belief in God."

But you end up explaining to me: It's not "Good without God", it's "Good, without God". Whatever do you mean? What is this insertion of the comma supposed to signify? The message above by secular humanists does say good without God. There is no insertion of a comma between good and without God.

Then you say: It's not "supposed to be good", it's "celebrating being good" Man, you have problems.

You mean you automatically take yourself to be good? You mean you want to celebrate that you are good on holidays? There is to be no holiday on which one is respectful and contemplative of ways to better the world? We are just supposed to celebrate our being good?

Man you have problems. But this is no surprise. So many people take themselves to be good automatically. And the result of that is no holidays in respectful contemplation but rather wild carousing. Nice to know this is what your secular humanism means.

Thanks for broadening the understanding of humanism and giving credence to the fact that "being good" and desiring to be part of a community is not derived from faith-based organizations, but rather from simply being human. The holiday season is important for all of us. These traditions have, for millennia, been adapted from religion to religion and integrated into secular societies throughout the world. They have been tweaked and changed to suit contemporary needs, allowing for the welcome inclusion of interfaith celebration and unfortunately fallen prey to usurping by the commercial world. Still, today we can all be happy that the holidays are more inclusive than ever, endeavoring to show respect to people of all walks of life and with different beliefs. This is as it should be. Being good and feeling the need to celebrate together, and individually or collectively reaching out to help others does not depend on a tie to a religious belief or standard. Being good and being thankful blossoms from the hearts of people who feel the awe of nature, are energized by the bonds of love, sympathize with the plight of those in need, and are moved to action to make the world a better place. The sincerity of these emotions and the virtues they evoke do not depend upon an outside force. They come from within.

Thanks for broadening the understanding of humanism and giving credence to the fact that "being good" and desiring to be part of a community is not derived from faith-based organizations, but rather from simply being human. The holiday season is important for all of us. These traditions have, for millennia, been adapted from religion to religion and integrated into secular societies throughout the world. They have been tweaked and changed to suit contemporary needs, allowing for the welcome inclusion of interfaith celebration and unfortunately fallen prey to usurping by the commercial world. Still, today we can all be happy that the holidays are more inclusive than ever, endeavoring to show respect to people of all walks of life and with different beliefs. This is as it should be. Being good and feeling the need to celebrate together, and individually or collectively reaching out to help others does not depend on a tie to a religious belief or standard. Being good and being thankful blossoms from the hearts of people who feel the awe of nature, are energized by the bonds of love, sympathize with the plight of those in need, and are moved to action to make the world a better place. The sincerity of these emotions and the virtues they evoke do not depend upon an outside force. They come from within.

Humanist Chaplain?...sounds pretty Orwellian to me or is it just a case of God-envy?

It's not "Good without God", it's "Good, without God"

If you can't see that, then your ongoing complaints about sophistry come from your lack of understanding of our common language, and your desire to see evil in the motives of people who are motivated by that which you do not understand.

Enjoy your holidays, nobody is telling you to do it without your gods. Perhaps seeing how many of us are completely free of this faith burden disturbs you in ways you are unwilling to examine.

Oh, and "They like the religious fundamentalists actually believe there are special days set aside on which we are supposed to be good ..."

It's not "supposed to be good", it's "celebrating being good"

Man, you have problems.

Part one.

The American Humanist Association's Godless holiday campaign? That the message is that one can be good without God?

The first problem we see with this is when we examine the concept holiday. In ancient times certain times of the year were set aside for both days of reverence and days of riotous celebration. And we can see a trend in at least Western civilization along the lines that as religion would become less important to a civilization (typically as more urban centers of such were created and increased in size) the days of reverence would come to be more and more similar to the days of riotous celebration.

In other words, as Western civilization becomes more and more sophisticated religion declines and no one really reveres on even the more sacred days but rather celebrates wildly. In other words the days on which we are expected to be good tend to be less and less demanding that we be good. The holy days are no longer so distinguished from days of riotous celebration (the less holy days) and we just end up with holidays in which we carouse. What makes it even more interesting is that in ancient times the days of carousing as distinguished from the days of reverence were religious days themselves! But they were considered days in which the devil has his due so to speak.

Part two.

A reversal of the natural order would occur in ancient times on the days set aside for carousing. These days were considered a release from the rules which would be paid special attention to on the days of reverence. People were all too aware that on the days of carousing they really were getting just those days, that as a day of carousing ended tomorrow would bring renewed expectation of following rules. And of course on the days of reverence there was no question one had to be respectful--or potentially be ostracized or worse.

So now we can see with clarity what exactly is wrong with the humanists having days on which we celebrate being good without God. In America (I assume we are speaking of America) the days on which we truly revere are clearly the days in minority in comparison to the days on which we carouse--and this is in no small part due to the days of reverence becoming days of riotous carousing. Christmas and Thanksgiving are no longer days on which we contemplate the divine and celebrate morality, although we are expected to give presents on the one day and give thanks on the other.

Part three.

No, even the days on which we are supposed to be in contemplation of the divine and be good are days on which the last question on our minds is how to be good and in mind of God. To put it simply and unfortunately in embarrassing light to the humanists, who thinks about being good on holidays in reverence of God let alone good and in mind of no God? We open a beer on holidays, eat too much, watch the football game or snooze on the couch--do anything but think how we can be good. Tomorrow is work so today we drink!

In fact there is something quaint and quite religious about these humanists. They like the religious fundamentalists actually believe there are special days set aside on which we are supposed to be good! The one just says good in the name of God while the other says good without God...So tell me, who will be more successful, the humanists or the religious in calling for the days to be good? Answer: if the human race cannot even be good in the name of the divine anymore, it is quite foolish that people will begin talking about special days set aside to be good without God.

Part four.

I predict this Godless holiday campaign will have many followers--from those all too happy that now we have holidays without God.--Happy because we can now really lean back on the couch and swig beer. No God there at all! Great! Party! And in moments of drunken maudlinness "there is no God, oh Jerry, dude, I love you man, I got your back, you got mine, dude, I love you man!" The conversation will be extremely profound. A study in metaphysics. Everyone most certainly gentle when not raging and barfing in the backyard. "We are all humanists now, crack open another beer! Global warming man! Gotta cool down! Another brewski dude!

But it could very well be the humanists are ahead of their time. It could very well be that we are in the middle of a process: First, as in ancient times, religious days set aside for both reverence and carousing. Days on which God was celebrated solemnly and days on which God allowed carousing occurred. Then gradually as religion declined both days of carousing and reverence lost their religious reason for being in the first place and came to be similar in that man would just be celebrating a holiday, hanging out drinking beer--a day off work. Finally, the secular humanist future: days on which we are solemn, good and grateful without God. But evidently these secular humanist days will have to be created against a background of modern man preferring to party on all holidays. Can the secular humanists succeed? If so, we will have the general pattern continued of history being interesting. And if not? We will have the general pattern continued of history being interesting.