Atheists push 'humanist' holidays [Festivus, April Fool's Day, Darwin Day, Thomas Paine Day......]

Washington Times ^

[Sub-Driver]

Atheists push 'humanist' holidays

By Karen Goldberg Goff April 25, 2008

Now that Earth Day is over, let the planning begin for the summer solstice and World Humanist Day in June.

The Institute for Humanist Studies, an Albany, N.Y.-based nonprofit, is calling attention to its calendar of atheist holidays on its Web site, www.secularseasons.org. The group wants nonbelievers (or at least noncelebrators) to have a handy reference guide of the calendar of holidays honoring free thinkers, banned books and nature, among other themes.

Matt Cherry, executive director of the Institute for Humanist Studies, says his group is trying to expand options and alternatives for secular holidays. He hopes even those affiliated with a particular religion will pay attention to the options.

"Some religious holidays are about culture and tradition, not theology," he says. "Even people who go to church only on Christmas or to synagogue on the High Holidays do so out of cultural heritage, not because they believe the religious doctrines associated with it."

Some of the highlights of the Secular Seasons calendar include Thomas Paine Day (Jan. 29), April Fool's Day (as always, April 1), and Ingersoll Day (Aug. 11). The latter celebrates the birthday of 19th-century thinker Robert Green Ingersoll, who was known as "the Great Agnostic." Secular Seasons recommends visiting his birthplace in Dresden, N.Y., for a holiday celebration. (Hey — you only live once.)

[Popman]

homas Paine was a deist .......However, the God they believed is the not the God from the Bible. Most of them viewed the God of the Bible that people worshiped as absurd.

That still doesn't make him a atheist as the article seems to assert.

He believed in a Creator