There is an alternative holiday for atheists in December: HumanLight.

The first thing I thought of is, if we religious people are so foolish for celebrating the birth of Christ (or even Hanukah), why develop an alternative? I mean, it’s almost like you’re saying people long for certain days with a special meaning or something, like there should be a point to life at all. Which atheists really shouldn’t believe. Why not just skip all the superstition and foolishness altogether and volunteer to work an extra day?

Then I noticed a few other things. You can’t get very far into Humanlight without seeing its inherent inconsistency. For example, Humanlight celebrates “Humanism’s positive secular vision”. But what’s positive? Who’s to say? Seriously, if everything just evolved by pure chance then there is no positive, no negative. What’s there to celebrate?

There’s more. HumanLight celebrates “a Humanist’s vision of a good future.” This good future (again with the value judgments!) includes the following:

• “A future in which all people can identify with each other.” How? As fellow members of a highly-evolved species of mammal? How do chimpanzees identify with each other? And why should we want to identify with each other anyway?
• A future in which all people can “behave with the highest moral standards.” (This is my favorite.) Why, that’s the most narrow-minded thing I’ve ever heard. Who do they think they are telling me how to live my life? Why do they get to decide what the “highest moral standards” are? What is a moral standard anyway? No room for that in a secularist worldview.
• A future in which all people can “work together toward a happy, just and peaceful world.” But why should we work together? I mean, survival of the fittest, right? What’s justice? (See previous bullet.) And why is peace a good thing? It’s almost like they’re assuming some sort of absolute standard of right and wrong.

And these are the people who think we’re a bunch of drooling idiots. Well, Happy HumanLight, everyone (whatever that may mean). Here’s hoping we can work toward a nice, God-scrubbed society. After all, it’s worked so well every time it’s been tried.