Should we emulate religious people in having 'our' exclusive festival

From David Deacon: in Newsline 09 November 2007

Paul Moylan suggests that we institute a festival dedicated to non-believers. I do not see how that is necessary.

Firstly, in our culture, we have secular holidays: New Year's Day, Spring and August Bank Holiday Mondays, and May Day (Boxing Day?). Some of them may have their roots in one tradition or another, but they continue to be taken, presumably on the grounds that time off work and having the opportunity to get together is inherently a good thing, whatever our outlook on life. To the extent that that we have public holidays, secularists and the trades union movement won the argument years ago. Many in society (although not enough shop workers) benefit from it.

Secondly, let's not make the mistake of emulating religious people in having 'our' exclusive festival. The evidence seems to be that for most us who join in with celebration days such as Valentine's Day (the 'Saint' reference is usually dropped nowadays), Mother's Day, Bonfire Night and so on, the occasions have become secular. Most of the public aspects of our culture are secular, I am glad to say. Secularism is inclusive: hurrah for that.

Ist November - All Species Day not All Saints Day

From David Bazley: in Newsline 09 November 2007
Hugh Davis suggests Darwin's Birthday February 12th for the non-believers festival. Well that's OK but even better would be November 1st because that's the day Darwin finally published the Origin of the Species in 1859. But Christians also call this historic day All Saints Day when they glorify mostly imaginary dead saints, known and unknown.

We should rename this day and call our festival All Species Day. Glorifying and celebrating the wonder of evolution when we remember all past species, known and unknown, from the microbe to the mammoth, which evolved and then died so that other species, including us, might live. But I have to declare an interest: November 1st is also my birthday -- but I'm no saint.

Darwin Day Campaign 2006

The BHA supports the international campaign to have Charles Darwin’s birthday, 12 February, recognized as a public holiday. Most humanists would agree that one of the greatest thinkers ever should be commemorated and celebrated in any way possible. The campaign aims to achieve the holiday by the bi-centenary of Darwin ’s birth in 2009. The BHA includes Darwin Day holiday in its education policy aimed at creating schools that include and accommodate pupils of all faiths and none. One aspect is to campaign for more school and public holidays for non-Christians, including Darwin Day for humanists.

The BHA also suggests lobbying local councils or developers to name a new street or square or building after Charles Darwin by 2009 - it may just need enough people willing to ask.

And why not take Darwin Day off next year and start a trend?

From scientist to saint: does Darwin deserve a day?

by Robin McKie, science editor Sunday January 13, 2002 The Observer

He was the originator of the most dangerous idea in history. He disenfranchised God as our creator and revealed the animal origins of humanity. Many believe his influence was pernicious and evil. But now a campaign has been launched to establish an international day of celebration on 12 February: birthday of Charles Darwin, author of the theory of evolution by natural selection.

'Along with Shakespeare and Newton, Darwin is our greatest gift to the world,' said Richard Dawkins, honorary president of the Darwin Day Organisation. 'He was our greatest thinker. Any campaign to recognise his greatness should have a significant British contribution.'

The Darwin campaign was launched by US activists two years ago to resist the anti-evolution campaigning of fundamental Christians. Now the aim is to create global celebrations by 2009, the bicentennial of his birthday.

'We have little chance of getting a national holiday for Darwin in the US - there is far too much anti-science and pseudoscience,'

said project organiser Amanda Chesworth.

'We are more likely to get one established in Europe, particularly in Britain, his birthplace.'

Celebrations will include seminars and lectures, and the showing of films and plays on Darwin's life, though other ideas include an atheist giving Radio 4's Thought for the Day, and a lesson on evolution being preached at Westminster Abbey. 'I'd do it like a shot,' said Dawkins. Darwin was originally religious. He saw nature's diversity as proof of God's existence. Only a divine creator could be responsible for such marvels, it was then thought. But, after travelling the world in the Beagle, and after years of thought and experiment at his Down House home in Kent, he concluded that natural selection offered a better explanation. Life forms better suited to their environments live longer and so have more offspring, thus triggering an evolution of species moving into new ecological niches.

As philosopher Daniel Dennett said, it was 'the single best idea anyone has ever had... ahead of Newton and Einstein and everyone else.'

It is also remarkably simple. 'You can explain natural selection to a teenager,' said UK biologist John Maynard Smith. 'You have difficulty with Newton and little chance with Einstein. Yet Darwin's idea is the most profound. It still haunts us.' Nor is opposition to Darwin confined to religious figures. Sociologists, psychologists and others involved in social policy hate natural selection, said Maynard Smith. 'They deny human behaviour is influenced by genes and evolution. They want to believe we are isolated from the animal kingdom. It is damaging, intellectual laziness. That is why we need a Darwin Day. This point was backed by biologist Steve Jones.

'If you look at Africa, US fundamentalism, and the Muslim world, you realise evolution supporters are outnumbered by creationists. Yet these are people who have deliberately chosen to be ignorant. They are flat-Earthers without the sophistication. We need a Darwin Day to counter that ignorance.'

BHA propose more public holidays

More public holidays
We propose more religious holidays in schools. Our original suggestion was that this could be done by ‘clawing back’ (say) 20 days from current school holidays and redistributing them as, for example, Easter, Divali, Eid, Passover etc, according to nationally or locally co-ordinated schemes.

It is possible now for LEAs to set their own holidays, and some already recognise non-Christian holidays: Newham LEA

has redistributed 4 days as religious holidays for faiths other than Christian

, and other London boroughs have taken similar action. The total number of days off would not change and those who worked in schools and the tourist industry need not lose out. We believe that giving whole schools or whole LEAs days off for religious festivals is far less disruptive for pupils and teachers than merely permitting a minority of pupils and teachers to take days off while normal classes continue.

However, the Local Government Association had commissioned some research into the effects of holidays on learning and, as a result, did not recommend increasing the number of one-day holidays, though it recommended changes in school holidays which would include fixing the time of the spring holiday and giving just one or two days off for the moveable holiday of Easter.

It is also clear that teachers value the long summer holiday and would resent any change to that.

Our modified proposal, which we believe would be a significant symbolic sign of respect to minority groups in schools, is that

six new holidays are created, one for each of the major non- Christian faiths and one for humanists and other non-religious people.

We proposed Darwin Day, 12th February, for non-religious people, and invited suggestions from religious groups for the other five.

At the very least, we suggest that religious holidays are taken into consideration when considering reforms of the academic year.

We also propose that that these be public holidays, to be partially achieved by replacing some existing bank holidays that have no apparent significance. More, and more pluralist, religious holidays in the workplace would send out a strong positive signal to religious minorities in our community and increase goodwill towards them.

We have fewer (8) public, or bank, holidays than many other countries, and expanding the number of public as well as school religious holidays would enable parents to spend these holidays with their children.

It is also essential that school and public examinations acknowledge religious holidays in their time-tables.

10 reasons for a Darwin Day on February 12th

1. Darwin was one of the greatest scientists that ever lived, and his work on evolution provided the foundation of much of modern biology.
   
2. We ought to do more to celebrate a wider range of people – scientists and thinkers as much as monarchs, statesmen and generals (some of whom do have streets named after them and statues, e g Churchill, Marlborough, Clive of India…).
   
3. We need more public holidays – Britain has fewer public or bank holidays than many other countries (eight in fact).
   
4. We need more diverse public holidays. Most existing ones are Christian, and we could do with more secular ones, as well as ones that recognise the holidays of other faiths.
   
5. A holiday celebrating Darwin would send out a signal that science matters, in an era when pseudo-science and fear of science seem to be gaining ground.
   
6. At a time when convention and religious belief were powerful influences on society and culture, Darwin was not afraid to think for himself, and he was by all accounts a very decent man – an affectionate father (who never got over the death of his daughter Annie) and a devoted husband (who delayed publishing The Origin of Species because it would upset his devoutly Christian wife).
   
7. Darwin was an excellent writer – clear and readable – who gave the English language some useful new phrases.
   
8. There is an international campaign to make this great Briton’s birthday a holiday – see the Darwin Day website.
   
9. Over 40 distinguished academics, philosophers, scientists and writers signed a British Humanist Association letter in February 2003 calling for a Darwin Day holiday.
   
10. It would cheer up a rather dull time of year – a huge improvement on the main celebration on February 14th, the depressing St Valentine’s Day (wikipedia).

Humanist should not elevate heroes to the status of secular idols

In the early 1990s, the Humanist Community of Stanford proposed that the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) formally adopt Darwin Day as an official humanist holiday. The IHEU voted down this proposal, with board members arguing that humanists should not ape saints days or elevate humanist heroes to the status of secular idols.

Press Release: Darwin Day a natural holiday? by BHA, February 2003

Press Release: Darwin Day a natural holiday?
February 12th 2003

Over 40 distinguished academics, philosophers, scientists and writers called for a new public holiday on 12 February to celebrate the birth of Charles Darwin. In a letter to the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary (see below for text and signatures), organised by the British Humanist Association, they proposed a new public holiday on the calendar by 2009, the 200th anniversary of his birth. They wrote that public recognition of Charles Darwin in this way had assumed particular importance with the rise of creationism in British schools.

The letter was published in The Times on Wednesday 12 February, with half a dozen signatures selected by The Times: Simon Blackburn, Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, Richard Doll, Philip Pullman, Claire Rayner. It provoked some lively and positive responses, both on The Times letters page and to the BHA.

Two of the signatories, philosopher Stephen Law and scientist Robin Dunbar , were the main speakers at the first BHA Darwin Day lecture ‘What's wrong with creationism?’ at Conway Hall, London , on the evening of 12 February. They were joined by a third signatory, Richard Dawkins , who participated in the discussion from the floor.

Read the full report of the event and Stephen Law’s lecture .

See also Darwin Day website for news and information about the international campaign for a Darwin Day holiday.



Letter in full with complete list of signatories:
(Further updates and signatures available from BHA office)

Darwin Day

We, the undersigned, support proposals for the creation of a new public holiday, Darwin Day, on February 12th. This is the birthday of Charles Darwin, one of the greatest British scientists and thinkers that ever lived. At a time when creationism appears to be gaining ground in English schools, the public celebration of Charles Darwin's contribution to modern science could send out a clear message of support for scientific thinking.

It will be the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2009, and we very much hope that this new public holiday will be in place by then.

Yours sincerely

Hanne Stinson (BHA Executive Director)
Jane Asher
Professor Simon Blackburn
Sir Tom Blundell, FRS
Sir Hermann Bondi, FRS
Alan Brownjohn
Sir Roy Calne, FRS
Dr Malcolm Cass
Michael Clark
Sir Kenneth Clucas
Michael Connarty MP
Professor Sir Bernard Crick
Professor Francis Crick, FRS
Dr Helena Cronin
Professor Richard Dawkins (BHA Vice-President)
Sir Richard Doll, CH, FRS
Lord Dormand of Easington (BHA Vice-President)
Professor Robin Dunbar, FBA
Michael Foot
Dr Steven French
Professor John Harper, FRS
Professor Hugh Huxley, MBE, FRS
Professor Steve Jones
Sir Ludovic Kennedy
Professor Sir Hans Kornberg, FRS
Dr Brendan Larvor
Dr Stephen Law
Professor John Maynard Smith, FRS
Professor David Papineau
Sir Roger Penrose, FRS
Philip Pullman
Dr Janet Radcliffe Richards
Claire Rayner, OBE (BHA President)
Jonathan Rée
Dr Ben Rogers
Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat, FRS
Professor Peter Simons
Sir David Smith, FRS
Professor Sir Kenneth Stuart, FRS
Polly Toynbee
Professor Sir David Weatherall, FRS
Dr Nigel Warburton
Professor Lewis Wolpert, CBE, FRS (BHA Vice-President)