A better definition of religion would be “a dogmatic set of cohesive ideas purporting to explain the nature and purpose of the universe, and from that to derive how Man should live.” By that robust definition, Humanism is clearly a religion, as are versions of Strong Atheism (the positive belief that there is no god or gods, as opposed to weak atheism, which just ignores the god question altogether) and many major philosophical schools, like Rationalism, Existentialism, Nihilism, etc.

Now, I have no objection to Humanism declaring a holiday to celebrate their religion. I encourage it, in fact; a lot of issues would become clearer if these folks would drop their disingenuous obfuscations an...

A better definition of religion would be “a dogmatic set of cohesive ideas purporting to explain the nature and purpose of the universe, and from that to derive how Man should live.” By that robust definition, Humanism is clearly a religion, as are versions of Strong Atheism (the positive belief that there is no god or gods, as opposed to weak atheism, which just ignores the god question altogether) and many major philosophical schools, like Rationalism, Existentialism, Nihilism, etc.

Now, I have no objection to Humanism declaring a holiday to celebrate their religion. I encourage it, in fact; a lot of issues would become clearer if these folks would drop their disingenuous obfuscations and acknowledge that they really are as much a religion as the Christianity they despise. It would become immediately apparent, for example, that it’s impossible to formulate a theory of education without some recourse to religion, and dispel that utter, intellectually dishonest horse hockey that the “separation of church and state” requires that secularism become the default philosophy of public schools. By all means, let them celebrate.

Newton Day. I don’t know if it’s a good replacement for Lincoln’s Birthday, but it’s not a bad idea. Augustine Day. All Scientists Day. Heck, yeah, I’m all for it. But not Darwin Day. Darwin was a smart man, but there are far better scientists to recognize, and let’s speak the truth plainly: the people who claim that Darwin Day is a celebration of science, and not a celebration of the philosophy of Scientific Materialism or the religion of Humanism, are lying through their damned teeth.