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“A Humanist Thanksgiving Proclamation,” by Robert Green Ingersoll
“When I became convinced that the universe is natural—that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom.
The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the world—not even infinite space.
I was free. Free to think, to express my thoughts. Free to live my own ideal. Free to live for myself and those I loved. Free to use all my faculties, all my senses. Free to spread imagination’s wings. Free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope. Free to judge and determine for myself. Free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past. Free from popes and priests. Free from all the “called” and “set apart.” Free from sanctified mistakes and “holy” lies. Free from the winged monsters of the night. Free from devils, ghosts and gods.
For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought, no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings, no claims for my limbs, no lashes for my back, no fires for my flesh, no following another’s steps, no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.
And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers, who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain, for the freedom of labor and thought, to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains, to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs, to those by fire consumed, to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons and daughters of men and women. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they have held, and hold it high, that light may conquer darkness still.”
—Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899)
(Image by Ryan McGinley)
November 28th, 2008 at 12:08 am
This works fine for a healthy mind, educated, and holding at least a degree of political freedom. especially when financially strong.
For some of us who are hungry, weary, suffering from the diseases of poverty (waterborne, squalor, or injured without treatment) bipolar, schizophrenic, clinically depressed, abused, oppressed, tyrannized, imprisoned, raped…
We will thank God for any relief we get, and have high hopes for justice, some of it here and now but mostly after.
We believe we can live happily ever after too, but we believe that ever after comes with a resurrection.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:45 am
Just nice!
November 28th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
@ Trompyx
I know, right.
To all of you new visitors coming to my site from StumbleUpon or Reddit, welcome and please come back!
November 28th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
@ Dave:
I don’t believe that paints a very good picture of the religious or of religion itself.
I’m a humanist/atheist and I have social phobia, avoidant personality disorder and dyscalculia (a learning disorder related to math/numbers). I’ve also had bouts of depression before due to these issues. I don’t thank a god for my ability to overcome these obstacles to become educated and lead a happy, normal life. I have relied on myself and other people (teachers, psychologists, and therapists) who have helped me along the way. I only have them and myself to be thankful towards. And I am very thankful indeed.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Amanda:
I am sorry you have such troubles.
I spend time around people who may have similar pain but don’t live in a world where it will ever be diagnosed.
Some of them are thankful, and would be judged as superstitious, but I find many of them are people of faith who have a strong sense of justice when they have a chance to have a sense of anything.
November 29th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
@ Dave –
You are suffering from much worse than a lack of a healthy mind, lack of education, lack of a degree of political freedom and lack of financial strength. You suffer from a victim mentality.
In fact, religion in general is the subjection of one to the state of being a victim, i.e., a belief in a world where high hopes for justice can only come from God. Of course I don’t condone shaking people out of the delusion because I doubt I can correctly offer a good substitute.
All of the woes of this world are relative in the now and will soon, upon their destruction, be replaced by new ones. There will be no respite from the inhospitable character of the world so long as we define a hospitable world as a perfect heaven without need and without all the things that make the earth interesting.
Can we cure the non-interesting things like disease and poverty? Probably. And when we do, there still won’t be a god to whom we can offer a thank you.
November 29th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Dereck,
You point up exactly of what I speak. It makes articluate, educated, free (and blithely and blindly powerful) people(s) become obsessed with themselves and their own point of view.
That creates victims, but in your view, it would only be a mentality. Impossible that it could be a reality.
November 29th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
So are you suggesting that by facing off against the “evils” of this world, we only create new ones? In other words, by allowing (or even stressing and developing) articulate, educated, free (and blithely, and blindly powerful) people, and then, the obsessions they have with their articulation, education, and freedom (and power), we’ve now created victims? Who would be the victims? The inarticulate? The uneducated? The un-free?
If so, I’d say this could be the case, but religion doesn’t have to offer the only answer. And when I say religion, I mean the current ones. I could imagine a religion that offers a justice for the common man.
It just doesn’t include a transcendent god.
November 29th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Have no idea where you get the conclusion that facing off against evils creates new ones.
I’m saying that prosperity can create the arrogance that obviates the capacity to empathize. Doesn’t have to, but it does.
November 30th, 2008 at 3:13 am
I enjoyed this thoroughly, thanks for posting.
And remember kids. Arguing on the internet is like running the special olympics. Even if you win, you’re still retarded.
December 4th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
“there entered…into my soul”
WTF?
December 5th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
@ resetphoenix
lol, wtf indeed.
Fact: happiness, joy and freedom (in the sense you use) are a states of mind.
Fact: there are happy atheists.
Fact: there are happy Christians, Jews, Muslims etc.
these facts are not disputed.
religious people posit that unbelievers will go to hell. since they would feel bad if the unbeliever went to hell because he or she never heard the “truth”, they feel that they must proclaim their beliefs.(or they are commanded to do so by their holy books).
Fact: without a higher power who declares the nature of “right” and “wrong” no absolute moral standard exists. thus, atheists (esp. evolutionists who believe in survival of the fittest) have no basis for saying that murder, rape, or any other atrocity is “wrong”.
let’s not forget hitler, who intended only to, “cleanse the race” of the “unfit” who were a (perceived) drain on society.
[yes, i'm aware that he use this mantra to eliminate other enemies, but the ideology that allowed and inspired those acts is what is on trial]
so when thief breaks into an atheist’s house and kills you and rapes your wife and daughter, all the atheist can say is “i feel you have done wrong”. to which the thief can say, “i feel i have done right, i can now provide a wonderful standard of living for my family, and i don’t need to spend all week at a dead end job.
the evolutionist in this situation can only say, “i feel wronged, but i applaud you sir. by raping 2 women in one night you have perpetuated your bloodline well. and by killing me you have ensured that my weak willed decedents will never be born. bravo!”
also, you neglected to define what freedoms you did not enjoy while you believed in higher beings. belief in god(s) still allows freedom of thought, speech, intelligence, curiosity, etc.
you say you are “free” to live for yourself, but this has not proven to be a happiness provoking lifestyle. movie stars, actors, and rich folk of all types have committed suicide, gone nuts with drug addiction, and spoken of how their “living for themselves” has given them nothing but grief. on the other hand, many, many, many, people of all backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs have found a reason to live in an “others centered”, “living for a great cause” life.
since you proclaim your thankfulness to all those who have died to secure your freedom of action and thought, assume that you are thankful for the leaders to the protestant reformation? those who were burned at the stake for daring to question the doctrines of the church of Rome? are you thankful for the judeo-christian principles that founded America? a nation where the church was not allowed to require citizen to adopt a particular brand of faith?
in other countries you could be beaten or worse for proclaiming your belief that there is no god. in America even those of us who disagree believe your opinion should be tolerated.
regards,
Luis
December 6th, 2008 at 2:48 am
Luis,
BTW, I believe in a Creator but, let’s remember that Reformers killed people and that Founding Fathers were slaveholding sexists, which is not so “judeo-christian.” America has not been as tolerant as we think, and is not as tolerant as we imagine.
Besides those things, I agree with everything you wrote.
And what about the theist who is an evolutionist?
January 1st, 2009 at 11:35 pm
@Luis,
So you’re saying that because Athiests don’t have a god to believe in, they have no conscience? No sense of right and wrong simply because no one has told them what to do and not to do? If you saw a man dieing in the street, I’m sure no matter who you are you would try to help.
Right and wrong isn’t a religious fundamental. You can be godly and be a good person, and you can be a good person, but not be godly.
June 29th, 2009 at 8:28 am
You just argued that “arguing on the internet” makes you retarded….
Retard
Why is it a FACT that without a God there is no universal right and wrong? We have the power of judgment…discernment…reason…
I’m going to go ahead and assert that RAPING A TEENAGE GIRL IS WRONG. Anyone disagree?
June 29th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Yes, actually, Pdderek, the Pope disagrees that raping a teenage girl is wrong (or was that a Bishop?) Anyway, high-up church officials do not believe that raping a 9 year old girl is wrong, but performing an abortion on her when the pregnancy at that age would kill her, now *that* is an excommunicable offense. It’s perfectly OK to rape her and condemn her to death through childbirth, but an attempt to save her life and correct the atrocities committed upon her by her own protector is the worst possible thing someone could do.
Even with “god”, there is no universal right and wrong because everyone has their own idea of who or what god is. And people who subscribe to any particular set of beliefs about their god still pick and choose among those rules handed down from on high which ones they will follow today and which ones they will follow tomorrow.
The fact of the matter is that rationalists, humanists, secularists, atheists and agnostics all come to a sense of right and wrong without a divine guidance, and all come pretty close to each others’ versions, always striving to find the most fair path even when the individual might not benefit as much as under a less-fair system.
We then accept a method of rational debate to reach an acceptable ground that we can all live by without one person claiming it’s the “right” thing to do because someone once said so 2,000 years ago. The actual merits are weighed and determined. And when there is something we cannot live by, our method is designed to accommodate that disagreement too.
Oh, wait, that sounds a little like our process here in the US. Perhaps that’s because our Founding Fathers, if not secularists themselves (and there’s ample evidence to suggest they were), understood that a secular government was required to handle those “powers of judgement … discernment … reason…”so that they wouldn’t be misused by the powers of Authority and Divinity.
It’s not a perfect process, but it’s done without a god and it was designed originally to flex with the times and culture’s changing values. Unlike religion.
Thank you for posting this.
@Dave, as someone who has been poor and hungry, I found no consolation in a god who would allow that to happen to me, and found the promise of reward after a lifetime of suffering to be a cruel joke, a carrot on the stick to be manipulated by those Haves into keeping my place. My life and my “place” both improved once I understood that it was only under *my* power to change it.
I could not thank a god for any relief I got when he was the same god that allowed me to live in a situation that encouraged me to thank him for the crumbs. His “relief” only made the oppression and poverty that much more stark in comparison, much like a weak flashlight shining in a dark room makes the corners even darker than before.
When I threw off the shackles of belief, my eyes could adjust to the darkness enough to see the doorway and I was able to inch along until I found my way out. The room outside is only a little bit better. But it’s less cruel knowing that there isn’t someone who created that horrible room, or who allowed me to live there when he had the power to stop it. It’s a much more comfortable room knowing that bad things sometimes happen and I am responsible for how I deal with it. This leads me to progressively better rooms.
Thanks for the Thanksgiving Proclamation, it’s inspiring and touching, and pretty much exactly how I feel about my own deconversion.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:25 am
Joreth, it appears you preconceive a particular god; one who takes responsibility for the world’s evils. Where does this definition come from? Is it not of some tradition/religion? Does that make it the only one/accurate?
December 19th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Whether you believe or the fact is that reality is made of multiple strata that plain old materialism can’t resolve into a coherent framework.
0 = nihilism
laughs at all the rest
1 = lunacy = 0
2 = materialism ~~ tends toward 1
3 = relativism => hovers at the edge of knowledge thinking it already has it masquerades as a stable 2
4 = realism
The numbers refer to the minimum reference points one expects to have in order to answer any question.
Materialism vs Non-dualism seems to be the popular debate and it’s depressing to watch how wrong both sides are.