For Immediate Release
CONTACT: Lisa Ridge, [email protected]
HumanLight Celebrates Reason, Compassion, and Hope
(December 8, 2022) – On December 18, the New Jersey Humanist Network (NJHN) will join secular organizations around the country in observing HumanLight, a nonreligious, festive holiday that celebrates the positive human values of reason, compassion, humanity, and hope.
“HumanLight encourages a better future in which people work together to build a just, ethical, and peaceful world,“ says Lisa Ridge, NJHN president.
NJHN created this holiday in 2001 to give secular humanists a festive opportunity to gather and celebrate during this season of good cheer. Now, dozens of organizations around the country come together to celebrate with shared meals, candle lighting, musical performances, discussions, and charity fundraising.
NJHN’s HumanLight celebration will raise money for GO Humanity’s Food Security Project. Through this project, GO Humanity awards monthly grants to local service teams that are providing solutions in areas that lack consistent access to enough food for a healthy, active life.
The name HumanLight was chosen for its emphasis on the light of human reason and compassion. Humanism is a philosophy informed by science that rejects the supernatural and affirms the ability of people to live ethical lives focused on the greater good. Humanism recognizes the natural world as wondrous and precious, offering limitless opportunities for exploration, fascination, creativity, companionship, and joy. We express this joy at our HumanLight celebration.
“From the first moment I heard of it, HumanLight’s focus on the beauty and wonder that shines out from my fellow human beings made sense to me, said NJHN member Gwenn Seemel. “As December’s darkness takes over in the Northern hemisphere, I was thrilled to have a holiday to celebrate the light of the people in my life.”
Visit the HumanLight website to learn more about the holiday. Details about NJHN’s HumanLight celebration and registration information can be found here.
In addition to the NJHN local celebration, the American Humanist Association (AHA) will sponsor a national virtual HumanLight 2022 on December 17. The program will include candle lighting, performances, readings, and music. Visit the AHA website to learn more and register for the virtual event.
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Founded in 1994, NJHN is a secular humanist community that embraces a nontheistic philosophy emphasizing human reason, ethics, and social justice. We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of problems through our common experience, compassion and civic engagement. Learn more about NJHN.
Published 12/14/22