Secular Solstice - Wikipedia
referenceCredibility Rating
3/5
Good(3)Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
Rating inherited from publication venue: Wikipedia
Tangentially relevant to AI safety wiki as the Secular Solstice is a cultural tradition closely associated with the rationalist and EA communities from which much AI safety work originates; provides background on community culture.
Metadata
Importance: 12/100wiki pagereference
Summary
Wikipedia article describing the Secular Solstice, an annual secular humanist event started by Raymond Arnold in 2011 that is celebrated by rationalist and secular communities around the winter solstice. The event involves songs, candles, storytelling, and reflection, and has grown from a small gathering to organized events in multiple countries.
Key Points
- •Founded in 2011 by Raymond Arnold in New York City as a secular humanist alternative winter gathering
- •Celebrated annually by rationalist and secular humanist communities including Sunday Assembly
- •Largest observances held in the Bay Area and New York City, with events worldwide
- •Rituals include singing, candle-lighting, storytelling, and reflection on human values and the universe
- •First official event in 2013 was crowdfunded via Kickstarter
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Gratified | Organization | 25.0 |
Cached Content Preview
HTTP 200Fetched Apr 9, 20265 KB
Secular Solstice - Wikipedia
Jump to content
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American secular humanist event
This article is an orphan , as no other articles link to it . Please introduce links to this page from related articles . ( November 2019 )
The Secular Solstice is a secular humanist event started in New York City in 2011 by Raymond Arnold. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] It is celebrated annually on the winter solstice (or a nearby convenient date) by secular groups such as the Sunday Assembly [ 5 ] and the rationalist community . The largest observance is held in the Bay Area, with the second largest in New York City, though additional solstices are held in a wide range of other locations, such as Maryland, Kansas, Texas, Washington, Illinois, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Russia. [ 6 ] [ 7 ]
Background
[ edit ]
The origin of the secular solstice began after Arnold invited 20 friends to his house in 2011 for a holiday gathering. [ 8 ] There, they "ate some food, sang some songs, and lit some candles" and "told stories about why the universe was the way it was and about what kind of people we wanted to be". [ 9 ] At the end of the gathering they extinguished the last candle in the room and sat for a moment in darkness. The first official Secular Solstice event was held in 2013 in New York City and was funded through Kickstarter. [ 9 ] In 2014, secular solstice events were also held in Oakland, California (in the Humanist Hall at the Fellowship of Humanity ), as well as in Seattle, San Diego, and Leipzig, Germany. [ 3 ] [ 10 ]
To fund the 2014 Solstice, Raymond Arnold created another Kickstarter funding round which raised $8,157 from 164 backers. [ 11 ] From 2014 to 2017, the New York City secular solstice was held in the main auditorium at the New York Society for Ethical Culture . [ 12 ]
Traditions
[ edit ]
Secular solstice contains "moments of hilarity as well as deep seriousness" [ 3 ] and is focused around communal singing. [ 3 ] Solstice events commonly follow an arc of "a journey from light to dark to light again, engaging with humanity’s past, present and future." [ 7 ]
Album
[ edit ]
Recordings of 11 original Secular Solstice songs were released on bandcamp in June 2014. [ 13 ] In December 2018, an Indiegogo fundraiser was launched to cover production costs for a new professionally recorded Secular Solstice album. [ 14 ]
References
[ edit ]
^ Robbins, Liz (20 December 2013). "During Religious Season, Nonbelievers Assert Right to Celebrate" . The New York Times . Retrieved 18 December 2018 .
^ Lee, Adam (12 October 2014). "Brighter Than Today: The 2014 Secular Solstice" . Day
... (truncated, 5 KB total)Resource ID:
5cbc9bbce7092061 | Stable ID: sid_IwN90tUOIo