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Comment by dd9990 | Hacker News Reader

I'm the opposite - I miss the community and its events. There's a growing Humanist community where I live precisely for that reason. The vast majority of the population are Catholic so life revolves around Catholic rituals, whether we like it or not. It's great to have secular alternatives for marriages, funerals and baptisms.

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I attend both religious and secular weddings and funerals, and no one seems to be missing a beat.

As an agnostic, I've never thought, "we need an alternative." That probably has to do with the fact that marriages and funerals, even religious ones, are already highly personal, custom affairs.

> secular alternatives for [...] baptisms

An initiation ceremony for secularism? I find that bizarre.

secularism begins at conception :)

>An initiation ceremony for secularism?

Nothing of the sort. It's a secular christening, .i.e. a party for friends and relatives after the baby is born. I think some European Humanist groups call them naming ceremonies but I haven't been to anything that formal.

Yes, my parents (who are not religious) did that when my siblings and I were born – a "naming party". I don't think there was any actual ritual or any organization involved, though.

Where do you live? What are the alternatives for someone who's curious about these communities?

Ireland. The main humanist group [1] is in Dublin but there's a few smaller groups popping up, for example in Cork [2]. It's mostly an excuse for a chat over pints, but there's also some campaigning, e.g. for a secular education system.

[1] http://www.humanism.ie [2] http://corkhumanists.weebly.com/

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