Darwin Day : A Greetings from Mukto-Mona
Mukto-Mona Moderation Team
Published on Darwin Day (February 12, 2006)
Mukto-Mona welcomes you to join us celebrate a very special day, Darwin Day, to commemorate the monumental achievements of Charles Darwin to promote a phenomenal growth in life sciences and also to emancipate humanity from the bondage of monotheism, which among other things tried to explain how humankind came to this earth on the whim of a supreme God. Though this is celebrated on the day Charles Darwin was born, the commemoration is not an adulatory celebration of Darwin as an individual, but of the monumental importance of his work in proving that mankind was one of many species that had evolved through a chain of random events and not as a divine creation in a fictitious god’s own image. While this confers a tremendous responsibility on humans, because, in the absence of gods much effort has to be put in to making sure that mistakes are not made, there is the very positive realization that man needs to look at the world with a sense of realism that does not wait for a real life Deus Ex Machina to solve the world’s problems. There is also a sense that we need to make the best of this, the only life we have and to enjoy it to the best extent we can. The humanist/freethinker/atheist/rationalist realizes the importance of making this happiness more widespread, so that others could enjoy their only lives to the same extent that he/she does. There are religious festivals aplenty celebrating mythical events all across the globe. Darwin Day, as a secular festival, commemorates the very factual understanding of life processes that relegated myths to the realm of fiction. It is a celebration of the beauty and wonder of life, a celebration of learning that helped humankind understand its origins far better than had been “explained” before Darwin. We welcome you, again, to this celebration. Carpe Diem!
