In 13 countries around the world, all of them Muslim, people who openly espouse atheism or reject the official state religion of Islam face execution under the law, according to a detailed study issued on Tuesday.
And beyond the Islamic nations, even some of the West's apparently most democratic governments at best discriminate against citizens who have no belief in a god and at worst can jail them for offences dubbed blasphemy, it said.
The study, The Freethought Report 2013, was issued by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), a global body uniting atheists, agnostics and other religious skeptics, to mark United Nations' Human Rights Day on Tuesday.
"This report shows that the overwhelming majority of countries fail to respect the rights of atheists and freethinkers although they have signed U.N agreements to treat all citizens equally," said IHEU President Sonja Eggerickx.
The study covered all 192 member states in the world body and involved lawyers and human rights experts looking at statute books, court records and media accounts to establish the global situation.
A first survey of 60 countries last year showed just seven where death, often by public beheading, is the punishment for either blasphemy or apostasy - renouncing belief or switching to another religion which is also protected under U.N. accords.
But this year's more comprehensive study showed six more, bringing the full list to Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
In others, like India in a recent case involving a leading critic of religion, humanists say police are often reluctant or unwilling to investigate murders of atheists carried out by religious fundamentalists.
Across the world, the report said, "there are laws that deny atheists' right to exist, revoke their citizenship, restrict their right to marry, obstruct their access to public education, prevent them working for the state...."
You know whenever I hear the Christians bitching about being persecuted, or somebody (Like Bristol for instance.) getting all worked up because a fellow Christian who was proselytizing in a non-Christian country has been kicked out or thrown in jail, I always think "Yeah but are they still being rounded up and killed in the streets?" Because THAT is exactly what is happening to people who dare to have no faith whatsoever, or who speak out against the repressive regimes who use religious as a bludgeon against its people.
That is why on this blog I will always stand up for the non religious and stand in opposition to those who wish to push their religion, and the "morals" associated with it, down our throats.
Freedom, TRUE freedom, means to be released from the shackles of ignorance and superstition.
Oklahoma lawmakers are appalled that Satanists would try to erect a monument in their state capitol, but their decision to include a monument to the Ten Commandments of the Christian Bible’s Old Testament may have placed the state on shaky legal ground.
ReplyDeleteThe Associated Press reported that constitutional scholars and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) agree, if faith-based displays are to be allowed in public spaces in Oklahoma, then a multitude of faiths must be represented, even if that faith is considered repugnant by a majority of the state’s citizens.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/10/oklahoma-lawmakers-no-satanist-monument-because-this-is-faith-based-state/
In the wake of Nelson Mandela’s death, both atheists and Christians have tried to claim him as one of their own. The South African dissident who went on to become President Nelson Mandela appeals to both Christian and nonbelievers, but are their clues about his faith that atheists like Stephen Pinker have overlooked?
ReplyDeletePinker tweeted on Tuesday, “Nelson Mandela, great atheist — Hamba kakuhle, comrade!” and provided a link to a piece in the Freethinker — a British atheist magazine — entitled, “Widely understood to be an atheist, Nelson Mandela dies at the age of 95. Hamba kakuhle, comrade!”
However, the article offered no evidence that Mandela was an atheist or that he ever espoused atheist or anti-theist views. Mainly, Freethinker quoted extensively from an open letter written by South African atheist Philip Copeman on the occasion of Mandela’s 93rd birthday.
Copeman urged Mandela at length to renounce Christianity, but Mandela either never replied or the reply has never been made public.
Questions arose earlier this year about Mandela’s faith when Bishop Abraham Sibiya of South Africa’s Christ Centered Church conducted prayer services for Mandela’s health. Atheists protested, saying that Mandela would not have approved.
Africa’s Mail and Guardian newspaper said again that it is “widely understood” that Mandela was an atheist, and yet it offers no evidence from Mandela’s life or writings to support that claim.
In May, 1994, Mandela did once make reference to the soul in a speech, saying, “Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/atheists-and-christians-lay-claim-to-nelson-mandela-but-which-was-he/
Have had great discussions w/my agnostic friends, but not so much w/my Christian ones. Some of the later are very uncomfortable and appear ill prepared for my questions.
ReplyDeleteThey really do not seem knowledgeable of the Bible and are more interested in telling me I'm wrong in not being a believer in their 'god'.
I so much prefer being around 'thinking and questioning' people. They truly are much more interesting.
To read Sarah Palin's take on things leads me to wish I (or someone else) could get her in a discussion and hear how she'd answer my religious questions (w/o giving her prior preparation to the questions!). I know w/o a doubt that she'd run for the hills!
She's doesn't know USA history (i.e. Jefferson) and assuredly is NOT knowledgeable about their good book! She is the ultimate 'fraud'.
British woman wins right to get married in Scientology ‘chapel’
ReplyDeleteA British woman on Wednesday won her fight to get married in a Scientology chapel in London after the Supreme Court ruled that her church could be considered a place of worship.
Louisa Hodkin had been refused permission to wed fiance Alessandro Calcioli in a Church of Scientology chapel in central London because it was not legally listed as a place of religious worship.
A High Court judge had ruled in 1970 that Scientology services did not count as acts of worship because they involved no “veneration of God or of a supreme being”.
But five judges at Britain’s highest court on Wednesday said Hodkin and Calcioli should be able to marry in the Scientology chapel, and that religion should not be confined to faiths involving a “supreme deity”.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/british-woman-wins-right-to-get-married-in-scientology-chapel/
Fox News host flips over atheist holiday display: ‘Baby Jesus is behind the Festivus pole!’
ReplyDeleteFox News host Gretchen Carlson on Tuesday lashed out at atheists in Florida for putting up a Festivus display next to a Christian display at the state Capitol building.
Last week, Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) office approved a request to install a Festivus pole made of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer cans next to a nativity manger and a Three Wise Men display. Festivus is a holiday created by the television show Seinfield, but it often celebrated by atheists as an alternative to Christmas.
“I am so outraged by this,” Carlson told Catholic League President Bill Donohue on Tuesday. “Why do I have to drive around with my kids to look for a nativity scenes and be, like, ‘Oh, yeah, kids, look, there’s baby Jesus behind the Festivus pole made out of beer cans! It’s nuts!”
“We don’t have to have the Klan out there on Martin Luther King Day with their monuments right next to a bust of Martin Luther King,” Donohue agreed. “We don’t want to have neo-Nazis out there to stick it to Jews on Yom Kippur. And we shouldn’t have people out there ready to trash Christianity given that proximity.”
American Atheists President David Silverman argued that “the season doesn’t belong to Christianity… Christianity stole the season from the solstice.”
“There is no wrong way to celebrate the season, it belongs to all of us,” he added. “I say it’s much better without religion. Dump the church, you don’t like it anyway. Happy Festivus! For all of us!”
“It’s a fake holiday!” Carlson exclaimed in exasperation.
Watch this video from Fox News’ The Real Story, broadcast Dec. 10, 2013.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/10/fox-news-host-flips-over-atheist-holiday-display-baby-jesus-is-behind-the-festivus-pole/
Do you know the best place to go looking for a nativity scene? In your house or your church.
DeleteBryan Fischer of the American Family Association said Tuesday that the founding fathers intended the First Amendment to only protect Christianity, not Islam or any other religions.
ReplyDeleteOn his radio program, called Focal Point, Fischer said the word “religion” in the First Amendment referred to Christianity alone. That is why, according to Fischer, Satanists cannot seek equal representation at the Oklahoma statehouse grounds. “At the time of the founding [of the United States], 99.8 percent of the population of the colonies were Christians. The other 0.2 percent were Jews,” he said. “But the point is, by ‘religion’ the founders were thinking of Christianity,” Fischer continued. “So the purpose was to protect the free exercise of the Christian faith. It wasn’t about protecting anything else.” “They weren’t providing any cover or shelter for the free exercise of Islam or even Judaism or even atheism. They weren’t saying you can’t do it — I want to be clear on that — they weren’t prohibiting that, they were just saying that is not what we are talking about here.” Fischer noted that a group of Satanists are seeking to erect a monument at the Oklahoma statehouse. The Satanists say the statehouse cannot erect a Ten Commandments monument but deny religious displays thathonor other faiths. “Here is where the definition of the word religion becomes absolutely critical,” he said. “If by ‘religion’ the founders meant Christianity, then you can ban a monument to Satan because that is not Christianity.” “But if by ‘religion’ you mean any system of belief, whether it is Christian or not, then you have no way to tell the Satanists you can’t have your monument.”
Watch video...
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/right-wing-radio-host-bryan-fischer-says-first-amendment-only-protects-christians/
It is always NOW!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wimp.com/alwaysnow/
A Celebration of Reason - 2012 Global Atheist Convention
ReplyDelete13-15th April - Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre
Presented by the Atheist Foundation of Australia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTxTCz4Ums
Before this recent book tour I never noticed Mrs. Todd Palin talking about atheists, have you? Over the course of this year Gryphen has been very forthcoming about his own atheism and has penned at least one column a week highlighting either atheism or some harm being done by religious zealots.
ReplyDeleteSuddenly, atheists are now Mrs. Todd Palin's biggest enemy! Just think, Uncle Gryphen, all you need to become the most powerful person in the world is to throw a temper tantrum and hire an attorney!
Keith Olbermann was right, that woman is an idiot, but take note, Uncle Gryphen, she is YOUR idiot! You own her, from the top of her road-kill wig, to her adjustable-for-any-occasion bolt-ons, to her tacky, hooker shoes, she belongs to you, Gryph. Well done.
i am certain the new Sarah Palin v atheist are a direct result to Palin, trolls and pals monitoring their most frequented blog @ IM.
DeleteIt is a huge compliment to G.
Many of the Arab nations are prime examples of how fundamentalist thinking has killed a once vibrant culture. The Arabs were responsible for so much of the world's scientific discoveries and they kept science alive and vibrant when christianity and superstition destroyed western culture during the Dark Ages. Learned men of the West would escape to the Middle East to avoid persecution at the hands of the fearful christians who thought science, art and writing to be "of the Devil". Now muslim fundamentalists have driven this once vibrant and flourishing culture into its own Dark Age. So sad to see, but all Dark Ages must come to an end and one day the these countries will eschew fundamentalist thinking and return to their vibrant past.
ReplyDeleteA quick Google: I found a few references of "angry atheist" that were in regard to lawsuits brought by non-believers usually concerning putting up religious monuments and symbols or regarding events that involved the general public. Noted from around 2006 and really increased in 2013.
ReplyDeletePalin picked up on this phrase (Angry Atheist) and added on with an attorney because she works in soundbites. What has resulted are non-believers are starting to make their presence known. We are good moral people that do not believe the fiction that has been passed off for centuries as a policy for the afterlife.
Well Sarah, I have a soundbite for you. Palin is a False PROFIT. Your little tribe of followers should do the responsible thing and send their money to a food shelter instead of SARAHPAC or buying her little hate filled Bon Bon of a Book.
Irritated Atheist
Angry Anorexic vs Angry Atheist
ReplyDelete2014 KAREN TERRI SARAH PALIN!!
Pfft, Justice!
ReplyDeleteWhat's in it for us?- Todd Palin
How much does it pay?- Sarah Palin
Will Levi think I'm pretty? - Bristol
I have met quite a few sceptics, agnostics and atheists, and the descriptor "Angry" doesn't apply to many. I've met more "Angry Christians" along the way, especially the ones on a mission to "Save" others.
ReplyDeleteAll groups have been persecuted and/or killed in the name of someone else's "god". This "War on Christmas" is nothing new and much ado about nothing. These people are backstabbers and leeches all year long, and suddenly around the winter solstice, they get all "holy" and want to start the Crusades, and we all know how well that worked out the first time.