Atheist Ireland | Secularism Archives

08/07/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

Atheist Freethinkers defend Canadian secularism law

Atheist Freethinkers/Libres Penseurs Athées of Montreal is trying to protect Bill 21, a new law that promotes separation of Church and State in Quebec. David Rand, President of Atheist Freethinkers, says: “As secularists, we have a duty to do everything in our power to ensure that this law is neither ...

25/06/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

Humanists at Risk Action Report 2020

Atheist Ireland is a member of Humanists International, who today published the Humanists at Risk Action Report 2020. It exposes discrimination against atheists, humanists, and nonreligious people in eight countries: Colombia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. These States limit the rights to freedom of thought, conscience, ...

21/06/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

Protect Humanists at Risk 2020

Many atheists and humanists across the world cannot live freely in accordance with their values. As well as campaigning politically in Ireland, Atheist Ireland campaigns as a member of Humanists International to protect people at risk of persecution around the world. When we led the successful campaign to remove the ...

07/06/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

Pakistan still persecuting religious minorities

Pakistan is still persecuting atheists and religious minorities with blasphemy charges, often trumped up because of personal disputes, which can result in life imprisonment or the death penalty. Here are two current examples: an illiterate Christian couple facing death by hanging for allegedly sending a text message, whose appeal has ...

31/05/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

The United Nations and Religious Minorities

Atheist Ireland today sent this submission to Dr Fernand de Varennes, the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues. He is preparing a report for the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, about the significance and scope of the four categories of minorities (national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities). In ...

15/04/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

Understanding Freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael’s proposed framework for government aims to create a new social contract. This should treat everybody equally regardless of their religious or nonreligious beliefs, and without giving privilege to any religious or atheist organisations. To do this, we must reconsider our understanding of freedom of thought, ...

15/04/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

FF and FG’s new social contract must be based on equal freedom of religion and belief

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael's proposed framework for government aims to create new, credible, quality-of-life measures of individual and societal wellbeing and progress. They are correct to focus on economic recovery, healthcare, housing, education, climate action, young people, and global citizenship. They are also correct to prioritise underlying principles through a ...

14/04/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

Support today’s livestream for jailed Iranian blogger Soheil Arabi

Some of us have our freedoms temporarily constrained in order to protect people from the Covid pandemic. We should consider ourselves lucky compared to Soheil Arabi. Soheil is a 34-year-old Iranian blogger with a young daughter. He has been jailed and tortured since his arrest in 2013 for blasphemy after ...

09/04/2020 Atheist Ireland

Irish law on solemnising marriages still discriminates against atheists

A recent article by Hemant Mehta tells us that atheists can now solemnise marriages in Michigan after the State dropped its opposition. Up to now Michigan only permitted religious solemnisers and denied the authority to solemnise marriages to atheists. Meanwhile, the Irish law on solemnising marriages is still based on ...

08/03/2020 Atheist Ireland

Atheist Ireland submission to Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality

Atheist Ireland has made the following submission to the Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality. We have focused on three issues that have a secular relevance, rather than replicating issues that are already on the agenda of the Assembly. Introduction Atheist Ireland is an advocacy group. We promote atheism and reason ...