Atheist Ireland | Promoting atheism, reason and an ethical, secular state

29/04/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

Catholic schools defying new law by not including opt-out details in admissions policies

The Catholic Church is still trying to undermine the right of parents to opt their children out of religion classes. They are now trying to ensure that the arrangements for opting out are kept secret and that parents are not consulted. This is contrary to the Education (Admissions to Schools) ...

26/04/2020 No Comments Secular Sunday

Secular Sunday #435 – Schools still discriminating in access

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25/04/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

How can a five-year-old child undermine a school’s religious ethos?

Despite what some people think, the Education (Admissions to Schools) Act 2018 has not removed the religious discrimination in access to schools in Ireland. Minority faith primary schools and any religious secondary school can still give preference to co-religionists. And Catholic schools can still refuse access to children who they ...

19/04/2020 No Comments Secular Sunday

Secular Sunday #434 – A new social contract?

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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 ...

13/04/2020 No Comments Secular Sunday

Secular Sunday #433 – Rethinking religious discrimination

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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 ...

05/04/2020 Secular Sunday

Secular Sunday #432 – We hope you are healthy and safe

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