Written by Alexandre F. Shimono, News Team | 03 December 2012

Brazilian Real: Deus seja louvado - "God be praised"

Public Attorney Jefferson Dias, who has declared himself Catholic, is being threatened by his fellow Christians for moving a legal action to remove the phrase “God be praised” from Brazilian Real paper money. “I received some emails threatening my life, in the name of God” he stated, in an interview with an online news website. [1]

Dias is acting following a request to the Public Attorney by an atheist who stated he was disturbed by the Brazilian State showing a preference to one religion on the currency. Investigation by Dias revealed that the phrase “God be praised” was added to Brazilian currency after a personal request by Jose Sarney, currently president of Senate, during his time as President of Brazil (1985 - 1990). Dias noted that the Central Bank did not provide information about how the inclusion of the phrase occurred: but after Minister Marco Aurelio spoke of this matter in the context of his vote to make the abortion of anencepalic fetuses legal, the Central Bank acknowledged the phrase had been included as a personal favour.

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Written by administrator | 01 December 2012

This is the first paragraph from an article published in The Economist titled Atheists and Islam - No God, not even Allah:

A MOB attacked Alexander Aan even before an Indonesian court in June jailed him for two and a half years for “inciting religious hatred”. His crime was to write “God does not exist” on a Facebook group he had founded for atheists in Minang, a province of the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Like most non-believers in Islamic regions, he was brought up as a Muslim. And like many who profess godlessness openly, he has been punished.

Read the full article here.

Written by M.J., News Team | 26 November 2012

In Europe there is a tension between those who support freedom of expression and those who claim that their freedom of religion extends to freedom from their religion being offended.  Laws protect both freedom of expression and freedom of religion, but recent events threaten to expand the scope of freedom of religion into freedom from religious insult.

Historically, Europe has sought to protect freedom of expression to a high degree.  The European Commission for Democracy Through Law (Venice Commission) issued a report  in October 2008 [1] concluding with these recommendations:

a) That incitement to hatred, including religious hatred, should be the object of criminal sanctions.
b) That it is neither necessary nor desirable to create an offence of religious insult (that is, insult to religious feelings), without the element of incitement to hatred as an essential component.
c) That the offence of blasphemy should be abolished where it still exists and should not be reintroduced. 

The report indicated that blasphemy remained an offence in some European countries (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and San Marino – and Ireland added blasphemy as a crime in 2009), with many others instead, or in addition, making it a crime to insult religion (Andorra, Cyprus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine).  There is, however, no general definition of what counts as religious insult.

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Written by administrator | 18 November 2012

Jake and Han talk science, skepticism and atheism; the ‘real’ trinity!

Click here for the latest episode.

Written by Tanya Smith | 16 November 2012

Valentin Abottspon, the Swiss teacher who was fired for removing a crucifix from his classroom in 2010, has won his appeal against his dismissal.  The cantonal court in Valais ruled that Valentin's dismissal was unlawful, although did not conclude whether or not it is legal to display a crucifix in a public school in Switzerland. [1]

I was fortunate to meet Valentin last year at the launch of the International Association of Freethought in Oslo and again at the 2012 European Atheist Convention in Cologne, Germany, earlier this year.  He comes across as a dedicated teacher who did not ask for this particular fight, but found himself in it because he took a principled stance and refused to back down.  

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Written by Michael Nugent, Atheist Ireland | 14 November 2012

Shame on Ireland’s Catholic Bishops and our cowardly politicians. They could have protected the life of 31-year-old Savita Praveen Halappanavar, who tragically died last month in Galway after doctors denied her the right to abort an unviable foetus during a miscarriage.

Instead, while Savita was dying, the Catholic church was running an immoral propaganda campaign to mislead Irish people into believing that pregnant women will always get the medical care they need in Irish hospitals.

And Irish politicians were yet again refusing to legislate for abortion to save the life of a pregnant woman. They have now repeatedly refused to do this for twenty years, since the Irish courts established this right in the X case.

It took a raped pregnant teenager to establish this right in 1992. It should not have taken the death of a pregnant woman, twenty years later, to remind Irish politicians of their duty to legislate for that right. 

Read the full article here.