Atheist group’s prison book project aims to turn inmates against God

Douglas Ernst ("The Washington Times," January 15, 2014)

A humanist advocacy group has launched a book project designed to provide inmates with an atheist-based alternative to religious literature distributed in prisons.

The Freethought Books Project was began in December by the Center for Inquiry. Members of the group have made a concerted effort to collect and donate material to counter biblical teaching given to convicts.

“The project offers donated books on atheism, humanism, science, and skepticism to prisoners who seek alternatives to the religious proselytizing and indoctrination that is often unavoidable within the prison system,” states a press release announcing the project. “It will also connect inmates with volunteer pen pals at CFI branches with whom they can connect and share ideas.”

Steve Wells, author of “The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible,” donated copies of his book to the project.

“We think it’s important to provide an alternative to the Bibles and other religious materials that are continually pushed upon prison inmates,” he said.

Members of the Center for Inquiry aren’t the only ones participating. Individuals who know of the project of purchased atheist literature off an Amazon Wish List that was set up to promote the initiative, according to The Blaze.

“By providing books, as well as connections through the pen pal network, we offer prisoners much-needed ties to the outside world and open minds to the wonders of science and critical thinking,” project coordinator Sarah Kaiser told the Christian Post.

Since the initiative launched in December, 45 inmates have reportedly requested books from the Center for Inquiry, according to the Post.

Atheism a creed that needs the same religious protections of Christianity and Islam: Ontario Human Rights Tribunal

Tristin Hopper ("The National Post," August 28, 2013)

Atheism is a creed deserving of the the same religious protections as Christianity, Islam, and other faiths, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has ruled in a new decision.

“Protection against discrimination because of religion, in my view, must include protection of the applicants’ belief that there is no deity,” wrote David A. Wright, associate chair of the commission, in an August 13 decision.

The ruling was spurred by a complaint from self-described secular humanist Rene Chouinard, who was opposing the District School Board of Niagara’s policy regarding the distribution of Gideon bibles.

Since 1964, as in the rest of Canada, the Gideons had offered free red Bibles to Grade 5 students in the district—provided the students had first obtained parental consent.

Three years ago, in a protest move, Mr. Choinard, a Grimsby, Ont. father of two school-age children, offered to similarly distribute the Atheist text “Just Pretend: A Freethought Book for Children.”

When, as Mr. Chouinard expected, the board rejected his offer, he took his case to the Human Rights Tribunal, alleging that the school district has “discriminated against them … because of creed.”

The District School Board of Niagara has since updated their policy to welcome the distribution of other religious texts, so long as the religion is included in the Ontario Multifaith Information Manual, a periodically updated book detailing the beliefs, holy books and dietary restrictions of groups ranging from Hare Krishnas to to Rastafarians.

So far, no other religious group aside from the Gideons has taken the school board up on the offer and, as the manual does not include atheists or other non-believers, Mr, Chouinard’s proposal remained ineligible.

For that reason, on August 13th the Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the policy was biased.

“The policy was discriminatory because its definition of acceptable materials violated substantive equality by excluding the kinds of materials central to many creeds,” reads the decision.

Not only did it block Atheist texts, wrote the Tribunal, but texts by Falun Gong and other “emerging or non-traditional creeds.” The decision also noted that some creeds, such as Native Spiritual Beliefs, do not even have texts.

Even some Christian texts, if they were not deemed sacred enough, were banned by the policy.

“The restriction to sacred or foundational texts excludes some creeds and is therefore discriminatory,” read the ruling.

Throughout, Mr. Chouinard has maintained that his intention was not to put bundles of “Just Pretend,” a book that treats God as a make-believe figure, into the hands of schoolchildren — but rather to critique the current policy.

“We believe that if non-theistic materials were distributed in an Ontario Public School … people would insist that the Public School system is not the place for people with a religious agenda; and that is exactly our point!” he wrote in a letter to the school council.

Ultimately, the Human Rights Tribunal had no objection to the Gideons distributing bibles, provided that “participation is optional” and that all creeds were included under school policy.

“If [the school board] is prepared to distribute permission forms proposing the distribution of Christian texts to committed atheists, it must also be prepared to distribute permission forms proposing the distribution of atheist texts to religious Christians,” wrote Mr. Wright.

Under a Human Rights Tribunal Order, if the school board wants to continue to allow the distribution of Gideon bibles, it has six months to draw up a new policy “permitting distribution of creed and religious publications in its schools.”

Richard Dawkins' Anti-Muslim Tweets Spark Furor, Even Among Atheist Supporters

Yasmine Hafiz ("The Huffington Post," August 9, 2013)

Richard Dawkins responded to outrage over his controversial anti-Muslim tweets by calling the incident a "storm in a teacup."

The outspoken atheist started a Twitter furor by writing on August 8:

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins

All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.

August 8, 2013 2:04 pm via web

The statement appeared to say, "Muslims as a group haven't achieved anything worthwhile since the Middle Ages." He's said before, "I think Islam is one of the great evils of the world," as he subscribes to the "New Humanism" brand of atheism which places little to no value in religion.

Dawkins played dumb after receiving a flurry of indignant tweets which accused him of bigotry; tweeting in response:

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins

You can attack someone for his opinion. But for simply stating an intriguing fact? Who would guess that a single Cambridge College . . .

August 8, 2013 2:22 pm via web

He continued to defend himself by claiming that he was just sharing a fact, implying that all of his critics were irrational and biased.

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins

Interesting concept: a simple statement of undeniable FACT can be offensive. Other examples where facts should be hidden because offensive?

August 8, 2013 5:55 pm via web

The reactions ranged from outraged to bemused, as many pointed out the dubious science behind the apparently irrelevant comparison, as Trinity College has won so many Nobel Prizes that many groups would fall short when compared to their record, including all countries except the U.S.A., Britain, Germany, and France. But what's the point of pointing that out?

The goal of his tweets was clearly to provoke, as some commenters responded to his defense with:

Sean Biggerstaff @Seanchuckle

@RichardDawkins This is disingenuous. It was a wilfully provocative statement.

August 8, 2013 5:58 pm via Twitter for iPhone

Harry Alffa @HarryAlffa

@RichardDawkins I appreciate your own contribution to extelligence, but you knew the implication making/inference taking would hit home.

August 8, 2013 2:25 pm via web

Zoe Mavroudi @zoemavroudi

.@richarddawkins Why was this fact important to state? Does it lead to a conclusion about something substantive and important?

August 8, 2013 2:25 pm via Mobile Web (M2)

Even some of his admirers were disgusted, as Tom Chivers published a blog on the Telegraph titled, "Please be quiet, Richard Dawkins, I'm begging as a fan." He makes the point that Dawkins has strayed from providing critiques of religious beliefs and practices grounded in logic to blindly attacking faiths as monolithic groups, manipulating facts to further an agenda.

The Atlantic published "A Short History of Richard Dawkins vs. The Internet" that thoroughly chronicles Dawkins' long history of anti-Islamic speaking and writing, as well as his admiration for Geert Wilders, the notoriously far-right and anti-Muslim Dutch politician.

He once appeared to compare Islam with nazism, tweeting:

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins

Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read Qur'an. You don't have to read Mein Kampf to have an opinion about nazism.

March 25, 2013 8:18 am via web

Dawkins published a blog post on his website a day after the incident, titled, "Calm reflections after a storm in a teacup." He pointed out that there are 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet and that many claim that Islamic science is worthy of respect, given their historical achievements particularly in the Dark Ages. He finally made the point that was implied by his tweet, blatantly saying:

Putting these two claims together, you almost can’t help wondering something like this: “If you are so numerous, and if your science is so great, shouldn’t you be able to point to some pretty spectacular achievements emanating from among those vast numbers? If you can’t today but once could, what has gone wrong for the past 500 years? Whatever it is, is there something to be done about it?”

He then admitted that he was thinking of posting an even more provocative tweet:

I thought about comparing the numbers of Nobel Prizes won by Jews (more than 120) and Muslims (ten if you count Peace Prizes, half that if you don’t). This astonishing discrepancy is rendered the more dramatic when you consider the small size of the world’s Jewish population.

Behold, the six types of atheists

Dan Merica ("CNN," July 15, 2013)

How many ways are there to disbelieve in God?

At least six, according to a new study.

Two researchers at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga found that atheists and agnostics run the range from vocally anti-religious activists to nonbelievers who nonetheless observe some religious traditions.

“The main observation is that nonbelief is an ontologically diverse community,” write doctoral students Christopher Silver and Thomas Coleman.

“These categories are a first stab at this," Silver told the website Raw Story. "In 30 years, we may be looking at a typology of 32 types.”

Silver and Coleman derived their six types of nonbelievers from 59 interviews. 

1) Intellectual atheist/agnostic

This type of nonbeliever seeks information and intellectual stimulation about atheism.

They like debating and arguing, particularly on popular Internet sites.

(Ahem.)

They're also well-versed in books and articles about religion and atheism, and prone to citing those works frequently.

2) Activist

These kinds of atheists and agnostics are not content with just disbelieving in God; they want to tell others why they reject religion and why society would be better off if we all did likewise.

They tend to be vocal about political causes like gay rights, feminism, the environment and the care of animals.

3) Seeker-agnostic

This group is made up of people who are unsure about the existence of a God but keep an open mind and recognize the limits of human knowledge and experience.

Silver and Coleman describe this group as people who regularly question their own beliefs and “do not hold a firm ideological position.”

That doesn't mean this group is confused, the researchers say. They just embrace uncertainty.

4) Anti-theist

This group regularly speaks out against religion and religious beliefs, usually by positioning themselves as “diametrically opposed to religious ideology,” Silver and Coleman wrote.

“Anti-theists view religion as ignorance and see any individual or institution associated with it as backward and socially detrimental,” the researchers wrote. “The Anti-Theist has a clear and – in their view, superior – understanding of the limitations and danger of religions.”

Anti-theists are outspoken, devoted and – at times – confrontational about their disbelief. They believe that "obvious fallacies in religion and belief should be aggressively addressed in some form or another.”

5) Non-theist

The smallest group among the six are the non-theists, people who do not involve themselves with either religion or anti-religion.

In many cases, this comes across as apathy or disinterest.

“A Non-Theist simply does not concern him or herself with religion,” Silver and Coleman wrote. “Religion plays no role or issue in one’s consciousness or worldview; nor does a Non- Theist have concern for the atheist or agnostic movement.”

They continue: “They simply do not believe, and in the same right, their absence of faith means the absence of anything religion in any form from their mental space.”

6) Ritual atheist

They don't believe in God, they don’t associate with religion, and they tend to believe there is no afterlife, but the sixth type of nonbeliever still finds useful the teachings of some religious traditions.

“They see these as more or less philosophical teachings of how to live life and achieve happiness than a path to transcendental liberation,” Silver and Coleman wrote. “For example, these individuals may participate in specific rituals, ceremonies, musical opportunities, meditation, yoga classes, or holiday traditions.”

For many of these nonbelievers, their adherence to ritual may stem from family traditions. For others, its a personal connection to, or respect for, the "profound symbolism" inherent within religious rituals, beliefs and ceremonies, according to the researchers.

Richard Mourdock: the theology behind his rape comments

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald ("The Christian Science Monitor," October 25, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38432/

When Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock this week spoke provocatively of rape-induced pregnancy as “something that God intended to happen,” liberals and atheists weren’t the only ones outraged.

The furor extends into Evangelical camps, too. Believers have taken Mr. Mourdock to task for bungling the important doctrine of providence, which holds that a benevolent God upholds and cares for an imperfect world.

In awkwardly wading into theological waters, Mourdock apparently aimed to affirm the belief – widely held in Evangelical circles, in particular – that God's sovereignty knows no limits. It is a concept that has strong ties to 16th-century Swiss religious reformer John Calvin, who saw in scripture and day-to-day events evidence of a hands-on God. Mourdock showed, however, how tricky it can be to apply the doctrine in discussing tragic events.

What Mourdock said “is offensive,” says Richard Lints, a theologian of the Reformed tradition, which has Calvinist roots, and dean at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass. “The clumsiness is [to] so align God with evil that God becomes a horrific figure. It’s contrary to anything you read in scripture, and it removes the human responsibility.”

Later, Mourdock sought to explain himself, saying, “God creates life, and that was my point.” But the nuances of theology can often be difficult enough to elucidate in a classroom, much less a press conference or a live television debate.

“The Calvinist would say God has permitted [bad] things to happen” because humans have free agency, says Gary Scott Smith, a Presbyterian minister and historian at Grove City College in Grove City, Pa. “But we should not attribute [evil things] to God, even though God can bring good things out of them.”

Providence and theodicy, which asks how a good God could allow bad things to happen, have stirred debate throughout Christian history. Fifth-century theologian Augustine of Hippo argued, for instance, that birth defects were a just consequence of original sin.

These days, Evangelicals emphasize God’s sovereignty for many reasons.

Some in the pews are comforted to think everything is part of God’s plan and therefore no suffering is meaningless, according to religion scholar Peter Thuesen, author of "Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine."

What’s more, some also worry that “if you start restricting the scope of providence, that’s a slippery slope to atheism,” says Mr. Thuesen, a professor of religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. “It calls into question whether there really is a God who controls all things.”

Mourdock isn’t part of any obscure sect. He reportedly attends Christian Fellowship Church in Evansville, Ind. It’s a “fairly typical Evangelical megachurch,” not a hub of fringe theology, according to Larry Eskridge, associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College in Illinois. Insofar as Mourdock seeks to emphasize God’s sovereignty in all things, he belongs to a “vocal minority subculture” in the United States, Thuesen says.

He’s also vying for a spot in an American political tradition. Presidents from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy have emphasized how God provides amidst difficult circumstances. Making good come from evil was an oft-heard theme from a range of politicians after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

In the meantime, though, Mourdock might have reluctantly become part of another tradition. As Thuesen sums it up: “politicians are terrible theologians.”

Eastern Germany: the most godless place on Earth

By Peter Thompson ("The Guardian," September 22, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38148/

They are sending missionaries to eastern Germany. A recent study called Beliefs About God Across Time and Countries found that 52.1% of people asked whether they believed in God identified themselves as atheists. This compared with only 10.3% in western Germany. Indeed, the survey was unable to find a single person under the age of 28 in eastern Germany who believed in God. Obviously there are some – I think I may have even met some once – but the survey was unable to find them. On the face of it this is an extraordinary finding and it is something that needs some careful explanation.

Different reasons are adduced for the absence of religion in the east. The first one that is usually brought out is the fact that that area was run by the Communist party from 1945 to 1990 and that its explicit hostility to religion meant that it was largely stamped out. However, this is not entirely the case. In fact, after initial hostilities in the first years of the GDR, the SED came to a relatively comfortable accommodation with what was called the Church in Socialism. The churches in the GDR were given a high degree of autonomy by SED standards and indeed became the organisational focus of the dissident movement of the 1990s, which was to some extent led by Protestant pastors.

In addition to an accommodation with religion, the party also deliberately created alternative poles of integration for the population. Young people were brought up in a highly ideological atmosphere and were required to undergo a so-called Jugendweihe – a sort of atheist confirmation. Interestingly, this ceremony has survived the end of communism and many young people still voluntarily enter into it. Equally, especially under Eric Honecker in the 1970s and 80s, an attempt was made to create a sort of "GDR patriotism", in which figures from Prussian history such as Frederick the Great were put back on their plinths in East Berlin and integrated into the Communist narrative of the forward march of history. Martin Luther, Thomas Münzer and other figures from the Reformation were also recruited into the party.

Another factor is that religion in eastern Germany is also overwhelmingly Protestant, both historically and in contemporary terms. Of the 25% who do identify themselves as religious, 21% of them are Protestants. The other 4% is made up of a small number of Catholics as well as Muslims and adherents of other new evangelical groups, new-age sects or alternative religions. The Protestant church is in steep decline with twice as many people leaving it every year as joining.

If we were to follow the Weberian line on this, then a highly Protestant area undergoing rapid modernisation would almost automatically experience a process of radical secularisation going hand-in-hand with industrialisation, a process which was only speeded up by the communist obsession with heavy industry.

When we look at western Germany however, we see that there Catholics are in a majority and indeed, political power in West Germany has traditionally been built on western-orientated Catholic support for the Christian Democratic Union in the south and west. Indeed, the first chancellor of postwar West Germany, Konrad Adenauer, had been mayor of Cologne in the 1930s and even then was in favour of the division of Germany and a "Rhineland Alliance" as a sort of precursor of the European Union.

What all of this means is that rather than simply just being an area that was occupied by the Soviet Union and their satraps in the East German Communist party, the eastern part of Germany has an identity which – almost a quarter of a century on – continues to make unification more difficult than expected. Religious confession, or rather the lack of it, plays an important role in this. This has led some to talk of East German atheism as a form of continuing political and regional identification. For example, in 2000 the Catholic theologian Eberhard Tiefensee identified what he called an "East German folk atheism" which could be argued to constitute a substantial part of a regional identity against West German Catholic domination.

Secularisation processes are under way throughout the continent and the role of religion and the church in modernity are being questioned everywhere, from gay marriage to women priests to abortion and on to whether the EU should identify itself as a Christian entity. The question should perhaps be whether it is actually folk atheism that represents the future of Europe.

Lacking A First Amendment, Great Britain Is Hostile Toward Religion

By Doug Bandow ("Forbes," September 24, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38137/

Great Britain and the United States might enjoy a “special relationship,” but they do not share the same commitment to religious liberty. A parliamentary democracy, London has an unwritten constitution, but no equivalent of the First Amendment. Thus, religious liberty increasingly is at risk in a social environment dominated by political correctness.

Four British cases involving religious liberty recently hit the European Court of Human Rights. While the United Kingdom is no persecutor state, like Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, and North Korea, among many others, religious believers in Great Britain face increasing challenges.

Earlier this year an “all-party” British legislative group, Christians in Parliament, published a report on the status of religious freedom, “Clearing the Ground Inquiry: Preliminary Report into the Freedom of Christians in the UK.” The committee’s key finding: “Christians in the UK face problems in living out their faith and these problems have been mostly caused and exacerbated by social, cultural and legal changes over the past decade.”

Any secular society will challenge people of faith. Christians in Parliament admitted as much: “Christians have, and will always, experience tensions between their beliefs and the shifting values of the societies that they live in.” Nor should believers expect everyone to always accommodate them. Those who believe differently may see no reason to incur expense or inconvenience because Christians believe God requires them to act one way or another. Indeed, Jesus warned his followers that there would be a cost to their faith. “In this world you will have trouble,” he said (John 16:33). Respecting the reasonable requirements and even unreasonable desires of others is one aspect of that cost.

Nevertheless, believers are right to resist being “marginalized,” as the committee feared. To its credit, the report acknowledged that marginalization is not the same as persecution. To suggest the latter “is to minimize the suffering of Christians in many parts of the world who face repression, imprisonment, and death if they worship, preach or convert.” Such is not the case in Great Britain—or the U.S., for that matter, despite abundant cultural and sporadic legal hostility to Christians and other people of faith.

Still, a good and free society will leave space for all of its participants. Christianity has enriched British life for 1600 years. Today Christians are more active than average Britons in charitable and other public activities. Yet, observed Christians in Parliament, “the frequency and nature of the [court] cases [involving Christians] indicates a narrowing of the space for the articulation, expression and demonstration of Christian belief.”

The issue is not retaining Christian dominance of British society. The United Kingdom, like America, has become more pluralistic, with more faiths represented as well as the rise, observed the report, of “a public discourse heavily influenced by secular humanist ideas.” The latter should be as welcome as religious advocacy. However, Christians’ access to the public square should not be artificially and arbitrarily constricted.

Religious illiteracy is one cause of conflict: “Knowledge and understanding of Christian belief is considerably diminished from what it was in previous eras,” concluded the group. The problem is exacerbated by the non-obligatory nature of Christianity—that believers feel relatively free to personally decide the application of their faith to daily life. In such a situation, explained the report, “there is a challenge for a secularly-shaped state and legal system that seeks to define religious belief through a series of ‘tick boxes’.” This lack of clarity influences the drafting of laws, which in Britain provide the most serious interference with the outworking of Christian faith. The panel cited “a frequent default position of suspicion towards Christianity as the most concerning effect of religious liberty.”

Many problems occur when religious groups accept government funding for social services. If you take the cash, it is hard to complain about fulfilling the conditions, no matter how unreasonable. The obvious answer is to avoid pocketing Caesar’s coin. That becomes more difficult, however, as government expands, vacuuming up private resources that otherwise would be available to private groups. If more people “give at the office,” so to speak, it becomes less reasonable to strip all religious values out of the office—or the government, in this case.

Harder to avoid are limitations imposed on Christians “in their employment and involvement with public bodies.” Multiple cases include such issues as employers restricting the use of religious jewelry and display of religious symbols. Companies sometimes seem unreasonable, but they have a right to set employment terms.

Far more serious are direct government attacks on basic expressions of faith. For instance, the committee pointed to the case of a long-time employee of a public housing agency who was demoted and threatened for questioning same-sex marriage on his personal Facebook page. A street preacher was arrested and charged with a hate crime for saying that homosexuality was a sin. A businessman was detained and questioned by the police for displaying Bible verses viewed as “homophobic.”

The report acknowledged that it might not always be wise to present one’s faith in a confrontational manner. However, added the committee, “the public proclamation of the Bible is an important feature of Christian life.” Criminalizing preaching basic religious doctrine is akin to the sort of persecution common elsewhere around the world.

Employers may be justified in instructing workers to avoid the subject on company time. Indeed, some of the cases examined by Christians in Parliament involved teachers and medical professionals who offered to pray with students and patients, something for which, admitted the committee, “there is certainly need for great sensitivity.” However, it is dubious to single out religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Similar is the problem when government insists on overriding people’s spiritual sensitivities in their work as they personally provide goods and services. It’s an issue upon which Christians differ based on circumstances. Most believers do not object to dealing or working with gays or anyone else when doing so does not imply acceptance or endorsement. But some Christians are more sensitive than others and some activities are more problematic than others.

The report cited examples of a psychotherapist whose counseling “is directed to Christians who share her beliefs,” the owner of a bed and breakfast who refused to rent rooms to unmarried couples, a city council registrar who requested that colleagues conduct same-sex ceremonies, and Catholic adoption agencies which refused to place children with gays. Similar controversies have occurred in the U.S., as hostile political activists increasingly have sought not equality before the law but humiliation of those who believe differently.

One cause, argued the panel, was the media, which has “an often duplicitous relationship with issues of Christian freedom—both bringing them to light and exacerbating legal tensions.” Christian activists, too, sometimes worsen the problem: “on some occasions we perceive that campaigning becomes inflammatory or even counter-productive to Christian freedoms.” The report warned believers against seeing themselves “as just another self-designated victim group.”

Nevertheless, the most threatening factor is the law. The panel pointed to Britain’s 2010 Equality Act, which bans discrimination based on religion, as well as marriage and sexual orientation. Unfortunately, “the law does not provide any guidance about how tensions between the equality strands should be managed.” So far religious liberty has suffered. Concluded the report: “early indications from court judgments are that sexual orientation takes precedence and religious belief is required to adapt.” In this way, the legislation undermines one of its purposes, to protect people of faith. Also, the act “is having the paradoxical effect of undermining the diversity of plural groups in society and even the diversity of individuals.”

One conflict area in Britain, as in America, is when religious organizations set employment requirements based on faith. This often involves sex and sexuality. The other is Christians seeking employment and providing goods and services in a manner which respects their faith. “Discrimination” in this case rarely denies anyone necessary services. Observed the report, in some of the high-profile legal cases “there was no suggestion that ceremonies would not be carried out, or children would not be cared for, if the accommodation requested was granted.” However, so far this fact has not been considered in implementing the law.

Another problematic measure is the Public Order Act, which penalizes insulting speech. Arrests under this legislation, noted the report, “exemplify a change in culture so that ‘equality’ means you are not supposed to criticize people’s religion or sexual behavior in public.” In this area, at least, Americans enjoy much greater legal protection through the First Amendment.

Professional regulation, particularly of health care professionals, also tends to emphasize prevention of “harassment” over protection of liberty. The commission noted that government rules exhibit “a lack of logic … because someone who is prevented in the workplace from manifesting their belief, either through prayer or witnessing, may consider themselves harassed on account of their beliefs.” By essentially forcing believers to privatize or internalize their faith, these sort of government or government-backed requirements prevent Christians from acting as “salt and light” as instructed by Jesus. Tensions between an evangelistic lifestyle and sensitive engagement always will exist. But government has unbalanced the playing field, unnecessarily putting people of faith at a sometimes great disadvantage.

Also limiting religious liberty in the United Kingdom is the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Its role is to enforce equality. Testimony taken by Christians in Parliament generated “overwhelming negative” reports about the HRC. The report concluded: “It is our view that the commission has failed to sufficiently represent and advocate for the role of religion in public life and sufficiently balance the outworking of religious belief when there is a tension between it and the other equality strands.”

Having diagnosed the problem, the group sensibly asked, what to do? The panel argued against a view that “the current situation is simply an inevitable outcome of a process of secularization.” To its credit, these Christian advocates rejected “looking to the government to enforce Christian belief on a plural society, but neither are we suggesting that Christians should give in to a secular humanist agenda.”

The committee emphasized “reasonable accommodation,” though acknowledging that this doctrine “is not a silver bullet to protect the role of religion in public life.” Moreover, accommodation cannot be only one way. People of faith also should accept the right of private employers, who offer jobs which are neither a legal entitlement nor a human right, to set their own rules.

In contrast, the state has the greatest obligation to accommodate when it uses its vast coercive power. Unfortunately, in Britain government seems the institution least willing to compromise. Observed the panel: “various levels of government and other public bodies often demonstrate an insufficient understanding of religious belief. This also includes the courts as they apply and interpret the relevant laws.”

Christians in Parliament also suggested that relationships be based on respect rather than tolerance, since the former “is about acknowledging difference and living beside people with whom you may have profound disagreements, even to the point that their view cause you offense.” Most obviously, people should not be arrested for stating Biblical views which others find to be offensive. Similarly, the law should protect diversity rather than mandate sameness. The panel powerfully argues that insensitivity does not justify arresting people for behavior that some find to be “insulting.” For all of this policymakers need to better understand the tenets and role of faith.

The panel closed by recognizing that Christians have a responsibility as well. “There is much to celebrate about contemporary life in Britain,” it noted. Moreover, it was important to acknowledge “an occasional lack of humility and a need to speak truth with grace to an ailing culture.” Further, the committee argued that it is not enough to oppose, but “it is essential that Christians articulate a vision for society that goes beyond defending their own interests and is seen to be for the good of all.”

But retreat is not an option. Christians in Parliament emphasized that believers cannot leave public life. Christianity requires more than worship. It requires believers to be salt and light as they live and act in the world around them. Concluded the report: “Being distinctively Christian, they must work for the good of society, and towards a society that is truly respectful of different beliefs. Christians should encourage a confident pluralism that acknowledges disagreements and is not a cover for enforcing sameness under the cloak of diversity.”

Restrictions on religious liberty are not limited to Britain. Discrimination against Christians elsewhere in Europe was described earlier this year in “Report 2011,” produced by the Austrian-based non-governmental organization Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe.

The group pointed to a range of offenses, including violence, vandalism, discrimination, and other forms of hostility. The report concluded: “Intolerance and discrimination against Christians, describing the denial of equal rights and the social marginalization of Christians, is the most explanatory term for this phenomenon in the Western world. Even though this is technically a form of persecution, it must not be called so in Europe, in order to avoid confusion with the crimes committed against Christians in other places of the world.” Last year the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe approved a resolution calling for initiation of debate over “intolerance and discrimination against Christians.”

The examples cited of basic religious freedoms denied range from violent disruption of worship services and workplace bans on religious jewelry and decorations to suppression of Christian iPhone applications and interference with employment terms set by religious organizations. Government plays a key role. In one case the authorities banned a religious-day barbeque. Governments have denied building permits to churches. Freedom of speech has suffered with the arrest and dismissal of Christians speaking out and protesting on political issues, a radio station ban on Christian ads, a postal service refusal to deliver “offensive” religious materials, interference with Christian rallies, and government fines on pro-life sidewalk counselors.

Regulations and laws also violate freedom of conscience of Christians in the provision of goods and services. Examples include mandating that Christians rent to homosexuals, penalizing foster parents who oppose homosexuality, and forcing Christian medical professionals to perform or participate in abortions. Faux equality has been imposed, causing “indirect discrimination of Christians as a side-effect” as well as “a tendency to indirectly discriminate against Christians by criminalizing core elements of Christian teaching,” according to the report. Marriage commissioners have been evaluated to ensure their support for same sex marriage; Catholic social services have been ordered to assist in same sex adoption; Paypal has dropped service for Christian sites.

The report also worries about marginalization of Christians, particularly attempts “to make the public expression or exercise of the non-tolerated religion impossible.” Examples include firing a teacher who talked about abortion and denying anti-abortion activists permission to protest. Mockery and suppression of religious symbols is another problem. Some examples reflect private intolerance; others public policies. The report also pointed to “insult, defamation and negative stereotyping.” Many of these represent free speech that despite its offensiveness should be protected from government interference, but which today might result in legal sanction if delivered by Christians against other faiths.

More worrisome are “hate incidents,” some violent, including interfering with religious services and assaulting religious people. Desecration and vandalism have become problems at churches and cemeteries with religious decorations, monuments, and ornaments. A pharmacy was attacked for refusing to sell the “morning-after” pill.

The group acknowledged the irony of discrimination against a majority. However, the majority is only nominally Christian; the most faithful believers are the most likely to face the greatest persecution. Further, noted the organization, “More essential than numbers is power: who sets the tone, who is listened to, and who creates the agenda.” The Christian faithful do not.

The report suggested “a roadmap to freedom of religion.” That means recognizing that religious liberty is not just individual action but acting in community with one another. It means understanding that religion offers benefits to the larger society. A secular government need not be an anti-religious government.

The group is generally on point, though it went too far when, for instance, it defended state support for established religions and dismissed treating atheism with “similar consideration, or official standing in a regular and transparent dialogue with the European Institutions as is foreseen for churches.” While religious values should be free to circulate in politics, the institutions of church and state should be kept separate.

Religious persecution is all too common around the world. Less murderous but increasingly worrisome is discrimination against believers in Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe. The continent needs to rediscover its appreciation for freedom of conscience, of which religion is the most basic.

Religious persecution is all too common around the world. Less murderous but increasingly worrisome is discrimination against believers in Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe. The continent needs to rediscover its appreciation for freedom of conscience, of which religion is the most basic.

Atheists rally for persecuted unbeliever in Indonesia

By Kimberly Winston ("The Washington Post," July 19, 2012)


Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37771/?place=indonesia-brunei

The atheist community has embraced the cause of an Indonesian man, Alexander Aan, who was beaten and jailed after denying God’s existence on Facebook and posting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The Center for Inquiry, a Washington-based humanist organization, launched a petition Tuesday (July 17) on behalf of Alexander Aan, a 30-year-old Indonesian civil servant currently serving a 30-month jail sentence for “deliberately spreading information inciting religious hatred and animosity,” according to the judge who sentenced him.

The petition asks the Obama administration to pressure the Indonesian government for Aan’s release and for better protection of religious freedom in that country, the most populous Muslim nation in the world.

“We are hoping that this petition will promote Aan’s cause and put it in the public consciousness so we can build a better coalition to get him out of jail,” said Michael De Dora, CFI’s director of public policy. “It should matter to all human beings any time another human being is being denied basic human rights.”

Aan was arrested in January after posting “God doesn’t exist” and cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to the page of a Facebook group he started dedicated to atheism. The group had 1,200 members.

A crowd came to his house and beat him, according to news reports. Aan was charged with blasphemy and persuading others to embrace atheism, both crimes in Indonesia. In June, he was sentenced to jail and a fine of 100 million rupiah (about $10,600).

Earlier this month, Aan released a letter from his jail cell that thanked his backers for their “support and love.” He added, “Without this I feel alone.”

CFI posted the petition via We The People, the Obama administration’s website where anyone can bring a cause to the White House’s attention. They have 30 days to garner 25,000 signatures before the Obama officials will consider it.

Atheist Alliance International has also lobbied for Aan, pressuring the Indonesian government to release him and starting a legal defense fund in his name.

CFI has held two rallies on behalf of Aan, one outside the Indonesian embassy in Washington and another outside the Indonesian consulate to the United Nations in New York. There are also plans for a stand-alone website and a sign-on letter on Aan’s behalf.

“It depends on what happens with this petition,” De Dora said.

Prominent atheist blogger converts to Catholicism

By Dan Merica ("CNN," June 22, 2012)


Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37541/?place=united-states

Washington, USA - Leah Libresco, who’d been a prominent atheist blogger for the religion website Patheos, announced on her blog this week that after years of debating many “smart Christians,” she has decided to become one herself, and that she has begun the process of converting to Catholicism.

Libresco, who had long blogged under the banner “Unequally Yoked: A geeky atheist picks fights with her Catholic boyfriend,” said that at the heart of her decision were questions of morality and how one finds a moral compass.

“I had one thing that I was most certain of, which is that morality is something we have a duty to,” Libresco told CNN in an interview this week, a small cross dangling from her neck. “And it is external from us. And when push came to shove, that is the belief I wouldn’t let go of. And that is something I can’t prove.”

According to a Patheos post she wrote on Monday, entitled “This is my last post for the Patheos Atheist Portal,” she began to see parts of Christianity and Catholicism that fit her moral system. Though she now identifies as a Catholic, Libresco questions certain aspects of Catholicism, including the church’s positions on homosexuality, contraception and some aspects of religious liberty.

“There was one religion that seemed like the most promising way to reach back to that living Truth,” Libresco wrote about Catholicism in her conversion announcement post, which has been shared over 18,000 times on Facebook. “I asked my friend what he suggests we do now, and we prayed the night office of the Liturgy of the Hours together.”

At the end of the post, Libresco announces that she is in a Rights of Christian Initiation of Adults class and is preparing for baptism. She will continue to blog for Patheos, but under the banner, “A geeky convert picks fights in good faith.”

According to Dan Welch, director of marketing for Patheos, Libresco’s post has received around 150,000 page views so far.

“Leah's blog has gotten steadily more popular since she arrived at Patheos, but a typical post on her blog is probably closer to the range of 5,000 page views,” Welch wrote in an email. “Even now, a few days later, her blog is probably getting 20-30 times its normal traffic.”

Libresco’s announcement has left some atheists scratching their heads.

“I think atheists were surprised that she went with Catholicism, which seems like a very specific choice,” Hemant Mehta, an atheist blogger at Patheos, told CNN. “I have a hard time believing how someone could jump from I don’t believe in God to a very specific church and a very specific God.”

Mehta says that Libresco’s conversion is a “one-off thing” and not something that signals any trend in atheism. “The trends are very clear, the conversions from Catholicism to atheism are much more likely to happen than the other way around,” he said.

But while atheists were puzzled by the conversion, others commended Libresco.

“I know I’ve prayed for her conversion several times, always thinking she would make a great Catholic,” wrote Brandon Vogt, a Catholic blogger. “And with this news, it looks like that will happen. Today heaven is roaring with joy.”

Thomas L. McDonald, a Catholic Patheos blogger, welcomed Libresco to the fold: “Welcome. I know this was hard, and will continue to be so. Don’t worry if the Catholics make it as for difficult for you as the atheists. We only do it to people we love.”

Libresco says one of the most common questions she has received is how she'll deal with atheists now.

“The great thing about a lot of the atheist and skeptic community is that people talk more critically about ideas and want to see proof provided,” Libresco said. “That kind of analytical thinking is completely useful and the Catholic Church doesn’t need to and should not be afraid of because if you’ve got the facts on your side, you hope they win.”

Libresco is just switching the side she thinks the facts are on.

The media, popular opinion and religious freedom

By Magda Hornemann ("Forum 18 News Service," May 21, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37343/

Beijing, China - In analysing why freedom of religion or belief is violated in China, attention has rightly mainly focused on the state's institutions, policies, and practices. One state institution that deserves more scrutiny is the media, because in Communist countries like China it has been an integral component of the state apparatus to promote atheism, among other state-supported ideas. Such sustained indoctrination has historically encouraged a lack of popular interest in - or even hostility towards - religion, religious groups and religious adherents. The state's intended result has been public support for state polices and practices hostile to religious freedom.

The connection between popular opinion on religion and religious freedom violations has not been systematically studied in relation to China. The absence of hard data makes it difficult to demonstrate a causal linkage. But evidence suggests that popular attitudes towards religion have facilitated the state's repression of religious freedom, and the Chinese media have facilitated those attitudes by maintaining its traditional function as an instrument of the state.

Popular opinion

There is little doubt that the number of religious adherents in China has risen over the past two decades. Signs of religious revival are visible across the country. This rising religiosity has accompanied greater societal modernisation, even though the Chinese state has demonstrated hostility toward religion.

Some research has shown that the state's attitudes towards religion have not been accompanied by declining religiosity. In 2007, the China Daily published the results of a two-year survey by two researchers at Shanghai's East China Normal University (ECNU). That survey suggested that there were about 300 million self-described religious people in China. This number contradicted the long-held official line that only 100 million religious believers lived in China. Other survey results have suggested that the majority of the Chinese people are quite "religious". For example, 60 per cent of the Chinese respondents to the Pew Forum's 2005 survey indicated that they believed in supernatural phenomena, supernatural beings and religious figures.

These results suggest that religion has made an important come-back in China after decades of enforced atheism. But despite the rising number of religious believers and increasing signs of religiosity, the great majority of ordinary people - as Forum 18 has noted in China - consistently express little interest in religion. Along with this, they also may profess open hostility toward religion.

Indeed, there are reasons to believe that the surveys have not captured the full picture of the religious attitudes of ordinary people. An obstacle to capturing religious attitudes is that "religiousness" has not always been defined clearly and consistently in the existing research. For example, we are not sure how the ECNU researchers defined religiousness. The Pew Forum, however, has indicated clearly that its project defined religious beliefs as beliefs in "supernatural phenomena", "religious figures" and "supernatural beings".

Another challenge is that even if rising religiosity has become an important trend, it has not led to formal religious affiliation. Even though the ECNU survey results suggested that nearly one-third of China's population are religious believers, the percentage of respondents who have indicated clear religious affiliation has remained around 15 per cent over the past decade, as the Pew Forum noted. In other words, the relationship between the "religious beliefs" of the ordinary Chinese and their sense of religious "belonging" is at best uncertain. This apparent contradiction challenges researchers to gain a fuller understanding of the religious attitudes of ordinary Chinese.

One way to get a better sense of such attitudes is to gauge the importance of religion in their life, especially in relation to other socio-political institutions. In this respect, the World Values Survey indicates that, for most ordinary Chinese, religion has not become very important. This is the case despite people's greater willingness to indicate a belief in the supernatural.

In the 2007 sample of the World Values Survey, Chinese respondents were asked about the relative importance of several social and political groupings in their lives. In the sample of nearly 1,500 respondents, over 98 per cent had identified the family as either "very important" or "rather important" in their lives, with nearly 80 per cent of the respondents indicating that family was "very important". Approximately 83 per cent of respondents identified friends as either "very important" or "rather important". Over 55 per cent of the respondents identified politics as either "very important" or "rather important". By contrast, just fewer than 22 per cent of respondents indicated that religion was either "very important" or "rather important", while nearly 50 per cent indicated that religion was "not at all important".

This is matched by the Chinese person's relatively low level of confidence in religious institutions. In the sample, over 60 per cent of respondents indicated that they had either no confidence or "not very much" confidence in "churches". In contrast, approximately 80 per cent of respondents expressed either "a great deal of" confidence or "quite a lot of" confidence in the police and another 74 per cent held similar views about trade unions, which have been heavily criticised within China for their failure to represent the interests of ordinary workers.

The survey is problematic in that it used the word "churches" as the sole name for religious institutions. Nonetheless, Christian churches are in China a common form of religious institution that has seen a dramatic rise over the last two decades. Yet the churches have not acquired greater legitimacy than two heavily criticised state institutions, suggesting that Chinese religious institutions maintain only a low level of public legitimacy.

This is puzzling, as religion is gaining popularity in contemporary China, and the state has become more flexible in its management of religion. Part of the answer to this puzzle can be found in the fact that the Chinese media has not always presented a comprehensive and unbiased picture of either religion in China or state institutions. This is not least because the state controls the media, including the internet. It also means that the Chinese media has not promoted religious freedom.

Media self-censorship

China is now in the era of post-communism, characterised by greater social pluralism, more individual choices and unprecedented consumerism. Chinese media outlets have been described as both commercialised and more pluralistic, and the media has indeed reported on a wide range of controversial subjects. Yet they have generally avoided religion-related subjects, as editors and reporters see religion as sensitive and controversial. When non-internet Chinese media do report on religion and religious freedom, reports tend to be negative.

Mainstream media outlets have also continued to serve as vehicles to propagate state policies and practices. Specialist religious publications are few, with a circulation mainly restricted to religious groups and government officials, and generally inaccessible to ordinary people. As a result, the media has fostered popular religious attitudes that are not conducive to the protection of religious freedom.

The Chinese media's self-censorship reflects the cautious attitude displayed in state documents and by state officials. 31 March this year marked the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of Document 19 of the Communist Party of China, entitled: "Basic Viewpoints and Basic Policy on Religious Issues in Our Country during the Socialist Period". Toward the end of the document, the authors wrote that writers "must adopt a cautious attitude when writing essays involving religious issues for publication in newspapers and other publications. [They] must not violate existing religious policies and harm the religious feelings of the masses who profess religious beliefs".

On 25 January, the state-sponsored Religion in China magazine published a speech by Liu Jinguang, who is the deputy principal of the Politics and Law Bureau in the State Administration for Religious Affairs. The speech was entitled "The Practice of the Chinese Mass Media in Promoting and Protecting Religious Harmony".

Liu listed four "principles" that the Chinese media should abide by when publishing religious contents:

1) published contents cannot violate state policies and laws, including those concerning religion;

2) published contents must adhere to the relevant doctrines of the various religions;

3) published contents must be beneficial for the unity of all religions;

and 4) published contents must not harm the religious feelings of ethnic minorities.

These four principles track very closely what was written in Document 19.

According to Li Xianping, a professor of religion at ECNU who is well-known in China, the desire to avoid offending the Communist Party's religious sensibilities has resulted in the media adopting a practice of avoiding religious matters. When the media has reported about religion, most have supported and repeated state policies, acting in its traditional role as the state's mouthpiece.

The reporting of Liu Jinguang's speech in Religion in China was an example of this. Similar types of media coverage include reports about senior state leaders' meetings with senior Chinese and foreign religious officials, the proceedings of state-sponsored religious conferences, and the Chinese government's responses to foreign criticisms of its religious policies, such as from the US Department of State and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Other than this form of reporting, most Chinese media coverage of religion has tended to be critical without seeking to establish whether the criticism is valid. In his blog posted on 23 November 2010, Professor Li cited reporting about a recent controversy involving a former leader of the state-sponsored Daoist association, known in China as the "Li Yi phenomenon". The Daoist Li had claimed supernatural powers, including the ability to cure cancer, and the details of the controversy are (as is usual with influential figures in China) difficult to establish with a high degree of certainty. Professor Li cited the controversy as an example of how ideological pluralism can be promoted when the media become involved in religious reporting.

But the same reporting can also illustrate problems in the media. It may well be that the Daoist Li's activities and claims merit severe criticism. But even if the former Daoist leader carried out all the illicit activities he is accused of, the media in the main did not seek to establish whether or not this was the case.

As Professor Li noted, media reporting followed a line unlikely to incur the Communist Party's displeasure by promoting "scientism" and denying the value of religion, "returning to the so-called materialism and thus denying all religious beliefs" and analysing the truth in terms the Party would approve of. Indeed, much of the writing on this and similar cases has tended to be sensational in nature and involved an a priori assumption that religious figures are untrustworthy.

Through self-censorship, exercising its traditional function as the state's mouthpiece, negative reporting, and limited circulation of specialist publications, the non-internet Chinese media has promoted negative popular views about religion and religious freedom in contemporary China.

The internet

The state has adopted explicit measures to crack down on the promotion of religion and religious freedom on the Internet. In urban areas and among people under the age of 40, the internet has enjoyed rising popularity. Chinese internet users have been very active exchanging information. But the state continues to maintain a tight control over the publication of information relating to sensitive issues, including religion and religious freedom. This has long been the state's policy.

This has made it very difficult for people in China to obtain any information about religious people, groups and ideas that the state deems inappropriate. These include information relating to the Falun Gong spiritual movement, large-scale harassment of Shouwang Protestant Church in the capital Beijing (including arrests of leaders), and Chen Guangcheng, the blind activist-lawyer who has provided assistance to house churches and whose escape from house arrest, brief stay in the US Embassy in Beijing, and exit to the United States aroused worldwide attention. The mainstream media outside China has frequently reported on these cases - but the Chinese media, including internet media, has not.

Even when the Chinese social media has reported on these matters, readers have to go to great length to obtain the necessary information to form independent opinions. This is because of the state's Internet control mechanisms, which make it costly in terms of time and energy for readers to obtain information independent of the state media. Hence, only specific segments of the Chinese population have become aware of specific human rights and religious freedom cases. For example, Forum 18 has learned that college students have displayed strong interest in the recent case involving the blind activist Chen Guangcheng, while the majority of the population has remained unaware of the situation.

In short, the internet in China has not yet lived up to its potential as a vehicle to promote and protect religious freedom.

Media reform necessary for religious freedom improvements

Chinese communist leaders, especially Mao Zedong, have always emphasised the importance of controlling the media. In the past, the communist regime employed it as an explicit instrument of indoctrination to promote popular support for atheism. The media still performs this role, though more passively. This is seen in the absence of genuinely critical religious reporting seeking to verify all aspects of a topic, and limitations on the number of specialist religious publications and their accessibility.

Reform of the media is a requirement for real and lasting improvements in Chinese religious freedom to take place. This will be a challenge, even though some journalists and media organisations have become more willing to criticise state policies and practices and promote the rights and interests of ordinary people. Even so, an important element of the challenge is the lack of knowledge of religious matters among journalists, which reflects the historic secular tendency among Chinese intellectuals.

Another reason is that many Chinese journalists have lacked opportunities to form and publish independent assessments about all aspects of religious communities without state pressures. Consequently, even when journalists may be aware of religious aspects of a story, they have not reported them fully and accurately either due to self-censorship or as a consequence of explicit pressures from state officials.

For example, despite widespread reporting outside China about the strong Christian commitment of Chinese-American basketball sensation Jeremy Lin, the Chinese media has not reported this. Similarly, even though many Christian groups have been involved in humanitarian relief following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the Chinese media also has not reported this. The absence of reporting by the Chinese media of such religious aspects conveys a clear message to Chinese audiences.

Forum 18 is not aware of any concrete evidence that individual Chinese journalists have witnessed state religious freedom violations but not reported them. But as the state has a direct interest in preventing such reporting, it is safe to suggest that this has happened. In a similar case where the state has a direct interest in media coverage, Forum 18 learned that the leaders of the main Chinese TV channel China Central Television (CCTV) had halted an investigation by a CCTV news programme into flawed and dangerous buildings in Sichuan that were built before the 2008 earthquake.

In the last 30 years, the Chinese media has come a long way in its ability to act in the interests of society vis-a-vis the state. It is to be hoped that in future media coverage will facilitate the freedom of religion or belief in Chinese society.

Killer sects: Eternal life and promised land in return of money and soul

By ("Pravda," July 8, 2008)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/29013/?&section=branch-davidians

Notorious Russian “healer” Grigori Grabovoi, has been found guilty on 11 counts of fraud. Grabovoi set up a sect known as The Teaching of Grigori Grabovoi. He positioned himself as a healer and promised people to resurrect their deceased loved ones. Russia’s law-enforcement agencies paid attention to Grabovoi in 2004, after he publicly claimed to be able to resurrect the children killed in the Beslan school siege. The “healer” charged about 40,000 rubles (about $1600) for his services per person.

The self-proclaimed “healer” has been sentenced to eleven years in jail.

It is worthy of note that specialists have not found a common definition to the word sect. Some determine it as a religious group, which does not have the recognition of the general public. Others say that a sect is an ideological group of people who follow their charismatic leader. Both of these definitions say that a sect leader has a very strong influence in his supporters. Below you can find the list of the most dangerous sects in the world.

5. Seventh-Day Adventists. The Church of Seventh-Day Adventists appeared in the United States during the middle part of the 19th century and was formally established in 1863. Among its founders was Ellen G. White, whose extensive writings are still held in high regard by the church today.

Much of the theology of the Seventh-day Adventist church corresponds to evangelical teachings such as the Trinity and the infallibility of Scripture. Distinctive teachings include the unconscious state of the dead and the doctrine of an investigative judgment. The church is also known for its emphasis on diet and health, for its promotion of religious liberty, and for its culturally conservative principles.

A tragedy happened in the USA in the 1990s, when about a hundred of Adventists were killed. David Koresh, the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect, which spun off from the Seventh-day Adventist church, prophesied about the coming end of the world for too long. The fake messiah did not want to leave the world alone. About a hundred of his insane supported, including Koresh himself, died in the fire during the siege of their building in Waco.

4. The Manson Family. Charles Manson was a mentally unstable individual, a maniac who considered himself a prophet. He declared war between the black and the white races. He said that he had foreseen that war that would clear the planet. At the time the Family began to form, Manson was an unemployed ex-convict, who had spent half his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses. In the period before the murders, he was a distant fringe member of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly via a chance association with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson. After Manson was charged with the crimes, recordings of songs written and performed by him were released commercially; artists including Guns 'N' Roses and Marilyn Manson have covered his songs in the decades since.

Manson's death sentence was automatically reduced to life imprisonment when a decision by the Supreme Court of California temporarily eliminated the state's death penalty. California's eventual reestablishment of capital punishment did not affect Manson, who is an inmate at Corcoran State Prison.

3. Heaven’s Gate. Heaven's Gate was the name of an American UFO religion based in San Diego, California and led by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles. The group's end coincided with the appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. Applewhite convinced thirty-eight followers to commit suicide, which he claimed would allow their souls to board a spaceship that they believed was hiding behind the comet.

Further, Heaven's Gate believed that the planet Earth was about to be recycled (wiped clean, refurbished and rejuvenated), and that the only chance to survive was to leave it immediately. While the group was formally against suicide, they defined "suicide" in their own context to mean "to turn against the Next Level when it is being offered", and believed that their "human" bodies were only vessels meant to help them on their journey.

2. Aum Shinrikyo. Aum Shinrikyo, now known as Aleph, is a Japanese new religious movement organization. The group was founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subways.

The movement was founded by Shoko Asahara in his one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo's Shibuya ward in 1984, starting off as a Yoga and meditation class known as Aum-no-kai ("Aum club") and steadily grew in the following years. It gained the official status as a religious organization in 1989. It attracted such a considerable number of young graduates from Japan's elite universities that it was dubbed a "religion for the elite".

On December 11, 2002, The Canadian government added Aum to its list of banned terrorist groups. The EU has designated Aum Shinrikyo as a terrorist organization. The United States also maintains Aum on its list of foreign terrorist groups.

1. People’s Temple. It is the most horrendous sect in the world. Peoples Temple was an organization founded in 1955 by Reverend James Warren Jones (Jim Jones) that, by the mid-1970s, possessed over a dozen locations in California. Peoples Temple is best known for the death of over 900 of its members that occurred in Guyana at the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project (informally called "Jonestown"), a nearby airstrip at Port Kaituma and Georgetown, on November 18, 1978.

The Peoples Temple purported to practice what it called "apostolic socialism." In doing so, the Temple openly preached to established members that "religion is an opiate to the people." Accordingly, "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment - socialism." In that regard, Jones also openly stated that he "took the church and used the church to bring people to atheism." Jones often mixed those concepts, such as preaching that "If you're born in this church, this socialist revolution, you're not born in sin. If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin."

On November 17, 1978, the group was visited at Jonestown by Leo Ryan, a United States Congressman from the San Francisco area, who was investigating claims of abuse within the Peoples Temple. During this visit, a number of Temple members expressed a desire to leave with the Congressman, and on the afternoon of November 18, these members accompanied Ryan to the local airstrip at Port Kaituma. There they were intercepted by Temple security guards who opened fire on the group, killing Congressman Ryan, three journalists, and one of the Temple defectors. A few seconds of gunfire from the incident were captured on video by Bob Brown, one of the journalists killed in the attack. On the evening of November 18, in Jonestown, Jones ordered his congregation to drink cyanide-laced Flavor Aid. It was later determined that Jones died from a gunshot, with a contact wound in a location and angle consistent with being self-inflicted. His body was also found to contain high doses of drugs. In all, 918 people died, including over 270 children. This includes four that died at the Temple headquarters in Georgetown that night.

The persistence of superstition in an irreligious Britain

By Andrew Brown ("The Guardian," April 26, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37175/

London, England - Andrew Copson, who runs the British Humanist Association, is a third generation post-Christian. "I grew up in a post-religious society in the Midlands. I went to an entirely secular primary school and secondary school; the popular culture I imbibed was things like Star Trek. I read fantasy and science fiction. I studied classics at university and some modern history."

He was talking at a small conference on the study of non-religion and secularity last week. Sociologists and anthropologists have done a great deal of research on different forms of belief. But unbelief, or at least a life untouched in any serious sense by organised religion, is only just coming into scope for this kind of social scientific inquiry.

Copson had a varied intellectual and social experience when he was growing up, but he says: "What didn't feature in any way in my account was religion. What's not in any sense contributed to making me what I am is religion, and I think that story is increasingly typical of non-religious people."

So it was quite a shock to him to move to south London and discover a place where a great many of the social services were provided with or through religious bodies.

This was part of a story he told last week, at a meeting of an academic group devoted to the study of non-religion, and of secularity as a sociological phenomenon. The story disconcerted me, productively: it made me realise the extent to which Greek, Latin and Christianity appear in one cultural bundle in my eyes. Of course there are lots of Christians who are ignorant of Greek, and probably still more of Latin, since many people learn New Testament Greek. But to learn Latin and Greek after an upbringing innocent of Christianity is something that was pretty much impossible in Europe during the last 1,500 years.

Another rather lazy assumption was dynamited later in the day by David Voas, the sociologist behind the informative British Religion in Numbers. He showed us any number of graphs showing a steady falling off of religious belief in England over the past 50 or 60 years, but ended with one in the shape of a shallow X. One line, sloping down from left to right, showed the familiar decline in religious belief. The other, sloping up over the same decades, showed the corresponding rise in a faith in life after death.

So what we have now is a country where large numbers of people repudiate religion, but are anyway convinced that there is some form of life after death. What they mean by saying they believe in "life after death" is of course almost impossible to say. But it is at least possible that the growth in a belief in life after death is connected with a declining belief in heaven, or at least hell.

Of course it's obvious that a belief in life after death is incompatible with materialism, and with all scientific understandings of consciousness. Our minds clearly seem dependent on our brains, and intimately dependent on their functioning.

So if the fundamental opposition is one between religion and scientific materialism, then we would expect faith in life after death to diminish along with a belief in heaven and hell as forming the moral poles of our existence. This hasn't happened. The X on Voas's graph marks the spot where it didn't happen. The conflict we're seeing is not between religion and science, since both are losing out to a kind of disorganisation of overlapping and contradictory fragments of wishful thinking.

In this light, the belief that the end of organised religion in and of itself leads to rationality comes to seem an article of faith: something useful, perhaps, for social cohesion, but not in fact literally true.

This is an old tune, of course. Whether it is persuasive probably depend on your belief in progress, which is itself a matter of temperament as much as anything else. But I can't say I find committed atheism is often accompanied by a commitment to careful reasoning. Atheists have their shibboleths like everyone else. Matthew Engelke, an anthropologist who spent a year studying the BHA, told a lovely story about the horror he unwittingly inspired in his subjects when he mentioned that he used a lotion from Neal's Yard: it seems that in some rationalists even the smallest traces of homoeopathy can paralyse the reason.

Number of Czech church-goers falling due to generational exchange

By ("Prague Monitor," April 11, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37107/

Prague, Czech Republic - A generational exchange and the churches' inability to address young people are behind the plummeting number of church-goers as recorded in the 2011 population census, Prague Archbishop Cardinal Dominik Duka said Tuesday.

Besides, the census has revealed that the general public is reluctant to adhere to any institutions, including churches, Duka said.

In the previous, 2001 census, a church was claimed by almost 3.3 million Czech, but the figure fell to a mere 1.5 million in the 2011 census.

"A huge crisis and rejection of institutions is obvious. This relates to all institutions," Duka said, reacting to the statistical figure that over 700,000 Czechs believe "in something," but do not claim any church.

Duka said belief "in something" could not be interpreted as atheism.

Rather, it bears witness to that "our rhetoric on God does not reflect our contemporary situation," he added.

On the other hand, almost everyone claims this or that church abroad, but the people do not necessarily believe in anything, Duka said.

"It is a generational problem," Duka said, adding that the church was unable to address the young.

The view was confirmed by sociologist Petr Soukup, from the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University.

Soukup said there was one-half of believers among those born in the 1950s, while it was one-fifth among those born in the 1970s.

"There was a certain, but not dramatic fall," Soukup said.

Soukup said the falling number of church-goers was connected with the growth in the "somethingism" under which people believe not in a church, but in "something."

"The influence of Oriental religions and cults is on the rise," Soukup said.

Some 14 percent of Czechs, or 1.47 million, claimed a church or religious society in the March 2011 census.

In 2001, it was almost one-third, or 3.29 million.

The number of those who are reluctant to speak about their faiths has surged. The information was denied by roughly 902,000 Czechs in 2001, compared with over 4.77 million a year ago.

The biggest number, or 1.1 million inhabitants, claimed the Catholic Church, followed by the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren (51,936) and the Czechoslovak Hussite Church (39,276) in the latest census.

Some 15,070 people, most of them in Prague, claimed the moral values of the Jedi knights from the Star Wars film.

There were 1,943 Muslims, 2,632 Buddhists, 675 followers of the Hare Krishna movement and 374 members of the Church of Scientology in the Czech Republic in 2011.