Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
This week the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) released a report titled ‘The IHEU Freedom of Thought Report 2013’ which focused specifically on discrimination against Humanists, atheists and the non-religious in every country in the world. While the worse result of being a freethinker could be death, there was some kind of discrimination in most countries including the United States.
On Saturday, Salon posted an article by Nathan Lean that took to task famous atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens for attacking Islam. Lean insinuates these atheists have a streak of Islamophobia. But the real facts show the article is yet another hit piece against atheists. Atheists see all religion as irrational and mostly results in bad treatment of people (“evil”). It is disappointing when religious apologists cherry pick the good parts while ignoring the overall bad parts of religion especially in publishing an attack against those who have no religion.
The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) gave a report to the United Nations detailing that Atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other non-religious people are discriminated against around the world, where expression of their views is often criminalized and subject in some countries to capital punishment. The report was in response to efforts by Islamic countries to obtain a world ban on “defamation of religion” which mirrors efforts by religious conservatives in the United States attempting to cover their bigotry under the guise of “religious freedom”.
Skepticism is the questioning of what is stated as fact and is one of the primary tools I use as a free thinker. I am also an atheist. I don’t subscribe to any religious belief. I have considered the arguments for and about religion and rejected the conclusion. The process I used to get to my conclusion was Skepticism. In a recent blog post PZ Myers, responded to an idea I’ve seen and read myself where some people think religious beliefs shouldn’t be subject to Skepticism. Like Myers, I think that’s stupid.
An amateur anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube triggered a riot in Egypt and Libya and gave cover to a militant Islamic militia in Libya to murder the US Ambassador to Libya and three other foreign service workers at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11th. There have been problems with reactions both politically and in general to the violence. The last thing we need to do is to censor the Internet or “turn the other cheek”.