Atheist Ireland has made the following submission about Freedom of Thought to Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Mr Shaheed had called for inputs to a report he is compiling for the UN General Assembly on the topic.
Continue reading “The right to freedom of thought”
After three months with double vision, I was finally discharged from my hospital outpatient visits yesterday. My sight is now functional again, and should be completely restored within weeks. Combining that with getting my first Covid vaccine two weeks ago, I would like to thank the health service staff for their wonderful work in these unprecedented times.
Continue reading “Eye can see clearly now”
I have written the following letter to the American Humanist Association.
Please reconsider your decision to publicly withdraw from Richard Dawkins the Humanist of the Year award that you gave him in 1996. By doing this you are sustaining a pattern in recent years of people unjustly portraying Richard as something of a cartoon villain.
Continue reading “An open letter to the AHA about Richard Dawkins”
I absolutely loved King Rocker, the surreal and heartwarming documentary about seventies cult punk icon Robert Lloyd. His midlands band the Prefects morphed into the Nightingales, who still perform today after Lloyd’s journey from the verge of pop stardom to working as a postman while living over a Chinese takeaway.
Continue reading “King Rocker and the myths of the Nightingales”
In the 1960s Catholic Bishops in Ireland complained about a light-hearted quiz on the Late Late Show, when a woman said that she might not have worn anything on her wedding night. In the 1970s RTE axed the television drama the Spike, after prudes complained that a scene of an art class briefly showed a nude model.
Continue reading “Why RTE’s ‘blasphemous’ comedy sketch was ethical”
Sentientism is the name of a unifying philosophy or worldview about what’s real and what matters, promoted by Jamie Woodhouse and others.
Continue reading “Why I am a Sentientist”
Catholic Archbishop Eamon Martin has called on RTE to immediately remove a television clip which he says it is offensive, outrageous, and blasphemous. He was complaining about RTE’s New Year’s Eve Countdown Show, which included a mock news review by Waterford Whispers News.
Continue reading “Archbishop wants ‘blasphemous’ item removed”Former England international footballer Karen Carney has closed her Twitter account after sexist abuse from a minority of Leeds United fans. Why? Because she expressed her opinion as a pundit about the Covid break last season benefiting Leeds’ fitness levels.
Continue reading “The sexist abuse directed at Karen Carney”
The UN Human Rights Committee has raised the Irish education system and religious oaths in its List of Issues under the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights. They raised the right to freedom of religion and belief in the Irish Education system.
Continue reading “UN to raise secular rights with Ireland”
The recent public letter seeking to discredit and silence campaigners for the sex-based rights of women and LGB people is part of a wider problem, which has been escalating over the last decade.
Continue reading “Civil society needs dialogue, not silencing”