Humanists the world over have evolved secular ceremonies to mark the rites of passage through life; most importantly those of birth, marriage and death. The Humanist Association of Ireland can put you in touch with accredited officiants, whilst some people arrange their own celebrations and funerals of a secular nature. A clergyman is not required for a secular ceremony. The officiant can provide certificates for naming and wedding ceremonies if desired. Your solution may be a Humanist non-religious ceremony.
This is from the HAI website and for more information click Ceremonies
I believe that working to have humanist ceremonies available to the people of the mid-west would be a very worthwhile project for us to undertake. There would be many more such ceremonies undertaken if the general public were aware of their existence and could access them readily. I believe that it would also get many people interested in the humanist movement generally.
Brian Whiteside who organises ceremonies nationally has been invited to come and talk to us at our next meeting about what is involved and how we might proceed. I would recommend as many as possible attend as it promises to be very interesting.
Just to let you all know, as some of us don’t tend to frequent forums, based on the feedback from the members of the Atheist.ie forum, a new Secular/Atheist organisation is being formed and a group of people from the Atheist.ie forum (myself included and hopefully Jason if he can spare the time) are coming together for a meeting to help found this new “Irish Atheist Association” (a tentative name at present) at the end of this month. The details:
Sunday 30th November – 4pm to 7pm.
Central Hotel
Exchequer St Dublin
As I’ve volunteered to be an “executive” member (i.e. some form of coordinator, treasurer or secretary etc…) for the organisation, I’m taking it upon myself to try and gather a group of interested people, who may like to add their voice and/or opinion to our formation, mission and goals, to head up to Dublin on the train or the bus or whichever form of transport we decide upon, to attend the meeting, as individuals or to represent MWH.
Also, if anyone is interested in joining the group or applying for an “executive” role in the organisation, sign up to the Atheist.ie forum and then check out the links below.
I’ll be collecting names and confirming travel details with everyone at the meeting on the 23rd, so if anyone is interested, please let me know at the meeting, here on the blog or via email.
You can find all the relevant discussions on this new group at these links:
As much as I hate to be the guy talking almost exclusively about US political-type-stuff on a blog about Humanism in the mid-west, (I can defend my rationale for doing so if you’re interested in challenging it) what I’m about to share is too relevant to developments in the Irish atheist community not to highlight.
The latest episode of the sceptical podcast, Skepticality features a talk from Lori Lipman Brown, lobbyist for the Secular Coalition of America, who fellow yankophiles might recognise from this appearance on The Colbert Report.
The talk, “Pastafarian, Zoroastrian, NonTheist – Can’t We All Just Get Along?” is worth a listen, as it outlines some essential points that those aspiring to set up a serious atheist organisation should consider, including avoiding wasting time on semantic bullshittery, and making earnest attempts to forge alliances with any groups that share any similar goals.
So, it would seem that not only are we unbelievers going to approximately seventy different kinds of hell, and several different forms of alternate location for eternal damnation, but we are also hated by God for living in Ireland. Who knew?
From the lovely people of Westboro Bapist Church (the wonderful people who brought us GodHatesFags.com) I present http://www.godhatesireland.com/
Quote from the expanded text of the tag-line on their main page:
Ireland’s Filthy Manner of Life
Ireland has absolutely failed its duty to God. It has been wholly given over to the idea that it is okay to be a filthy fag. They have allowed their fags to establish themselves at every level of society, especially in the government. A law called “An Act to Prohibit Incitement to Hatred on Account of Sexual Orientation” has been enacted by the wicked lawmakers in Ireland to eliminate any true gospel preaching there. Jeremiah 7:28 But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth. Isn’t that just exactly what Gospel preaching is supposed to do: incite people to hate sin? 2 Chronicles 19:2 Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord.
While only about 10% of the population of Ireland are fags or dykes, the other 90% are most assuredly their soul-condemning enablers. The old preachers used to say fag-enablers are worse than fags because fag-enablers support the filthy beasts calling themselves gay, and they don’t even have the excuse of being prisoner to a vile lust. Romans 1:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Ireland is a land of vile, feces-eaters and anus lickers and those who have pleasure in them – all of whom are abominations to God and headed for Hell. Deal with it!
Led by such unclean canines – (“dogs” often means “sodomites” in Scripture, e.g., Deut. 23:17,18) – as openly-gay Senator David Norris, Ireland has become a veritable cesspool of corruption. Yielding to the Strasbourg Sodomite Whorehouse masquerading as a court superior to the supreme court of Ireland, enforcing a so-called: First Supranational Law System! It’s a fag court! Calls itself the European Court of Human Rights. Hogwash! First Supranational Law means Fag Law.
Meanwhile, not to be outdone by the over perverse nations of Chaff-People, Ireland is now scrambling to promote fag “unions.” Headlines of 06.25.08 declare: “Ireland Introduces Same-Sex Civil Partnership Legislation”, boldly proclaiming that “Ireland will soon be the latest country to create legal civil partnerships for same-sex couples.” Of course, as they strain to increase their impudent disobedience toward their Creator, the number of fags “cohabitating” and the number of people with AIDS increases steadily.
A report from Dublin in November 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) noted that: “Irish homosexual activists who came to Canada to ‘marry’ and are currently challenging Ireland to grant them spousal inheritance rights have garnered support from Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and shockingly from Dublin’s Catholic Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.” NOTHING SHOCKING ABOUT THAT! How could the catholic beast take any different position in light of the cancer that has been raging inside that body for decades?!
Just a quick question…where in the Bible, or actually anywhere on the planet, does it say that Ireland has a “duty to God”?
And which God would that be? What about Odin and Thor? Surely as a country we should be practicing the proper Norse rites in accordance with Odin’s wishes, no?
Won’t Quetzalcoatl be terribly upset with us for not performing ritual animal sacrifices at his altar?
Ahem, NO, is the answer there, I think you will find. What’s even more laughable than the postulate of an omniscient, omnipotent, supernatural “Creator” that these gay-bashing cretins are using, is the fact that they think they can say without a doubt that they understand not only the motives of this “Creator” but know for a fact that he not only hates “fags”, even though he “created” them and billions of other homosexual-leaning species, but that he would damn an entire country to eternal damnation for allowing these humans to go about their lives like everyone else free from harassment and ridicule.
It is infinitely more likely, and yet still ridiculously unlikely, that if such a “creator” were to exist, YOU, Mr. GodHatesIreland.com would be the one condemned to eternal damnation for being such an intolerant buffoon and for presuming to know what such a powerful supernatural entity is thinking or wants in the first place. Oh how he would scoff at your ignorance and presumptuous behaviour.
I think it is much safer, much more moral and downright rational to presume that neither of these childish attention-seeking bully creators exist, and to just get on with our own lives and to stop interfering in other peoples private lives.
Like many Irish folk, I find the US presidential elections to be gripping stuff, and I’ve whiled away many an hour reading the articles and watching the dribs and drabs of coverage that Digg throws at me.
When McCain interrupted one of his supporters who called Obama ‘an arab’, he was rightly lauded by the media for showing a spark of the integrity that once defined his character. However, nobody seemed to pick up on the latent racism his sloppy wording betrayed. Eventually, Digg threw up this video from CNN’s Campbell Brown, who immediately earned my respect for pointing out something obvious in a pointed, mature fashion:
The nature of how I consume my American-News Media (5-minute chunks on YouTube, in case you weren’t paying attention) means that I encounter a lot of pundits, but this woman left an impression on me for having a rare kind of common sense, as well as a willingness to stand up for a minority who are slighted so often that few seem to notice anymore.
My respect for Ms Brown was diminished somewhat by this next clip, relating to an even more egregious misrepresentation of a political candidate’s creed (this time perpetrated by the incumbent senator). The embedded video shows enough background for you to see what’s going on here:
As you can see from the video, Brown commits the same casual linguistic xenophobia that she rebuked McCain for just a few days prior. She hits the word ‘godlessness’ with such a punch it betrays her own derision of the position, and after slamming Senator Dole for ‘falsely accus[ing] her opponent of not believing in God’, she takes the effort to emphasise that this is ‘again, a false accusation’.
Surely they could have run a find&replace on the script from the first video embedded above?
So what if Kay Hagan was an atheist? So what if Senator Dole was anagnostic? Would it matter? When did that become a disqualifier for higher office in our country? When did atheist become a dirty word, the equivalent of dishonorable or radical?
Whenever this gets raised, the implication is that there’s something wrong with being an Atheist-American. And the media is complicit here, too. We have been all way too quick to accept the idea that calling someone godless is a slur.
There are more than X million Atheist-Americans, former Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, successful business people, normal, average Americans from all walks of life. These are the people that are being maligned here every time this happens. And we can only imagine how this conversation plays out in the Rationalist world.
We can’t tolerate this ignorance, not in the media, not on the campaign trail. Of course she’snot an atheist. Of course she’s not anagnostic, but, honestly, it shouldn’t matter.
I couldn’t agree with you more, imaginary-Campbell-Brown-who-has-consistent-logic. This bare-faced bigotry needs to end.
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Mid-west Humanists - An Irish Atheist Community 