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World Blasphemy Day 2016

30 September 2016, a Friday, is World Blasphemy Day.

The Center for Inquiry of Amherst, N.Y., U.S.A., proposed this annual special day in 2009.

It is a day for all people in all parts of the world who value free expression to draw attention to laws that make blasphemy an offence and thus limit your free expression of ideas – either protesting at such laws in your own country, or in other countries, or both.

The End Blasphemy Laws campaign was started in January 2015 by the International Humanist and Ethical Union, the European Humanist Federation, and Atheist Alliance International.

Mid-West Humanists at Thomas Street, Limerick for World Blasphemy Day

Several Mid-West Humanists will be at the corner of Thomas Street and O’Connell Street in Limerick on 30 September 2016 from about 12:00 until at least 14:00.

We will have a map of the world from the End Blasphemy Laws campaign, showing which countries have laws against blasphemy, coloured according to the penalty – death in some countries.

We will have pictures that could be offensive to adherents of some religions, all of them amusing (as long as humour is not contrary to your religion or to your non-religious life-stance).

Our interest is not in offending people, but in protesting at a Constitution and a law that prohibit free discussion on religion, whereas there is no law limiting public discussion on your cherished political party or sporting team (or any other idea which you hold dear).

We hope you will come by us, and we can give more information about laws against blasphemy, and the bad effects of such laws. We will give leaflets on the reasons to repeal the law and remove the relevant sentence from Article 40 of Ireland’s Constitution.

We hope this will be enjoyable for as many people as possible, including people with religion (many people with religion write their own jokes and satires about their religion).

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September 2016 Meeting

The Mid-West Humanists meeting on Wednesday 21 September 2016 had a further discussion on abortion law in Ireland (that is, the Constitution, Article 40.3.3, added by the 8th amendment in 1983).

All those who attended gave views. There were several different views, all with supporting reasons.

As this is a very important matter, the whole of a future meeting will be devoted to abortion and the 8th Amendment to Ireland’s Constitution (1983).

The September meeting also resolved that several Mid-West Humanists will be on the street in Limerick on World Blasphemy Day 30 September 2016 – details here.

World Blasphemy Day 2015 in Limerick

On Wednesday 30 September 2015, World Blasphemy Day, four Mid-West Humanists were in Cruises Street, Limerick, from about 13:00 until about 15:30.

IMG15186m IMG15183m IMG15172m

We had the map of the world with countries coloured by their laws against blasphemy, and a poster inviting people to hold up a picture that some people will see as blasphemous, just for 10 seconds only!

Here are the 4 blasphemous pictures.

Satire Christian 1 Islam Satire 3 Atheist Satire 6 Satire Judaism 1

Some people volunteered to hold up a picture. We hoped not to get arrested, so most of the time the pictures were covered. In our last half hour they were face up on the table.

 

Either, see you there next year, or

Happy World anti-Blasphemy-law-Free Day 2016!

World Blasphemy Day

On Wednesday 30 September 2015, which is World Blasphemy Day, some Mid-West Humanists will be on the street in Limerick.

We will probably be in Cruises Street, from close to 13:00…
hoping to stay there until 15:00 or so.

We will have the map of the world with countries coloured by their laws against blasphemy.

We will also show a poster inviting people to hold up a picture that some people will see as blasphemous, just for 10 seconds only!

We will have a choice of 4 blasphemous pictures for any volunteer to show – kept in a bag until someone volunteers to show one. We don’t want to offend all of the people all of the time.

Actually, we hope the pictures will make people laugh.

Of the pictures, 3 will blaspheme 3 different religions, and 1 tries to similarly offend people who have no religion.

See you there!

Happy World Blasphemy Day!

UCD L+H Society have invited Mid West Humanist representative to speak on “This House would believe in a God”

On 06 August 2013 Valerie Tierney who is Debates Convenor for the Literary and Historical Society (L+H) of University College Dublin (UCD) invited the Mid West Humanists to send a representative to their debate on Wednesday 23 October 2013 on the motion –

“This House would believe in a God”.

I replied that we would send a representative to speak, against the motion.

The debate is sure to be in UCD, but we await instructions on the exact place, and on the time. The time is likely to be in the early evening. When we know we will post the time and place here.

Student debating societies are usually open to the public as well. So any Mid West Humanists can attend.