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Mid-West Humanist Table on street in Limerick

Posted on October 28th, 2015 by peterohara

The Mid-West Humanists held their first table on Thomas Street in Limerick on Saturday 24 October 2015.

The table is like atheist and humanist tables already held in other cities.

Front of MW Humanist Table

Front of MW Humanist Table

The table is for people who might be leaning away from religion, and who could be happier if they understood that not having a religion and not believing in a god is a good state; and that a person who feels settled in not having religion or god can live a good life and be happy.

Several people received the Mid-West Humanists leaflet about humanism. A small number took some of our leaflets about education, blasphemy, and the Constitution.

We will be there again on some Saturdays. Next time we will put the date in advance on Facebook. The more people volunteer to staff the table, the easier it will be to keep the table going.

Filed under: announcements, atheism, education, ethics, humanism, Meetings, Secularism | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

World Blasphemy Day 2015 in Limerick

Posted on October 5th, 2015 by peterohara

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!

Filed under: atheism, blasphemy, christianity, constitution, god, humanism, humour, islam, judaism, law, political issues, religion, Secularism | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

World Blasphemy Day

Posted on September 25th, 2015 by peterohara

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!

Filed under: announcements, atheism, blasphemy, constitution, god, humanism, humour, law, political issues, religion, Secularism | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

June 2015 meeting

Posted on June 19th, 2015 by peterohara

The meeting on 17 June 2015 discussed the definition of Atheism in the Mid-West Humanists’ leaflet on Humanism and the Mid-West Humanists. The consensus was to keep the definition as a view that there do not exist any gods.

The meeting heard that some of our members had met the Minister for Education and Skills Jan O’Sullivan T.D. since the May meeting. The Minister has very recently confirmed to us that the decision to change the Lease of a National School by signing a Deed of Variation is a decision reserved to the Minister and not delegated to any civil servant. She had told us at the recent meeting that the Department of Education is allocated to the Labour Party for the length of this coalition government, and the Labour Party favours secular education. Thus it is unlikely that any Deeds of Variation will be signed under the present government. The Mid-West Humanists will continue to seek more information about school leases, and will seek to avoid any leases being modified by the draft Deeds of Variation.

Filed under: atheism, Dáil Éireann, education, humanism, Meetings, political issues, religion, Secularism | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Mid-West Humanists ask Minister for Education not to entrench religious control of National Schools

Posted on April 27th, 2015 by peterohara

A delegation from the Mid-West Humanists met Jan O’Sullivan T.D. Minister for Education and Skills on 24 April 2015, about the Leases of National Schools.

Our National Schools – origins and rules

Now most people believe that our National Schools are tied to principles of various religions (mostly the Roman Catholic religion).

Well, the popular awareness of the origin of National Schools is correct, that the United Kingdom government set them up from 1830 onwards. The government wanted Trustees for each school to include people of a mixture of religions. No such mixed Trustees volunteered, and only sets of clergy of a single religion became Trustees. From the religion of the Trustees, National Schools got called Roman Catholic schools, Church of Ireland schools, etc.

Historians have described the one-religion nature of every set of Trustees as the churches subverting the UK government’s plan. However the plan was subverted only in that the Trustees do not include a mixture of religions.

The Lease of each school vested the running of the school in Trustees, who thereby promised to run the school by the Lease and by the rules from the Minister for Education. From the beginning to the end, the Leases did not mention a religion.

The Leases write “…the object of the system of National Education is to afford Combined literary and moral, and Separate Religious Instruction to children of all persuasions, as far as possible in the same school, upon the fundamental principle that no attempt shall be made to interfere with the peculiar religious tenets of any pupil.”

This may be a surprise to readers, as our National Schools are indeed controlled by clergy of religions – and to most people this includes the idea that those clergy as Trustees run the schools in the style of that particular religion, and that they are entitled to run them in a religious manner. This is actually contrary to the statement in the Lease that we just mentioned. Continue reading →

Filed under: atheism, constitution, education, humanism, ireland, law, political issues, religion, Secularism, social issues | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Mid-West Humanists’ letter to Minister for Education and Skills on National School Leases and the model Deed of Variation

Posted on April 27th, 2015 by peterohara

The Mid-West Humanists met Jan O’Sullivan T.D. Minister for Education and Skills on 24 April 2015.

We asked the Minister not to change the Leases of National Schools via a 1997 model Deed of Variation.

In another post we explain about National School leases.

We show here the letter which we gave to the Minister, in which we explained our concerns.

 

—————————————————————-

24 April 2015

To Jan O’Sullivan TD, Minister for Education and Skills

Deeds of Variation should not be applied to National School Leases

Dear Minister O’Sullivan

 

Summary

  1. We seek information on whether (and if so, when) the Department of Education and Skills plans to apply the Deeds of Variation to the leases of schools, Deeds that were first drafted about 1997.
  2. We ask that the Leases of Primary (National) Schools not be altered as in the model Deeds of Variation of 1997 or as in any similar model. The schools are now managed by persons or groups of persons who belong to particular religions, and, contrary to popular belief, their leases (which are their agreements with the Department) do not restrict the operation of the schools to fit with those religions, and are quite neutral about religion. (The Education Act 1998 requires a school to have a characteristic spirit, but this is not solely about religion, and the schools’ leases of which we know do not determine any aspect of the characteristic spirit.)

We seek that the leases not be changed according to the model Deed of Variation of 1997 or similar model, because the present leases would allow a school to be secular in many aspects, and the varied leases would make each school tied to the particular religion. Between 1997 and 2015 society in Ireland has become more secular; it has not become more religious. Continue reading →

Filed under: atheism, constitution, cultural issues, education, humanism, law, political issues, religion, Secularism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Media Release – Mid West Humanists meet Minister for Education and ask that Ireland have a State Secular system of schools

Posted on November 29th, 2014 by peterohara

This is what we sent to the local press after the visit to the Minister for Education and Skills

Mid West Humanists

An Atheist Community in Limerick, Clare, and Tipperary

www.midwesthumanists.com/                        info@midwesthumanists.com

www.facebook.com/groups/midwesthumanists/                        28 November 2014

MEDIA RELEASE

 

For Immediate Release

 

Mid-West Humanists meet Minister for Education and Skills and ask that Ireland have a State Secular system of schools

 

Members of the Mid-West Humanists (MWH) met Jan O’Sullivan TD Minister for Education and Skills on 28 November 2014 to ask that Ireland’s system of schools, primary and second-level, be changed to a state system of entirely secular schools.

The Mid West Humanists said to the Minister that the present education system discriminates against children who have no religion and breaches their human rights by denying them access to an education free from the teaching of religious beliefs as facts. These children have the same rights as those of any religion to be taught in an objective manner by the teachers, whom their parents also pay through their taxes. In the last census in 2011 there were 256,000 people who stated that they had no religion, though the true number is substantially more.

The present system – the Patronage system – is biased towards religion, and towards some few religions even more strongly.

There are 3200 primary schools in Ireland. For 94% of these schools, the Patron is a religious organisation, and for 90% the Patron is Roman Catholic. Of the 3200 schools, 1800 are each more than 10km from the nearest other primary school. These all have Roman Catholic patrons. These schools are smaller than average, and these districts cannot support 2 schools.
The changes that the Mid-West Humanists seek to Ireland’s education system, in addition to removing the bias and the discrimination, will make it easier for government to deal with the increasing variety of religions to which people in Ireland belong – including making it easier to provide education.

The secular system that we propose would also liberate teachers who are unhappily forced to teach values in which they no longer believe.

Continue reading →

Filed under: atheism, Census, education, humanism, ireland, political issues, religion, Secularism, social issues | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

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