Humanists and atheists from East and West meet in Paris this week to forge a common platform against what they see as a growing threat from religions and religious politicians to secular states across the globe. . .
Their gathering, the World Humanist Congress running Monday to Thursday, is timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the French Law on the Separation of Religion and State, a key document which set France alongside the United States as a bulwark of secularism.
"With U.S. society sliding toward theocracy, and religious belief -- even fundamentalism -- on the rise in every continent we have to take a stand," says Roy Brown, president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). . .
European humanists, delighted at success in their campaign to keep any reference to a deity out of the troubled European Union constitution, were shaken at what many call the "media madness" over the death of Pope John Paul II.
In protests to newspapers and broadcasting bodies, they argued that the saturation coverage of his funeral -- and the inauguration of his successor -- amounted to free advertising for Catholicism at the expense of rational thought.
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For a bunch of free thinkers, you'd think they could figure out that there are alternatives to the extremes of "bulwarks of secularism" and "theocracy." They can't, of course, because they fear any and all intrusions of God into public places. All such intrusions are viewed with the same horror that officials fear any terrorist tampering of public water supplies. Their fear is usually total and uncompromising.
Thing is, only one thing could instill such absolute fear in a person.
God.
Which brings us to one of our favorite G.K. Chesterton sayings: If God did not exist, there would be no atheists.
