{"id":8017,"date":"2012-11-25T19:38:03","date_gmt":"2012-11-25T19:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=8017"},"modified":"2012-11-25T19:38:03","modified_gmt":"2012-11-25T19:38:03","slug":"atheism-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/atheism-islam\/","title":{"rendered":"Atheism & Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Barack Obama:<\/a><\/p>\n

“But even as this land of my youth has changed in so many ways, those things that I learned to love about Indonesia — that spirit of tolerance that is written into your constitution, symbolized in your mosques and churches and temples standing alongside each other; that spirit that is embodied in your people — that still lives on…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Economist<\/em>:<\/a><\/p>\n

A mob attacked Alexander Aan even before an Indonesian court in June jailed him for two and a half years for \u201cinciting religious hatred\u201d. His crime was to write \u201cGod does not exist\u201d on a Facebook group he had founded for atheists in Minang, a province of the world\u2019s most populous Muslim nation. Like most non-believers in Islamic regions, he was brought up as a Muslim. And like many who profess godlessness openly, he has been punished.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And note that the language of PC\/neo-blasphemy legislation (\u201cinciting religious hatred\u201d) is what is used to condemn him.<\/p>\n

The Economist<\/em> continues:<\/p>\n

In a handful of majority-Muslim countries atheists can live safely, if quietly; Turkey is one example, Lebanon another. None makes atheism a specific crime. But none gives atheists legal protection or recognition. Indonesia, for example, demands that people declare themselves as one of six religions; atheism and agnosticism do not count.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What was it that Obama was saying about \u201cthe spirit of tolerance\u201d written into the Indonesian constitution?<\/p>\n

But at least that\u2019s better than what Egypt is contemplating:<\/p>\n

Egypt\u2019s draft constitution makes room for only three faiths: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
\nSharia law, which covers only Muslims unless incorporated into national law, assumes people are born into their parents\u2019 religion. Thus ex-Muslim atheists are guilty of apostasy\u2014a hudud crime against God, like adultery and drinking alcohol. Potential sanctions can be severe: eight states, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Sudan have the death penalty on their statute books for such offences.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Economist <\/em>goes on to note that \u201csuch penalties are rarely carried out\u201d. Most atheists are prosecuted for blasphemy or for “inciting hatred”.<\/p>\n

There we go again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barack Obama: “But even as this land of my youth has changed in so many ways, those things that I learned to love about Indonesia — that spirit of tolerance that is written into your constitution, symbolized in your mosques … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[746],"tags":[93,51,712,50],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8017"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8023,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8017\/revisions\/8023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}