Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1851

Conservative Commentator: Atheists Can’t Hold Public Office Because They Can’t Defend God-Given Rights. Checkmate!

There’s been a lot of discussion this week about the seven states which have laws on the books banning atheists from holding public office.

Conservative commentator Jake MacAulay thinks those bans make perfect sense. And just wait until you hear why:

Now, let’s be clear. Mr. [Todd] Steifel [of Openly Secular] may not believe that there is a God. And no one is forcing him to do so.

But if he doesn’t believe that God exists, it follows that he doesn’t believe that God-given rights exist either.

And if he doesn’t believe that God-given rights exist, then how would you expect him, if elected, to defend and protect those rights?

You see, when someone is elected to office he swears an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and the God-given rights that are secured thereby. To elect someone who does not believe that God exists, is to ask them to do that which is impossible for them to do.

Somehow, the guy who helps run the Institute on the Constitution missed the fact that the “God-given rights” he’s talking about is rhetoric from the Declaration of Independence, not the document that we’re actually governed by. The Constitution makes is explicitly clear that there can be no religious test for public office.

More to the point, though, you don’t have to believe our rights came from God in order to be committed to defending them.

But wait! He’s not done saying dumb things yet:

Think of it this way.

Suppose instead of not believing in God, Mr. Stiefel informs us that he does not believe that there exists a city called Cincinnati, Ohio.

By not believing in Cincinnati, Mr. Stiefel breaks no law that we can punish him for.

But now suppose that a few of us have decided to take a bus trip to visit Cincinnati. We advertise for a driver for the bus and Mr. Stiefel answers our advertisement.

Is Mr. Stiefel qualified to drive us to Cincinnati?

Do you see the problem? Once he started the bus, what would Mr. Stiefel do next? How would he get us to a place the existence of which he denies?

Well, we can actually visit Cincinnati. Cincinnati exists. God? Not so much.

MacAulay thinks you’re only qualified to hold public office if you believe the only way to get to Cincinnati is via a magical sky fairy.

Makes sense.

By his own logic, though, I guess that means he would vote for a (God-believing) Muslim or Hindu… so I guess that’s progress.

(Thanks to Kyle for the link)

GRACE Releases Report on Bob Jones University’s Culture of Sexual Abuse

A chronic and systemic issue in the more conservative Christian community is a degree of insensitivity toward sexual abuse victims. Purity culture and abstinence teachings often result in shaming of the victim, rushing post-traumatic processing and recovery, and flippancy about the responsibility of the perpetrator for the abuse.

Bob Jones University, a hyper-conservative private Christian college in Greenville, South Carolina with about 3,000 students, has been under some scrutiny over the past few years over swirling reports of mishandling of sexual abuse cases and victim-blaming.

(Image via John Shore)

In November of 2012, BJU voluntarily hired GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) to investigate and report on their handling of cases of sexual assault, after a protest by alumni. Partway through the investigative process, BJU fired GRACE abruptly, but eventually rehired and renegotiated the relationship before continuing on with the investigation.

Yesterday, the final report went public.

In advance of its release, the current president of BJU, Steve Pettit, issued an apology to the victims involved, and promised that the college was taking seriously the need for reform on these issues. He said:

We do not take the concerns of the victims who believe we failed them lightly. We know we must work to regain their trust through actions, not words, and for those actions to be truly meaningful, we must make a long-term commitment that creates genuine, sustainable change. It is our solemn pledge to do just that.

The report, while lengthy and written for a Christian audience, is detailed and thorough. The findings are overall concerning, suggesting that BJU has not historically been a safe space for victims of sexual abuse to find support and healing. Given the Christian preoccupation with the redemption narrative and defense of the defenseless, this is a serious blemish on the integrity of their statement of faith.

This finding, unfortunately, has been consistent with the experiences of many abuse victims in Christian culture, and if the school were to implement reform as recommended by GRACE, BJU might find itself a flagship for a revolutionary change in Christian culture in terms of stock responses to sexual abuse. In the meantime, the cooperation of the college in the investigative process and the transparency shown in the release of the final report is a gesture of good faith in the direction of positive reform.

As the founder of GRACE, Boz Tchividjian, said,

“Though much in this report will understandably cause readers to grieve, GRACE is encouraged by the willingness of Bob Jones University to take the unprecedented step to voluntarily request this independent investigation and to make these difficult findings public… Such institutional transparency is too rare and will hopefully set a positive precedent for Christendom and the watching world.”

West Virginia County Officials Give Church $1,000 Grant to Bring In Christian Musician

The Immaculate Conception Men’s Group, part of a West Virginia church, really wanted to bring in musician John Angotti (below) for a concert. The cost was $3,000 and they raised most of the money… but they got a $1,000 grant from a strange place:

The Harrison County Commission kicked in $1,000 to help a local church group stage a holiday concert which will bring a popular singer home.

…

The initial request to the commission was for $1,500, but the county commission has a policy of only granting $1,000 for one-day events. The commissioners voted to hold to that policy, asking the men’s group to come up with an additional $500.

Why are the taxpayers on the hook for a church event? That’s what the Freedom From Religion Foundation wanted to know, so they sent a letter to the Commission:

“The commission’s sponsorship of the church’s concert featuring this proselytizing artist raises serious constitutional concerns,” wrote FFRF Legal Fellow Katherine Paige.

Funding the concert violates the principle that the government must be neutral toward religion, “especially when the program is explicitly Christian and clearly meant to influence people to convert to Christianity,” continued Paige.

To comply with both the federal and West Virginia Constitutions, the commission must rescind the donation and recover it from the church, the letter concluded.

It’s irrelevant that the concert would be free and open to the public since the goal of Angotti (and, presumably, the church) is to win over converts.

FFRF’s Katherine Paige also filed an open records request asking for any and all documents relating to this donation.

County officials better hope this was just a case of ignorance and not a deliberate attempt to promote Christianity through government resources.

Three Are Detained in Burma For “Insulting” the National Faith With a Promo Image of Buddha Wearing Headphones

Offending the religious sensibilities of Buddhists could land you in jail. For two years.

A New Zealand bar manager has been detained in Burma for using an image of the Buddha wearing headphones in a promotion. Police said the promotion was an insult to the Buddhist religion.

General manager Philip Blackwood, 32, who hails from Wellington; owner Tun Thurein, 40; and manager Htut Ko Ko Lwin, 26, were detained for police questioning yesterday and the bar was shuttered after a complaint by an official from Myanmar’s Religious Department, police said.

The Facebook posting for the newly opened V Gastro bar, a tapas restaurant and nightclub in a Yangon embassy area, showed a psychedelic mock-up of the Buddha wearing DJ headphones to trail a cheap drinks night this Sunday, AFP reported.

Something like this, I gather:

“Buddha grabs people’s interest … however Buddhists cannot accept it,” a police official in Yangon’s Bahan township told reporters late Wednesday. “This insults the religion. So we opened the case under the Religion Act. We will file a lawsuit,” he said, requesting not to be named. The maximum penalty for attempting to insult, destroy or damage any religion is two years in jail, with another two-year penalty for those who attempt to insult religion through the written word.

Blackwood was due in a Yangon court where he might be charged and deported, a police official told AFP.

After a social media storm the bar deleted the post and wrote an apology on its Facebook page. “VGastro management would like to express our sincere regret if we have offended the citizens of this wonderful city, who have welcomed us so warmly and generously,” it said. “Our intention was never to cause offence to anyone or toward any religious group. Our ignorance is embarrassing.”

To avoid a serious prison sentence, groveling might help. But in my book, it’s the multitude of thin-skinned believers who should be embarrassed — specifically over the fact that their religious faith is so anemic that they view a mildly irreverent picture as damaging to it.

(Image via Imaginus)

Lexington Herald-Leader Editorial Blasts Answers in Genesis for Discriminatory Hiring Practices

In a scathing editorial today, the Lexington Herald-Leader blasted Answers in Genesis and Ken Ham who, yesterday, were denied tax incentives worth more than $18,000,000 because of their discriminatory hiring practices.

Why does God need so much taxpayer help?

…

Does God need to be defended with the demagogic language AIG and its founder Ken Ham use in the holy war against “intolerant liberal friends,” “secularists,” “Bible-scoffers,” and, the most telling, “agitators outside the state?”

Apparently, in AIG’s world, if this could just be settled at home among Kentuckians there’d be no problem giving a whopping tax break to a business that asks job applicants to profess that homosexuality is a sin and the Earth is 6,000 years old.

…

Perhaps Answers in Genesis should give up thanking God that intolerant liberals “can’t sink this ship,” and ask the deity instead whether it can be built without more government handouts.

I wouldn’t feel too bad for Ken Ham, though.

Noah seemed to manage just fine without government handouts.

(Thanks to Anthony for the link)

The Daily Show Was Wrong to Imply That Addressing a Minor Act of Discrimination Was Petty

The Daily Show aired a segment the other night about the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s response to the “prayer discount” offered by a diner in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. (We covered the story on this site yesterday.)

The gist of the segment was that it was wrong for atheists to interfere. While the punchline of the report was that FFRF co-President Dan Barker was a “dick,” Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper uncritically presented restaurant owner Mary Haglund‘s assertion that merely taking a quiet breath would have netted the same 15% discount.

To me, that seems to be a dubious claim for something that was termed a “prayer discount,” but I mention it less to quibble over the particular than to illustrate the general nature of the interview.

The segment conveyed the impression that FFRF’s interference was petty, unwarranted, and cruel.

While the piece got some good laughs at the expense of atheists, its message was wrong and, frankly, disappointing from a show that usually champions causes of fairness and equality.

Here’s why: discrimination is discrimination. It doesn’t make it okay just because it’s a small act of discrimination. You wouldn’t eat at a restaurant that let just a few mice into the kitchen; you wouldn’t be okay with an accountant who skimmed just a little for himself; you wouldn’t shrug at a dog who only bit you occasionally; you wouldn’t laugh off marginal racism or sexism or homophobia; and on and on it goes. A little of a bad thing is still a bad thing. Many acts of discrimination are minor. That doesn’t make them justifiable. (Also, as FFRF explained, this isn’t a one-off discount, but something that is seen in some parts of the country with surprising regularity).

However insignificant The Daily Show might find it, offering a discount only to religious people (or those who feign religion) is discrimination.

If you need convincing, consider the opposite: suppose a restaurant offered a discount to people who didn’t pray. Would it be discriminatory to charge praying customers full price, but provide those without gods (or those who didn’t acknowledge them) a discount? Of course. The message would be clear: we prefer non-believers and will discriminate against believers. Yet when discrimination is directed at the non-religious, it’s somehow seen as unimportant.

No one is suggesting that a 15% discount at Mary’s Gourmet Diner is going to ruin anyone’s life — or day for that matter. FFRF certainly didn’t suggest that. But discrimination based on religious belief (or the lack thereof) is wrong, whether it’s a minor or major instance. Atheists are already considered untrustworthy; we also face considerable discrimination. So we shouldn’t just shut up and sit down when we see examples of discrimination (nor should any group in comparable social straits). Reminding a person of the law when they are breaking it is not being a “dick.” Making a statement that it’s not okay — morally or legally — to discriminate against atheists is not being a “dick.”

I know Klepper is a comedian, and the segment was funny. It’s too bad, though, that The Daily Show didn’t spend some time looking into the big picture before picking a minor example of the work FFRF does in order to paint its efforts as petty dickishness.

Glenn Beck: Making Fun of Jesus on Family Guy is Much Worse Than Crucifying Him

Over the weekend, Fox aired an episode of Family Guy called “The 2,000-Year-Old Virgin,” in which a set of characters set out to help Jesus lose his virginity.

Needless to say, many Christians weren’t amused — but their reactions often were amusing. Young Conservatives, for instance, speculated that

… the creative team who thought this episode would be funny likes to wash down their bowl of hellfire with a tall glass of blasphemy.

But some of the best commentary came from Glenn Beck and his radio show co-host Stu Burguiere on Tuesday. Reacting to the segment, they expressed a great deal of outrage, confusion about history, and general inanity.

Your browser does not support iframes.

One of the themes of their conversation was that Jesus was responsible for pretty much everything good that anyone ever did. And I’m not even joking.

Can you tell me a man who has done more good on earth, any man that is even close, than the historic Jesus?…

…

Every great act, every great, truly great freeing act was inspired by the teachings of Jesus Christ. Why would we take down just that man? Why would we make him into a joke? Out of all of the people you can joke about, all of the things you can do? And did we sit here as a nation, and laugh?

And from here it gets even more bizarre. Beck wonders why those amused didn’t just subject him to the tortures of the crucifixion again, rather than mock him.

Why not just put him up on the pillar again? Why not just whip him and beat him? Why not just publicly humiliate him, why not just tear his clothing from him, spit on him, and when he asks for water, we give him vinegar?

At this point, his co-host could have interjected, “Well, gee, ribald humor doesn’t sound quite as bad as brutal torture. Maybe he’d have preferred mockery to crucifixion.” He might have even noted that Beck was taking a lot for granted, and making some particularly egregious assumptions. Burguiere took a different approach, though, saying

I think you could argue this is worse.

Glenn Beck concurred, opining,

Because we know now. ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do.’ We do. We do.

Let that sink in for a minute. Beck (a Mormon) and Burguiere believe that Jesus was real, and that he was actually, brutally tortured and executed. And they are still suggesting that being portrayed in unflattering and mocking fashion is worse than that.

Which, I suppose, means they’re martyrs for their cause.

(via Raw Story)

Pastor Who Told Gay Christian He Should Commit Suicide Tells News Reporter That He Should Also Commit Suicide

Remember the other day when Westcity Bible Baptist Church Pastor Logan Robertson sent an email to a gay Christian author who was promoting his book? It said these loving words o’ Jesus:

We are not interested in your filthy lifestyle or book.

Romans 1 clearly says God has rejected homos and they are worthy of death. You can not be saved.

…

The bible says you are vile, strange (queer), reprobate, filth, sodomite, natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed…

I pray that you will commit suicide, you filthy child molesting fag.

Pastor Logan Robertson

Most of the reports about this incident have been pretty one-sided. And maybe it should be. But New Zealand’s ONE News decided that they should really get a comment from Robertson. So they had reporter Matt McLean call him up for an interview.

Turns out McLean is also gay.

So guess how that interview went?

Pastor Robertson told Mr McLean he would not give an interview to a “filthy faggot” and he hoped that he too would commit suicide.

I’m sensing a pattern…

Robertson spoke to one reporter, presumably a straight one, and explained that he really wasn’t the bad guy here.

“I think every single one of them [homosexuals] should be put to death,” says Pastor Robertson.

“Christians shouldn’t be doing it, I’m not going to do it, it’s the Government’s job to be doing it.”

Yep, it’s the government’s job to execute people who are gay. Just like Sniper Jesus did from the mount.

Looks like Pastor Steven Anderson has himself a boyfriend.

(Thanks to Andrew for the link)

Clear Channel Won’t Run “Keep Saturn in Saturnalia” Billboard Because Too Many People Tried Vandalizing It Last Year

Last year, the Freedom From Religion Foundation put up this billboard in Pitman, New Jersey:

It was a tongue-in-cheek rebuke to all those “Keep Christ in Christmas” banners and the expected response was probably some rolling eyes.

But the actual response was much worse.

First, you had a family trying to put their own banner — what seemed to be a picture of Christ — over (or possibly under) the Saturnalia billboard:

Post by Rhianna Gagliardi.

(I love the commentary: “Well, someone paid for that billboard. It’s not like you can just cover it up for free!”)

You can get a better idea of what they’re doing in the image below:

(They’re not even good vandals… using tape?! C’mon. You need some heavier-duty stuff.)

In case you’re wondering what Santa’s doing off to the right, by the way, he’s holding up this totally-rational sign:

For Christ sake its Christmas! Not Obamass

That… doesn’t even make sense. Even with the lousy grammar.

So… some minor annoyances, but nothing crazy.

But a couple of days later, there was a much more serious response when two men tried to set fire to the billboard:

Pitman police said they were told that the off-duty police officer spotted the men tossing gasoline on the billboard or its supports and then lighting it. The fire did not stay lit and the men, spotting the people approaching them from across the street, fled in a possibly blue-and-silver Chevrolet Model 1500 pickup truck with ladder racks, said police.

Can you imagine what the response would’ve been if that happened to a Nativity scene?

Anyway, it’s a year later. Time for that billboard to go up again, right?

Not so fast, says Clear Channel:

Clear Channel, which owns the billboard along with several others in town, told the Freedom From Religion Foundation it would not run the ad a second time because several people tried to vandalize it last year.

…

The FFRF had planned to outdo itself this Christmas by taking out three billboards in town. In addition to a reprisal of last year’s Saturnalia sign, the group wanted to add another billboard depicting a wrapped gift alongside the words “Heathen’s Greetings” and a third showing St. Nick himself over the phrase “Yes Virginia, there is no God.”

Just before Thanksgiving, however, representatives from Clear Channel, which owns all three billboards, said they wouldn’t rent the space to FFRF because of last year’s repeated attempts to destroy the sign.

I understand that Clear Channel wants to protect its property, but their decision is ridiculous. They’re punishing the atheists because of other people’s actions. They’re giving the vandals exactly what they wanted.

I’ll say it again: If someone attempted to set fire to a church billboard — and I’m not advocating that — there’s just no way Clear Channel would say, “That’s the last time we put up church signs in this town!” Hell, they would probably give the church an extra billboard. (Just think of the publicity!)

FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel is frustrating with the response, too. When it comes to billboards, he’s used to fighting city councils, not companies:

“What they’re doing is saying if you damage billboards you disagree with, they won’t put them up anymore. It’s a sad example of people thinking the rights of the non-religious matter less, except this time instead of a town government, it’s a corporation.”

…

“One frustrating thing is they knew about this all year long,” he said of the company. “We could’ve taken a different approach, like a newspaper ad or a spot on TV, if we had known. We’re not going to halt until Pitman stops giving Christians preferential treatment.”

No word yet on how FFRF will respond, but I hope they end up doing something. This can’t be the last word in Pitman.

(Portions of this article were posted earlier)

Is Worldwide Discrimination Against Atheists Really Getting Worse? Big Report From Humanist Organization Says Yes

[UPDATED BELOW]

As much as I appreciate and sometimes admire the work of think tanks and advocacy groups, I’m automatically a bit leery of what they have to say.

If your job is, for example, to advocate against sexual violence, and the time comes to write your organization’s annual report, you’d probably have a hard time concluding that things are getting better instead of worse. Understandably, perhaps, you’d look at one set of sexual-assault stats (let’s say, the National Crime Victimization Survey, which claims that the incidence of rape is relatively low), and you might decide that the Department of Justice Campus Sexual Assault Study, which proclaims rape to be almost epidemic, better fits what you believe to be the truth.

This confirmation bias is all around us (there are no doubt instances of it on this very site). Whatever the statistical trend, I don’t think you’ll ever hear Greenpeace executives say that this year, humankind has made great strides in avoiding ecological disaster. Nor are you likely to hear the folks at the American Enterprise Institute touting studies that show that the government has shrunk, and that the free market is on an inexorable upswing.

Too much is wrapped up in continuing the narrative that things are, from the organization’s standpoint, getting worse. A good dose of pessimism, whether warranted or not, does at least six internally beneficial things:

Preserves the ideological message within the organization (“we’re fighting the good fight”);Makes its workers and followers more cohesive (“we’re all in this good fight together”);Makes workers and followers more motivated (“the organization needs my moral and intellectual support”);Helps greatly with fundraising (“the organization needs my financial support”);May therefore allow the organization to grow its payroll or projects, or both;Increases the organization’s access to news media (because bad news “sells” better than good news).

This little riff is not meant to disparage the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), which yesterday released a 539-page report — the real subject of this post — on how the rights of non-religious people are under increasing attack.

In fact, if anything, atheists and agnostics are probably better equipped than most for the art of asking critical questions and rejecting flimsy evidence. Again, my reservations do not specifically target IHEU; its report just happened to cross my desk as I was musing on this topic.

Let’s dive in. First, a bit about the report’s scope:

The Freedom of Thought report is the first annual survey looking at the rights and treatment of the non-religious in every country in the world. Specifically, it looks at how non-religious individuals — whether they call themselves atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, or are otherwise just simply not religious — are treated because of their lack of religion or absence of belief in a god. We focus on discrimination by state authorities; that is systemic, legal or official forms of discrimination and restrictions on freedom of thought, belief and expression, though we do also try to include some consideration of extralegal persecution, social discrimination and personal experience where possible.

There’s some good news in the study:

[A]theism and the non-religious population are growing rapidly — religion dropped by 9% and atheism rose by 3% between 2005 and 2012 — and that religion declines in proportion to the rise in education and personal income, which is a trend that looks set to continue. …

[T]he non-religious are also recognising themselves more, stumbling upon new terms and new arguments through international media and the internet, coming together online, talking, in some countries meeting in secret. The non-religious are raising their heads above the parapet. There is a backlash, but it’s a backlash that is a response to a surge of new ideas and new connections, and we can hold onto that.

And a lot of bad tidings, such as these:

Our results show that the overwhelming majority of countries fail to respect the rights of atheists and freethinkers. … In some countries, it is illegal to be, or to identify as, an atheist. Many other countries, while not outlawing people of different religions, or no religion, forbid leaving the state religion. And in these countries the punishment for apostasy — leaving the faith — is often death. In fact, 19 countries punish their citizens for apostasy, and in 12 of those countries it is punishable by death. Pakistan doesn’t have a death sentence for apostasy but it does for blasphemy, and the threshold for ‘blasphemy’ can very low; so in effect you can be put to death for expressing atheism in 13 countries.

Many countries have blasphemy laws that outlaw criticism of protected religions or religious figures and institutions. For example, Pakistan has prosecuted more than a thousand people for blasphemy since introducing its current anti-blasphemy laws in 1988. Dozens of those found guilty remain on death row, and there are repeated calls from Islamist leaders to lift the effective moratorium, enforce the death penalty, and make death the only sentence for “blasphemy” convictions.

The IHEU authors point out that in the countries where blasphemy is no longer considered a grave offense, a newish term has emerged that hints at how wicked non-believers can be. That term is hate speech.

[A] crime in 55 countries, [it] can mean prison in 39 of those countries, and [can be] punishable by death in six countries.

Guess which religion stands head and shoulders above all others in denying atheists their rights?

There is a long-standing prohibition of “apostasy” and of “blasphemy” associated with Islam that is perpetuated by many modern Islamic states in various forms and to various degrees of severity. In the worst cases, people can spend years in jail, or be executed, or murdered extrajudically for these distinctively religious crimes. History’s familiarity with such illiberal controls must not blind the international community or human rights advocates to the abhorrence of those laws, nor to the reality that sovereign states, today, are criminalizing people just because they ask questions about, vocalise dissenting views on, or offer positive alternatives to, a set of state-sanctioned beliefs. In 2014, in addition to laws such as those targeting “apostasy” and “blasphemy”, we have seen a marked increase in specific targeting of “atheists” and “humanism” as such, using these terms in a broadly correct way (the users know what they are saying) but with intent clearly borne of ignorance or intolerance toward these groups.

Want examples?

In January, Saudi Arabia enacted a new law equating “atheism” with “terrorism”. Though the law sought to criminalize numerous things, some already illegal, the very first article of the kingdom’s new “terror” regulations banned: “Calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion.”

In May, Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak branded “humanism and secularism as well as liberalism” as “deviant.” He described these secular worldviews and values … as a threat to Islam and therefore a threat to the state.

In June, Egyptian authorities proposed and carried out an organized backlash against young atheists. Nuamat Sati of the Ministry of Youth announced a campaign to spread awareness of “the dangers of atheism” and why it is “a threat to society”, so that young atheists in particular, who are increasingly vocal on social media, would be given “a chance to reconsider their decisions and go back to their religion.” This has not been an idle threat, nor an exercise in verbal debate about the philosophical merits of religion! Rather, senior ministers have conflated advocacy of non-religious views with radicalism, and police have detained atheists for voicing their views on religion, usually online, and sometimes in traditional media.

This year will be marked by a surge in this phenomenon of state officials and political leaders agitating specifically against non-religious people, just because they have no religious beliefs, in terms that would normally be associated with hate speech or social persecution against ethnic or religious minorities.

You can probably read the IHEU report in under 15 minutes. If that seems fast for a study of more than 500 pages, that’s because you can limit yourself to pages 9 through 22; pages 23 through 539 are comprised of reports on how humanistic/atheistic liberties are currently faring in every sovereign nation on Earth. In other words, each country gets its own brief chapter describing the state of religious liberty, and receives a rating that ranges from “Free and equal” to “Severe discrimination.”

The United States is rated “Mostly satisfactory.” If I’ve counted correctly (see also the color map on page 4), in only three countries does IHEU consider atheists free and equal: Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

That trio covers only about 51 million people, or 0.75% of the world’s population.

I told you this would be depressing.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

UPDATE: I badly undercounted the number of “Free and equal” countries, inadvertently leaving out Estonia (population 1.3 million), Kosovo (1.8 million), and Sierra Leone (6 million). That moves the meter to 60 million people who live in countries where atheists can live more or less carefree — about 0.85% of the world’s population.