Sara Passmore, President of the Humanist Society of New Zealand, said that "most people are happy living ethical and fulfilling lives without participating in a religion."

"Yet, we know that when it comes to the census, many people identify as religious because that is how they were raised."

Passmore said the Humanists wanted to connect to such people.

"As people in New Zealand are proud to identify as not religious, we can move faster towards a fully secular society where the rights and beliefs of everyone are respected, protected and celebrated."

In a recent column, Brian Rudman has described the census as a dreary, if worthy, exercise in civic duty.

"To me, it's been a lost opportunity to bring a bit of fun into this," he said.

"Only the Humanist Society, no doubt sniffing another victory against their Christian foes, got into the spirit of the occasion."

"I saw no signs of the Christians, or for that matter, the Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists or Sikhs minority religions which at the last census made up 6 percent of the population, answering the challenge."

In the 1996 Census, 25.5 percent ticked "no religion". Ten years later that had jumped to 34.7 percent.

In the 2013 Census, it was up to 41.5 percent.

A Royal Society of New Zealand analysis of the census results states that the full defection rate from the main Christian denominations is masked by the addition of immigrant Christians (e.g. Presbyterians and Methodists from Korea, and Catholics from the Philippines and the Pacific Islands).

"The mainstream Protestant churches have further declined (Anglicans, Presbyterians and Methodists); the only notable Christian growth is among some Pentecostal and independent evangelical churches, albeit from a low base."

Source

• humanist.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• royalsociety.org.nz
• Image: humanist.nz

It has branded religious views on sexuality "discriminatory."

Humanists UK, formerly known as the British Humanist Association, issued a statement backing government plans on new primary school relationships education. Read more

He was commenting on an item included in a display of T shirts in the Canterbury Museum.

The exhibition even came as a shock to its creator, Dani Filth, founding member, lyricist and lead screamer of Cradle of Filth.

"Oh my gosh yes," Filth said in a recent interview on the phone from his home in Suffolk.

"I still find it very confusing, strange and weird that they decided to put it in an exhibition in a museum in New Zealand."

"We had no idea," he says.

Filth is now 41 years old.

The T-shirt was made when he was 19.

"The premise behind the shirt, remember we were young, ... it was more of an anarchic thing more than anything else."

"The religious side of it was obviously there to stir up a bit of controversy at the time but when those shirts were first introduced we were just a small band starting out."

In the interview he paused for a moment before uttering the word "silly".

The T shirt was described in RollingStone as the most controversial shirt in rock history.

It contained blasphemous statements and offensive imagery.

On February 17th, an unidentified woman stormed into an exhibition of T-shirts at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, and proceeded to black out the perspex barrier covering the display with spray paint.

At the time of the exhibition Catholic blogger Brendan Malone said in a blog post that Canterbury Museum's decision to hold the exhibition was "irresponsible" and would "result in unnecessary harm" to the public.

Catholic Bishop Barry Jones also criticised the controversial t-shirt. "Anglican and Roman Catholic nuns enjoy wide respect and the misogynistic message on the t-shirt is appalling," he said.

Family First planned to lay a complaint with police about the "highly offensive" display.

"The museum should show some respect to the many families who will be horrified and offended by this and remove the offensive material," national director Bob McCoskrie said.

"Sinking to these low levels is an insult to many families."

Canterbury Museum director Anthony Wright said the shirt was a small part of a large exhibition examining the garment's place in popular culture.

'When you do a show like this you deal with the edges of our culture and society. There are inevitably going to be some items and themes that are going to be offensive to some."

"It's there because it is a valid part of an overall story about a whole cultural movement. We want to tell the whole story without unduly censoring things."
Source

• stuff.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• rollingstone.com
• Image: image.spreadshirtmedia.com

The Humanist Society of New Zealand have taken issue with the Act.

They agree there is a need to address the problem of cyberbullying.

However, they contend that an unintended consequence the Act has been the creation of an additional de facto blasphemy law.

Mark Honeychurch, The President of the New Zealand Humanist Society, says it "not only flies in the face of human rights, but the introduction of yet another law that gives special privileges to religions is unfair, unpopular and unrepresentative of our society, where over 40% of New Zealanders identify as not religious, making this our country's largest single belief group."

"Because 'serious emotional stress' is so subjective, it is almost impossible for anyone to asses before they publish, whether someone, somewhere will take offence," said Jeff Hunt writing in the Humanist Newsletter.

After the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office in January the Humanist Society of New Zealand, and the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists called for the scrapping of New Zealand's blasphemy law.

They said the law protected religions, rather than religious people from discrimination.

Blasphemy libel was listed under the Crimes Act 1961 as being punishable by a year in prison, but it's only been used in one prosecution, in 1922, and that failed.

The humanist groups wanted the law repealed.

They said it would emphasise the importance placed on free thought and speech, and would allow New Zealand to criticise blasphemy laws in other countries without sounding hypocritical.

Source

• humanist.org.nz
• Scoop.co.nz
• radionnz.co.nz
• Image: pamelageller.com

"I think there's something very evil about faith … it justifies essentially anything. If you're taught in your holy book or by your priest that blasphemers should die or apostates should die - anybody who once believed in the religion and no longer does needs to be killed - that clearly is evil. And people don't have to justify it because it's their faith."

In the caricaturing of "faith" as murderous fundamentalism, one hears echoes of the bloody and interminable Reformation squabbles between Protestants and Catholics. It is also of course to give help to the real enemy, those who turn their back fully on science as they follow their religion. Read more

Sources

• Michael Ruse in The Guardian
• See Aeon for a longer version of this article
• Image: Zoonomian

Michael Ruse is professor of philosophy and zoology at Florida State University.