This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- drafted by world figures led by Eleanor Roosevelt and adopted by the United Nations in 1948 guarantees everyone everywhere "freedom to change his religion or belief." But this guarantee is contradicted horribly by national laws decreeing death for doubt and by believer mobs who murder skeptics.
Around the world today, thousands of freethought groups oppose supernaturalism. In the West, their members generally are safe although some laws criminalize "defamation of religion." For example, an Austrian woman was convicted of "publicly disparaging religious doctrines" because she said in a forum that Muhammad's marriage to a six-year-old girl constituted pedophilia. In 2018, the European Court of Human Rights upheld her conviction.
And in some Islamic lands, it's still grotesquely true that believers kill skeptics.
(from Free Inquiry, Oct-Nov 2019)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).