#whc2014

[valiumeyes]

Spent the weekend at the Women's Herbal Conference

[britishhumanistassociation]

Congress starts on Friday. We're very, very excited.

[britishhumanistassociation]

Leo Igwe is a prominent Nigerian human rights advocate who has played important roles in the Nigerian Humanist Movement, Atheist Alliance International, the International Humanist and Ethical Union and Center for Inquiry—Nigeria.

Here he is, with just less than seven days to go until ‪#‎WHC2014‬, giving his view on why we should cherish the right to freedom of thought and expression.

[britishhumanistassociation]

Agnes Ojera from Humanist Empowerment of Livelihoods in Uganda (HELU) will be speaking at the World Humanist Congress this August. Here's what she had to say on the theme of Congress, which is freedom of thought and expression. 

[britishhumanistassociation]

With only 27 days until the World Humanist Congress, we asked Stephen Fry why he supported its theme of freedom of thought and free expression. And here's the full quote from Stephen: 

'For years mankind has been told what to think and what to believe by shamans, priests and ideologues. There is an alternative: free thought, trusting our ability to find out, investigate, question, and test according to repeatable, reliable evidence. This is sometimes called empiricism, a mode of enquiry that flourished especially in Britain from the 17th century onwards, giving rise to the Industrial Revolution, but also to the fundamental breakthroughs in physics made by such as Faraday, Thompson and Maxwell which in turn directly inspired Einstein.

Who would have thought that this free thinking element of empiricism might be under threat now? It is sneered at (ignorantly) as ‘relativism’, and it is suggested that in order to behave properly you need a divine being to instruct you through dictated texts or omnipresent snooping. They also suggest that whether empirical or purely rational, scientific and moral free thinking take the wonder of the universe. How wrong they are!

As one of the great figures of the enlightenment Immanuel Kant put it: "Two things awe me most: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me."'

[britishhumanistassociation]

Here's why The Young Atheist's Handbook author Alom Shaha supports the right to freedom of thought and expression. Only 34-and-a-bit days now until the World Humanist Congress! 

[britishhumanistassociation]

What does freedom of thought and expression mean to you? Here's what A C Grayling said. Only 36 days until #whc2014