(RNS) The atheist community has embraced the cause of an Indonesian man, Alexander Aan, who was beaten and jailed after denying God’s existence on Facebook and posting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
The Center for Inquiry, a Washington-based humanist organization, launched a petition Tuesday (July 17) on behalf of Alexander Aan, a 30-year-old Indonesian civil servant currently serving a 30-month jail sentence for “deliberately spreading information inciting religious hatred and animosity,” according to the judge who sentenced him.
The petition asks the Obama administration to pressure the Indonesian government for Aan’s release and for better protection of religious freedom in that country, the most populous Muslim nation in the world.
“We are hoping that this petition will promote Aan’s cause and put it in the public consciousness so we can build a better coalition to get him out of jail,” said Michael De Dora, CFI’s director of public policy. “It should matter to all human beings any time another human being is being denied basic human rights.”
Aan was arrested in January after posting “God doesn’t exist” and cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to the page of a Facebook group he started dedicated to atheism. The group had 1,200 members.
A crowd came to his house and beat him, according to news reports. Aan was charged with blasphemy and persuading others to embrace atheism, both crimes in Indonesia. In June, he was sentenced to jail and a fine of 100 million rupiah (about $10,600).
Earlier this month, Aan released a letter from his jail cell that thanked his backers for their "support and love." He added, "Without this I feel alone.”
CFI posted the petition via We The People, the Obama administration’s website where anyone can bring a cause to the White House’s attention. They have 30 days to garner 25,000 signatures before the Obama officials will consider it.
Atheist Alliance International has also lobbied for Aan, pressuring the Indonesian government to release him and starting a legal defense fund in his name.
CFI has held two rallies on behalf of Aan, one outside the Indonesian embassy in Washington and another outside the Indonesian consulate to the United Nations in New York. There are also plans for a stand-alone website and a sign-on letter on Aan’s behalf.
“It depends on what happens with this petition,” De Dora said.
Angry Voter | Jul 20, 2012 | 12:09am
If there is any god that wants to keep him from speaking, then let that god do it themselves.
So far, I only see people doing it.
The reality is that all religion is mental illness and should be treated as such.
Jim Gregory | Jul 20, 2012 | 3:39am
How about a discount for blacks only?
Thought not- the best way to drum up business is to offer EVERYONE a discount; but that’s too advanced thinking for the religious.
The comments support Angry Voter’s opinion, and mine- religion IS a mental illness, for most .
Tonks | Jul 20, 2012 | 6:15am
It sure is a slap in the face to human rights.
I think you have to be careful about making claims that religion is a mental illness, though. While ideas of a god might not be rational, they are consistent with the teachings and beliefs of that culture. By medical standards, that means religious people are NOT suffering from a delusional disorder. Calling it a mental illness out of anger ignores the persuasive power of religion on individuals and prevents us from making any real and positive changes towards a system run based on secular beliefs. It also sets up a standard where religious people could be persecuted for their beliefs by being classified as mentally ill.
No compassionate and reasonable atheist I know would want that. We have to be better than reactionary anger, even if our religious counterparts are not.
dick thixkett | Jul 20, 2012 | 1:06pm
I agree that it is too simple to classify religious belief as a mental illness. On that logic many children, for as long as they believe in faries or Father Christmass could also be so classified, which would be gfrossly unfair.
However, it is obvioud how near to insane delusion are religious beliefs if we substitute “NAPOLEON” for God in any staement they make!
Bruce | Jul 24, 2012 | 9:05am
Free Aan.
This kind of behaviour on the part of religionists is in fact indicative and classically symptomatic of an obsessive compulsive disorder driven by aversion to cognitive dissonance and with a strong element of sociopathy and the need to control others.
If a disease state is exemplified by a negative impact on organisms and persons individually and collectively, then there is ample evidence of such negative impact here.
The negative impact on the religious devotee can be expressed in terms of a deficiency in processing information from the environment and the social sphere in such a way as to properly preserve the survival and wellbeing of the individual and the group. It’s the same dynamic that has everyone eating so much sugar that it kills us, but still selling and buying sweets and pop to young children.
Pragmatic utilisation of religious faith and devotion for social cohesion and temporary personal relief in the face of stress comes at a cost: the cost is the individual’s ability to process veridical information and to distinguish information types for the furnishing of reliable knowledge (variable between persons and depending on their degree of submissiveness).
Organisms that are unable to process information about what is real will be vulnerable in their environments. This is how L Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith were able to dupe so many even though they clearly indicated (in Hubbard’s case) that they were starting a religion to make money.
Religious faith is readily classifiable as a disease state, with symptoms manifest in varying degrees. The social standards for judging a child’s belief in Santa Claus are different to those for judging an adult’s belief in fictions as denoting real entities: the former is not pathological - the latter clearly is (if an adult believed in Santa Claus, this would be objectively indicative of mental illness despite community standards: a community that approved such would also be ill).
The disease symptoms are 1. Cognitive impairment resulting in the inability to process important information and inability to distinguish information source types (fictional versus concrete), 2. obsessive compulsive behaviour in connection with the narratives of the belief system resulting in 3. sociopathic behaviour in connection with 1. and 2. and often 4. psychopathic and extreme passive aggresive behaviour in connection with 1. 2., and 3.
That such memes and narrative are sanctioned by authorities in society does not minimise the nature of religious faith as a delusive disease state any more than the social authoritative sanctioning of earth-centered cosmology makes it true that the sun and planets go around the earth.
Religious faith is the reason Alexander is in prison. Mankind will be able to work towards being truly be free when free of the scourge of religious faith.
CMR | Aug 11, 2012 | 8:51pm
“It never occurred to any writer of the OT [Hebrew Scriptures] to prove or argue the existence of God,” says Dr. James Hastings in A Dictionary of the Bible. “It is not according to the spirit of the ancient world in general to deny the existence of God, or to use arguments to prove it. The belief was one natural to the human mind and common to all men.” This does not mean, of course, that all men at that time were God-fearing. Far from it. Psalm 14:1 and 53:1 both mention “the senseless one,” or as the King James Version says, “the fool,” who has said in his heart, “There is no Jehovah.”
What kind of person is this fool, the man who denies the existence of God? He is not intellectually ignorant. Rather, the Hebrew word na·val′ points to a moral deficiency. Professor S. R. Driver, in his notes to The Parallel Psalter, says that the fault is “not weakness of reason, but moral and religious insensibility, an invincible lack of sense, or perception.”
The psalmist goes on to describe the moral breakdown that is a result of such an attitude: “They have acted ruinously, they have acted detestably in their dealing. There is no one doing good.” (Psalm 14:1) Dr. Hastings sums up: “Counting on this absence of God from the world and on impunity, men become corrupt and do abominable deeds.” They openly embrace ungodly principles and discount a personal God to whom they have no wish to be accountable. But such thinking is as foolish and senseless today as it was when the psalmist wrote his words over 3,000 years ago.
Unknown | Aug 30, 2012 | 8:23pm
How did you get the intelligence to be able to argue about God’s existence if there is no God?
What infinite coincidence could have happened to spark first life of any type? What magic combination of elements just so happened to make something with life and thought and existence?