Alliance between humanists, atheists and agnostics

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Logo AHA Lëtzebuerg

The Alliance of Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics is a Luxembourg association that represents the interests of atheists , humanists , skeptics and agnostics in the Grand Duchy. She also explicitly supports secular positions. Their official abbreviation is AHA Lëtzebuerg , but this is usually shortened to AHA, sometimes with an attached exclamation mark. The AHA was founded on May 13, 2010 and is organized in the form of an asbl . The chairman has been the psychologist Bob Reuter since May 2019.

history

For historical reasons, in particular due to the fact that it has belonged to the House of Habsburg for centuries , a large part of the Luxembourg population is formally a member of the Roman Catholic Church . Their position has been strengthened to this day by various privileges granted to this religious community, whether contractually or informally. The traditionally strongest party in the Luxembourg parliament, the CSV , tends to be close to the Catholic Church. The Luxemburger Wort , the country's largest daily newspaper, belongs to the Saint-Paul publishing group , of which the Catholic Church is also the largest shareholder.

In contrast, recent surveys show that an increasing proportion of the population no longer feels connected to Catholicism. Also promoted by various events such as the abuse debate in the Catholic Church or the refusal of the Grand Duke to sign a law on euthanasia passed by parliament for religious reasons, a process began in the mid-2010s in which the close links between Church and State in Luxembourg was questioned. In 2007, an alliance of a total of eight organizations was created, which set the goal of separating church and state in Luxembourg. Encouraged by the thought that a number of people were becoming increasingly alien to the Church's ideas, but that they were still members of the Church and thus consolidated the current situation, the Liberté de conscience association and the sokrates.lu Internet portal launched a website in 2009 under the name Fraiheet. lu into life to inform about the possibilities of leaving the church . In 2010 a petition was launched calling for the separation of church and state in Luxembourg under the name Separation.lu . She was supported, among other things, by the youth organizations of several political parties.

These advances finally led to the founding of the AHA in the spring of 2010, in which the activities of humanist, atheist, agnostic and secular thinking people, which had been organized until then, were to be bundled, which was also explicitly welcomed by politicians from various parties. Among the founding members were the social scientist Fiona Lorenz and the later Minister Taina Bofferding . In the following period, several campaigns, regular press releases and contributions to debates led to a media response in the Grand Duchy. A questionnaire conducted in April 2011, in which the members of the Luxembourg parliament were asked for their opinion on the financial separation of church and state and on ideologically neutral values ​​teaching in schools, was answered by members of all political groups, with the exception of the CSV. The Fraiheet.lu website has been maintained by the AHA since May 2011.

The AHA is also recognized as a dialogue partner by the Catholic Archdiocese of Luxembourg . In December 2011, members of the alliance met with the Luxembourg Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich and other representatives of the archbishopric. Even if the different positions were clearly shown here, similarities were also evident. It was agreed to keep talking to each other.

Positions

The AHA sees four priorities for its actions:

  • Separation of church and state: Here, the AHA advocates the restriction of state funding for the church as well as ideologically neutral values ​​teaching instead of the currently existing religious education in schools.
  • Ethics - free of dogmas: A humanistically based ethics is preferable to a religious one, which pre-sorts people into good or bad based on their religious affiliation.
  • Knowledge instead of belief: Scientific knowledge should not be called into question by religious dogmas. This applies, for example, to the theory of evolution , which is rejected by representatives of creationism .
  • Celebrating without God: The AHA supports a culture of celebration that is not based on religious traditions such as baptism, communion or church marriage; Instead, it propagates ideologically neutral alternatives.

With its program, it is based closely on the German Giordano Bruno Foundation .

activities

Bus campaign Luxembourg, spring 2011

One of the first major AHA campaigns was the independent initiation of a poster campaign in spring 2011, which was carried out as part of a series of campaigns that were carried out around the world and are commonly known as the bus campaign . With the chosen slogan Net reliéis? Stéi dozou! people should be encouraged not to hide their non-belief in religious ideas any more, but to stand by them publicly.

The AHA also participates intensively in the public debate on the fundamental revision of the Luxembourg constitution, the current form of which essentially goes back to the status of 1868 and which is no longer viewed by the main social and political actors as being out of date. The main focus of the AHA lies in the demand for a clean separation of church and state.

Since 2012, the AHA has been organizing public campaigns at Easter , during which information on leaving the church is also given. This happens, analogous to similar events in Germany and alluding to the Easter Bunny , as Huesefest .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Publication in the Official Gazette of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg on July 8, 2010. PDF file, 535 kB, accessed on June 24, 2013 (French)
  2. ↑ Luxembourg atheists elected new praesidium. Humanistic Press Service, May 13, 2019, accessed September 19, 2019.
  3. ↑ Manuel Huss: Euthanasia depenalized . Humanist Press Service, December 18, 2008, accessed June 24, 2013
  4. ↑ Grete Meißel: Separation of Church and State in Luxembourg Humanist Press Service, October 31, 2007, accessed on June 24, 2013
  5. ↑ Separation.lu ( Memento from July 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ A conversation without taboos . Luxemburger Wort, December 20, 2011, accessed June 24, 2013.
  7. ↑ Information on the constitutional debate on the Forum website , accessed on June 24, 2013
  8. ↑ Arik Platzek : Rabbits of all countries, unite! Humanist Press Service, March 26, 2012, accessed June 24, 2013
  9. ↑ The rabbit festival, that's it. Humanistic Press Service, April 2, 2013, accessed June 24, 2013