padt - I agree with your statement that all atheists should be respectful of others, in the same way that atheists want respect for their own beliefs. However, I challenge you on two counts.

Firstly, when atheists challenge theistic beliefs (especially when it affects public policy), theists often pull out the "I'm offended" card. I haven't heard of an atheist who had done so when someone challenged their beliefs. No belief system, theistic or atheistic, should be immune to critical reasoning. Although I believe that people should be allowed to express their religion freely, everyone needs to accept that their beliefs can be freely tested by others, and by only then, there is mutual respect.

Secondly, as someone who has spent roughly 50-50 of life in the UK and Indonesia, I dispute on your claim that even a minority of secularists want to exclude Christians from public debate. They just want an end to the special 'rights' the Church has (someone here mentioned taxpayers money paying for 'holidays' to Saudi, over there it's money going to fund discriminatory religious schools etc). The Church of England is still a hugely powerful institution, and secularists just want to be on an equal ground.

@blightyboy

"Religion is the most wicked thing man inflicts on man,"

What a ridiculous comment. Are you including the Dalai Lama in that comment, or the Catholic priest who spends his whole life in S. America defending the rights of the indigenous people. Or maybe you're including the missionaries in Africa, who live their lives educating and caring for their flock.

All of the above do what they do for little money and no need of recognition for the work they do.

However, what have you done for the poor and downtrodden, the disenfranchised and the weak, the hungry and scared? Probably absolutely nothing.

Do not blame religion for the actions of man. If we lived according to the lessons Jesus gave us, the world would be perfect.

Man is the fault, not religion.

Kampung Highlander - a few months ago I asked a very devourt Muslim friend whether he asks questions about the text of the Koran and how it is interpreted. He replied "Never."

I have studied the Old and the New Testaments since I was boy of 5. I am now an old man and have continued my studies at tertiary academic levels on 3 continents and have taught it for nearly 30 years. I have discovered over the years that it is like a magic pool. A child can paddle in it and the water come up to his ankles and an understanding suitable for children - and mystics can be found. (The two are often the same!) And an elephant can dive in to the text next to the child standing in the paddle pool and never reach the bottom of the child's paddle pool. Such is its profundity if it is read with an intelligent - and childlike - not childish - mind.

I wonder what my devout Muslim friend experiences when he reads but never questions. I wonder what my secularist friends experience when they read (or refuse to) with preconceived ideas about what the texts say or dosn't say, because they say so.

I recently read in these pages a fellow make the comment that there is a 'big boy in the sky' who supposedly made the world and what a lot of rubbish that is. Absolutely. If he read the texts carefully he would discover that there is no 'big boy' We left that to the ancient Greeks and their legends of Zeus. Actually, what he might find is a God who creates and offers man dignity and in doing so puts Himself at risk of being rejected by man spat in the face. The rest of history seems to prove that.

Our correspondent also claimed that Christians came up with some idea that man is the centre of the universe. Thats odd. I thought the whole purpose of the texts was to tell us that man is not the centre of the universe, (what's at the centre of the 'garden' in the legend of Adam and Eve is the 'knowledge of good and evil' which is something known only to God and beyond man's comprehension - that is why he is fobidden to 'go to the tree or eat of it'; - which of couse in his pride he does - the original 'man' was probably an Indonesian polictician!!) - but that might need s9me explaining)and that all his probless come when 'man'/'adam' forgets that and thinks erroneously thjat he is, in fact th centre of the universe, which incidently the Bible says no but the secular humanists and their Enlightenment told man that indeed he is the centre and the explanation of all that is: Cogito Ergo Sum.

Well, as I look around me, while 'man' a noble being destined for dignity and freedom, even one day in Indonesia, I beg to differ.

Perhaps you might ask Sukarno or Suharta or any of the recent mob about what it is to be a human being. Or Mao - or that fellow up in North Korea. Or my Muslim mate who doesn't ask any questions and accepts everything blindly and calls it belief and faith I didn't know the word faith meant 'blind unquestioning belief' - I thought the greek word 'pistis' (faith) meant - confidence - just as I have faith when i sit in this chair and confidence (pistis) that its not goint to collapse under me when I sit on it, but that I dont know that for certain.I am confident and I hope. That is the nature of belief - or unbelief. The opposite of which is certainty. Unfortunately this 'certainty' is what a lot of believers and unbelievers take for confirmation that they know what is and what isn't.I'll stick with confidence and hope - and a good dose of - well, who knows? Come death - we'll all find out who has egg on their face.

i am neither theist nor atheist, raised in Catholic education, because I find it tiresome and pointless in debating how who what and why we were created when nobody and nothing will ever proof it; all are just assumptions and beliefs. if people stop worrying this things, we've probably had definite answer to genetic problems, cancer, or even intergalactic travel and lightsabers!

Mostly excellent comments all round. Let's do it. The problem is that most people feel frightened and isolated. They need to realise that they are not alone.

On the principle that lex iniusta non est lex (an unjust law is no law at all) we should challenge the first principle of pancasila and the blasphemy laws and organise ourselves. We must be free to believe or to repudiate belief as our intellect and conscience dictates – and be prepared to take the consequences.

Let's do it and form our own Indonesian Secular Humanist Society and campaign for freedom to think for ourselves. Let's face up to the cowardly bullies of the FPI and the populist politicians riding their religious tigers.