Warsaw: The Atheist Meetings (March 28th-30th 2015)

Didn't even know that these atheist meetings had taken place until yesterday, as not many people in Warsaw seemed to take much interest in them.

However, after finding out about these meetings yesterday, I scoured the Internet for pictures of the events, as, despite not subscribing to the atheist creed myself, such events would've still been interesting to attend for the anthropology on offer.

In the picture of the meeting below, I definitely recognise one face, an Englishman, who while not being a fan of the Islamic worldview is far from being a subscriber to the atheist creed.

Through reading about these meetings on the Internet, I have become aware that the main event of the weekend was some kind of march down Krakowskie towards Warsaw Old Town in honour of Kazmierz Lyszczynski (1634-1689):

Before this, I'd never heard of  Lyszczynski despite having lived in Warsaw for over 10 years now.

From the Internet, I've quickly discovered some very general information concerning Lyszczynski having been tried and executed for writing 'De Non Existentia Dei' (commonly viewed as an atheistic treatise by subscribers to the atheist creed in Poland):

Of course, from what I have read of Lyszczynski's execution in Warsaw Old Town market in 1689, it seems to have been an extremely cruel and barbaric event:

Thank God, we don't live in those times, when seemingly you could've been executed for all sorts of mad things, (of course, this kind of thing still remains in some parts of the Islamic world).

 Also interesting from what I can gather from the Internet is that Lyszczynski may've not been an atheist after all, as one school of thought points towards him having intended to give a Catholic response in the second half of 'De Non Existentia Dei' (I wonder if this was mentioned at the Warsaw atheist meetings?).  Besides this, it seems that there may've been some kind of politically-motivated ecclesiatical tug of war over whether to execute Lyszczynski or not (I wonder if the Catholic clergy who tried to save him from execution got a mention at the Warsaw atheist meetings?)

And this brings us to Maryam Namazie (who appears to be a kind of communist who escaped the Iranian Revolution of the late 1970s) who seems to have been the star turn at the Warsaw atheist events:

From what I can gather from a quick look at the Internet, on one hand, she argues against such rhetorical constructions as 'Islamophobia' being used by politically 'correct' ideologues to shout down critics of Islam, but on the other hand, she is said to equally despise Christianity as Islam despite the former having become much more humanised over the past few hundred years.

And where do I stand on all this?  Probably with Pascal, to be honest.  For me, the 'God Question' is too big to answer 'Yes' or 'No', but it seems to be more rational to veer towards the option that offers more rewards (belief rather than unbelief). Also really like the work of the great American sociologist of religion, Rodney Stark, who stresses that having some kind of religious belief is often psychologically healthier than constructing a non-belief creed.