Hi Micheal,
Habari AAU? I'm a South African atheist and author of the novel "Moses was a Liar" published by Raider Books NY in 2009. I found your site through Steve Hurlin and wish you everything of the best in your endeavours to create an Africa free from religion, mysticim and associated myths and lies.
Warm Regards
Brian Stewart
PS I was stationed in Dar es Salaam for a year with the UNDP.

This is what we need to have a better world. Humans have to stop secularism and focus on fellow humans. I think thats what a true God likes. How can you love God when u hurt your neighbour or make his stay a living hell?? I say we need to unit as one no matter wat u believe or think.

Hello from Israel,

It was a pleasant surprise to find this site.
I found the article on witchcraft informative and disturbing.

I can relate to your promotion of secular ceremonies. Next week, my girlfriend and I will be flying to the Czech Republic to get married in a secular wedding. Unfortunately, Israel is the only liberal democracy in the world where this is not possible.

Keep up the fight for scientific humanism!

Hello Everyone!

I think this is a great site, keep up the good work

Greatings from Portugal!

Ivo

Hi, It was great to find out that also in Uganda the voices of reason are raising up. I can not emphasize enough the danger of religion, especially monotheistic religions. In their hunger for power and and there fanatical ambition to convert I can see only there own doubt about what they (suppose to) believe. In the 2500 years of monotheism these religions have piled up atrocities. Most genocide's in our modern history where in the name of god (this wonderful creature). These days in Europe I would say that the big majority has taken a big distance from institutionalized religion, and that has created a bigger ethic and moral standard than in parts of the world where religion is more powerful. Education is the key to improvement, and the government has to play an important role in that, so it is very important that politics and religion are separated.
In Europe most governments forbid single religion education, religious education should be about the different religions and the good and bad they have done in our history purely historical and anthropological. That will make student aware and understand the different religions and make it possible for them to make up there own and only there own mind. I think also in Uganda the coming of more wealth, education will improve and people's personal freedoms will increase to create a more cultural divers society with higher ethic and moral standards.
Keep it up!!!!
Patrick

Thanks. A friend has just recommended this site to me. I find it interesting.

My dear fellow travelers,
I am glad to see that you have formed Atheist Association of Uganda. I have just now found you thank to my Face Book friend Mr. Kirumira Micheal Mpagi. Let me greet you from Sindh, Pakistan. I would like to take this opportunity to request you to give message in support of the Campaign against the State Religion of Pakistan on this website .
Thanks and regards.
Yours truly,
G M Lakho

Hi, early days yet for this website but it's good to see a brave voice of reason shouting out from the many problems that Uganda presently faces. It's going to be a long hard struggle for you guys, but keep going!!

Well done!!

I am always pleased to see the spread of atheist, agnostic, or freethinker views. I applaud you, AAU!

Well right now i'm in uganda and i want to be an atheist so i want to kno where u r located cuz i have gote it from Mrs.Noelle from USA .so contact me soon.

Wishing you all the best, a great cause and a lovely web site.
Kompani from the United Kingdom.

Like you Michael, I didn't realise that anyone else was brave enough to admit they are atheist. Good for you! Religion was an invention to explain phenomena like comets ("A flaming chariot descending from the sky") before science. Religion is based on thoughts in a person's head which were intepreted as the voice of god and why there are so many discrepancies and anomilies. This has resulted in the cause of all the wars throughout the World and even amongst fellow countrymen (Northern Ireland Protestants/Catholics and the Sunni and shia Muslims in Iraq.)

Correction: I meant to type 6/13 for my opinion piece.
--Atheistcable.

WHAT IS EVIDENCE?
In my opinion piece of 5/13, I said that we have to discuss what "evidence" is. Today I will discuss what "evidence" is not.
Five years ago, a wheelchair-bound neighbor was doing volunteer work at an ELCA (Lutheran) Church, answering the phone. When she died (June 2001), I took over her position because I saw an opportunity to be close to a minister of religion to find out what they believe and how they come to believe what they do. The minister had received his Masters in Divinity three years prior--which, to me, is like receiving a degree in advanced superstition. He was very pleasant and cheerful (they all are because they want your money) and also from an East African country.

One day we got into a discussion about the "evidence of God's existence." He said he took his family--wife and two children--to the Grand Canyon. They took a highway that went through Colorado and Utah and then to Arizona. The minister described the views on either side of roads that went way up into the mountains. Along some roads, there were places where tourists could pull over--something like a rest stop--and take in the view. When he saw a view of valleys and mountains stretched before him, he said he felt the "spirit of God dwelling in my heart." He could see miles into the distance, where a bluish haze enveloped the most distant mountains. "If you would have been there, you would have been convinced as I was that only a powerful supernatural being could create such beauty. And this was the proof of God's mighty works on Earth" he proclaimed.

Lots of emotions were expressed. But what he described to me was evidence of a wrinkled earth due to tectonic plate collisions. I'm wondering if people who live around mountains, who see them every day are "spiritually moved" and bask in the "evidence of god" each time? I don't think so.

It also depends upon who you are. If I were the owner of a paper company, I would probably be inspired by the sight of potential profits gained if I could log the trees covering all those mountains. If I were a forest ranger, I would see the potential for forest fires. And as an atheist, I would not see "God."

And speaking of mountains, do people also see "God" after weeks of rain causing mudslides and thousands of human deaths, and seeing their farm land buried under the mud flow? Maybe some would--but it certainly wouldn't be a god of great beauty, but a god of death and destruction.

I am reminded of the time I was looking out a window of a high-rise business tower in Rosslyn, Virginia in the early 70s. I used to live in Washington, D.C. The southward view allowed me to see over Arlington Cemetery and down the Potomac River for about 30 miles or more. A friend of mine and I had lunch with his colleague, before we went to his office. During lunch, we had a discussion on religion since I said I was an atheist. Afterward, in his office and looking out his window, he asked me, upon seeing that I was quite impressed with the view, "Now how can you not see the exquisite beauty created by God?"

Well, I saw exquisite beauty alright, but I didn't see any god. I don't even know what a god is. Didn't then, and still don't--even after working for the ELCA minister for 18 months. And this question was asked after a hurricane ran through the area the week before. Odd thing, I never heard anyone proclaim in awe, the beauty of a god during a hurricane.

So, seeing breath-taking beauty is not evidence of a supernatural being. Like your average human being, I know about the world through five senses. I don't have a sense to detect *super*natural things. I'd like someone visiting this site, to explain what "super"natural is.

In Kirumira Mpagi Micheal's introductory statement, he says: "Religions are difficult to talk about--that’s part of the problem." Yes, this can be true if you jump right into religion.

I've been thinking about this for some time. Here in the U.S., there are communities that are as socially oppressive as any of the most conservative parts of the world. Everyone knows how violent our gun-totin' society is. After all, the U.S. is Number One in the manufacture of armaments--sold to both sides of conflicts.

So how do you announce that you're an atheist? Well, you don't if you don't want to get killed.

You talk about science instead. And with Wikipedia, that is made very easy.

The land is very flat here in the Mid-West. So how is it that we can turn on the spigot and water gushes out? Where does the water pressure come from? Answer: Water Towers. Wikipedia gives the details.

In Uganda or anywhere else, one person with a computer is an excuse to spend the afternoon talking about science. How do things work? After discussing the topic of water towers sufficiently, then you go to Gravity, Centrifugal Force, Inertia.

Beginning discussions have to be centered on basics, topics that affect our daily lives. We live with water which is always flowing from A to B, from rain collected into streams, and taken up into trees and then transpired back into the atmosphere.

We see the Moon and wonder how it stays right where it is instead of flying off into space or come crashing down to Earth.

Call up "Ecology" on Wikipedia. There are lots of links in this article. Your group can spend at least two months discussing the relationship of humans vs. wildlife vs. plant life. Most likely that will lead to the topic of overpopulation and limited resources. It will go further into topics of family planning, contraceptives, and, inevitably, abortion.

Call up "Human Rights" Read the article and discuss it with your group. From there call up "Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Hopefully these discussions will lead to the importance of your nation spending far more capital on education of the masses than funneling your nation's capital to a small clique of the rich to maintain their extravagant lifestyles. By studying other nations, one can come to the conclusion that even a nation without natural resources, if the people of that country understand the value of the educated human mind (which I always think of as an organic computer), everyone can be productive, to trade with neighboring nations, and live comfortably.

The discussions, which should be on a daily basis, will help young and old minds think scientifically and lead to an understanding that there's a difference between what one can imagine and reality; that claims made need to be substantiated with evidence. There is a need to discuss what "evidence" is, what a hypothesis is vs. a theory.

So when an individual says: "My grandmother was blind and this preacher called upon God and healed her," others in the group can ask for proof of this claim. Without proof, no further discussion is needed.

By discussing science, the topic of religion per se can be avoided.

Helo i think GOD is there!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would like to communicate on a regular basis with anyone living in Africa. I'm a Life Member of Minnesota Atheists. Although my parents never declared themselves to be atheists, they were totally not interested in religion. They would be apatheists. I took an interest in science in high school because science gave me understandable explanations for the world around me; and only became interested in religion around 1962 when someone gave me Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian. I've always been an atheist, but my interest is trying to understand why people adopt religious beliefs.

Good start for a nice site.
I hope you will be successful in reducing the effects of irrational teachings in Ugandan society.

The site looks great...good job.

Hi,this is a new chapter in Uganda.