A small step for mankind and his/her freedom to use reason as a basis for guiding their lives.

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The overwhelmingly negative reaction of the general public in Europe, not just in Italy, to this ruling is a sad reminder how entrenched Religion (in this case the RC Church) is in European public schools. The legal obligation (!) of public schools in many EU countries to display a crucifix in the classroom is still widely seen as a matter of “cultural identity”, bannig it is perceived and attack on this identity. The ECHR ruling is just the beginning….

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FINALLY!!!

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Momentous, but it will be an uphill battle to actually get the crucifixes off the walls. Italian politicians overwhelmingly pander to the Vatican. It might take decades.

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Once again, another example that when faced with the challenge of defending public displays of religion - the subjective, emotional arguments fail every time.

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This is great news…

I have to admit that, at times, it still surprises me how willfully ignorant believers can be.  It’s like the Vatican officials have a list of standard defensive verbal retorts for any ‘logical’ argument against their religion that, undoubtedly, arises.

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“The crucifix has always been a sign of God’s love, unity and hospitality to all humanity.

“It is unpleasant that it is considered a sign of division, exclusion or a restriction of freedom.”

—Has Lombardi any knowledge of his organization’s history???

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I think the so-called “Christian values” have nothing to do with “unity and hospitality to all humanity” (see the history of crusades and inquisition) and cannot be regarded as a corner-stone of the Western culture. The ruling of the Court will enable us to free the morals from the influence of religious wordview. We have the same problems in Russia, the Orthodox Church being the bulwark of obscurantism (they want to introduce such subject as “fundamentals of Orthodox culture” at our schools in a view to control our children and to impede the development of critical thinking in our society). I consider that there should be a closer cooperation between the atheists from all over the world to achieve our goals together and to defend the values many of us share.
  My greatest respect for Sam Harris personally.

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