When Switzerland goes to the polls to elect a new parliament later this month, voters in Zurich will for the first time in the country's history have the chance to cast their ballot for a slate of Freethinkers.
"We decided we had to stand up and tell our politicians that it's time they recognised that there are a lot of non-religious people in their electorate," says 42-year-old Andreas Kyriacou, who heads the list. "We, and probably a lot of Swiss people who have never thought about humanism or atheism, are tired of the influence the churches and religion still exert in this country," he said in an interview with Reuters.
His stance -- as measured by comments at other conferences around Europe over the summer -- reflects growing determination among humanists and atheists on all five continents to make themselves more visible and their influence felt. Like their counterparts in Europe and North America, they argue that morality is based in human nature and does not need a father-figure god to back it up with punishment in an afterlife, in which they do not believe.
"There are more godless groups in the world than ever before," Sonja Eggerickx, a Belgian schools inspector who is president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, told the Congress. U.S. delegates, including a serving army major who has just established an organisation for atheists in the military, spoke of a surge of rejection of religion in all its forms among young Americans -- a point some recent opinion surveys back up.
Back in Zurich two weeks before the elections, Kyriacou says there has been a good response to the campaign he and his youthful colleagues have fought. "It is young people who are mainly interested, and that is good for the future," he adds.
"We don't think for a minute we will overcome the party machines. But there is an outside chance, if the mathematics are right, that one of us will get elected. That would be a victory indeed for humanists everywhere."
