1 Introduction
Religion as a societal phenomenon is protected by international declarations and treaties, by national constitutions, and by the case-law of international and national courts. In 1948, the United Nations launched the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states in Article 18:
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
The 1948 Declaration, at that moment only a statement of intentions, was later enshrined in legally binding documents. At the regional level, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950), better known as the European Convention on Human Rights, was adopted. The Convention is common framework for the freedom of religion for the Member States to the Council of Europe, with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg as its final arbiter.1 Furthermore, at the UN level,
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) expresses a more or less similar provision. Article 9 ECHR has two sections, one about the actual freedom, the second containing a limitations clause. The first section states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, and to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
Two observations regarding this provision will serve as a starting-point for the following reflections. First, a comment on the word ‘religion’. Just like ‘thought’, and ‘conscience,’ ‘religion’ enjoys special protection under the European Convention. Within the framework of this chapter, it is therefore important to determine the scope of ‘religion’ and the ‘freedom of religion’.
A second crucial observation is that the Universal Declaration and the European Convention recognise both the freedom of religion for citizens, and the freedom to change one’s religion and thereby distance oneself from a particular religion. Put differently, this indicates that Article 9 ECHR and Article 18 UDHR include not only the freedom of (thought, conscience and) religion, but also the freedom of apostasy. Moreover, the Articles seem to offer protection to all kinds of beliefs and world views such as ‘agnosticism,’ ‘secularism,’ or even ‘atheism’.
In what follows we will try to test the latter hypothesis by focusing on one specific movement that presents itself as a religion, but that is at the same time regarded as being critical of religion: the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or pastafarianism.2 Pastafarianism is considered a new religion.3 Some scholars use the term ‘NUWS’ religions, meaning ‘new, unknown, weird or small’.4 Other commentators emphasise the secular orientation of the pastafarians. Bullivant and Lois in A Dictionary of Atheism (2016) characterise
In December 2021, a case concerning pastafarianism was brought before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg: De Wilde v. the Netherlands.6 The claimant in this case criticised the refusal by the Dutch administrative court, to recognise the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or pastafarianism, as a religion. Subsequently, the European Court in Strasbourg declared the case inadmissible, as it considered the claim not to fall within the scope of Article 9 ECHR. Thus, it was dismissed in the initial stage before the Court; the case was not decided on the merits and the procedure ended in an early stage.
In this chapter, we present a critical reflection on the freedom of religion, following the latter case on pastafarianism in Dutch case-law, which was supported by the European Court. This critical reflection results in a number of observations about the scope of the freedom of religion as it is laid down in the Convention and interpreted by the ECtHR. Obviously, the recognition (or not) of pastafarianism as a religion that is protected by Art. 9 ECHR, raises more general questions about the concept of religion and the freedom of religion. These questions are pertinent for all kinds of other religions, belief systems, and non-religious worldviews. Does the European Court use a more or less official definition of religion? If so, what is that definition? Does the Court use criteria that exclude specific systems of ideas from the freedom religion? And if these are not considered religions, do these systems of ideas find protection under Art. 9 ECHR in some other way?
As will appear the following sections, the scope of the freedom of religion as protected in the European Convention is extensive: it also encompasses the freedom of thought and conscience; the freedom to change one’s religion and
2 Pastafarianism as Interpreted by the Authorities in the Netherlands
2.1 Administrative Proceedings: Identity Photograph and Religious or Philosophical Exceptions
The applicant in De Wilde v. the Netherlands (2021) is Ms. Hermina Geertruida de Wilde (born 1985). She was assisted by university lecturer dr. D. Venema, a legal historian and legal philosopher currently associated with the Open University, the Netherlands.7 The applicant considers herself a “pastafarian”. This means that, as a follower of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, she has the religious duty to wear a colander on her head. This colander is commonly used to pour off the spaghetti. The followers of the church named after the Flying Spaghetti Monster consider wearing the colander a vital symbol that belongs to their religion.8
When she applied for a new driving license and identity card, the complainant came into conflict with the Dutch municipalities. The point was that for these official documents to be valid, a passport photograph is required. For purposes of identification, the Dutch law requires that the head be uncovered on the identity photograph. However, an exception is made for religious believers. For example, wearing a headscarf on a passport photograph is allowed. That raised the question as to why the colander is not accepted. Does this amount to discrimination against a particular group of believers, the pastafarians, and does this imply discrimination based on religion?
With this issue the Dutch authorities were facing a precarious problem. Based on international and national laws, states are supposed to acknowledge and recognise religions on an equal basis. In other words, a state may not practice discrimination based on faith. Thus, the question which positions are presented and experienced by believers as “religious”, becomes a matter for the state: governments will have to decide which religions are protected by the
The authority (Mayor of Nijmegen) in charge of implementing the Passport Implementation Regulations, told the applicant the following:
The ‘Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’ is not a church or philosophical conviction. There is no appearance of activities of this organisation that can be considered either the exercise or manifestation of a coherent philosophy or conviction of life that permeates [a person’s] entire outlook on life, is connected to [that person’s] moral conscience and according to which [that person] organises his or her life, nor as directed towards any religious experience.
It appears from documents of the [‘Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’] that it is not considered generally necessary for members of the church constantly to wear a colander. Several well-known members of this organization do not wear a colander on their heads in civil life.
This organization manifestly intends to be critical of religion in contemporary society. It seeks to express this criticism by making a caricature of religion. In particular, it has made it its aim to seek recognition of this caricature, so that it can enjoy the constitutional protection attending freedom of thought or religious conviction. The expression of social opinions or criticism should however be categorised as freedom of expression (Article 7 of the Constitution) rather than freedom of religion (Article 6 of the Constitution). For that reason, your argument based on Rule 28(3) of the Passport Implementation Regulations fails”. (De Wilde v. the Netherlands, para. 5)
In this justification for rejecting the claim to recognise pastafarianism as a religion, several elements can be distinguished.
Firstly, not only is pastafarianism denied the status of a religion, but it is also not regarded as a “philosophical belief”. The reason given for this is that pastafarianism cannot, or at least cannot sufficiently, be seen as a coherent philosophy or conviction of life that permeates, as it were, the “entire outlook on life.”
Secondly, pastafarianism does not seem to be a religion itself, but rather a movement or view that is critical of religion. This criticism manifests itself in a satirical way that makes a “caricature of religion”. In a further explanation, the Dutch authorities held that pastafarianism should be interpreted as
Thirdly, the government agency questions the necessity of wearing the colander. Indeed, one infers this from the fact that some adherents of the church do not wear this headgear.
Finally, the authenticity of the faith is questioned, as pastafarianism wants its satirical criticism of religion to be recognised as a religion to enjoy the constitutional protection given to religious beliefs. Based on these arguments for rejecting the status of religion to pastafarianism, the Mayor refused the appellant’s claim; she could not invoke the religious exception clause.
2.2 The Case before the Dutch Council of State
The Dutch legal procedure finally ended up before the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State. Here, the appellant argued that, contrary to what the lower courts had been willing to acknowledge, pastafarianism should indeed be considered a religion. After all, it was a religious system, namely: “a coherent and serious religious system that propagated an attitude of friendliness, non-violence, tolerance, sobriety, modesty and relativism” (case of De Wilde, para. 16). The applicant also pointed out that the lower authorities had failed to recognise the discriminatory element in their treatment of pastafarianism. Indeed, the movement was subjected to requirements that were not imposed on other religions. “The wearing of a colander had no more objective basis in holy writ than did the wearing of the Islamic headscarf or the Sikh turban” (De Wilde, para. 18).
The Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State takes the position that to be considered a “religion” or “belief” in the sense of Art. 9 ECHR, these views “must have obtained a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance” (para. 8). The latter criteria are derived from previous judgments by the European Court of Human Rights.11 In the light of these criteria for religion, pastafarianism does not stand the test, according to the Council of State (De Wilde, para. 18).
2.3
How the Dutch authorities that ruled on the case and how the European Court in Strasbourg could have taken the partial definition of religion as the starting point of their judgment is somewhat of a mystery. The “coherence requirements” (cogency, seriousness, cohesion, and importance) as formulated in a previous case by the European Court, hardly play a role in the long history of reflection on the question of what can be regarded as a religion.12 From Antiquity (Cicero) to the Middle Ages (Thomas von Aquino) to the Enlightenment thinkers (Rousseau, Hume, Kant), to the 20th century in disciplines as theology (Barth), psychology (Freud) and sociology (Geertz), different views on what religion is have found expression. Within the framework of this chapter, it would go too far to discuss even a representative portion of these views. Nevertheless, it is vital to make two observations on this topic. First, the criteria used by the Dutch authorities, the Dutch Council of State, and the European Court to exclude certain ways of thinking from religion, play little or no role in the literature as mentioned here. A second observation is that this is most noticeable when it comes to modern and contemporary views on religion. The authorities use definitions of religion (or partial definitions) that are no longer up-to-date.13 The four characteristics of cogency, seriousness, cohesion, and importance seem to connect to a common-sense view of religion, but not to the scholarly literature on the subject. That said, the consequences of the Court’s characteristics of “religion” are extensive, so there is every reason to question this approach. Is it indeed justifiable on the basis of these criteria to deny some ideological positions the status of religion? In particular, those religious positions with minority status in defence of the religions that are dominant, the official religions, the state religions?
3 The Widening Interpretation of the Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion
3.1 Elements of the Freedom of Religion
There is yet another crucial issue besides the question of what constitutes a proper definition of “religion.” This has to do with the way in which religious
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. (emphasis added)
The European Convention on Human Rights includes a largely similar provision in Article 9 which says:
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, and to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance. (emphasis added, CZ)
On close reading, four components can be distinguished in these Articles.
Universality of the freedom. First, there is the universal proclamation of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. The word “everyone” indicates that this freedom belongs to every human being.14 One might call this the “universality principle”: human rights apply to everyone, regardless of race, culture, nationality, or gender.
A composite of overlapping freedoms. Second, it is noteworthy that this freedom can be seen as a composite of three freedoms that overlap. For example, the first is freedom of thought. The second, the freedom of conscience. The third is freedom of religion. Together, these three are enumerated as the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Apparently, the idea is that conscience and religion are related matters.
Change of faith and apostasy. A third point that is striking about the wording of the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion in both provisions is that it explicitly refers to a freedom to change one’s thought, conscience, and religion. This is remarkable, particularly regarding the last component, religion; regarding the freedom of thought, it is not. Indeed, that it is considered part of the freedom of thought that one can change one’s mind is self-evident. It is too
Freedom to manifest one’s religion. A fourth element that one can identify in the wording of the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, enshrined in art. 9 ECHR is that the Article also indicates that one does not have to keep his thoughts or religion to oneself. Or, put differently: religion must be allowed to manifest itself. This can be done by the believer being allowed to say which religion he prefers, but also in other ways; the believer must be able to manifest his religion. The believer may also teach that religion, or may demonstrate, through ritual acts, to be drawn to another beliefs. The pastafarians do that by putting a colander on their heads. The Jehovah’s witnesses do so by going from door to door to testify their faith.17 While this element (proselytising) is a prominent part of Art. 9, it is not uncontroversial, as will be apparent from the Kokkinakis case, which will be discussed in more detail, below.
3.2
So far, we have distinguished four central elements of Art. 9 ECHR. The ECHR establishes a system of overlapping rights (freedom of thought, conscience, and religion) to which a universal significance is attributed. A right to change and apostatise from religion is included.
What has, unfortunately, received scant attention in the treatment of the case of the pastafarians in De Wilde v. the Netherlands is the “apostasy clause”. Unfortunately, because this is highly important. The criminalisation of a change of religion or belief (and thus apostasy from the perspective of the religion being abandoned) soon became commonplace in Christianity after the official acceptance of Christianity as the state religion. And in Islam, it was no different. Israeli scholar, judge, and politician Haim H. Cohn points out the similarities between the three monotheistic religions on this point. He states:
The three great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – the subject matter of this survey – have several distinctive marks in common: they postulate the belief in and worship of God; they each have holy scriptures and other canonical texts and vest authoritative interpretations or applications thereof with binding force; each designates a class of officials or functionaries to preserve and propagate the faith; each seeks to imbue its religious, ethical and legal norms into the daily lives of individuals and communities; and none suffers dissidents from within.18
3.3 The Freedom “To Change His Belief”
Yet another pertinent question regarding Article 9 ECHR is: how to interpret the addition in this Article about the freedom to change “his religion”? This is what was referred to as the “apostasy clause.” Applied to pastafarianism, one may wonder whether this movement can perhaps be considered a manifestation of religious apostasy? In that case, pastafarianism, despite the dismissive attitude of the Dutch judicial authorities and the European Court in Strasbourg, should still be protected by Art. 9, section 1 ECHR. It would not so much be identified as a religious position, but rather as a manifestation of criticism of religion, a move away from religion.19
Based on the legal text, what is the scope of this freedom? The text indicates that implied in the freedom of religion is the “freedom to change his religion or belief.” But does this also mean that the freedom to become an apostate is thereby protected? The freedom to exchange theism for atheism?21
The ECtHR answered this important question in 1993, in Kokkinakis v. Greece.22 The Kokkinakis case is named after the Greek evangelist Minos Kokkinakis (1909–1999). Kokkinakis was a Greek member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Kokkinakis acquired a reputation for his repeated clashes with Greece’s ban on proselytism.23 Like the first apostles, Kokkinakis had a modest background. Initially, he was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church, but in 1936 he switched to the Church of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Kokkinakis thus practised the freedom for which Art. 9 ECHR lays the foundation: the freedom to change one’s faith. As stated above, he came into conflict with the Greek government not because of his apostasy from the Greek Orthodox Church,
For now, what is crucial is that in the case of Kokkinakis v. Greece, the ECtHR takes a position on how to interpret the freedom to change one’s faith. Does this also mean the freedom to become an atheist? The ECtHR answers that question affirmatively. Below, the paragraph in which the ECtHR takes a position on this question:
As enshrined in Article 9 (art. 9), freedom of thought, conscience and religion is one of the foundations of a ‘democratic society’ within the meaning of the Convention. It is, in its religious dimension, one of the most vital elements that go to make up the identity of believers and their conception of life, but it is also a precious asset for atheists, agnostics, skeptics and the unconcerned. The pluralism indissociable from a democratic society, which has been dearly won over the centuries, depends on it. (Kokkinakis, para. 31)
This is a vital paragraph, to which the European Court of Human Rights frequently refers. Art. 9 ECHR protects not only the interests and rights of believers who want to change from one religious position to another religious position (e.g., the apostasy from Greek Orthodox to Jehovah’s witness), but also the change from a religious position to a nonreligious position. What is more, the Court even regards this as a precondition for pluralism, which is ‘indissociable’ from democratic societies. In response to those who tend to understand modernity as ‘pluralising’ rather than as ‘secularising,’ the pluralism of today’s societies includes not only religious believers, but also non-religious positions.24
Returning to the pastafarians – if we were to categorise this movement at all, the most obvious would be to regard the followers of this movement as sceptics.25 Pastafarianism in effect exudes a great deal of scepticism about traditional religion and monotheistic religions in particular. But, one may wonder: it is up to the courts at all to set standards for these four positions mentioned above that enjoy protection under Art. 9 ECHR? May a judge, as a
What is more: it is the role of the judiciary to decide these matters at all? Should not judges refrain from what is considered the forum internum of religion (unlike the forum externum)? As Murdoch states: “At its most basic, Article 9 seeks to prevent state indoctrination of individuals by permitting the holding, development, and refinement and ultimately change of personal thought, conscience and religion.”29 In this context, it is pertinent to quote a paragraph from the European Court in the case of Eweida and others v. UK:
The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion denotes views that attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance (…). Provided this is satisfied, the State’s duty of neutrality and impartiality is incompatible with any power on the State’s part to assess the legitimacy of religious beliefs or the ways in which those beliefs are expressed.30
Again, this points in the direction that courts should have taken a different stance. That is, they should have adopted an attitude of judicial restraint towards the interpretation of “religion” in Article 9, section 1. Subsequently, they could have reviewed whether the conditions for limiting the freedom of religion had been met, under Article 9, section 2.
4
Following the question of the status of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, two central questions concerning Art. 9 ECHR were discussed. First of all, regarding the question of definition: what is religion? Second, on the question: what exactly does the protection of apostasy mean? To qualify for protection under Art 9 ECHR, apostatic positions need to have “a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance” (De Wilde, para. 18).
There is, however, a third question that Art. 9 ECHR raises. A culmination point of our previous reflections; the question of the equal treatment of religions under the ECHR. Equal treatment is a main principle of law. Equal cases should be treated equally. Therefore, the American philosopher Ronald Dworkin called the principle of equality the sovereign virtue of law.31 In those cases where equal cases are not treated equally, we regard this as “discrimination”. And “discrimination” in law should be avoided at all costs.
This, of course, is also relevant for judgments on judicial recognition of certain positions that receive special protection as religions do; this is what Art. 9 ECHR is about. Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion grant special protection to religions. Thus, the question becomes relevant whether a religious position is recognised according to the law, that is, in the eyes of the judges. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was not considered worthy of that status, according to the Dutch courts, and they were joined by the European Court in Strasbourg.
Those who consider this approach incorrect will argue that it “discriminates” against the pastafarians compared to other believers. The latter subject was also an important issue in the Kokkinakis case, even though the disadvantage of the Jehovah’s Witnesses proceeded somewhat differently from the burden of the pastafarians in the Netherlands. Minos Kokkinakis was affected by a constitutional ban on proselytising. Article 13, paragraph 2 of the Greek constitution, says: “There shall be freedom to practice any known religion; individuals shall be free to perform their rites of worship without hindrance and under the protection of the law. The performance of rites of worship must not prejudice public order or public morals. Proselytism is prohibited (Kokkinakis, para. 13).32
There is a second striking element to the Greek constitution. In addition to the institution of “known religions,” the Greek constitution has a second means of excluding unwelcome religions, it seems. It prohibits “proselytism”, that is to say; it bans a behaviour that appears to be at odds with that part of Art. 9 of the ECHR in which it is stated that one may manifest one’s religion. After all: first, everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Second, this is presented as a set of three more or less interrelated rights. Third, freedom of religion includes freedom to change one’s religion or belief. Fourth, there is the freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice, and observance. This fourth part was the matter discussed in Kokkinakis. How to harmonise the prohibition of proselytising with the freedom to manifest one’s religion? What is the difference between proselytising and manifesting one’s faith?
The whole issue becomes more critical when one realises that among the “official religions,” Greece assigns a special place to one specific religion, the Greek Orthodox Church. According to the Greek Constitution of 1975, quoted in Kokkinakis para. 13: “The dominant religion in Greece is that of the Christian Eastern Orthodox Church. The Greek Orthodox Church, which recognizes as its head Our Lord Jesus Christ, is indissolubly united, doctrinally, with the Great Church of Constantinople and with any other Christian Church in communion with it (omodoxi), immutably observing, like the other Churches, the holy apostolic and synodical canons and the holy traditions” (Article 3, Greek Constitution, Kokkinakis, para. 13).
Kokkinakis had more success in challenging the religious monopoly of the Greek Orthodox Church than De Wilde had in arguing for the recognition of pastafarianism. Nevertheless, the two views are similar. In the Netherlands and
This then finally brings us to a central question regarding the function of human rights. What is the meaning of human rights? Can it not be argued that human rights are intended precisely to protect minority positions? In De Wilde v. the Netherlands, the official state institutions are protected with their orthodox view by denying official recognition of a heterodox view of faith. This is, in fact, the same as what the Greek Orthodox Church was trying to do and which had long been tolerated, despite the obvious human rights violations with which it is associated. But with Kokkinakis, in 1993, the ECtHR thus chose to protect a minority position.
5 Summary and Conclusion
Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights expresses the freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The first section concerns the protection of freedom of religion, whereas the second section formulates the conditions for legitimately limiting that freedom.
The satirical nature of pastafarianism precludes its recognition as a religion, according to the ECtHR. This approach is vulnerable. All the more so since the ECtHR does not give a comprehensive definition of religion. The Court also seems to ignore a long discussion about the essence of religion, as it has been conducted among philosophers, theologians, religious scholars, and others.
That pastafarianism was excluded from the status of religion is all the more debatable, considering the fact that Article 9 ECHR is not specifically intended to protect officially recognised religions. Sects, too, deserve protection and perhaps even more so. After all, human rights are primarily intended to protect minority positions.
But while it would have been possible to recognise pastafarianism as a religion, pastafarians have more options to argue their cause, when denied recognition as a religious position. This has to do with the apostasy clause. After all, the specificity of the wording of religious freedom as it took shape after World War II is that critical religious positions are also protected by Art. 9 ECHR.
Unfortunately, in De Wilde v. the Netherlands, the apostasy clause has not received the attention it deserves. The founder of pastafarianism, Bobby Henderson, wrote his gospel in 2006,36 at the height of the debate initiated by the New Atheists. The general public usually narrows the movement down to a dogmatic and sometimes allegedly intolerant stance toward the spiritual hopes of believers, but this is unjustified. The new atheism is about much more than atheism in the narrow sense of the word. The books by the atheists Dawkins,37 Hitchens,38 Harris39 and others also deal with the freedom of expression; the legitimacy and necessity of religious criticism; secularism, the relationship of the state to religious diversity; the legitimacy of satire, including satire relating
The Dutch authorities who adjudicated the case and the ECtHR, made the mistake of limiting themselves to the question of whether pastafarianism qualifies as a “serious religion.” They should also have considered whether it can be regarded as a “serious renunciation of religion.” Now that the judicial authorities, in De Wilde v. the Netherlands, have taken the position that pastafarianism does not enjoy protection under Art. 9 ECHR, this is regrettable for religious minority positions, as it is for the rights of atheists, agnostics, sceptics, and the unconcerned. One religion, the religion of the majority, is favoured over another as happened in Greece until the Kokkinakis case (1993) put an end to this injustice.
The Council of Europe was founded in 1949 to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. One year later it adopted the European Convention on Human Rights. Starting with 10 western European countries, it now comprises practically the whole of the European continent – 47 countries (27 of which are Member States to the European Union) including Russia and Turkey, except for Belarus and Vatican City. On May 16, 2022, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution regarding the cessation of the membership of the Russian Federation to the Council of Europe. Per September 2022, the Russian Federation is no longer Member State to the ECHR: Resolution CM/Res(2022)2 on the cessation of the membership of the Russian Federation to the Council of Europe, https://search.coe.int/cm/Pages/result_details.aspx?ObjectID=0900001680a5da51.
Bobby Henderson, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (New York: Villard Books, 2006); The Loose Canon: A Really Important Collection of Words.
See on new religions in general: Carole M. Cusack, Invented Religions. Imagination, Fiction and Faith (Surrey: Ashgate, 2010); Carole M. Cusack, and Alex Noman, eds., Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production (Leiden: Brill, 2012).
Derk Venema,“Piety or ulterior motive”, in: Carolus Grütters and Dario Dzananovic, eds., Migration and Religious Freedom: Essays on the interaction between religious duty and migration law (Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publishers, 2018) 227–249, 227.
“Pastafarianism”, in: Stephen Bullivant and Lois Lee, A Dictionary of Atheism (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). See also: Carla. M. Zoethout, “How to Deal with Religion in the Increasingly Pluralistic European Societies? The European Court of Human Rights on Crucifixes, Face-covering Veils and Disparaging Muhammad”, in: Md Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan and Darryn Jensen, Law and Religion in the Liberal State (New York, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2020): 107–124, here 114–116.
Case of De Wilde v. the Netherlands, 2 December 2021, No. 9476/19.
Venema, “Piety or ulterior motive”, 227–249.
De Wilde v. the Netherlands, para. 3.
De Wilde v. the Netherlands, para. 7.
Idem.
Campbell and Cosans v. the United Kingdom, 25 February 1982, para. 36, Series A no. 48; Eweida and Others, Judgments of 15 January 2013, para. 81, and S.A.S. v. France, 1 July 2014, para. 55.
See the definitions of religion referred to and discussed in: Alston, William P., “Religion”, in: Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York, London: Macmillan & The Free Press, 1967): 140–145. An anthology with the views of great thinkers on the essence of religion, Schlieter, Jens, Was ist Religion? Texte von Cicero bis Luhmann (Ditzingen: Reclam, 2018).
See: Jens Schlieter, Was ist Religion? Texte von Cicero bis Luhmann, 144–147; 199–202.
As far as the ECHR is concerned, it should be read as ‘everyone’ within the jurisdiction of the 47 Member States to the Council of Europe.
Haim H. Cohn, “The Law of Religious Dissidents: A Comparative Historical Survey”, in: Israel Law Review, 34 (2000) 39–100; Leonard W. Levy, Blasphemy: Verbal Offense against the Sacred from Moses to Salman Rushdie (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993); Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Paul Cliteur and Tom Herrenberg, eds., The Fall and Rise of Blasphemy Law, with a foreword by Flemming Rose (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2016); B.M. van Schaik, Defaming the Freedom of Religion or Belief, PhD Thesis (Leiden University, Leiden 2022).
Willy Laes, Mensenrechten in de Verenigde Naties: een verhaal over manipulatie, censuur en hypocrisie (Human rights in the United Nations: A Story about Manipulation, Censorship and Hypocrisy) (Antwerpen-Apeldoorn: Garant, 2011); Mirjam van Schaik, “Realizing the Freedom of Religion and Belief Equally: The Case of Blasphemy in the Liberal Democratic State”, in: Jasper Doomen and Mirjam van Schaik, eds., Religious Ideas in Liberal Democratic States (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) 133–159.
George D. Chryssides, Historical Dictionary of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2008).
Haim H. Cohn, “The Law of Religious Dissidents: A Comparative Historical Survey”, in: Israel Law Review, 34 (2000) 39–100.
Michael Weinrich, Religion und Religionskritik, 2. Auflage (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012 (2011).
See on this: Van Schaik, Defaming the Freedom of Religion or Belief, PhD Thesis, Leiden University, Leiden 2022; Schaik, Mirjam van, “Religious Freedom and Blasphemy Law in a Global Context: The Concept of Religious Defamation”, in: Free Inquiry, June/July (2017): 27–32; Mirjam van Schaik, “Realizing the Freedom of Religion and Belief Equally: The Case of Blasphemy in the Liberal Democratic State”, in: Jasper Doomen and Mirjam van Schaik, eds., Religious Ideas in Liberal Democratic States (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) 133–159.
Bullivant, “Defining ‘Atheism’”, 11–22; Cliteur, Paul, “The Definition of Atheism”, in: Journal of Religion and Society, Volume 11 (2009) 1–23.
Kokkinakis v. Greece (App. 14307/88), 25 May 1993.
Mark 16:15: “And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.’”; Matthew 28:19–20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
See about ‘modernity as pluralizing’: Md Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan and Darryn Jensen, “Introduction: Law and Religion in the Liberal State”, in: Md Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan and Darryn Jensen, Law and Religion in the Liberal State (New York and Oxford: Hart Publishing: 2020) 1–9.
Richard H. Popkin, The History of Skepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Pascal, The Provincial Letters, 1657, translated with an introduction by A.J. Krailsheimer (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1982 (1967).
Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, Chronologie et préface par René Pomeau (Paris : Garnier-Flammarion, 1964 (1764).
Russell, Bertrand, “Why I am Not a Christian”, 1927, in: Bertrand Russell, Why I am not a Christian and other essays on religion and related subjects (London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1957) 13–27.
Jim Murdoch, “Protecting the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion under the European Convention on Human Right”, 18. https://www.echr.coe.int/LibraryDocs/Murdoch2012_EN.pdf.
Eweida and others v. United Kingdom, para. 81.
Dworkin, Ronald, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Cambridge etc.: Harvard University Press 2000).
A similar provision still exists in the current Greek Constitution, as amended in 2008: Art. 13, 2 says: “All known religions shall be free and their rites of worship shall be performed unhindered and under the protection of the law. The practice of rites of worship is not allowed to offend public order or the good usages. Proselytism is prohibited.”
Concurring opinion of judge De Meyer in Kokkinakis v. Greece.
“Eine Staatsreligion kann, mit ihrer Heiligung der bestehenden Verhältnisse, insbesondere der bestehenden Eigentums- und Machtverhältnisse, naturgemäß nur an die oberen Klassen appellieren.” Werner Stark, Grundriss der Religionssoziologie (Freiburg: Verlag Rombach, 1974) 36.
As Stark puts it: “Sektenreligion und Staatsreligion sind nur einmal Gegensätze die sich nur vereinen lassen wenn die Sekte nicht mehr Sekte und die Staatsreligion nicht mehr Staatsreligion ist.” Stark, ibid., 45.
Bobby Henderson, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (New York: Villard, 2006); The Loose Canon: A Really Important Collection of Words.
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, A new introduction for the 10th anniversary edition, preface to the paperback edition, preface to the first edition (London: Transworld Publishers, 2016 (2006).
Hitchens, Christopher, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York, Boston: Twelve, 2007).
Harris, Sam, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (London, The Free Press, 2005 (2004).
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