Feast of the Ascension should be replaced by Evolution Day

KATH.NET - Katholischer Nachrichtendienst

Atheists in Germany need a legally required holiday. Ascension should be replaced by Evolution Day. A campaign to enforce this requirement will be started the Giordano Bruno Foundation on 25 February. The occasion is provided by the 200th Birthday of the founder of evolution theory Charles Darwin (1809-1822), said the CEO of the atheistic foundation, Michael Schmidt-Salomon. He does not expect the federal states to set up an additional public holiday, so suggests the renaming of the Ascension. On the one hand, most Christians in Germany anyway do not believe in the bodily Ascension of Jesus into heaven, on the other hand, many families took advantage of the Ascension holiday for excursions. In fairness, Evolution Day would cause little offense, according to Schmidt-Salomon. The "confessional free-one third of society should be taken into account in the public holidays.

The Giordano Bruno Foundation is a member of the Coordinating Council of Secular Organizations founded in mid-December. It claims that more than one third of the German population is non-denominational. The head of the Protestant Center for Philosophical Questions (EZW), Pastor Reinhard Hempelmann (Berlin), objected. It was a "wish removed from reality and possibility of implementatioon." People who do not belong to religious or belief groups should not simply be considered as "anonymous humanists or atheists'. More than two thirds of Germany's 82.5 million inhabitants belong to a religious community. The Roman Catholic Church has 25.5 million and the country's Protestant churches, 24.9 million members. There are approximately 1.4 million Orthodox and 875,000 free church members (including German communities coming from Russia). The number of Muslims is 3.5 million.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Considering the influence Darwinism had on Adolf Hitler you would think the Germans would want to steer clear of such subjects.