One in five Icelandic Members of Parliament (MPs) went to a Humanist event to mark the opening of parliament on October 1. The number of MPs choosing to attend the Humanist event instead of the traditional Lutheran Mass in the National Cathedral has been increasing since the first Humanist event four years ago. Hope Knutsson reports:

Hope Knutsson writes: On Wednesday night May 13, 2009 at a monthly board meeting a brilliant idea occurred to the board members of Sidmennt, the Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association, of which I am president. We implemented it in less than 36 hours and have been getting praise from around the world!

Prof. Carl-Johan Kleberg, former Chairman of the Swedish Humanist Association, presented this report to the 1st Baltic Humanist Conference in Stockholm. Based on a study of 11 Nordic countries – Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden, it makes a series of recommendations viz.

Iceland is an island nation in the North Atlantic with an affluent population of nearly 305,000. It is a modern democratic republic which prides itself on its human rights orientation. However, it still has a state church, the Evangelical Lutheran church. While on paper 84% of Icelanders are members of the state church, on any given Sunday no more than 2-4% of the population attends church.

The Atheist Alliance International and SAMT (the Atheist Society of Iceland) will host the first international Freethought, Rationalist, Humanist, Skeptic meeting to be held at the top of the world, in Reykjavik, Iceland on June 24 & 25, 2006.

SAMT is coordinating the event along with three other Freethought organizations in Iceland: IHEU member organization Sidmennt (the Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association), Skeptikus, and Vantràº.

See: the list of IHEU Member Organizations