Poland - a country of packed churches; a country where millions enthusiastically welcome the Pope; a country with a ban on virtually all abortions and with restrictions on prenatal tests; a country in which the Church claims the right to be involved in legislative processes about laws concerning neither the Church nor religion; a country in which the Church would like to tell scientists what should and what should not be a subject of their research; where the Church was prepared to set Poland at variance with the EU in order to get God's name into the European constitution.
In this country we are trying to promote rational thinking - RACJONALISTA.pl is currently the biggest center for publicizing free-thinkers and rationalists in Poland. More and more experts from different fields are contributing to our website. Since the website was established four years ago about 200 authors - both Polish and foreign - have published with us. Currently we hold about 2,700 articles and we have about 10 thousand visitors every day.
Adhering to the tradition of Enlightenment, we advocate scientific reliability and scientific methods of research and thinking. We hunt out prejudices, quackery, lies and phobias which are present in almost every walk of life and are often propagated in the mass media as well as in schools and in churches of all denominations.
RACJONALISTA. pl publishes articles and essays from all important fields of human knowledge. Our aim is to have on the Polish Internet a systematic compendium of knowledge devised by rationalists. At present we mostly stress the study of religions, church history, philosophy, civic education, science, history and ethics.
The teaching of the Catholic religion in all schools (and even in kindergartens) is paid for from the state budget. We, of course, do not get any subsidies from anybody; nevertheless, for young people we are a sort of antidote. The rising popularity of RACJONALISTA shows that there is a demand in Poland for rational thinking in spite of the expansion of the Church and of growing clericalism, intolerance and parochialism.
In January 2005 people connected with RACJONALISTA created the Polish Association of Rationalists based in Wroclaw. We are now trying to organise an association of people convinced of the need for joint action in order to promote the growth of individuals and society along rational lines.
New publications: 26-09-2008 Polish Rationalist Association The Polish Rationalist Association advocates separation of State and Church. Religious belief or non-belief should be the private matter of each citizen. Combining religion and politics leads inevitably to abuse and threatens to divide citizens against each other. In recent years the Catholic Church has been increasing its influence and public profile. What's worse, politicians seem to be seeking the favour of the Church, rather than considering themselves accountable only to the citizens who have elected them. Polish society however, is mature enough to conduct public discussions about the challenges and problems they face without uninvited "spiritual guidance". 29-10-2006 Kaz Dziamka Radzików, a village just west of Warsaw, hosted recently (Oct. 6-8) the First Polish National Conference of Rationalists and Freethinkers organized by the Association of Polish Rationalists (PSR). As Mariusz Agnosiewicz, President of PSR says, it was the first conference of this type in many years, its goal being to integrate Poland's secular movements and to rebuild their organizational structure by attracting unaffiliated freethinkers. "Isolated in a Catholic Country": this is how, in its Oct. 7-8 edition, Trybuna, one of only a few leftist publications in Poland, titled its short article about the Rationalist conference
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