Secular matters
Claim This Podcastby Andreas Kyriacou
Podcast Overview
<p>Interviews on secularism and humanism. New episodes once a month.</p>
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
8/31/2025
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Recent Episodes
April 8, 2026
Wafa Bahri, manager of the Translations Project of the Richard Dawkins Foundation
<p>Wafa Bahri represents the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://centerforinquiry.org">Center for Inquiry</a> at the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/home">Human Rights Council in Geneva</a>. And she manages the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://translationsproject.org">Translations Project</a>, an initiative by the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://richarddawkins.net">Richard Dawkins Foundation</a> to make scientific and humanist works by him and other authors available to readers as free downloads in languages, in which they have previously not been published, namely Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and Indonesian.</p><p>We talked about the Human Rights Council's approach to Freedom of Religion or Belief and about the Translation Project's current state, its successes and challenges.</p><p>If you want to support the Translations Project, send an email to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:development@centerforinquiry.org">development@centerforinquiry.org.</a></p><p>To learn more about the stories of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherif_Gaber">Sherif Gaber</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salwan_Momika">Salwan Momika</a>, which Wafa mentions, click the links to their wikipedia entries.</p><p></p>
March 2, 2026
Joachim Volz's struggle to perform abortions
<p>Gynaecologist Joachim Volz is a chief physician in a hospital in Lippstadt, a town with a population just under 70 thousand, situated in Nord-Rhine-Westphalia, halfway between Cologne and Hanover. He took his employer to court because he was ordered to no longer offer abortions, a service he had been able to provide to his patients since 2012, when he had started working in the clinic. The reason: his hospital merged with two catholic clinics and the new co-owners imposed their strict anti-abortion policy on the Lippstadt clinic – and ruled that as a figurehead for their clinic, Joachim Volz also had to stop offering abortions in his private practice.</p><p>Recently, the regional labour court decided formally partially in favour of Joachim Volz. I discuss why the ruling is a difficult victory and what's at stake in Germany with <strong>Sarah Gonschorek</strong>, a feminism activist and member of the board of the North-Rhine Westphalia chapter of the German Council of Women's Organizations, and with <strong>Sophia Anders</strong> . She’s the daughter of Joachim Volz and herself a senior gynaecologist at a German University hospital.</p><p>My interviewees:</p><ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://sarah-gonschorek.de">Sarah Gonschorek</a> (personal homepage)</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.uniklinik-ulm.de/frauenheilkunde-und-geburtshilfe/team/aerzte-team/dr-sophia-andres.html">Sophia Anders</a> - (University Hospital Ulm profile)</li></ul><p>Background material (in German)</p><ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://innn.it/keinmord">online petition in support of Joachim Volz</a></li><li>the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.bmbfsfj.bund.de/resource/blob/246478/9b685f150c5734ef76efa909234f9285/umfrage-reproduktive-selbstbestimmung-data.pdf">2024 survey on opinions about abortions</a> (commissioned by the German Ministry for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, PDF)</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7321953267268136960/?">LinkedIn post by Joachim Volz about his case</a></li></ul>
January 20, 2026
Andreas Gradert, founder of the Humanist Academy of Austria
<p>Andreas Gradert was the driving force behind the newly founded <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://humanistische-akademie.at">Humanistische Akademie Österreich</a>. We talked about Austria's secular and humanist scene, the role the Humanist Academy is to play in Austria's education system, what Austrians believe in, why the concordat with the Vatican needs to be adapted – and why Vienna is lacking a Karl Popper museum.</p><p>Links:</p><ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://humanisten.at">Humanistischer Verband Österreich</a> (Humanist Association of Austria)</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://avoesterreich.at">Atheisten Österreich</a> (Austrian Atheists)</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://konfessionsfrei.at">Zentralrat der Konfessionsfreien</a> (central council of the non-denominational)</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://wasglaubtoe.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/p_wasglaubtoe/Was_glaubt_OEsterreich_Endbericht_Quantitativer_Teil.pdf">Results of the study "Was glaubt Österreich?"</a> (what does Austria believe?)</li></ul>
7 total episodes available
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- What is Secular matters?
<p>Interviews on secularism and humanism. New episodes once a month.</p> - How often does this podcast release new episodes?
This podcast updates daily.
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