Humanism Now | A Podcast on Secular Ethics and Compassionate Change

42. Peruvian Association of Atheist on How Humanist Weddings, Naming & Funerals are Driving Peru's Secular Revolution

Humanise Live | Hosted by James Hodgson Season 1 Episode 42

“Rituals are in the roots of our humankind.” —  Iván Antezana

Adrián Núñez and Iván Antezana—leading organisers of the Peruvian Association of Atheists (APERAT)—reveal how their victory in the 2025 Humanist Accelerator Program is turning the dream of legally-recognised humanist ceremonies into a nationwide reality, challenging deep-rooted stigma and funding vital support for Peru’s growing secular community.

Topics we cover

 ✔︎ Founding APERAT and its legal battles for recognition
 ✔︎ Why “the atheist closet” remains so deep in Peru
 ✔︎ Lessons from the Humanist Ceremonies Accelerator
 ✔︎ Designing inclusive, inter-faith-friendly ceremonies
 ✔︎ Building a social enterprise to fund legal and social aid
 ✔︎ Partnering with wedding planners and funeral homes
 ✔︎ Strategies for nurturing a visible humanist community

The Peruvian Atheist Association (APERAT) continues to work toward a freer, more rational, and truly secular Peru. In a context of growing authoritarianism, censorship, and setbacks in fundamental rights, secular activism is more urgent than ever. APERAT invite individuals, collectives, and organizations who share these values to get in touch and, if possible, offer financial support to sustain public campaigns, events, and advocacy efforts in defence of freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state.

Connect with APERAT

Episode References & Resources

📘Les Couleurs de l’Humanisme – Cloutier (2009) 

📺 Humanist Ceremonies Accelerator Finale – from Happy Human (Lithuania), Humanists International & Humanise Live

📺 What is a Humanist Ceremony?  –Stephen Fry & Humanists UK

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Music: Blossom by Light Prism

James Hodgson:

Welcome to Humanism Now. I'm your host, James Hodgson. A couple of months ago, we spoke with the founders of Happy Humanist Lithuania about their Humanist Accelerator program that they were running for celebrant teams from humanist organizations around the world. At the end of June 2025, I was delighted to team up with Goethe and Ude, as well as Humanist International, to host the pitch night, where we celebrated the teams and showcased the work that they've done. The event showcased inspiring humanist celebrants and community leaders from around the globe who are working to secure legal recognition for humanist ceremonies that's, weddings, namings and funerals in their home countries. This week, I'm thrilled to welcome the winning team, who worked away with the judges' top prize.

James Hodgson:

The Peruvian Association of Atheists Founded in 2009,. Aparat brings together Peru's non-believers and secular humanists, advocates for a fully secular state, and is proudly affiliated with Humanists International and the Atheist Alliance International. Joining me are two of Aparat's leading organizers, Adrian Nunez and Ivan Antezana. They'll share how Peru's growing non-religious community is organizing, what it was like to be part of the Accelerator and how they plan to expand the recognition of humanist ceremonies throughout Peru. Adrian and Ivan, thank you so much for joining us on Humanism Now. So this is the first time we've had two guests, I think, since we had the team from Happy Human Lithuania at the start of the Accelerator program. So would you mind introducing yourselves and perhaps share one idea, book or thinker or experience that first made you realize that you're a humanist. Ivan, maybe I'll come to you first that first made you realize that you're a humanist.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

Ivan, maybe I'll come to you first. I became atheist when I was about 10 years old, but I lived many years as a silent atheist. I just kept my disbelieving for myself. However, the religion always is lurking, waiting for some opportunity to enter your life, to disturb your life. So I became an atheist activist back in 2008.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

And in these nearly 20 years of being a secular activist, I have found that religions really don't need any kind of truth values. They keep being important in society due to a sort of social blackmail. Many people consider themselves to be part of an organized religion not because they believe in gods or the religious narratives or legends. They just do it because their families, their friends, their colleagues are also part of that religious community, and that is a very strong alienation reason for atheists and non-believers in general. So about seven, eight or more years ago, we began talking in our non-believer circles about how important it is to have non-religious rituals, because rituals are not a religious element.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

The very human being is ritual. Rituals are in the roots of our humankind. We have been allowing religions to kidnap that concept. Religion has kidnapped also concepts like moral values, and I think the real battle is there in the social ground. So this project was really well. I don't know if it's right to call it a blessing, but it was a very good opportunity to make those ideas come to reality and we're very excited with this.

James Hodgson:

Thank you very much for sharing Adrian. Welcome as well. Same question to you. Please introduce yourself and perhaps share one inspiration that brought you to realize you were a humanist.

Adrian Nunez:

I am atheist since forever. I never believed in any religion or something supernatural, I think but for that reason I never was curious about atheism or humanism or whatever, because for me it was natural. Until I played bass in a rock band, we used to go to dinner after some rehearsals. One of the rehearsals I was asked about my atheism and why I didn't believe in God and everything. We entered in a debate so I think I debunked most of the affirmations of the two other members of the band and after I went to my house I thought maybe something I said wasn't quite right. I could be wrong about something.

Adrian Nunez:

So I started googling about atheism and different things and I found a very big group of atheists in Spanish. So I entered in the group. I met some people. That was in 2007, 2008, maybe, and the thing is that I started to be interested in especially philosophy related to naturalism and atheism. Then, a few months later, I met Bernard Cloutier. Bernard Cloutier was a humanist from Canada. I met him here in Lima. We went to a dinner. He gave me a book called the Colors of Humanism. It was in French, so the name is Le Colour de l'Humanisme, something like that and that book convinced me I was a humanist, since I was a humanist because I read it and I found that almost everything that they said about humanism in the book they said about humanism in the book was what I was talking, since I was conscious. That was my start and a few months later I was one of the founders of the association, and that's my history.

James Hodgson:

Yeah, thank you very much for sharing and, as mentioned, you were one of the founders of Apparat back in 2009. So how did the organization come into being? Are you the first humanist community in Peru and how did you find other members to get the group started?

Adrian Nunez:

We are the first legal association here, I think, but maybe not the first one in the history of Peru, I think. But maybe not the first one in the history of Peru, I think. Starting 20th century one guy tried to start an atheist association. He was banned from society, basically. So it was a sad history, but we took the path and we made it. It was not so easy at first because the government or the state didn't want to give us a legal register, maybe because of the work it is in the main. But with our lawyers we solved it.

James Hodgson:

And what were the challenges that you faced both in your initial founding and since? Have you faced those same challenges in getting acceptance and legal recognition to the state?

Adrian Nunez:

Yeah, yes, that was one. Maybe the first issue was that with the legal registration office here they basically didn't want to accept our papers office here they basically didn't want to accept our papers. In that time they used to make excuses for different organizations. So you cannot enter into the legal register, you have to appeal, and you got it. And then the other issue was to make us a non-paying taxes association. It is simply impossible for us. We cannot make it.

James Hodgson:

That's very interesting, but you have made it. You are still here and, as I understand it, the organization continues to thrive, as was seen during the Accelerator program. How big is your membership now? Out of interest?

James Hodgson:

We are about 150 members, but the working team is about 10 people and the close circle is only three Helicia and Billy, and I understand I checked out some of the census data before the interview, so which said that about 5% of Peruvians now identify as having no religion. But before we started the call you said that probably is not accurate. What is the landscape of non-religious, secular, humanist people in Peru in the modern day, Ivan, do you have any thoughts on whether that 5% is accurate?

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

There are many points of view about religious beliefs because in some way not everyone wants to publicly come out as atheist. In peru at least, the atheist closet is bigger than the lgbt closet. So it's easier for a gay guy, a lesbian woman to come out publicly, but for atheists. For example, when I was a member of the Peruvian secular society, they inducted as a honorary member a guy that ran a ministry and he's currently there of one district in Lima, and when you talked with that guy it was very clear that he was atheist. But since he has a political career, every time he was asked about that he always said I'm agnostic.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

It's harder for an atheist to really recognize, because there's a very key aspect of the church when Christianity has demonized, satanized his enemies, it does just by ignorance. Mark Twain used to say that the best antidote for the venom of intolerance was to just to take a trip, and that's the real thing, for the venom of intolerance was to just to take a trip, and that's the real thing. The fact is that in Peru the atheists are a moniker, a label for very bad people, but believers don't frequently have met an actual atheist person. I have a very funny anecdote I met in Trujillo city in the north of Peru with a couple. They were back then a couple and this girl talked to me about visiting Lima with her boyfriend and they had a lunch. They had a familiar meeting and, well, they found her boyfriend a very charming person. They were very happy with him. The next day an aunt asked her about her boyfriend, more details, and when she told her her boyfriend was an atheist, her aunt was shocked and she said something like Atheist, but he looks such a nice person. And that's the key. When there's no contact, we lose. We let the religious discourse, the religious speech to say anything and get away with it.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

Being in my country, at least in Peru, just to talk about atheism is to be an atheism activist. That's the importance of having legally registered associations, not just a circle of friends who join in a bar to chat something with a more open recognition, because I think that will begin to close that still enormous gap of perception of the atheist in our country. Maybe it's 5%, maybe it's right in our country. Maybe it's 5%, maybe it's right, but I can recall one year before the pandemic there's a group born in the United States that their name is something like a Catholic woman for the right to choose more or less, and they run in three different regions of Peru, in schools, in second level schools.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

So boys from about 13, 14, 15 years old, and 48% of them declared to have no religion at all. It was a very shocking statistic. But you know, not having a religion is not the same being atheist, but it's very close. It's like a first step. So it will be very interesting to have something like the Pew Research polls here in Peru in order to get deeper in this aspect. But maybe it's accurate. I guess it's higher the the figures are higher than five percent.

Adrian Nunez:

I want to say something about the census. I want to say something about the census, the other surveys. The thing is that we remember that in that census they had very big methodological problems with the specific questions about their religion and their beliefs and they didn't separate about non-believers and religious and other religions. So the number 5% I I think is very wrong about the non-religious person here in Peru Atheism was considered a religion.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

Yes, exactly.

Adrian Nunez:

Many atheist people even want to mark as if they were religious because they are not religious. So there was a big confusion. The thing is that the two big surveys about that here are the Pew Research and the Latin Barometer. They both agree that the knowledge of people here are about 15%. Maybe the 5% is more related to the actual atheist community here.

James Hodgson:

Yes, those surveys can be very difficult. The social and, I guess, potentially legal barriers remain for people, then it's not in their interest to identify with that. But if 5% at least are willing to, that is progress in itself and I think I suspect you're right that the number is probably higher. But I was interested as well to hear this importance of giving people the confidence to be open about who they are and what they believe and not fear that rejection or discrimination in society as well. Examples you give, I think, are very common ones for someone to say, oh, but I thought you were a nice person. When you say that you're not someone of faith, and it sounds like, uh, as we see, quite a funny anecdote.

James Hodgson:

But these things can add up, can't they? Over time, and actually it does mean that people might not feel as comfortable expressing who they are and what they think and what they believe. It's great that you're providing that community and that support for people to say and hopefully improving the reputation and understanding of what it means to be atheist or humanist or secular in the community. So you took part in the 2025 Humanist Accelerator Program and wowed the judges with gaining the top prize. Could you talk us through what it was like being part of the Accelerator program. What were your main learnings or takeaways from both working with the organizing team but, I guess also engaging with the other groups from around the world?

Adrian Nunez:

Adrian, yeah, for me the most important part is that I learned that you can make a social enterprise and, at the same time, earn money, because I think the most powerful organizations are the ones when you have people that earn money with that work, because when you have only volunteers in your organization, things can go wrong very badly.

James Hodgson:

And, ivan, what was it like working with the international group that were part? As I recall, there were teams from five different continents who took part in the accelerator. So did you find there was a lot of similarities with the challenges that you faced, or was there considerable differences?

Adrian Nunez:

Yes, the main similarity for me is that people don't even know what is, for instance, humanism, and even less where is a humanist ceremony. So to explain that to the public is very complicated, Sorry, Ivan.

James Hodgson:

do you want to add as well your comments?

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

It was very interesting because I already told that we have been talking about having this kind of humanist ceremonies. But that was just a small talk. In this accelerator, I found I was almost shocked by the attention to every detail of making this a very possible venture. So at some moment after the first month, maybe I started to think to myself hey, the first month, maybe I started to think to myself, hey, this is going to happen. This is not just an old dream and something we talked about between friends seven, eight, nine years ago. This is an actual path to really make things happen.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

And we found that we were really able to do this, that we had contacts, that we had resources and that this is the moment, this is the right moment to propose this to our society. And, in fact, adriana has talked with a very important wedding planner here in Lima and she was very interested in the idea. So it's not that we are addressing a very difficult market because there's no one offering the same services, so we are going to appeal to an unattended night. So that can be very important for us to start this Okay.

James Hodgson:

Yeah, it's very interesting. I noticed, obviously when you were explaining, getting recognition and understanding in Peru, that mostly it was about people identifying as atheist rather than agnostic or prefer not to say, and I think that the terms we use can be really important and the language and terminology in terms of opening people up to discussion can be very helpful. So I wonder have you found that using the term humanist, particularly when it comes to ceremonies, has at least allowed people to be more curious and open-minded towards the idea than if you expressly say this is a atheist or a non-religious ceremony?

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

I think this venture will be well received in our society because, for example, we have a very frequent case that is from multi-religious couples. The family from the man is Catholic and the other is Pentecostal or Evangelist or Adventist, one of the Protestant branches of Christianity, and they are very close. They consider themselves sometimes enemies. Catholicism is reducing in Peru. It was about 90% many years ago but since the 90s it has dropped to 76% and the religion that is that spaces are the Protestant branches. So it will be impossible for such a couple to host a religious ceremony for both families. They will start fighting. So a humanist ceremony, a wedding, a funeral, can be important in Peru, not just for the non-believing community. It can appeal to a part of the religious community. So I think it's a nice move.

James Hodgson:

We must do this because we have many ways to succeed here, more common, and that's not necessarily linked, as you say, to more people identifying as humanist.

James Hodgson:

It's more to do with the fact that more people want to have a personalized ceremony or mark an occasion without being defined by one specific denomination of a religion, and particularly where it's a interfaith couple or if it's marking an individual or a family, where they want to be respectful to everybody. Humanism allows you that opportunity, so thank you for sharing that. I think it's a really important point to be reminded of that. It is something that is for everybody. The other thing that we find as well is, in the uk at least, most people learn about humanism through ceremonies, so it is a good way to spread, as you were saying, the positivity of saying this is a inclusive, positive, friendly worldview and not, as you say, you have to be lacking in morality in order to identify or be part of it. So I think that's really important. Now that the program is complete and obviously you were very successful as being part of the first cohort what are the next steps, your plan for increasing and promoting the number of humanist ceremonies in Peru?

Adrian Nunez:

We have pending meetings and things to do, for instance, a photograph session for our publicity, for our advertisement, with Ivan. We are planning about that. There is a very nice place here near our neighborhood to take the pictures and we are preparing some graphical material in general for that and other things to do is to visit the funeral homes here, funeral enterprises, to associate us with them. We have a plan to offer some percentage of the earnings to them.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

We're waiting for Henry Llanos, the current president of the Atheist Association in Peru. He was present at the last meeting in.

Adrian Nunez:

Luxembourg.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

The General Assembly? Yes, and he received the recognition for the Acc, the accelerator program, and he's returning to Lima this weekend. I suppose that is when we will schedule a meeting in order to have the next steps very clear to boost our presence in social networks. But we plan to appeal not just to the virtual community, but we have to establish links, as Adrián said, with wedding planners, with funeral homes, in order to have a link with the real world. And then, of course, we can appeal to the non-believing community. I think that each ceremony we conduct this year we hope to start this year each ceremony, each step will give us more experience and more publicity.

James Hodgson:

So I hope, in the very few months to start this, and looking further ahead what are your ambitions for Aparats in, let's say, the next five years? What would you really like to achieve, particularly with this accelerated ceremonies program?

Adrian Nunez:

In general. I think one main goal to the association is to have some business that can give some earnings to release some projects. We have some pending projects we cannot release because of lack of money. We don't have paying members in our association, so we only depend on grants and something like that. I think if we had some businesses here that support association, it would be easier for us to release those projects.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

Yeah, for example, we have some lawyers in our atheist association, but it's not politically right to ask them to work pro bono in some legal issues here in Peru, for example, about exonerating your kids from the religious curse, the Peruvian government, the military dictatorship back in 1980, a treaty with the Vatican it's called the Concordate and according to that treaty, the Catholic religion must be taught in Peruvian schools. And that's the reality nowadays, in 2010,. There was a law that allowed parents to get their kids out of the religion course just by sending a notification. In many cases we have been approached by parents that say, hey, but in the school they are asking me for a series of papers and documents and that's a lie. That's not in the law. The school's asking that papers are in the law.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

The schools asking that papers are breaking the law, but you can't tell one or two lawyers to get in charge of those cases, those controversies. So it would be great, as Adriana says, to have some income generation source and that will help us to bring a lot of assistance to non-believing community. There's also a recent the Apparat has launched the psychological therapy service for non-believers how to guide your sons in a religious world, for example, and how to lead with social exclusion, with anxiety and those things. The more income we can generate, we can amplify those services.

James Hodgson:

And if listeners either inside Peru or internationally would like to get involved and support what you're doing, where's the best place to find you and get in touch?

Adrian Nunez:

In our webpage there are some links to contact us. If some organization or person wants to donate something, they can do it through that link.

James Hodgson:

We will be happy and what's your advice to any listeners out there, maybe in a country that doesn't have an organization like this yet, anyone who's looking to start a humanist group or a campaign to get better recognition? What would be your main advice for finding other people? You have have managed to do bringing people together so that you can form a group and start supporting each other as a community.

Adrian Nunez:

Our decision started as an informal group of people talking about whatever, but with very specific common themes, and I think at the beginning we were a very friendly community who only wants to solve specific issues in our society. For instance, I think I mentioned a few seconds ago about the issue with the religion course in the schools, other things about the Concordat here, other things about the Concordat here. So we have a very specific set of issues to try to solve here. So this was our first drive to formalization. It was, I think, very successful at the beginning. Because of that, the thing started going wrong when we have issue with one member here and the beginning it was very hard to manage the situation with him. At that time Ivan and me just went out of the association.

Adrian Nunez:

We returned a few years ago, but we were out for several years.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

You have to have, I think, ethical code to manage problems with some people that are doing bad things in service station. If I take for example for humanists in other countries that need to start, well, of course it depends on the country. When we took part in the accelerator, there were guys from Malaysia and they were. Of course they faced a more difficult situation there because countries where Islam is the official religion are very intolerant with dissidents and even are risking their lives in making this kind of association. So we are glad that, despite all the difficult things in our society, in Peruvian society today, we still have some little chances to do things. You can still do these things here and we hope that these kind of enterprises and ventures and activities can bring some way to make our society better, because it's kind of funny that Peru has a very difficult geography.

Iván Antezana Quiroz:

We have a lot of climates here and if you look back in history, geography has determined that many societies have developed in this area of the world known nowadays as Peru, but they were very disconnected days as Peru, but they were very disconnected. And we are now in 21st century and we have a lot of technology and our society still behaves like being very disconnected and things like political elections made things more difficult. The last election back in 2021, was really very hard for this country, the Peruvian society. I perceive I am 59, and I have never perceived our society to be more split between false dichotomies, between two extremes. And well, maybe naturalism and emphasis on evidence can help us to build bridges and to have our great differences. We're very different. There are a lot of ethnical groups in Peru, and we must take these differences as a way to succeed, as a way to make things happen, but we're taking it in the bad way. We're using differences as gasoline for conflict, and that's the wrong way to behave. I hope this our society, can help.

James Hodgson:

I think that's a wonderful place to end and congratulations again on everything that you've achieved so far. Very excited to hear about all the fantastic plans that you have ahead. Perhaps we'll check in again in the future and hear how you've been growing the community and spreading the positive message. Just before we go, we have our standard closing question that we ask to all of our guests, which is what's something that you've changed your mind on recently and and what inspired that change so happy if one of you would like to be brave and offer something.

Adrian Nunez:

I really changed my mind. I am always changing my mind about maybe everything, but maybe one of the most significant was changing my mind about the value of changing your mind or the value of having a humility intellectual humility. I thought some years ago that intellectual humility was weakening your thoughts. You know the way you think, but it's the other way around, when you are more likely to correct your errors, to change your mind, when you receive new evidence and I read some books about that it was like maybe four years ago I totally changed my mind about that. For me, it was the most important thing. Unless you have a lesion in your prefrontal cortex or something like that, everyone is able to develop some flexibility to allow you to correct your errors.

James Hodgson:

I think that's a good lesson for us all. Adrian Nunez, Ivan Antenzana, the team at Apparat and to your colleagues who unfortunately couldn't be here, thank you once again for your fantastic work and thank you for joining us on Humanism Now. Thank you very much to all of our listeners. A reminder that if you would like to support what we're doing, you can follow us and support on patreon. Please also like and share and rate and review the podcast. It really helps us spread the positive message of humanism and you can find us on all social media at humanismnowpod.

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