One of the special interests listed in the profile of Harvard’s new Chief Chaplain is “meaning and purpose beyond religion.” A very striking deviation from the century-old tradition of religious guidance usually expected of a chaplain. 400-years in the making, Harvard, an institution whose original mission was to educate religious ministers, has elected its first openly atheist chapel minister.

On August 3, the High Court of Kano State in Nigeria formally charged Mubarak Bala, an atheist and president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, for causing a public disturbance. The High Court's charges, which come as a highly delayed action, revolves around Bala's Facebook posts which spanned over 2020. The public disturbance charges fall under Kano State Penal Code's sections 114 and 210. 

Jackson, Mississippi - The Mississippi Humanist Association, the American Atheists, and three Mississippi residents filed a lawsuit on June 22, 2021. The case is against the State of Mississippi over the lack of an alternative that has no extra costs to its license plates that bear the phrase, "In God We Trust." 

According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, the majority of the religiously unaffiliated are opposed to the death penalty. Most Americans favor the death penalty despite 78% of them saying there is some risk of innocent people being put to death. Last year, partly due to the pandemic, fewer people were executed in the United States than any other year in the past three decades.

The percentage of people not identifying under any religion has been growing in Northern Ireland. According to the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey 2020, on question "Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?", about 27% of the population identified as non-religious, which is a 7% increase compared to the percentage of non-religious people in 2019.