(A man jogs past a sign, which replaces traditional Christmas displays showing the nativity scene, along Ocean Avenue at Palisades Park in Santa Monica, California December 12, 2011. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok )

Atheists, humanists and freethinkers face widespread discrimination around the world with expression of their views criminalized and subject in some countries to capital punishment, the United Nations was told on Monday.

(A computer screen is pictured before a scientific seminar to deliver the latest update in the search for the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin, near Geneva July 4, 2012. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse)

Scientists at Europe’s CERN research center say they may be able to definitively announce at a conference next March that they had discovered the elusive Higgs boson.

(British atheist author Richard Dawkins stands on a bus at the launch of an atheist advertising campaign, in London January 6, 2009.  REUTERS/Andrew Winning )

Atheists and other religious skeptics suffer persecution or discrimination in many parts of the world and in at least seven nations can be executed if their beliefs become known, according to a report issued on Monday.

(Paul Kurtz, 19 October 2006/Center for Inquiry)

Paul Kurtz, a leading U.S. philosopher who devoted his life to fighting prejudice against people who reject belief in a god and promoting a non-religious stance in life, has died at the age of 86.

The secular humanist Center for Inquiry (CFI), which he founded in 1991, said the one-time SUNY Buffalo university professor – who as a young soldier helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp in 1945 – died in Amherst, New York, at the weekend.

(Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams (R) and his wife Jane wave to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip after a Diamond Jubilee multi-faith reception at Lambeth Palace in central London February 15, 2012. REUTERS/Toby Melville)

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual head of the global Anglican communion, has stepped into a row which is flaring at the U.N. Human Rights Council over the persecution of gays and lesbians.

(A scientist gestures in front of pictures of the first successful collisions at full power at the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experience control room of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin, near Geneva March 30, 2010. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse )

“We don’t call it the ‘God particle’, it’s just the media that do that,” a senior U.S. scientist politely told an interviewer on a major European radio station on Tuesday.

(A graphic showing a collision at full power is pictured at the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experience control room of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin, near Geneva March 30, 2010. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse)

International scientists said on Tuesday they had found signs of the Higgs boson, an elementary particle dubbed the “God particle” that is believed to have played a vital role in the creation of the universe after the Big Bang. Scientists at the CERN physics research centre near Geneva said, however, they had found no conclusive proof of the existence of the particle which, according to prevailing theories of physics, gives everything in the universe its mass.

(Swiss Freethinkers party candidate Andreas Kyriacou holds a campaign flyer downtown Zurich, October 10, 2011/Christian Hartmann)

When Switzerland goes to the polls to elect a new parliament later this month, voters in Zurich will for the first time in the country’s history have the chance to cast their ballot for a slate of Freethinkers.

(A technician walks under the core magnet of part of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva where scientists are searching for the Higgs boson/Denis Balibouse)

Scientists chasing a particle they believe may have played a vital role in creation of the universe have indicated they were coming to accept it might not exist after all. But they stressed that if the so-called Higgs boson turns out to have been a mirage, the way would be open for advances into territory dubbed “new physics” to try to answer one of the great mysteries of the cosmos.

(Evangelical pastor Marcos Pereira da Silva embraces a prisoner as his missionaries stand by at the 52nd Police Station jail in Nova Iguacu, near Rio de Janeiro, which they visited on October 29, 2009 to evangelize prisoners/Ricardo Moraes )

A coalition representing most Christian churches around the world launched a rule book on Tuesday for spreading their faith that aims to reduce tensions among themselves and with followers of other faiths. The pioneering code of conduct, under negotiation for five years, was unveiled by the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Vatican and the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), which together claim to represent over 90 percent of Christianity.