Through Suffolk Inter-Faith Resource, I’ve been invited to lead a 20 minute school assembly, followed by a 40 minute class. I’ve done school assemblies before (though not often), but this one will be a first because it’ll be in a primary school. It’s not a church primary school – that would be unusual – but a county primary school. I’ll be talking to children from years 1 to 5, that’s from 5 to 11 years of age.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Suffolk Humanist and Suffolk Inter-Faith Resource tutor Margaret Nelson will contribute to a SIFRE Forum of Faiths on Death & Dying. Lecture Theatre 2, Suffolk College, Rope Walk, Ipswich. Map link: tinyurl.com/gxolz

How often do you challenge the rambling street preachers, the noisy ones who spend their days shouting threats of damnation at passers-by, or waving pamphlets around? A gentleman at Brixton Tube station offers everyone eternal salvation as an alternative to the Victoria Line in the mornings. I haven’t asked him if I can still change for the Circle Line. A few years ago, a particularly unpleasant bunch of street preachers in Leeds declared that all passing shoppers were going to burn in hell, the women also being whores and jezabels.

Muriel Gray wrote in the Sunday Herald about Home Secretary John Reid’s recent warning to Muslims to look out for signs that their children were being ‘radicalised’, “… and should they come home with bags of fertiliser and detonators, they might have a bit of a word with them.”  How ‘fundamental’ do your beliefs have to be to represent a danger to society? As Muriel points out, ‘fundamentalism’ is an accepted part of British life, as long as we encourage faith schools and avoid discouraging the isolation of minority communities who try to keep their children from being influenced by modern secular, liberal values.

The Pope may be about to abolish the notion of limbo, the halfway house between heaven and hell, inhabited by unbaptised infants. Is it really that simple? Pope Benedict XVI’s anticipated pronouncement on limbo will have been informed by the International Theological Commission – a group of leading Roman Catholic theologians who have been meeting to consider the issue. Link: BBC NEWS | Magazine | How can limbo just be abolished?

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: A UCL Public Lunch Hour Lecture – so get yourself down to UCL on your lunch break! Presented by Steve Jones (UCL Biology): “I wear glasses. My eye lens has become stiff and no longer focuses well. That’s life, or a hint of impending death, for in the days of nuts, berries, and sabre-toothed tigers I would have starved or been eaten by now. Evolution cares only about the next generation; I am too old to pass on genes, and my eyesight is hence of no interest to Darwin’s machine.

His gay and human rights campaigns.

A straightforward way to contact your MP using the web.

Information on Parliament and MPs.

Register a pledge, get support from others, make a difference.

SH webmaster Nathan’s round the world journey.

Reflections of death & life from an atheist perspective.

A US blogging site with well-reputed writers commenting on the American political situation.

An excellent source of regular links to freethought-related video and articles, updated daily.

US-based Institute for Humanist Studies advances human rights, secular ethics and the separation of religion and government through advocacy, innovation and collaboration. IHS also produces the Humanist Network News podcast.US-based Institute for Humanist Studies advances human rights, secular ethics and the separation of religion and government through advocacy, innovation and collaboration. IHS also produces the Humanist Network News podcast.

A resource for those interested in scientific naturalism and its personal and social implications.

A detailed explanation of Humanism.

A comprehensive UK-based resource listing for atheists and Humanists. Recommended.

Online home of the Philosopher’s Magazine, with articles and discussion.

We are affiliated to SIFRE, and one of our members is a SIFRE tutor.

Suffolk Humanists give a regular Thought for the Day on Radio Suffolk.

Almost all you need to know about the Suffolk town.

Click on the ‘religious education’ link to see more information on the ‘Why Atheism’ DVD for schools, including ceremonies conducted by SH’s Margaret Nelson, and interviews with students from Kesgrave High School.

An excellent repository of freethought multimedia from Richard Dawkins, James Randi, Michael Shermer and more, including more Podcasts to load up your iPod with freethought goodness.

A regular podcast/radio show from the Infidel Guy, featuring interviews and discussion with various free thinkers.

Debunking myths, investigating the paranormal.

An excellent resource on evolution, particularly recommended is the list of creationist claims and responses.

Resources on everything from alternative medicine to critical thinking.

A leading evolutionary biologist.

Squarely aimed at rescuing US-based atheists from the ‘faith-heads’, and providing discussion and supporting material for his latest book, The God Delusion.

A comprehensive user-edited encyclopedia.

All sorts of secularly subversive products from the US – badges, bumper stickers, books, etc.

A directory of wedding services featuring wedding dresses, cakes, stationery, photographers and more to help you organise your big day.

Environmentally friendly willow coffins by the Somerset Willow Company. No word on whether they creak a lot.

The map to the right shows where some of our visitors have come from today (click the image to view full size). Hello! We’re also very pleased to have had recent visits from Cambodia, New Zealand, Palau, Israel, Sweden, China, United Arab Emirates, and France. It’s a small world on the Internet – wherever you’re visiting from today, thank you, and we hope you found something interesting, and come back soon.

A Humanist contribution to a Forum of Faiths, Suffolk College, 11 October 2006 Humanists think we can be good without God. We’re atheists or agnostics. There are other words to describe a positive, non-religious approach to life; they include secularist, rationalist and freethinker. I particularly like the last one. Humanists are independent thinkers, so it’s sometimes hard to agree. However, there are some things that we do agree about, and one is the notion of an afterlife; we don’t think there is one.

Secularisation is not on the retreat in western Europe. Yet it is true that new threats to individual liberties and to the religious neutrality of governments are coming from many (not all) organised religious denominations. National situations are somehow different from one another, but nowhere in Europe is the society going back to the time when a common set of religiously-based beliefs was the one and basic common ground for values and views shared by almost every member of the society itself.

Author of ‘The End of Faith’ and ‘Letter to a Christian Nation’, Sam Harris has studied philosophy, religion and neuroscience. He exposes the dangers of religion and its connection with terrorism.

Since the publication of my first book, The End of Faith, I have received thousands of letters and e-mails from religious believers insisting that I am wrong not to believe in God. Invariably, the most unpleasant of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally believe that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. Please accept this for what it is: the testimony of a man who is in a position to observe how people behave when their faith is challenged.

The cabinet is in open warfare over new gay rights legislation after Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, who is a devout Catholic, blocked the plans following protests from religious organisations. Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, was so angry with the move that he wrote a letter to Kelly three weeks ago, telling her that the new rights should not be watered down. Link: The Observer | Politics | Cabinet split over new rights for gays

Horrified by escalating religious violence and alarmed by the Bush administration’s “faith-based initiatives,” which make government money available to religious organizations, atheists are coming out of the closet — and organizing. Link: Atheist groups are on the rise: South Florida Sun-Sentinel Now all we need to do is to stir British atheists out of their complacency. Won’t you join us? And how about joining the BHA and/or the NSS?

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Suffolk Humanists Chair Michael Imison will make a brief appearance on ITV1 in Anglia TV’s ‘Late Edition’ regional politics programme, talking about faith schools.

Book Reading, ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins. Institute of Education, London, 9 October 2006 Last week my partner Marion and I attended this reading organised by Foyles at the Institute of Education in Bloomsbury. The Logan Hall seats almost a thousand and the venue was sold out, with many disappointed non-ticket holders turned away. The event followed a format that Dawkins has used before. He and Lalla Ward, his wife, take turns to read out sections of the book, and after three quarters of an hour or so Lalla leaves the podium and Professor Dawkins invites questions.

If you are involved with RE teaching in Suffolk you’ll know about the new RE syllabus that was launched at Endeavour House yesterday. Now that Humanism is officially included in the syllabus, we must provide teachers with the resources to teach it. RE is often taught by non-specialists and teams that change from term to term. Teachers who are new to Humanism will find it especially difficult to work out how to approach the subject.

Founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion, the Freethinker is a secular Humanist monthly magazine.

British people waste more energy than the inhabitants of any other major western European nation, hastening climate change and adding £2.5bn to annual fuel bills, according to research. Link: Independent Online Edition > Environment An ICM poll conducted in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, showed that the British seem less concerned about global warming that our European neighbours. 71% leave appliances on standby 67% boil more water than needed in kettles 65% leave chargers plugged in 63% don’t turn off lights in empty rooms 48% use the car for short journeys 44% wash clothes at 60F 32% leave the engine running while the car is stationary 32% use the tumble dryer when the washing line could be used 28% have the central heating on in an empty house 22% turn up the thermostat instead of reaching for a jumper If you’re not one of the culprits, good for you – Humanists should care for the environment.

The alternative to secular multi-culturalism is not an enforced integration, such as we see in France. What is required is a proper and mutually respectful co-operation between religious faith and public authorities. Link: Telegraph | Comment | Labour’s plans for faith schools will only make divisions deeper Dr Vincent Nichols says Catholic schools are doing a good job – well, he would, wouldn’t he? – and that the idea of making a quarter of places in faith schools available to pupils of other faiths or none won’t work.

A new educational project has begun in Bosnia-Hercegovina, aimed at ending ethnic divisions in the country. Link: BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Bosnia tries multi-ethnic education Elsewhere on this website, I referred to the Integrated Education Fund in Northern Ireland, where parents have had to raise funds to enable their children to experience integrated education. Now a new college in Mostar offers students a chance to learn side by side with young people from other ethnic groups.