That’s what his attitude to collective worship in schools amounts to. We wondered whether he’d be a better Education Secretary than Ruth Kelly – that is, whether he’d be less inclined to promote faith schools and religion in general – but no, he won’t. The National Secular Society reports that Executive Director Keith Porteous Wood wrote to Mr Johnson, having heard that faith leaders were pressing him to enforce collective worship more vigorously.

I turned on the TV to see the Regent’s park commemoration of the 7/7 victims, expecting the usual irrelevant religious ceremony, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a secular occasion, created by the families and friends of those who’d died, where political leaders and royalty took second place to the bereaved. So why did the BBC insist on referring to it as a ‘service’ in all their bulletins and reports?

US website ‘God Hates Shrimp’ challenges Christians who quote the Bible to justify their homophobia to consider all the other things the Bible says we ought to abominate, including shrimps. Leviticus 11: 9–12 is quite clear about this. Shrimp, crab, lobster, clams, mussels, all these are an abomination before the Lord, just as gays are an abomination. Why stop at protesting gay marriage? Bring all of God’s law unto the heathens and the sodomites.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: T4TD by Margaret Nelson on BBC Radio Suffolk (95.5, 95.9, 103.9 & 104.6 fm). Listen online or listen again the same day.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: T4TD by Margaret Nelson on BBC Radio Suffolk (95.5, 95.9, 103.9 & 104.6 fm). Listen online or listen again the same day.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Sorry, cancelled due to illness. Watch this space for future T4TDs.

The Norwegian Humanist Association has taken the lead in protesting the rapid fall of the United States of America from a defender of Human liberties to one that is threatening them. The following powerful statement issued by the current and all the former Secretary Generals of the Norwegian Humanist Association has been printed in the Aftenposten in Norwegian. Link: USA – A Civilisation in Decline | International Humanist and Ethical Union

Think before you enjoy it. The near-record temperatures expected today are a sign of things to come, and will become commoner and hotter in future years as man-made global warming takes hold, scientists predict. Link: Independent Online Edition > Environment The planet appears to be cooking as a result of human activity. If it’s hot here, imagine how hot it will be in sub-Saharan Africa in the next few decades.

How can you choose an appropriate funeral, and someone to conduct it? Theres an increasing choice of funeral styles, but also more confusion. Many still choose traditional Christian funerals, with familiar hymns and so on, but this isnt appropriate for a significant proportion of the population. Various surveys indicate that only a minority attend church regularly and that few are interested in organised religion. Many young people arent religious, while many older people have developed unconventional personal religious beliefs.

If we can’t thank God, who do we thank? Ronald Aronson, Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Wayne State University, writes in The Philosophers’ Magazine about gratitude in a Godless age. Living without God today means facing life and death as no generation before us has done. It entails giving meaning to our lives not only in the absence of a supreme being, but now without the forces and trends that gave hope to the past several generations of secularists.

I know a small boy called Tom. He sees the world through exciting rose-coloured spectacles. He must get grumpy, but I never see him then. He quite likes my dog, but what he likes better is fiddling with her harness, and the little light that we use when we go walking after dark. Tom likes to switch it on and off, on and off. The other day, while out walking my dog with my mobility scooter, I saw Tom with his mum and dad, peddling towards me in his peddle-car.

A week into one of the most severe crises the Middle East has seen in years, Israel is getting an influx of support from an unusual source. More than 3,400 evangelical Christians have arrived in Washington to lobby lawmakers as part of the first annual summit of Christians United for Israel. Link: BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Evangelical Christians plead for Israel The pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, is John Hagee, “a long-time fervent supporter of Israel.