Our October newsletter is ready for download. Articles on the BHA’s Local Development Project, SIFRE’s Forum of Faiths, and the facts about refugees. Did you know that many people think that the UK accepts about 23% of the world’s refugees, while the true figure is about 2 to 3%? There’s also a full diary of events from now until February 2009. Suffolk Humanist & Secularist News, October 2008 (PDF) Fishing analogy leaflet (PDF)

Pat Condell‘s latest video, expressing his outrage on behalf of those Muslim women who will suffer because they are forced to have their marital problems solved in a male-dominated Sharia court, was banned by YouTube for “violating the YouTube Community Guidelines”. The British Government, in the interests of “tolerance”, appears to approve the use of Sharia courts in this country, just so long as they don’t sentence anyone to be stoned to death (one hopes), or have their hands amputated, or any of the other punishments meted out by Sharia courts in Saudi Arabia, where human rights are ignored.

Reading the comments after this Telegraph blog post was heartening. I’m glad to learn that Telegraph readers don’t subscribe to such nonsense. The turning point in Britain’s relations with its Muslim population came on January 14, 1989, when Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses was burnt in public in Bradford. Now, Salman Rushdie has declared that he has nothing against true believers until their faith spills over into the public sphere and becomes “my business”.

In today’s Observer, Catherine Bennett wrote about Debbie Purdy, an MS sufferer who’d like to be able to die at a time she chooses but will need help to do so. She doesn’t want her husband to be prosecuted for helping her, which could happen, as the law stands. Mrs Purdy isn’t the first to have fought this battle. Diane Pretty is just one high profile case. She died in May 2002, having lost a legal challenge that would have allowed her husband Brian to help her commit suicide when she deteriorated.

This is a monthly update of news from International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). You can find the full versions of these news stories on the IHEU web site. To receive the monthly news update, sign up here. HUMAN RIGHTS SPECIAL This issue includes reports from IHEU’s delegation to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where real progress has been made, particularly on issues of freedom of expression and separation of religion and state.

A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye. Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive. BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Saudi cleric favours one-eye veil. It would be much better if Saudi men wore blindfolds and let women wear what they like. Maybe castration would cure them of their lustful thoughts?

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) today published its interim advice to Government on what the long-term target should be to tackle climate change. The CCC recommended that emissions from harmful Greenhouse Gases be reduced by at least 80% by 2050. In a letter to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, the CCC said that the 80% target should apply on average across all sectors of the UK economy and is achievable at affordable cost of between 1-2% of GDP in 2050

Rev Peter Mullen, who writes for the Northern Echo and the Telegraph, has been on the receiving end of some criticism lately for comments he made on his blog, including: Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS. In his defence, he says he was joking. This is not a surprise, as religion is a rich vein of humour – think talking snakes, women created from ribs, huge boats filled with animals, zombies who come back to life after three days and fly away, and Rowan Williams.

The Washington Post reports: The nation’s largest group of atheists and agnostics is suing President Bush, the governor of Wisconsin and other officials over the federal law designating a National Day of Prayer. The Freedom From Religion Foundation sued Friday in U.S. district court, arguing that the president’s mandated proclamations calling on Americans to pray violates a constitutional ban on government officials endorsing religion. I read about this in Libby Purves’s Times Online column, where she wrote,

Pity the poor faith schools. According to a pamphlet published today by the Centre for Policy Studies, penned by Cristina Odone, they are under threat as never before from “a government … aligning itself with a stridently secularist lobby”. Few apart from than Odone can have noticed this dangerous development. Under Labour governments since 1997 more new state-funded faith schools have opened than under any other government, and there is no sign that this increase is being stemmed or about to be.

The creation of religion-based groups like YMAG [Young Muslim Advisory Group] is divisive because it approaches the subject of community cohesion from the standpoint of an assumption of difference. I am tired of the politics of “the other”. It’s about time we embraced the language of “we”. We, the British people – irrespective of background – must stand on a united platform on issues such as social cohesion and extremism.

Tags: You+Tube, US+Election, Political+prayer

Zehra Zaidi’s piece in the Guardian about the latest daft idea from Hazel Blears & Co is spot on. The constant harping on about “community cohesion”, which really means trying to get Muslims and others to all get along, is ridiculous. Can’t they see that the proliferation of faith schools is an obstacle to social harmony? There’ve been many “consultations” that were ostensibly about achieving harmony and understanding, but all they do is exaggerate the differences between people, rather than encourage them to discover what they have in common.

Rashin Soodmand is an Iranian Christian. Her father was hanged for apostasy – he converted to Christianity when he was thirteen. Now her brother, also a Christian, risks the same fate. Rashin says, “They assume that if you are Iranian, you must be Muslim.” It’s not surprising that it appears there are no atheists in Iran. Declaring your non-belief would risk death or life imprisonment. Read more in The Telegraph.

Although the headlines majored on the BBC’s fearful relationship with Islam, there was another point hidden in the BBC director general’s speech to the Theos Christian thinktank this week, and it is just as disturbing. Those of us who have wondered why there is such a ridiculous excess of religion on the BBC now have the answer. It is because Mark Thompson, an enthusiastic Catholic, wants it. Thompson is a great proselytiser for his faith in the mould of Lord Reith, who thought the BBC was “the nation’s church”.

The Ipswich Advertiser reports: A BITTER tug-of- war has broken out today [17 October 2008] over the future of one of Ipswich’s most high-profile schools. Despite improving GCSE rates and opposition from staff, Holywells High School could become a church-sponsored academy. Although no final decision has been made and a full consultation is yet to take place, sources at multicultural Holywells High have hit out at a proposal to convert the school into an academy, saying they have been put under pressure by Suffolk County Council to become a faith school.

Hundreds of Christians in the Indian state of Orissa have been forced to renounce their religion and become Hindus after lynch mobs issued them with a stark ultimatum: convert or die. The wave of forced conversions marks a dramatic escalation in a two-month orgy of sectarian violence which has left at least 59 people dead, 50,000 homeless and thousands of houses and churches burnt to the ground. As neighbour has turned on neighbour, thousands more Christians have sought sanctuary in refugee camps, unable to return to the wreckage of their homes unless they, too, agree to abandon their faith.

“We don’t have the answers to everything, just the answers to everything that matters” – learn from The elders from the First Church of the DC Comictician and Latter Day Citizens of the United Federation of Planets.

Sony has delayed the launch of a new video game because of fears that the background music may offend Muslims. The music, by Muslim musician Toumani Diabat from Mali, contains a couple of phrases from the Qur’an. When their attention was drawn to this, Sony decided not to risk offending anyone. Whatever you do, if it’s anything to do with religion, you’re bound to offend someone. On the BBC news, Muslim journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown said more or less the same thing.

Bendy-buses with the slogan “There’s probably no God” could soon be running on the streets of London. The atheist posters are the idea of the British Humanist Association (BHA) and have been supported by prominent atheist Professor Richard Dawkins. BBC NEWS | England | London | ‘No God’ slogans for city’s buses. You can donate online at Just Giving. Across the Pond, P Z Myers has noticed the campaign, and comments:

Gay & Lesbian Humanist, the magazine that suspended publication amid controversy in 2005, is to return online. The new web version takes over from the print version, which had been publishing quarterly since 1981. In a statement today, the magazine’s editors say: “Many people will remember G&LH. Some may remember why it suspended publication following a protracted dispute about content.” “After a period of change and restructuring within the Pink Triangle Trust, the trustees decided to resume publication.

The huge success of the Atheist Bus Campaign has amazed the people who run the Just Giving website. They write: … this page is remarkable for the sheer speed that it’s raising money – we’ve been noticing that there are new donations every time we refresh the page. Whatever you believe, it certainly shows the power of online fundraising. The campaign has not only smashed its target for the British Humanist Association but it’s gone from trebling the target to quadrupling it in the time spent writing this blog post…

Thank you so much to everyone who has donated to the atheist bus campaign. As I write this, the total has just broken £83,000 (without Gift Aid) – a truly amazing amount to raise in just two days (even the donation website, JustGiving, told us they’ve never experienced this much support for a campaign before!). You’ve helped us hit the national news headlines, give atheists more of a voice, and generate debate on TV, radio and newspapers throughout the world.

Our society is, I hope, moving slowly towards the point where religiosity is not the default starting point, where atheists are not regarded as ‘outside’ the moral arena, where lack of a belief in a god of any kind may not be interpreted as a character flaw or symptom of some kind of nihilist abandonment of all ideas of truth and beauty. Nevertheless we are still in a situation where public events are marked by some kind of religious activity, where Thought for the Day on Radio 4 is still a religious broadcast, where priests and rabbis are still sought and consulted on matters of ethics often to the exclusion of anyone with a reasonable opinion, and where insulting and threatening language issued forth from religious fundamentalists is still seen as tolerable where direct criticism of religion is intolerable.

6th-formers at Holywells High School, which is threated by a Church take-over, have vowed to campaign against the plans. Good for them! Read more in the Evening Star. Tags: Holywells+High+School, Education, Faith+schools, Evening+Star

I tuned in to tonight’s BBC Panorama programme [27 October] late, just in time to hear reporter Simon Boazman explain how the government plans to collect information on children. He asked his own daughter some of the questions that are included in a questionaire to test something or other. Did she go to church? What religion was she? Did she believe in God? I’ll watch the programme again to check (you can see it online for the next week using the BBC’s i-player), but my mind was boggling.

You may have donated to the Atheist Bus Campaign. The BHA needs help with its anti-faith schools campaign too. Donate via the Just Giving website. Tags: Faith+schools, Campaign, BHA

In Slate Magazine, Christopher Hitchens (author of ‘God is Not Great’) attacks the Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, for her ignorance, which she regards as a virtue, and her religious fanaticism. Note: GOP means ‘Grand Old Party’, or the Republican Party. If you order ‘God is Not Great’ via the Amazon link on this website, we get commission. Tags: Christopher+Hitchens, Sarah+Palin, US+election, Ignorance

Can’t say what time, but there’ll be something about the Atheist Bus Campaign during Ian Wyatt’s Sunday Breakfast programme (the God slot) on BBC Radio Essex, including a short interview with me. You can listen on 103.5 or 95.3 fm, or online at www.bbc.co.uk/essex. MN

This has been cancelled due to ill health.

Staff pay and conditions could be under threat at an Ipswich school if a decision is finalised to turn it into a church-run academy. As revealed in The Evening Star, students at Holywells High spoke out against the possibility of the running of their school being handed over to the Church of England in September. The students’ concerns are now shared by trade unions, who today revealed their opposition to academies’ abilities to operate outside the parliamentary approved School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document.