Join the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the American Humanist Association for the 17th annual World Humanist Congress in Washington DC at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel. This exciting event will be held June 5-8, 2008, with extended activities June 4 and 9. Plenary sessions include topics on human rights, bioethical issues, religious reform, freedom of conscience and expression, Humanist approaches to social problems, and many others. Speakers include IHEU President Sonja Eggerickx, AHA President Mel Lipman, Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin, Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal, Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Lori Lipman Brown of the Secular Coalition for America, and many others to be announced.

Thought for the Day, BBC Radio Suffolk, Saturday 2 February 2008 Thirty-odd years ago, I met a suffragette. She’d known the Pankhursts – Emmeline and her daughter Christabel, who led the Women’s Social & Political Union, popularly known as suffragettes. Although Mrs Birnberg was an old woman when I met her, she still felt as strongly about women’s rights as she’d ever done and was scornful about the young women who didn’t use the vote that she and other women had fought for.

We used to conduct gay weddings in Suffolk – by “we”, I mean our Ceremonies Team. When they introduced legal partnership ceremonies, the demand for Humanist ceremonies ceased abruptly. Now it looks like civil ceremonies are losing popularity too. The number of gay weddings has plummeted by more than 50 per cent in the past year. Civil partnerships became legal for homosexuals in December 2005, allowing them to acquire the same sorts of tax and pension rights as straight married couples.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Margaret Nelson will talk about the Scout Association’s discrimination against non-religious young people with presenter Rachel Sloane and the Scouts’ County Commissioner. BBC Radio Suffolk’s FM frequencies are 103.9 (Ipswich), 104.6 (west Suffolk), 95.5 (Lowestoft), 95.9 (Aldeburgh). It’s not available on medium wave or DAB, but you can listen live online – see link below. Further info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/local_radio/index.shtml

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Rachel Sloane will phone Suffolk (and Cambodian) Humanist Nathan Nelson in Siem Reap, Cambodia, to talk on air about what he’s doing there. BBC Radio Suffolk’s FM frequencies are 103.9 (Ipswich), 104.6 (west Suffolk), 95.5 (Lowestoft), 95.9 (Aldeburgh). It’s not available on medium wave or DAB, but you can listen live online – see link below. Further info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/local_radio/index.shtml

Reasons for God’s “existence”, not meant to be taken seriously (although many believers do). Hundreds of Proofs of God’s Existence Formerly: Over Three Hundred Proofs of God’s Existence Hours of entertainment – click the link… Hundreds of Proofs of God’s Existence. Tags: Humour, God, God’s+existence

The Archbishop of Canterbury provoked a chorus of criticism yesterday by predicting that it was “unavoidable” that elements of Islamic sharia law would be introduced in Britain. Christian and secular groups joined senior politicians to condemn Rowan Williams’ view that there was a place for a “constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law” over such issues as marriage. Archbishop of Canterbury warns sharia law in Britain is inevitable – Home News, UK – Independent.

From the official Richard Dawkins website: SCIENCE is useful but that is not all it is. Science can be uplifting, thrilling, life-enhancing. Originally broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4 in 1996, Break the Science Barrier follows the Oxford Biologist Richard Dawkins as he meets with people who have experienced the wonders of science first-hand. We meet the astronomer who first discovered pulsars, the geneticist who invented DNA fingerprinting, a scientist who discovered a protein that causes cancer, and others.

An extraordinary — one might almost say unbelievable — industrial tribunal case in Manchester in March gave a rare insight into how attempts to accommodate “multicultural” religious needs at work actually appear only to apply to Muslims. It developed around a spat between Muslim employees at the Royal Mail and a member of the Odinist Fellowship (a group that apparently worships the old Nordic gods). National Secular Society – The Extraordinary Case Of The Pagan And The Multicultural Prayer Room.

If you’re the romantic type and want to give flowers to your beloved on Valentine’s Day, consider an alternative to expensive flowers flown from abroad and do your bit for conservation by adopting a British wild flower on his or her behalf. Adopt-a-flower is a simple way to support a serious issue. The way we look after our countryside has changed enormously over the last sixty years, particularly with the introduction of modern agricultural methods.

UK scouts must be prepared to make the Scout Promise: On My Honour, I promise that I will do my best To do my duty to God and to the Queen, To help other people And to keep the Scout Law. The Scout Association’s website claims that, Scouting is open to all young people aged 6 to 25 of every faith and background. There are also plenty of opportunities for adults to become involved as Leaders, Assistants or Administrators.

Suffolk Inter-Faith Resource is having a debate at the Unitarian Meeting house on Thursday 14 February, starting at 6pm. See our events calendar for details. SIFRE says, Speakers from the Christian and Muslim Faiths will debate Rowan William’s thoughts on the accommodation of some aspects of Sharia Law by the English legal system and the misunderstandings and misrepresentations of his proposals by the media and politicians. Tags: SIFRE, Debate, Archbishop+of+Canterbury, Sharia

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: A special SIFRE Forum of Faiths Meeting at the Unitarian Meeting House, Friars Street, Ipswich, IP1 1TD. A Debate on the reaction to the Archbishop of Canterburys Lecture Civil and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective delivered by the Archbishop at the Royal Courts of Justice on Thursday 7th February. SIFRE says, Speakers from the Christian and Muslim Faiths will debate Rowan Williams thoughts on the accommodation of some aspects of Sharia Law by the English legal system and the misunderstandings and misrepresentations of his proposals by the media and politicians.

Excellent resource from the Guardian to mark Darwin Day. 150 years ago, Charles Darwin unveiled his theory of natural selection. To mark this anniversary we bring you the definitive guide to the naturalist’s great book, with extracts from key chapters and essays from leading scientists and thinkers On the Origin of Species | Science | guardian.co.uk. Tags: Darwin, Darwin+Day, Science, Evolution

BBC Radio Suffolk on 12 February 2008 Today is Darwin Day, the 199th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection. On Darwin Day we celebrate the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity, and in particular we celebrate the achievements of a great man. If he were alive today, Im sure Darwin would be fascinated by the current BBC TV series, Life in Cold Blood, with Sir David Attenborough, some of which was filmed on the Galapagos Isles, where he made the discoveries that sowed the seeds of doubt about the conventional biblical explanation for the origin of life.

Here’s the latest Suffolk Humanist newsletter in glorious colour – it has information on our February meeting where Nathan Nelson will be talking about Cambodia and the voluntary projects he is involved with there, as well as food for thought on free speech, the Burston Strike School, Christmas with kids, how you heard about God and more. Aren’t we good to you? Download the February newsletter (pdf)

More on the Archbishop’s position on Sharia, from Andrew Copson, Education & Public Affairs Officer at the BHA: Imagine that you are sitting in Lambeth Palace as Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the established church in England. It may not seem an enviable position (even without the fracas of recent days). Although your church is nominally the national church, most people don’t even get married (pdf) in it any more, hardly anyone comes to your services, most people don’t believe in the doctrines that your church promotes, they’re not religious and a lot of them don’t even believe in god(s) at all.

The Government has responded to the following e-petition on faith schools, signed by many secularists and humanists: “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Abolish all faith schools and prohibit the teaching of creationism and other religious mythology in all UK schools.” Its response is, The Government remains committed to a diverse range of schools for parents to choose from, including schools with a religious character or “faith schools” as they are commonly known.

The BHA’s annual Darwin Day Lecture is held each year on or around Darwin Day (12th February) in the Darwin Theatre at University College London. In 2008 the Lecture was again chaired by Richard Dawkins. The Lecture was given by Tim Lewens whose talk was entitled “Darwin: A Philosophical Naturalist?” Audio files are available of Dawkins’s introduction and Lewens’s lecture as well as the Q & A session which followed.

On Tuesday, the Florida Board of Education was going to discuss whether or not children should learn about evolution. We might point a finger and giggle at such silliness, if it weren’t for the fact that a vocal minority over here think that British children shouldn’t learn about evolution either. The author of an article at Tallahassee.com wrote: The intensely heated and divisive discussion over the veracity of evolution elevates the updating of standards that were adopted in 1996 — a review of what our students are learning or ought to be learning — to a level of, well, craziness.

It seems that the archbishop was wrong to compare sharia with the Jewish beit din. Earlier this month Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams stunned much of his own church and the rest of the world by saying that it seems unavoidable that elements of Sharia will be adopted into the British legal system… But perhaps even more disconcerting was one of the reasons Williams offered as justification for his thinking: “We have Orthodox Jewish courts operating in this country.

While voters in the US are getting themselves in a tizz at the prospect of either a black(ish) or female president, and there’s no chance of an open atheist in the White House, the Dutch don’t seem to have the same hang-ups. 78% of voters in Holland would be comfortable with a homosexual leader, a wide-ranging opinion poll has revealed. Under a third would find an Islamic Prime Minister acceptable, while a mere 33% would be happy with a fundamentalist Christian.

We’ve tended to post items about biology on this site, because of our opposition to children being taught that Creationism or Intelligent Design explain the origin of life, rather than evolution, but there are some fascinating things going on in physics too. Maybe the physicists don’t attract as much attention, particularly from religious people why deny science, because their work is so mind-boggling that few people understand it. There are two stories that have caught my attention over the last week.

The following was posted on Facebookby Laurence Boyce of Cambridge (a member of the NSS and the Liberal Democrats), in response to the accusation from pro-religion people that hes a bigot elsewhere on the Internet. Laurence wrote that one of his accusers had asked him to justify my sweeping assertion that the claims of religion have largely been debunked by science and philosophy determined to answer everyone’s points (though nobody much was answering mine), I put together a little series of notes which I now collect here for future reference.

Grinding poverty and the escalating war is driving an increasing number of Afghan families to sell their daughters into forced marriages. Girls as young as six are being married into a life of slavery and rape, often by multiple members of their new relatives. Banned from seeing their own parents or siblings, they are also prohibited from going to school. With little recognition of the illegality of the situation or any effective recourse, many of the victims are driven to self-immolation – burning themselves to death – or severe self-harm.

Faith charities encouraging or promoting violence or hatred risk losing their charitable status as part of a radical overhaul proposed by the Charity Commission. For the first time all charities – including those advancing religion – must show that their aims are for the benefit of the public. Draft guidance, issued today, will explain to the registered religious charities what constitutes a public benefit and warns that “the abuse or misuse of religious teachings” might lead to a charity being stripped of its status.

Humanist Network News podcasts have been praised in The Independent. Now you can listen via our website. There are interviews with Philip Pullman, Salman Rushdie, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and the late Arthur Miller, and topics include Camp Quest and Darwin Day. Tags: Podcasts, Institute+for+Humanist+Studies, IHS, Humanist+Network+News, Interviews

The abolition of the blasphemy laws took a decisive step forward this week with the tabling of a government amendment to do so in the House of Lords. The Bill is scheduled to be debated on Wednesday (5 March 2008). National Secular Society – Stop press: Blasphemy abolition moves closer. If you have digital TV on Freeview or otherwise, you may be able to watch the debate on BBC Parliament.