Darwin’s theory of evolution was simple, beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring. But because it contradicts the allegorical babblings of a bunch of made-up old books, it’s been under attack since day one. That’s just tough luck for Darwin. If the Bible had contained a passage that claimed gravity is caused by God pulling objects toward the ground with magic invisible threads, we’d still be debating Newton with idiots too. Charlie Brooker’s screen burn | Culture | The Guardian.

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Libby Purvis writes in the Times Online that Prof. Dawkins is “bitchy” (wrong gender, surely?), and sarcastically refers to a “coming-out party” for American atheists as “a blast” – it’s not a blast for those American atheists who are shunned by their religious relatives and neighbours. She also writes, I am indebted to Matthew Parris who has contributed to a British Humanists campaign to put an ad on a bus saying “There’s probably no God.

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears today set out how Government envisages working in future alongside the many faith based organisations already making a real difference to their communities. The Framework for Partnership published today [21 July 2008] outlines new support and £7.5m worth of investment to encourage and enable greater local activity bringing people from different religions and beliefs together. It also reaffirms government support for the valuable work faith groups contribute to delivering services, responding to some of the toughest challenges that society faces.

From Rosie Millard in The Times… Dawkins is about to chew up religion again now, in a television series about his hero, Charles Darwin, which holds up to ridicule those who refuse to accept the theory of evolution. Astounding though it may seem, 150 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, there are many people who don’t believe its findings, he says. Some of these are evangelicals in far-off countries who think that God created everything in six days and that rainy days began with Noah’s Flood.

All through Sunday night Anglican bishops were leaving their student rooms on the campus of the University of Kent and getting into mini-buses and taxis for the airport, and journeys to most of the 160 countries they represent. After almost three weeks in Canterbury what would they have to tell their scattered flocks about the state of the fractured Anglican Communion? Did they succeed in bringing it back from the brink of schism?

For centuries, mankind knew all there was to know about the shape of the Earth. It was a flat planet, shaped roughly like a circle, with lots of pointy things hanging down from the underside. On the comparatively smooth topside, Europe sat in the middle of the circle, with the other continents scattered about the fringes, and parts of Africa hanging over the edge. The oceans lapped against the sides of the Earth, and in places ran over, creating currents that would pull over the edge ships that ventured too far out to sea.

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain presents its first international conference: Political Islam, Sharia Law, And Civil Society Friday 10 October 2008 – International day against the Death Penalty – 10am-6pm (Registration begins at 9am) Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL (Closest station: Holborn) Speakers: Mina Ahadi, Mahin Alipour, Roy Brown, Andrew Copson, Richard Dawkins, Giles Enders, AC Grayling, Johann Hari, Ehsan Jami, Houzan Mahmoud, Rony Miah, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasreen, Fariborz Pooya, Terry Sanderson, Joan Smith, Bahram Soroush, Hanne Stinson, Hamid Taqvaee, Ibn Warraq, Keith Porteous Wood, Zia Zaffar

Last week, Mr Justice Silber ruled that Aberdare Girls’ School in South Wales had been guilty of racial discrimination when it excluded Sarika Watkins-Singh for insisting on wearing a religious bracelet. It was a trivial case, which made you wonder about the dogmatism of both sides and the quality of their lawyers. The school could have given way – the bracelet was little more than a slim band. Watkins-Singh’s parents could have accepted that they had a duty to uphold the authority of the teachers.

The Saudi religious police have reportedly vowed to strictly enforce a ban on the sale of pet cats and dogs in Riyadh and walking animals in public. A senior official said it was to stop a rising trend of people trying to evade strict rules on sex segregation. The claim is that men were using their pets as an excuse to meet women, which is banned in places like restaurants and cafes between non-married people.

Ariane Sherine writes in Comment is Free: In June, I blogged for Cif about the rather unsettling religious adverts which were running on London buses. These ads featured a link to a website warning that non-Christians would “spend all eternity in torment in hell” if they failed to recognise Jesus Christ other than at the height of passion. A solution, I suggested, was for 4,680 atheists to spread reassurance by each giving £5 towards a bus ad saying: “There’s probably no God.

Iran has suspended the punishment of death by stoning, state media say. A judiciary spokesman said four people sentenced to die by stoning had had their sentences commuted and that all other cases had been put under review. BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Iranians suspend death by stoning. Tags: Stoning, Iran, Execution

From P Z Myers’ blog: … there is no one absolute make-or-break piece of evidence for evolution — evolution is a conclusion from the totality of the evidence. There are thousands of cases that demonstrate that the principles of evolution work and are useful for understanding the natural world; there are no cases where creationism has improved our understanding. Tags: P+Z+Myers, Pharyngula, Evolution

Do you believe a religious leader who fights to save Section 28 and says gay people spread disease is a fulminating bigot? Do you believe a “leading cleric” who advocates stoning gay people to death should be denounced? Do you believe sharia law – which requires gay people to be lashed or stoned – is always and forever unacceptable? Then, according to an energetic and aggressive group of white straight boys who surreally consider themselves to be on the left, you are an “Islamophobe” and “objectively pro-Nazi”.

The Artic meltdown is speeding up, satellite images show. Do something now, for our children’s sake, says Thomas Friedman: Most people assume that the effects of climate change are going to be felt through another big disaster, like Hurricane Katrina. Not necessarily, says Minik Thorleif Rosing, a top geologist at Denmark’s National History Museum and one of my travelling companions. ‘Most people will actually feel climate change delivered to them by the postman,’ he explains.

Each year in Britain around two and a half thousand people are buried alone. No one claims them, and no one attends their funeral. Others have lain dead and undiscovered for weeks, or even years, before they are found and relatives traced. Driven by a desire to find out more about these lonely individuals from the people who knew and loved them, Lucy Cohen’s bittersweet, first film pieces together two peoples’ lives, and asks how – in crowded, hectic, connected, modern Britain – it is possible for anyone to simply slip through the cracks and disappear.

You know what organised religion needs? More power and influence. Thank God, then, that Channel 4 are on hand to give it the helping hand it so desperately requires in the form of Make Me A Christian (Sun, 7pm, C4), a spiritual makeover show in which four hardcore Goddites attempt to convert a rag-tag band of sinners into full-blown Jesus freaks in just three weeks. Charlie Brooker’s screen burn: Make Me A Christian | Culture | The Guardian.

As part of their community cohesion work, the Government has proposed in its White Paper ‘Face to Face and Side by Side: A Framework for Partnership in our Multi Faith Society’ to champion the role of ‘faith groups’ and ‘inter faith’ work in local social dialogue and action. We [The British Humanist Association] believe that the paper gives disproportionate support to ‘faith groups’ and overplays the importance of ‘inter faith’ work in social cohesion.

This is just from the ‘A’ section – go to the Butterflies and Wheels website for more. Acceptance Nice, warm, cooperative way of evaluating ideas, much better than argument. Accuracy Exploded concept. Foolish, Platonic notion that we can get our facts straight. Alphabet The opposite of the Goddess. “But one pernicious effect of literacy has gone largely unnoticed: writing subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook. Writing of any kind, but especially its alphabetic form, diminishes feminine values and with them, women’s power in the culture.

Fighting fashionable nonsense – philosophy and opinion

More about Sam Harris on his website Tags: YouTube, Sam+Harris, Conversation

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to reprimand MP Iris Robinson on her recent comments about Homosexuality.” Details of Petition: “MP for Strangford has recently suggested that all homosexuals should receive psychiatric treatment to help ‘cure’ them. These comments are not fitting of a MLA let alone an MP. They show narrow minded views and the belief that in Northern Ireland that bigotry is acceptable.” Number10.gov.uk » Robinson-Gay – epetition response.

Battered by rising petrol prices and despairing of the ability of politicians to ease their pain, Americans are turning to the one figure they think can help – God. Campaigners are holding religious vigils at petrol stations throughout the US, harnessing the power of prayer to ask a higher power for lower pump prices. Prayer at the pump for lower petrol prices – Telegraph. Tags: Prayer, US, America, Petrol+pumps

NASA has a gallery of amazing images – sign up for their “image of the day”. Click on the image to see more. Tags: NASA, Space, Astronomy

These proverbs from Slovakia show the other side of “family values”. This is the name of a whole system of control which can prevent a woman from leaving an abusive marriage and further cement her in place by burdening her with unplanned children. The control imposed by the Vatican disproportionately affects women. That’s because the hierarchy of obedience which goes from the pope to the parish priest doesn’t stop there: it continues on, from the head of the household down to his wife.

Tags: ABBA, Atheism, You+Tube

SUFFOLK’S new university is successfully stemming the brain drain of talent from the county – with nearly 5,000 students set to study there from September. Many of those signed up on courses for the next academic year are from Suffolk, as well as Norfolk and Essex, and student numbers have grown by an estimated 500 since it opened last year. Education chiefs and business leaders had previously voiced concerns at figures which showed that many young people left the county for higher education and never returned.

First of all, let me tell you what this isn’t. It’s not some “I-was-lost-and-now-I’m-found” sob story. These days, many people reach out to faith “to find peace”. I had too much peace in my life already. In faith, I was looking to be troubled – on behalf of other people. Every film and pop starlet, trawling after a reason to exist, says, “I’m not religious – but I am spiritual”.

We get some strange spam here at S H & S HQ. Mostly it’s the usual – porn, viagra, Nigerians with millions ready to transfer into our bank account, and wristwatches – but once in a while there’s something more unusual. The latest offers us free tickets… We are looking for good quality partners in a range of relevant sectors including entertainment, travel, theme parks, events, sports and other advisory and guide sites.

Billed as the first joint appearance by both presidential hopefuls, it was tightly controlled to avoid clashes. John McCain and Barak Obama hug each other. This was not a debate. It was a “civil forum” organised by Saddleback Church, a huge and hugely influential ministry run by Pastor Rick Warren, a multi-million selling author. He arrived on stage with smiles and to great applause. He joked with the crowd, fully aware of the banks of cameras lined along the back wall, the two tents full of journalists watching on screens outside and the millions of people watching live on TV.

Stretches of Britain’s coastline are doomed and plans will soon have to be drawn up to evacuate people from the most threatened areas, the new head of the Environment Agency warns today [18/8/08]. In his first interview since taking office, Lord Smith of Finsbury says Britain faces hard choices over which areas of our coast to defend and which to allow the sea to reclaim. He said detailed work was already far advanced on identifying areas of the east and south coasts which were most vulnerable to erosion, and called on ministers to give emergency help to families whose homes will be lost.

Julie Coombes teaches locally. She’ll talk about her experience of RE in the primary school. There’s a group member on Suffolk’s SACRE who helped devise the new RE syllabus (including Humanism and secular world views) that was introduced in 2007, so we’ll be especially interested in what Julie has to tell us. We’ll be in The Hall at Castle Hill Community Centre, Highfield Road, Ipswich – through the front door, turn left, then right.

Tags: Pope, Sci-fi, You+Tube

She was an outspoken agnostic, with a leaning towards atheism, but she believed as strongly as I do that our traditional rites of passage are important, if only for the survivors. So, having scarcely ever darkened the doors of our parish church, three minutes from our house, she is now buried in its churchyard. I’m not religious, but there’s something about funerals | Minette Marrin – Times Online.

FaithNetEast is an information and learning hub for faith communities in the East of England region. Funded by the Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund in the Home Office, it is hosted by the East of England Faiths Council (EEFC) and is an initiative run in partnership with Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. Its purpose is to bring together people and organisations from all faiths in the region in a network for sharing information, learning from one another, developing skills and activities and working together.

The August edition is available for download from the International Humanist & Ethical Union website as a PDF. There are articles on The World Congress, Humanism in Europe, Julius Nyerere’s secular legacy in Tanzania, and Non-Believers in the Pope’s Backyard. It’s a special double issue, 3MB in size, so it may take a while to download. Alternatively, you could join the IHEU and get a copy through the post. Tags: IHEU, magazine, International+Humanist+News

When Labour cabinet members were asked about their religious allegiances last December, following Tony Blair’s official conversion to Roman Catholicism, it turned out that more than half of them are not believers. The least equivocal about their atheism were the health secretary, Alan Johnson, and foreign secretary David Miliband. The fact that Miliband is an atheist is a matter of special interest given the likelihood that he may one day, and perhaps soon, occupy No 10.

… it’s a waste of time responding to creationist claptrap like this letter from Mr George Gardner. He wrote to the local paper in reply to a letter I’d written about something or other related to religion, and when the paper closed the correspondence, he wrote to me. I threw that letter away after I’d replied to it, hoping I wouldn’t hear from Mr G again. A vain hope. He’d told me that he’s in his eighties, and that he “comes alive” when debating issues like this.

Christianity is and always has been antithetical to women’s freedom and equality, but it’s certainly not alone in this. Whether it’s one of the world’s major faiths or an off-the-wall cult, religion means one thing and one thing only for those women unfortunate enough to get caught up in it: oppression. It’s the patriarchy made manifest, male-dominated, set up by men to protect and perpetuate their power. Cath Elliott: Julie Burchill is wrong: religion is anti-feminist | Comment is free | guardian.

As the Channel 4 series The Genius of Charles Darwin drew to an end on Monday, the usual chorus of insults reined down on the head of its star, Richard Dawkins. Despite the fact that Dawkins went out of his way to avoid bad-tempered arguments or overt proselytising on atheism, his critics saw only what they wanted to see – and often that was not what appeared on the screen.

Primary school children should have compulsory sex education lessons, MPs said today [26/8/08]. A cross-party group of MPs is calling on the government to make advice on sexual health and relationships mandatory in all schools. The group, led by Chris Bryant, a parliamentary aide to Harriet Harman, the Labour deputy leader, says that giving children more information would help reduce teenage pregnancy rates, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases. Teach primary school pupils about sex, say MPs | Education | guardian.

A Muslim has been found guilty of child cruelty after forcing two boys to beat themselves during a religious ceremony. The practice has caused controversy in Britain, but this is the first case of its kind to be brought before a UK court. BBC NEWS | UK | How a Shia ritual ended in court. Tags: Shia+Muslims, Child+abuse, BBC+News

The Church is cock-a-hoop over the news that there has been a “4.7% increase in the number of students taking Religious Education GCSEs”. The Church of England’s Head of School Improvement, Nick McKemey, believes the rise is a sign that students “appreciate the important role that religion plays in modern society”. “This further increase is evidence that more and more young people are fascinated by what they and others believe, and that they can see that the world is more fully understood by seeing past the various secularist claims that religion is mad, bad or extinct,” he said.

The Rt Rev. Patrick O’Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster, claimed casual recourse to abortion had cheapened the value of human life in the eyes of the public over the last four decades. He said he was convinced that the 1967 Abortion Act was a major cause of widespread violence among young people. Bishop Patrick Donoghue says abortion is to blame for violent Britain – Telegraph. What a crackpot!

A baby died after his parents denied him conventinal medical treatment. Just one example of “a lack of critical thinking”, according to the website What’s the harm? An inquest in London on Tuesday recorded a verdict of death by natural causes on six-month-old Cameron, who died of a treatable disease after his parents refused to allow him to be given conventional medicine. Increasingly, with the rise in popularity of complementary medicine these situations are going to arise.

Accord is a new coalition calling for inclusive schools and an end to special arrangements for state funded religious schools. Its members include the ATL, the BHA and Ekklesia. Its supporters include Baroness Blackstone, Prof. Bernard Crick, Rabbi David Goldberg and Prof. A C Grayling. Accord is a wide coalition of organisations which includes religious groups, humanists, trade unions and human rights campaigners. The campaign launched on 1 September 2008 and aims to promote inclusive schools through local and national campaigns.

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin wants creationism taught in science classes. In a 2006 gubernatorial debate, the soon-to-be governor of Alaska said of evolution and creation education, “Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of education. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.” McCain’s VP Wants Creationism Taught in School | Wired Science from Wired.com. Tags: America, US+Election, Sarah+Palin

SO CARDINAL Sean Brady still expects us to believe that the Catholic Church has no desire to interfere in the political process. The Church’s often-repeated mantra to that effect is about as objective and accurate as the mendacious and misleading statement that secularism is hostile to religion. It can be argued that secularism and relativism, the Cardinal told the Humbert School last Sunday, “enjoy an uncritical acceptance which would never be accorded religious faith”.