I missed this programme but will listen now, via this clip. On Mark Thomas’s BBC Radio 4 Manifesto programme, audience member Laura proposed, to enthusiastic applause: There should be a minimum age of consent before anyone joins a religion, because the vast majority of religions’ members were put through ceremonies by their parents when they were far too young to know what was going on. And while many of them renounce their faith when they are older, indoctrinating children allows religions to claim more members and more influence than is actually justified.

The Sunday Times recently wrote about the new summer camp for kids in the most misleading, prejudiced fashion. According to the paper, it’s all a part of Richard Dawkins’ evil plan to indoctrinate children. Couldn’t be more wrong if they tried – and they are very trying. For the truth, see the Camp Quest website. Richard Dawkins has asked (politely as ever) for an apology from the newspaper.

Brilliant news from the BHA – Every school in England and Wales is to receive a free DVD of ‘Growing Up in the Universe’, Professor Richard Dawkins’ 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for children. The DVD is being distributed by the British Humanist Association with funding from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’, which both fall in 2009.

Fort Lauderdale Christian fundamentalists have been demanding the removal of a billboard message that affirms you can be good without God. In Fort Lauderdale, the Florida Atheist and Secular Humanist Society has paid for a billboard stating: “Being a good person doesn’t require God. Don’t believe in God? You’re not alone.” Local “community activist” Big Mama said, “Nothing else matters, but that sign needs to come down. In the name of Jesus.

Ireland goes backwards. The Dil has just voted to make “blasphemous libel” a crime which carries a fine of up to €25,000, as part of the new Defamation Act. Causing “outrage” will be a criminal offence. It’s not that long since we scrapped the blasphemy law this side of the Irish Sea. Wonder what would happen if Ireland’s freethinkers blasphemed en masse?

On Tuesday 14th July I offered Suffolk Humanists & Secularists an “Introduction to the Cosmos”. I’m from Coddenham Astronomical Observatory, and I used images from the Hubble Space Telescope and other space and ground based telescopes to describe the Universe in which we live. The talk began in our local neighbourhood and introduced the sizes and distances of the planets in our own solar system. As the Earth shrunk in relative size the journey took us out from the rocky inner planets to the cold gas giants most distant from the Sun.

While the BHA gets excited at the prospect of the BBC including Humanist thoughts in Radio 4 Today’s god-bothering slot, I’m not keen on the idea. Yes, I know I did T4TDs on local radio for years (necessitating early risings that totally messed up my metabolic clock – I don’t do mornings), but I’ve gone off them since then. How many people take them seriously? I get the impression that most people use them as an opportunity to go to the loo or put the kettle on, without missing anything worth listening to.

I’ve responded belatedly to the new guidance on RE, as follows: Rt Hon Ed Balls MP Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Department for Children, Schools and Families Sanctuary Buildings Great Smith Street London SW1P 3BT Dear Mr Balls, I am writing to express my disappointment at the new draft guidance produced for RE in England, particularly its failure to make it clear that the subject should be the study of both religious and non-religious beliefs and to recognise and recommend the eligibility of Humanists for full membership of SACREs and ASCs.