E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Exhibition and reflection for World Aids Day (Sat 1 December) at St Nicholas Centre, Ipswich. People of all faiths and none (including me) have been invited to contribute to the reflection. HIV and AIDS are still are still an enormous problem, nationally and internationally. In the UK, many sexually active people are complacent about the risks of unprotected intercourse. In developing countries, millions of children are orphaned by AIDS.

The National Secular Society has called on the Government to permit employers to declare their workplaces to be secular after another incident of conflict over religion emerged. National Secular Society – Make The Workplace Secular Tags: NSS, Religion+at+work, Discrimination

Libby on the Laxfield (Suffolk) Festival of Tolerance. Why haven’t we heard about this before? You don’t doom a man for what he believes, even if you think he’s wrong. You don’t let a neighbour be persecuted, even if he’s not of your faith. Thus 450 years later Laxfield holds a festival of tolerance to show solidarity with those long-dead ancestors. Zero tolerance for religious intolerance | Libby Purves – Times Online.

One of the key religious themes of Philip Pullman’s award-winning series of children’s novels, His Dark Materials, has been watered down to appeal to a wider audience in the new Hollywood film version of the first book. The original story’s rejection of organised religion, and in particular of the historic abuse of power in the Catholic Church, has been altered to avoid offending followers of the faith in the UK and in America.

Speaking at a lecture at Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre, [Rowan] Williams described religious belief as ‘naturally self-critical’ which was a point that contemporary critics such as evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, often missed. ‘There are specific areas of mismatch between what Dawkins may write about and what religious people think they are doing,’ he said. Williams was referring to Dawkins’s book, The God Delusion, in which the atheist scientist attacks God ‘in all his forms’ arguing that belief in a supernatural entity is irrational.

We reported that Newfoundlanders had banned faith schools, and a Conservative politician was fighting an election with the promise to bring them back. He lost. The Canadian province of Ontario had an election this week, which resulted in a change of administration. The Liberals have taken over the reins of power after the Conservatives foolishly promised they would create a system of taxpayer-funded religious schools. The electorate reacted with extreme hostility to the idea, proposed by the aptly named Conservative leader John Tory.

Former US-President Al Gore has won a Nobel prize for his Climate Change work, but presumably this won’t impress Dover school governor Stewart Dimmock, who tried to ban the film from being shown in schools. He didn’t succeed but a judge ruled that, if shown in schools, the film must be accompanied with guidance “giving the other side of the argument”, which will gladden the hearts of climate change deniers everywhere.

Suffolk Humanist Nathan Nelson has taken a short break in Laos during his prolonged stay in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where he’s been doing voluntary work. We’ve had rain; they’ve had more rain. You can follow Nathan’s adventures on his blog. Tags: Nathan+Nelson, Blog, Cambodia, Laos

I receive a weekly email from Laurie Taylor about his programme on Radio 4, Thinking Allowed. Today’s sounds interesting: You’ve probably had one of these moments yourself. There you are, sitting quietly across the table from a new acquaintance who seems to have all the necessary qualifications to become a new friend. They’re reasonably attractive, fairly clever, quite funny, and nicely self-deprecating. They have some good stories to tell and seem refreshingly free of prejudice.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: I’ll be talking to BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Rachel Sloane about the anti-Humanist comments made by John Gummer MP at the Tory party conference. The broadcast should start at 8 am. Not sure how long it’ll last. Mr Gummer is being invited to participate or to send a statement. Rachel met Suffolk Humanists in December 2006 and recorded a feature for her Sunday morning series on Suffolk faiths.