Dr Evan Harris (MP and NSS Honorary Associate) asks a reasonable question about people who are not at all reasonable. When is a liberal like me an extremist? When, in the words of Asghar Bukhari, chairman of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, I defend the right of Salman Rushdie to offend the likes of Mr Bukhari – and defend the Government for knighting the novelist. At least that was what Mr Bukhari screeched at me in a televised rant recently.

Slaves to Superstition is on Channel 4 on Monday 13 August at 8pm. Part 2 will be on Monday 20 August at 8pm. In his last Channel 4 series, Root of All Evil?, the evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins explored how organised faith and primitive religious values blight our lives. Read more about the issues > But the fault line runs deeper even than religion. There are two ways of looking at the world – through faith and superstition or through the rigours of logic, observation and evidence – in other words, through reason.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Member David Mitchell will talk about the longest strike in British history, when children in a Norfolk village took to the streets to protest over the dismissal of their teachers, Tom and Kitty Higdon. David plans to go to this year’s Strike School rally in Burston on the first Sunday in September. Guests and raffle prizes welcome. Further info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A6017456 Map link: tinyurl.com/fj2ck

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: We don’t assume that children will be Humanists like us, but how do we raise them the Humanist way? For example – what about Christmas? The midwinter solstice festival is one of the occasions when we can create lots of happy memories for children. Member Yvonne Peecock, grandmother to ten, has given things like this a lot of thought. Come and hear her talk about children and Humanism.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Due to a misunderstanding, this hasn’t been confirmed yet. Details to follow.

Tibet’s ‘living Buddhas’ have been told that they may not reincarnate without permission from China’s atheist leadership. Whatever your belief, this goes dramatically against Article 36 of the Consitutition of the People’s Republic of China, which stipulates that ‘all citizens enjoy freedom in religious belief; no State organ, social organisation or individual is allowed to force any citizen to believe or not to believe in any religion…no State organ, social organisation or individual is allowed to force any citizen to believe or not to believe in any religion; nor discriminate against any citizen with or with no religious belief; the State protects normal religious activities’

A friend recently asked,xml:namespace prefix ="" o /  If you absolutely believe that there is no god, does that make you a fundamentalist? I would say that some non-believers are more fundamentalist in their views than many so-called believers. Similarly, perhaps people like Dawkins could be considered to be ‘non-religious extremists’. Is there a term for a fervent non-believer? (fundamentalist atheist?) It’s true that some agnostic Humanists (including the late Sir Hermann Bondi, past president of the BHA) assert that it’s arrogant to say there is no god.

In its submission on Combating Defamation of Religions to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva IHEU has damned the current process at the UN as “unnecessary, flawed and morally wrong”. In the submission, IHEU affirms that each individual should be absolutely free to form, hold or change his or her beliefs and condemns any attempts at stereotyping of religions, racial profiling of individuals, and any and all calls for violence in the name of religion or God.

The Conservative party has commissioned a report about national security. One of the findings is that the Government is wrong to communicate with people from ethnic minorities as though they were members of groups rather than individual citizens. (Read related BBC Story here) The NSS has been saying this for years. The Blair Government created these group categories – mostly based on religion – to define whole swathes of the population.

France has proposed practical measures to ensure the country’s Muslim prayer leaders speak French and understand France’s way of life. In a newspaper interview, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said that from September, future imams must study law, civics and history. BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Study planned for France’s imams. Since there are similar concerns about the language skills and competence of British imams, of whom 9 out of 10 are from overseas, with poor English, is there a case for following France’s example?