A network of independent local secular groups which share the aims of the National Secular Society (NSS).

Dozens of schools are using creationist teaching materials condemned by the government as “not appropriate to support the science curriculum”, the Guardian has learned. The packs promote the creationist alternative to Darwinian evolution called intelligent design and the group behind them said 59 schools are using the information as “a useful classroom resource”. Link: Revealed: rise of creationism in UK schools | News crumb | EducationGuardian.co.uk We’re not aware of any Suffolk schools that are doing this, but if you know different, please contact us.

The Suffolk Humanist group, Suffolk Humanists, is affiliated to the British Humanist Association, which recently commissioned an Ipsos MORI poll about British attitudes towards religion and humanism. The following is part of a press release that’s been sent to all the Suffolk media. Feel free to draw the attention of anyone who may be interested, such as your MP and county councillor, to what it says. We get the feeling that since religion has been in the news so much lately, the publicity has backfired on the religious authorities because an increasing number of people are saying they’re tired of the way they’ve been demanding attention.

On this day (24th November), 147 years ago, Charles Darwin’s revolutionary book, On the Origin of Species, was published. His theory of evolution by natural selection is still generally accepted as the best explanation of how life on Earth developed. Darwin was reluctant to publish his book because he knew it would attract widespread condemnation from those who believed, or said they believed, the biblical creation story. He was a quiet, studious man who preferred to avoid controversy or offending religious people.

Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, took part in BBC Radio 4’s ‘In Our Time’ programme this morning (23 November) on Altruism. The programme is presented by Melvyn Bragg. You can download the programme, or Listen Again via the In Our Time website. The other participants were Miranda Fricker, Senior Lecturer in the School of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, and John Dupr, Professor of Philosophy of Science at Exeter University and director of Egenis, the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: T4TD by Margaret Nelson during Mark Murphy’s programme on BBC Radio Suffolk (95.5, 95.9, 103.9 & 104.6 fm). Listen online or listen again via the Radio Suffolk website.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: T4TD by Margaret Nelson during Mark Murphy’s programme on BBC Radio Suffolk (95.5, 95.9, 103.9 & 104.6 fm). Listen online or listen again via the Radio Suffolk website.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: T4TD by Margaret Nelson during Mark Murphy’s programme on BBC Radio Suffolk (95.5, 95.9, 103.9 & 104.6 fm). Listen online or listen again via the Radio Suffolk website.

Some of the children were dancing, their bodies writhing and twisting, their arms flailing in the air, perspiration on their foreheads. Some had fallen to the ground, ‘slain in the spirit’, as the phrase has it, and were now crouching and kneeling in prayer, while the grown-ups moved among them laying on hands, some speaking in tongues. Ruth, who is eight years old, was sobbing quietly. Earlier that day she had been one of those to come forward during the ‘prophetic dance’ session, when Pastor Becky Fischer asked if anybody had heard the word of God and had something to impart.

David Starkey argues that the Church must be disestablished to ensure that other religions can’t claim a right to faith schools and the other privileges it has. We need “a level playing field”. I adore much about the Church of England, profound atheist though I am. I raise funds for its cathedrals and parish churches, which I regard as absolutely intrinsic to the fabric of England. But because of what is happening with Islam, the sweet, confused C of E has, alas, to be disestablished.