Diary
Are you a Kiva lender?
Friday, Jul 8, 2011Have you heard of Kiva? Kiva is a non-profit organisation with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Using the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world. There are currently 597,615 members of Kiva, and 16,319 of them are part of the international Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious lending team, demonstrating that we’re all part of one human family.East Africa Crisis Appeal
Friday, Jul 8, 2011Over 10 million people are at risk in East Africa due to conflict and some areas being affected by the worst drought in 60 years. The DEC East Africa Crisis Appeal will support the work of its members in affected areas of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan. Your donations can help provide life saving aid such as food, water, care for malnourished children and medical treatment. Please click on the image to donate now to the East Africa Crisis Appeal.Phone hacking enquiry petition
Friday, Jul 8, 2011It’s been claimed that waiting for the outcome of a police investigation into the News of the World’s phone hacking allows those involved plenty of time to “lose” a lot of the evidence. Maybe you’d like to sign a petition calling for a full public enquiry now? Click here to sign Hacked Off’s petition.Hygiene lesson
Thursday, Jul 7, 2011Our man in Ghana took this photo while his colleague Nicholas was talking about hygiene to school students. Nathan says, “I took the picture but I was giving the talk as well. We hope to develop an awesome double act.”The Really Simple Guide to Humanism
Tuesday, Jul 5, 2011The BHA has a new website, The Really Simple Guide to Humanism, “to inform interested newcomers to humanism”. We wonder if they got the idea from our simple guide, A Good Life Without Religion?Humanism is not a dogma or a sect
Monday, Jul 4, 2011There is no humanist creed, no set of beliefs to which every humanist has to subscribe. Humanism is not a dogma or a sect…as human beings we can find from our own resources the shared moral values which we need in order to live together, and the means to create meaningful and fulfilling lives for ourselves.Memoria y Toleracia
Monday, Jun 27, 2011In 2005, our webmaster Nathan Nelson took a series of photos in Phnom Penhs Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, S-21. Some of them have been used in the new Museum of Memory and Tolerance, a not-for-profit based in Mexico City. Click here to see more of the photos. Warning: some will find these pictures disturbing.Steiner in Suffolk?
Thursday, Jun 23, 2011Successive UK governments have been mucking about with our education system for decades, but it seems to have been almost completely dismantled the previous Labour government, which introduced specialist schools,and academies, and the current government. The comprehensive system may not have been popular with everyone, but it was possible to fix it without destroying it in the process. Nowadays, the emphasis is on parental choice, which usually means that those who shout loudest get the most and their choices aren’t necessarily informed.Ernst says faith healers claims are criminal
Thursday, Jun 23, 2011Professor Edzard Ernst, the retiring Director of the Complimentary Medicine Research Group, said the claims of faith healers investigated on Newsnight last night are “irresponsible, even criminal”. The “healers” claimed to be able to cure cancer. Click here to see the programme.Evolution comic strip
Wednesday, Jun 22, 2011British artist Darryl Cunningham is working on a book of Science Stories, due out next spring. It’ll include a comic strip explanation of evolution. Meanwhile, you can see the strip on his blog. Darryl says, “I’m sure there’ll be mistakes here, so do feel free to point them out, so that I can make the necessary changes. Thank you.” On the subject of evolution, have you read our page about Creationism and Intelligent Design?