Diary
Merry Midwinter!
Monday, Dec 20, 2010Stay safe, keep warm, and don’t forget to feed the birds. Click here for some seasonal thoughts from Terry Sanderson, NSS President. Robin woodcut by Thomas Bewick.Winner of the Bad Faith Award
Friday, Dec 17, 2010Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed, head of the UK Islamic Sharia Council, has won the 2010 Bad Faith Award for asserting that there’s no such thing as marital rape. Clearly there cannot be any rape within the marriage, he’s reported as saying. Maybe aggression, maybe indecent activity.The Winterval myth
Monday, Dec 13, 2010You may have read that the Pope, Eric Pickles MP, the Daily Mail, and many others are blaming atheists, Muslims, councils and various other killjoys for “banning Christmas” in the interests of not offending anyone – “PC gone mad!” – and are calling the festive season “Winterval” instead. Calm down. It’s not true. Kevin Arscott, who writes the Angry Mob blog, explains that the story is all due to bad journalism (and there’s a lot of it about) in an essay you can download as a pdf file.Celebration of Human Rights
Saturday, Dec 11, 2010A Humanist contribution to an inter-faith Celebration of Human Rights hosted by the Ipswich & District Bah community at Ipswich Central Library, 10 December 2010. The theme was Article 26:2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Spiritual Education”: Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.Christmas with children, without hassle
Wednesday, Dec 8, 2010This was an article in a newsletter from 2008 by Sophie Lovejoy, when her children were young. It provides ideas for parents with limited budgets who’d like to keep their spending under control, yet still have a good time. Christmas is invariably a challenge with small children, particularly if you aren’t Christian. For the past few years, my halcyon days of totally ignoring Christmas have been entirely forgotten. I got away with not celebrating when Tess was one, but as she turned two, I couldn’t hold out any longer.Persecuted Christians? In Britain?
Wednesday, Dec 1, 2010Christians are saying that they’re ‘Not Ashamed‘, apparently, and Eric Pickles has declared war on the war on Christmas. I didn’t know anything about the Not Ashamed campaign when I came out of the shower this morning and answered the phone from BBC Radio Suffolk. Due to some crossed wires, I was expected to comment on air. Had to ask what I was supposed to be commenting about. So if it makes no sense, that’s why.Our Good Life Without Religion website attracts 1000s of visitors
Saturday, Nov 27, 2010Our new single-page website, A Good Life Without Religion, went live at the beginning of September to coincide with the distribution of our car stickers to members and others. So far, it’s been viewed 29,928 times. Many of the visitors may have come through search engines, some through our online publicity. The site is designed as an introduction to humanism for anyone whos disillusioned with religion, or simply looking for like-minded people.Parents dont necessarily choose faith schools for their religion
Wednesday, Nov 17, 2010Ekklesia reports on the results of a YouGov poll commissioned by ITV at around the time of the Pope’s visit. They show that a school’s religion doesn’t necessarily come top of their priority list. Factors such as performance of the school, how easy it is to get into, the area the school is in, curriculum (which may of course have a religious influence), class sizes and facilities all seem to have been more important for parents.New Secular Charter from the National Secular Society
Tuesday, Nov 16, 2010The NSS Council has devised a new Secular Charter that seeks to be fair to everyone, to be achievable and to be benign. Seems good to me. The Society promotes the separation of religion and state where law and the administration of justice are based on equality, respect for Human Rights and objective evidence without regard to religious doctrine or belief. We campaign for the following constitutional principles: There shall be no established state religion.Christopher Hitchens and the atheist Nazis myth
Tuesday, Nov 16, 2010With reference to my last post about the Pope and his repetition of the atheism=Nazism lie, here’s Christopher Hitchens. He begins by saying, “Atheism is not a moral or political position of any kind,” which of course it isn’t. Yes, there are some nasty atheists, but Hitler wasn’t one of them. He was just nasty.