Diary
Off That a hip-hop rationalist anthem
Sunday, Mar 21, 2010Commissioned for the online music festival Geek Pop, a hip-hop anthem for rationalists and atheists. We like.Teenage atheists, and the girl who worried about me
Saturday, Mar 20, 2010RE teacher Mr Thingummybob got our mailing last September, suggesting that they might not have included humanism and secular world views in RE yet, as they’re supposed to – I helped to devise a new syllabus that was introduced in September 2007. As Year 10 don’t do any RE, though they’re supposed to, he has a cunning plan; ask me and a bunch religious speakers in for a morning for a RE “carousel”, where we each talk to four of six groups for 50 minutes at a time.Bishops in the House of Lords message from the BHA
Thursday, Mar 11, 2010The BHA is appealing for its supporters to use an Internet tool to send a message to the 26 bishops who sit in the House of Lords: Time for a reformed second chamber! Click here to go to the BHA site.Follow us on your mobile
Monday, Mar 8, 2010You can now follow us on your mobile – http://m.suffolkhands.org.uk/Its official: homeopathy is useless
Sunday, Mar 7, 2010If you’ve been following the campaign to stop the funding for homeopathy on the NHS, and the mass overdose outside branches of Boots, you’ll be delighted to hear that Parliament’s Science and Technology Select Committee, after hearing all the evidence, has called for the complete withdrawal of NHS funding and official licencing of homeopathy. Peter Fisher, director of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, told the committee that the remedies’ efficacy depended on how you shook them (Note: shaken, not stirred):Sinead OConnor would help Jesus to burn down the Vatican
Sunday, Mar 7, 2010Sinad O’Connor, the Irish Catholic singer-songwriter, has reacted angrily to the news that the Bishop of Ferns, Denis Brennan, has asked parishioners to help pay the compensation claimed by the church’s abuse victims. Apparently, he was “asking for help to fulfil a God-given responsibility. O’Connor wrote to the Irish Independent: How long do they expect us to restrain ourselves? We have put up with this bull dung for hundreds of years.The end of the world is nigh, or maybe not
Friday, Mar 5, 2010Thanks to Catherine Bennett, I’ve learned a new ‘ology – eschatology, literally the study of the last. So, if there’s an eschatology, there must be eschatologists, right? Gosh, they must be fun in the pub. “Oh, hello, what do you do?” “I study the end of the world.” Pause. “Really? How does that happen?” “Well, the dead could be resurrected, or the Devil could be set free, or adultery and fornication will be performed in the open, or …” “Where’s my drink?March Newsletter ethical juries
Friday, Mar 5, 2010Our March newsletter is now available – [click here to download it]( http://www.suffolkhands.org.uk/files/1/2010 SH&S News March.pdf “March 2010 newsletter”) (pdf) Click here for help with pdf files.The BHAs Andrew Copson on BBC news, re: Balls amendment
Saturday, Feb 27, 2010BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson was interviewed on BBC News about the amendment to the Children, Schools and Families Bill (see previous posts), before it was debated. Sadly, the Commons voted for Ed Balls’ amendement. Video courtesy of the BHAAmerican Humanists in the White House
Saturday, Feb 27, 2010Yesterday, representatives of the Secular Coalition for America met White House officials to discuss issues of concern to American atheists, humanists and secularists. Before the meeting, they said, … it will be the latest indication that the secular movement is gaining significant momentum, and that secular Americans, numbering in the tens of millions, are a constituency that must be included. Predictably, fundamentalist Christian right-wingers have reacted as though President Obama was making a pact with the devil (who doesn’t exist, though try telling them that).