Diary
Lib Dems call for secular commission
Friday, Oct 16, 2009Last weekend, South Central Liberal Democrats Regional Conference passed a resolution calling for the state to be completely independent of any religion and none, as follows: Conference notes: That Britain is becoming more multicultural every day and virtually every religious faith in the world is now actively practised in the UK; The steady decline in attendance at traditional Christian Churches and That the Church of England is still tied to the Monarchy and the State; That much discord in the world arises from strong religious belief or none.Man faces execution after jurors consulted the Bible
Thursday, Oct 15, 2009And if he smite him with an instrument of iron … the murderer shall surely be put to death (Numbers 35:16). Amnesty International has issued an urgent appeal for a man facing execution in three weeks’ time despite the fact that jurors at his trial consulted passages from the Bible in deciding his fate. Thirty-two-year-old Khristian Oliver is set to be executed in Texas, USA on 5 November. He was sentenced to death in 1999 for a murder committed during a burglary.Balls
Thursday, Oct 15, 2009![Ed Balls](/wp-content/uploads/Ed Balls.jpg)Education Minister Ed Balls made a speech at the Institute of Directors yesterday. This is some of it: It is now just over two years since we launched our Faith in the System document at the British Library. It was a hugely important event. And it came just a few months after I began this job in fact, the speech I made then was one of the very first speeches I gave as Secretary of State.Warning: Evangelists at Costa Coffee
Tuesday, Oct 13, 2009The NSS reports: Caf Church is the brainchild of Baptist Minister Cid Latty of Christchurch Baptist Church, Welwyn Garden City. The concept is simple – people won’t go to church, so why not bring the church to the people via high street coffee chains? “The idea is to encourage those who might feel uncomfortable in a church building to worship in a more neutral environment,” say the organisers. Costa Coffee and the Gloria Jean coffee shop chain have co-operated with this scheme.Dear Mr Blair, the Iraqis are losing their faith
Monday, Oct 12, 2009Not quite the outcome that Mr Blair had in mind when he agreed to invade Iraq, Iraqis disillusioned with a God that allows the chaos and carnage they’ve endured since 2003 are losing their faith. He must be so disappointed.Tonight on Radio 4 And Another Thing
Monday, Oct 12, 2009Tonight on Radio 4, the first part of ‘And Another Thing’, Eoin Colfer’s sequel to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Read by Stephen Mangan, with Peter Serafinowicz. If you miss it, you’ll be able to listen via i-Player. We’ve written about Douglas Adams elsewhere on this site. Apparently, Colfer’s sequel has been approved by Adams’ widow, and it sounds as though Douglas might have approved. Review tomorrow, probably.The Flaming Lips secular Humanisms house band?
Monday, Oct 12, 2009In today’s Guardian, Kitty Empire writes, If secular humanism had a house band it would be Oklahoma’s Flaming Lips. Having begun life in the mid-80s as lysergic slackers, the Lips have evolved into a kaleidoscopic outfit in which the forces of good and evil thrash it out nightly. Warm fuzziness and faith in human decency triumph most of the time. Their best-known epiphany, “Do You Realize?”, watches the planet hurtling through space before skewering fans with the knowledge that everyone they know, someday, will die.Urgent action juveniles to be executed in Iran
Thursday, Oct 8, 2009An urgent message from the IHEU: Behnoud Shojaee and Akram Mahdavi are scheduled to be executed in Evin prison this Sunday October 11, 2009, which falls one day after the International Day Against Execution. They were under 18 when they committed the crimes they’ve been sentenced for. Please read the IHEU report and act now.Theos research class, education and atheism
Wednesday, Oct 7, 2009Andrew Brown of the Guardian made a lot of readers cross when he wrote that atheists are all middle-class, Aga-owning snobs. Now Theos, the public theology think tank, says that – Although atheists have historically been drawn from upper social grades and higher education levels, the research shows that converts to atheism are disproportionately drawn from groups with no educational qualifications whereas converts to theism are disproportionately drawn from higher socio-economic grades and from people with a masters degree or higher.Roman Polanski is NOT a humanist
Sunday, Oct 4, 2009Hollywood stars who’ve supported film director Roman Polanski, arrested for a rape he committed in 1977, may be regretting rushing to his defence, as public opinion, led by some outspoken women, has condemned him. According to The Telegraph, Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein said Polanski was a “humanist” who had been the victim of a “miscarriage of justice”. Oh no he isn’t.