If you click on the link on this web site to shop at Amazon, we’ll get some commission to add to our funds. You could begin with a copy of Jim Herrick’s book, ‘Humanism: an introduction”, for £14.50 (free delivery). Jim will be our guest speaker next month. Tags: Books, Shopping, Amazon

‘They’ The Bishop tells us: ‘When the boys come back They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought In a just cause: they lead the last attack On Anti-Christ; their comrades’ blood has bought New right to breed an honourable race, They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.’ ‘We’re none of us the same!’ the boys reply. ‘For George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind;

Mosey on over to the New Humanist site for their latest news update, including the nominees for the 2008 Bad Faith Award. They are: Tony Blair, Stephen Green, Sarah Palin, Rowan Williams, St Monica’s Governors, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Bishop of Durham, Ann Coulter, and Adnan Oktar aka Harun Yahya. Vote for your favourite. Hard to choose, isn’t it? There’s more about the Atheist Bus Campaign, with a podcast from Ariane Sherine, and highlights from the latest issue of the magazine.

Read the latest International Humanist & Ethical Union News on their website. It includes plans for an East African Humanist Convention in Kampala next February, the appointment of Matt Cherry (who used to be with the BHA) as the IHEU’s international representative, and more on the Islamic States attempts to limit Freedom of Expression after their victory in the Human Rights Council. Sign up for a regular IHEU newsletter here.

From my early teens (pre 1960) I have found no sense in theism.I was content with no religion for 30 years but then some experiences made me realise that there might be more things to take account of in my philosophy but it would take too long to describe all that now. It opened me to the possiblity that something of me might survive death in some form. If this occurs I see this as a natural not supernatural occurrence.

Obama will be President of the US. Although he’s a Christian (an essential qualification, as things stand – no chance of an atheist President, yet), he’s a liberal Christian. Maybe his attitude might be more like that of former President Jimmy Carter, who said, “I was very meticulous in completely separating my religious faith from any element of politics or governance in the White House. I believed in what Thomas Jefferson, one of our founding fathers, said that we should build a wall between Church and state.

This year we get a choice between religious or non-religious Xmas stamps. The Royal Mail offers the Madonna and Child or some pantomime characters. I love the irony in the Royal Mail selecting various made-up characters as an alternative to the religious stamps! Tags: Xmas+stamps, Royal+Mail

The kids started a new (non-denominational) school today. And my first fight with the school is this afternoon. The school is supporting the Samaritan’s Purse shoebox operation, where children fill shoeboxes with toys etc for children in eastern Europe and Africa…and then the evangelical literature is added before they’re distributed. Am very cross indeed. I’ve sourced an alternative – another Christian organisation but one which doesn’t put anything into the boxes and doesn’t send out propaganda.

Tomorrow (4 November 2008), the voters of the United States of America will help to steer the direction of their country for the next four, probably eight years. It’s their choice but it is a choice that will affect us all. In the rest of the world, polls have shown quite clearly that Barack Obama is the overwhelming choice to be the next US President. Most Humanists would agree, especially as the Republican Party of George W.

The Atheist Bus was briefly mentioned on Ian Wyatt’s Sunday Breakfast programme on BBC Essex today (2 November), with comment from me and Francis Goodwin of the Church’s Advertising Network. A listener phoned in to say he was “offended”, apparently at the mere suggestion that there is no god. You can listen again by clicking this link, but you’ll need broadband and Real Player – click here to install it. The bus bit is in the last 15 minutes of the programme.