The huge success of the Atheist Bus Campaign has amazed the people who run the Just Giving website. They write: … this page is remarkable for the sheer speed that it’s raising money – we’ve been noticing that there are new donations every time we refresh the page. Whatever you believe, it certainly shows the power of online fundraising. The campaign has not only smashed its target for the British Humanist Association but it’s gone from trebling the target to quadrupling it in the time spent writing this blog post…

Gay & Lesbian Humanist, the magazine that suspended publication amid controversy in 2005, is to return online. The new web version takes over from the print version, which had been publishing quarterly since 1981. In a statement today, the magazine’s editors say: “Many people will remember G&LH. Some may remember why it suspended publication following a protracted dispute about content.” “After a period of change and restructuring within the Pink Triangle Trust, the trustees decided to resume publication.

Bendy-buses with the slogan “There’s probably no God” could soon be running on the streets of London. The atheist posters are the idea of the British Humanist Association (BHA) and have been supported by prominent atheist Professor Richard Dawkins. BBC NEWS | England | London | ‘No God’ slogans for city’s buses. You can donate online at Just Giving. Across the Pond, P Z Myers has noticed the campaign, and comments:

Sony has delayed the launch of a new video game because of fears that the background music may offend Muslims. The music, by Muslim musician Toumani Diabat from Mali, contains a couple of phrases from the Qur’an. When their attention was drawn to this, Sony decided not to risk offending anyone. Whatever you do, if it’s anything to do with religion, you’re bound to offend someone. On the BBC news, Muslim journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown said more or less the same thing.

“We don’t have the answers to everything, just the answers to everything that matters” – learn from The elders from the First Church of the DC Comictician and Latter Day Citizens of the United Federation of Planets.

Hundreds of Christians in the Indian state of Orissa have been forced to renounce their religion and become Hindus after lynch mobs issued them with a stark ultimatum: convert or die. The wave of forced conversions marks a dramatic escalation in a two-month orgy of sectarian violence which has left at least 59 people dead, 50,000 homeless and thousands of houses and churches burnt to the ground. As neighbour has turned on neighbour, thousands more Christians have sought sanctuary in refugee camps, unable to return to the wreckage of their homes unless they, too, agree to abandon their faith.

The Ipswich Advertiser reports: A BITTER tug-of- war has broken out today [17 October 2008] over the future of one of Ipswich’s most high-profile schools. Despite improving GCSE rates and opposition from staff, Holywells High School could become a church-sponsored academy. Although no final decision has been made and a full consultation is yet to take place, sources at multicultural Holywells High have hit out at a proposal to convert the school into an academy, saying they have been put under pressure by Suffolk County Council to become a faith school.

Although the headlines majored on the BBC’s fearful relationship with Islam, there was another point hidden in the BBC director general’s speech to the Theos Christian thinktank this week, and it is just as disturbing. Those of us who have wondered why there is such a ridiculous excess of religion on the BBC now have the answer. It is because Mark Thompson, an enthusiastic Catholic, wants it. Thompson is a great proselytiser for his faith in the mould of Lord Reith, who thought the BBC was “the nation’s church”.

Rashin Soodmand is an Iranian Christian. Her father was hanged for apostasy – he converted to Christianity when he was thirteen. Now her brother, also a Christian, risks the same fate. Rashin says, “They assume that if you are Iranian, you must be Muslim.” It’s not surprising that it appears there are no atheists in Iran. Declaring your non-belief would risk death or life imprisonment. Read more in The Telegraph.

Zehra Zaidi’s piece in the Guardian about the latest daft idea from Hazel Blears & Co is spot on. The constant harping on about “community cohesion”, which really means trying to get Muslims and others to all get along, is ridiculous. Can’t they see that the proliferation of faith schools is an obstacle to social harmony? There’ve been many “consultations” that were ostensibly about achieving harmony and understanding, but all they do is exaggerate the differences between people, rather than encourage them to discover what they have in common.