The Rt Rev. Patrick O’Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster, claimed casual recourse to abortion had cheapened the value of human life in the eyes of the public over the last four decades. He said he was convinced that the 1967 Abortion Act was a major cause of widespread violence among young people. Bishop Patrick Donoghue says abortion is to blame for violent Britain – Telegraph. What a crackpot!

The Church is cock-a-hoop over the news that there has been a “4.7% increase in the number of students taking Religious Education GCSEs”. The Church of England’s Head of School Improvement, Nick McKemey, believes the rise is a sign that students “appreciate the important role that religion plays in modern society”. “This further increase is evidence that more and more young people are fascinated by what they and others believe, and that they can see that the world is more fully understood by seeing past the various secularist claims that religion is mad, bad or extinct,” he said.

A Muslim has been found guilty of child cruelty after forcing two boys to beat themselves during a religious ceremony. The practice has caused controversy in Britain, but this is the first case of its kind to be brought before a UK court. BBC NEWS | UK | How a Shia ritual ended in court. Tags: Shia+Muslims, Child+abuse, BBC+News

Primary school children should have compulsory sex education lessons, MPs said today [26/8/08]. A cross-party group of MPs is calling on the government to make advice on sexual health and relationships mandatory in all schools. The group, led by Chris Bryant, a parliamentary aide to Harriet Harman, the Labour deputy leader, says that giving children more information would help reduce teenage pregnancy rates, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases. Teach primary school pupils about sex, say MPs | Education | guardian.

As the Channel 4 series The Genius of Charles Darwin drew to an end on Monday, the usual chorus of insults reined down on the head of its star, Richard Dawkins. Despite the fact that Dawkins went out of his way to avoid bad-tempered arguments or overt proselytising on atheism, his critics saw only what they wanted to see – and often that was not what appeared on the screen.

Christianity is and always has been antithetical to women’s freedom and equality, but it’s certainly not alone in this. Whether it’s one of the world’s major faiths or an off-the-wall cult, religion means one thing and one thing only for those women unfortunate enough to get caught up in it: oppression. It’s the patriarchy made manifest, male-dominated, set up by men to protect and perpetuate their power. Cath Elliott: Julie Burchill is wrong: religion is anti-feminist | Comment is free | guardian.

… it’s a waste of time responding to creationist claptrap like this letter from Mr George Gardner. He wrote to the local paper in reply to a letter I’d written about something or other related to religion, and when the paper closed the correspondence, he wrote to me. I threw that letter away after I’d replied to it, hoping I wouldn’t hear from Mr G again. A vain hope. He’d told me that he’s in his eighties, and that he “comes alive” when debating issues like this.

When Labour cabinet members were asked about their religious allegiances last December, following Tony Blair’s official conversion to Roman Catholicism, it turned out that more than half of them are not believers. The least equivocal about their atheism were the health secretary, Alan Johnson, and foreign secretary David Miliband. The fact that Miliband is an atheist is a matter of special interest given the likelihood that he may one day, and perhaps soon, occupy No 10.

The August edition is available for download from the International Humanist & Ethical Union website as a PDF. There are articles on The World Congress, Humanism in Europe, Julius Nyerere’s secular legacy in Tanzania, and Non-Believers in the Pope’s Backyard. It’s a special double issue, 3MB in size, so it may take a while to download. Alternatively, you could join the IHEU and get a copy through the post. Tags: IHEU, magazine, International+Humanist+News

FaithNetEast is an information and learning hub for faith communities in the East of England region. Funded by the Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund in the Home Office, it is hosted by the East of England Faiths Council (EEFC) and is an initiative run in partnership with Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. Its purpose is to bring together people and organisations from all faiths in the region in a network for sharing information, learning from one another, developing skills and activities and working together.