She was an outspoken agnostic, with a leaning towards atheism, but she believed as strongly as I do that our traditional rites of passage are important, if only for the survivors. So, having scarcely ever darkened the doors of our parish church, three minutes from our house, she is now buried in its churchyard. I’m not religious, but there’s something about funerals | Minette Marrin – Times Online.

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Julie Coombes teaches locally. She’ll talk about her experience of RE in the primary school. There’s a group member on Suffolk’s SACRE who helped devise the new RE syllabus (including Humanism and secular world views) that was introduced in 2007, so we’ll be especially interested in what Julie has to tell us. We’ll be in The Hall at Castle Hill Community Centre, Highfield Road, Ipswich – through the front door, turn left, then right.

Stretches of Britain’s coastline are doomed and plans will soon have to be drawn up to evacuate people from the most threatened areas, the new head of the Environment Agency warns today [18/8/08]. In his first interview since taking office, Lord Smith of Finsbury says Britain faces hard choices over which areas of our coast to defend and which to allow the sea to reclaim. He said detailed work was already far advanced on identifying areas of the east and south coasts which were most vulnerable to erosion, and called on ministers to give emergency help to families whose homes will be lost.

Billed as the first joint appearance by both presidential hopefuls, it was tightly controlled to avoid clashes. John McCain and Barak Obama hug each other. This was not a debate. It was a “civil forum” organised by Saddleback Church, a huge and hugely influential ministry run by Pastor Rick Warren, a multi-million selling author. He arrived on stage with smiles and to great applause. He joked with the crowd, fully aware of the banks of cameras lined along the back wall, the two tents full of journalists watching on screens outside and the millions of people watching live on TV.

We get some strange spam here at S H & S HQ. Mostly it’s the usual – porn, viagra, Nigerians with millions ready to transfer into our bank account, and wristwatches – but once in a while there’s something more unusual. The latest offers us free tickets… We are looking for good quality partners in a range of relevant sectors including entertainment, travel, theme parks, events, sports and other advisory and guide sites.

First of all, let me tell you what this isn’t. It’s not some “I-was-lost-and-now-I’m-found” sob story. These days, many people reach out to faith “to find peace”. I had too much peace in my life already. In faith, I was looking to be troubled – on behalf of other people. Every film and pop starlet, trawling after a reason to exist, says, “I’m not religious – but I am spiritual”.

SUFFOLK’S new university is successfully stemming the brain drain of talent from the county – with nearly 5,000 students set to study there from September. Many of those signed up on courses for the next academic year are from Suffolk, as well as Norfolk and Essex, and student numbers have grown by an estimated 500 since it opened last year. Education chiefs and business leaders had previously voiced concerns at figures which showed that many young people left the county for higher education and never returned.

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These proverbs from Slovakia show the other side of “family values”. This is the name of a whole system of control which can prevent a woman from leaving an abusive marriage and further cement her in place by burdening her with unplanned children. The control imposed by the Vatican disproportionately affects women. That’s because the hierarchy of obedience which goes from the pope to the parish priest doesn’t stop there: it continues on, from the head of the household down to his wife.