It’s a little over seven years since the death of Douglas Adams, atheist author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. In his “Lament for Douglas Adams”, written on hearing of Adams’ death, Richard Dawkins wrote, To illustrate the vain conceit that the universe must be somehow preordained for us, because we are so well suited to live in it, he mimed a wonderfully funny imitation of a puddle of water, fitting itself snugly into a depression in the ground, the depression uncannily being exactly the same shape as the puddle.

If you read about us in today’s East Anglian Daily Times and this is your first visit, hello and welcome. Please explore. As the late Douglas Adams (a Humanist author) would have said, we’re “mostly harmless”. Tags: East+Anglian+Daily+Times, EADT, Welcome, Douglas+Adams

“There’s a vaguely new-age feeling going around that any form of inner agitation is bad and that we should all be heading for inner peace. I think that’s morally outrageous. There’s something deeply self-centred about aspiring to be the kind of person who’s not perturbed by anything.” Julian Baggini: The gripes of wrath. In an interview with Humanist philosopher Baggini in the Sunday Herald, it says, He singles out Buddhism as “one of those religions which are most explicit in encouraging us not to complain” and, when he does, his argument seems convincing.

Charles Darwin was only partially right when he put forth his theory on evolution. We did evolve; that much is clear. What Darwin fails to mention in his papers is that our DNA was programmed to evolve by a dying race of superintelligent aliens who once lived in our galaxy. Don’t believe me? Let us turn then to Star Trek, The Next Generation, 6:20. It is here that we learn of how Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise, along with some Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians discovered a hologram which tells us the story:

A new movie coming out soon is set to take a gentle prod at religion.

The church is upset about being ignored. Oh dear. I shall keep my sarcasm to myself, but it is amusing. A report commissioned by the Church of England will accuse the government of marginalising the Church. The report – by the Von Hugel Institute in Cambridge – will say ministers are failing to understand the Church’s role in providing social services. It will also accuse them of favouring Islam and other religions, and paying only “lip service” to Christianity.

The latest edition is now available to download as a PDF file from the International Humanist & Ethical Union website. It contains articles about the difficulties of attracting Africans to Humanism, the portrayal of religion in the media, the destruction of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the OIC (Organisation of the Islamic Conference), how to adopt a Dalit village in India, and an interview with George Broadhead of GALHA (Gay & Lesbian Humanist Association).

East Suffolk Morris Man Alan Tong was given a Humanist funeral at Oakfield Wood green burial ground on June 5, conducted by our ceremonies team member Michael Imison. If you go to the Morris Men’s website and click on “Alan Tong” on the ticker at the top, and then “ulogy” [sic] at the bottom, you can read what was said. If you click on the “Anglia News” link at the bottom of the same page, you can see a video of the Anglia News report.

Friends of the Earth Australia is putting pressure on its new government to deliver on policies relating to the displacement of climate refugees in the Pacific. Pacific Island nations are increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events, collapsing ecosystems and the contamination of their fresh water and crops with salt water. These detrimental impacts of climate change are already evident but are predicted to worsen. It’s likely that the UK and other European countries will face pressure to take in climate refugees from Africa in the not-too-distant future, yet the subject has (so far) received little attention, maybe because our politicians are wary of raising an unpopular subject.

If you’re visiting us for the first time after reading Lynne Mortimer’s feature article in the Evening Star on 2 June, please explore our site and maybe let us know what you think. Tags: Evening+Star, Ipswich, Press