E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Andrew Marr’s programme Start the Week on Radio 4. Guests include the philosopher Daniel Dennett, author of “Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon”. The programme’s repeated at 9.30 pm. Listen online via the link below. Further info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/starttheweek.shtml

Old news, but still good news. Can you imagine having a similar event here? In Norway this spring (2007) over 10.000 youths aged 15 celebrated their Humanist confirmation. Keeping up a more than 50 years tradition they meet in concert halls and medieval castles, municipal cinemas and cultural centres, city halls and community houses. They gather in bigger and smaller towns all over the country. They celebrate from the southern “bible belt” of small towns with white painted wooden houses to the far north close to the border of Russia and in the Sami community of Karasjok.

The Telegraph asks its readers to comment about Humanism being included in RE syllabuses. Go to their website to add your comment. Thousands of teenagers will be taught about humanism for the first time as part of a religious education GCSE. Have Your Say: Should humanism be taught at GCSE? Pupils will be encouraged to debate controversial issues from the standpoint of all the major faiths – as well as those that reject the existence of God.

If you’ve been following the US election trail, you may have noticed that the main candidates have been trying to establish their religious credentials. I don’t know what, if anything, any of them has said about evolution, but since a large proportion of the electorate doesn’t believe in it, I guess they have to avoid the subject if they’re at all skeptical. Lewis Black is very funny about George Bush’s beliefs.

This is the project that Suffolk Humanists & Secularists member Nathan Nelson told us about at our meeting in February. You can now donate online to support the children at the centre. The Sangkheum Center for Children provides education, training, scholastic support and care to children between the ages of 4 and 17. In Khmer, Sangkheum means ‘Hope’. Since 2001, the Sangkheum Center for Children has given hope to over 260 orphaned, abused or neglected children and provided education and vocational training to many more that otherwise would not have the opportunity to go to school.

The evolutionary biologist and best-selling author of The God Delusion will appear as a guest star in the new series of Doctor Who, which began last night [12 April 2008]. “People were falling at his feet,” says Davies, creator of the BBC’s flagship show. “We’ve had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping.” Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord – Media, News – The Independent.

At our AGM on 10th April, we decided to change our name to “Suffolk Humanists & Secularists” in response to a suggestion by Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, that such a name change would make our commitment to secularism more explicit, and hence more appealing to the increasing number of people who might like to campaign on secular issues at local level. This website will be updated accordingly.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) has today [10/4/08]welcomed the forthcoming repeal of the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 and its replacement with much stricter regulations, offering often very vulnerable consumers much greater protection against fraud and dishonest behaviour when they access spiritualist ‘services’. Hanne Stinson , BHA Chief Executive, said, ‘With only a handful of convictions against dishonest and fraudulent mediums and others in their field, it is clear that the current law is not fit for purpose.

Few people can be unaware of the protests associated with the Olympic Torch Relay in London and Paris, but some may think that they are just about the Chinese in Tibet. This is only part of the story. China’s human rights record is appalling. There’s no sign that it might improve as a consequence of staging the games in Beijing. Read more on the Amnesty website… As the Olympic torch approaches China for its momentous entry into the Olympic stadium, the stage is overshadowed by China’s deteriorating human rights situation.

Things are changing in America. Harvard has a Humanist chaplain. Over the past two years, Greg Epstein, 30, has become a kind of ministerial paradox, a member of the local clergy who disavows God, preaches to atheists and agnostics, and seeks to build the equivalent of a church for nonbelievers and others skeptical of or alienated by religion. A former lead singer of a rock band, he now serves as the humanist chaplain at Harvard University, one of a small but growing number of such chaplains for nonbelievers on college campuses.