Petition for secular state education

This is a really important issue. We should just teach children to think for themselves and let them make their own minds about religion as they approach maturity.

http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/make-all-state-schools-secular-say-no-to-faith-run-state-schools

£250 prize for a Secular TftD

The ongoing irritation at the BBC's exclusion of secular voices from The Thought for the Day slot has spurred one the previous presidents of the National Secular Society, David Tribe, to sponsor a prize of £250 for the best secular Thought for the Day.

Further details:-

http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/02/win-gbp250--just-write-an-uplifting-secular-thought-for-the-day

A decalogue for the 21st Century

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS - GREATLY MISSED

The Crisis of Secularism

A nicely argued case from Pat Condell.

Happy Summer Solstice

Something to celebrate. A day not nabbed by the faithnuts. . . .

President Obama lays it on the line . . .

"In a secular society the religiously motivated must translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific values. Their proposals must be subject to argument and reason, and should not be accorded any undue automatic respect".

~ President Barack Obama

Religion & Power

It is not necessary to destroy religion, but it is necessary to destroy any vestige of power that religion wields. We cannot have religious practitioners claiming authority or privilege on the basis of a funny hat and having a special relationship with an Invisible Magic Sky Daddy. ~ quedula.

"Census Christians" explained . . .

Richard Dawkins explains the results of the IPSOS Mori census research very slowly and very, very carefully. Reason personified.

Secularism

We could equally subscribe to exactly the same ideals in the UK especially with regard to the growing numbers of faith schools.

Banned ice cream adverts

"Immaculately conceived"

"We believe in Salivation"

These mildly-amusing adverts have been banned in the UK by the Advertising Standards Authority on the grounds they might offend catholics. Yet very few complaints were received. 

In a letter to Communications Minister, Ed Vaizey, the National Secular Society says:-

“Although these advertisements were only meant to be mildly humorous or satirical, their banning represents something much more sinister. We have now reached the stage where any reference to religion that is not completely reverential is immediately branded as “offensive” and therefore unacceptable. This is an intolerable threat to freedom of expression that must be challenged.

“We ask that you instigate an enquiry into the ASA’s oversensitive approach to advertising with a religious theme. It is getting completely out of hand when something as mild and humorous as these ice cream advertisements is banned from public view on such spurious grounds.”

Happy Boxing Day

Traditionally, Boxing Day is a secular holiday, and though there are a lot of theories about where the term 'boxing' came from, the tradition has long included giving money and other gifts to those who are in need.

Historic mentions of Boxing Day include one from diarist Samuel Pepys, who recorded in his entry for 19 December 1663:

'Thence by coach to my shoemaker’s and paid all there, and gave something to the boys’ box against Christmas.'

BHA Bulletin

Morality

"What binds us together, what gives us our sense of empathy and compassion - our goodness - is something far more important, more fundamental and more powerful than religion: it is our common humanity, deriving from our pre-religious evolutionary heritage, then refined and improved by centuries of of secular enlightenment." ~ Richard Dawkins. "Do you get it now Prime Minister?" New Statesman, 19/12/2011

E-petition to close the UK Embassy in the Holy See

The petitioner says: "Following Ireland's closure of it's embassy in the Vatican it seems to me time to review our links with this small state. Do we need an embassy here? There is an embassy for Italy in Rome more or less a short walk from the Vatican. Let's save the money."

Go to: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22434

Huge decline in UK Christianity

The latest Office of National Statistics Integrated Household Survey figures on religion reveal an extraordinarily rapid decline in Christianity in Britain. The figures, published this week, show that growing numbers of Britons are rejecting religious belief, with almost one in four now saying they have “no religion at all”

Keith Porteous Wood, NSS Executive Director, urged Ministers to reflect on the decline of religious belief as they sanctioned an ‘ever-increasing’ number of state funded faith schools, a move which was ‘marginalising the non religious’.”

Respondents throughout Britain were asked “What is your religion, even if you are not currently practising?” In 2011, 68.5% answered “Christianity”, compared with 71.3% in 2010. This roughly 3% decline over just one year is repeated over England, Scotland and Wales, building confidence in the figures. As might be expected, there was a reciprocal rise over the same period in the “no religion” category: 23.2% in 2011 compared with 20.5% in 2010.

From a National Secular Society article. Read on.

How evolution poses a problem for Christianity

But of course  . . . . that's not to say it poses a problem for all Christians, since many Christians happily accept evolution: they see Genesis 1 as merely a metaphor, and declare that if God chose to create us using evolution, that's fine by them. I used to be this kind of Christian myself; but I must confess that my blitheness was only possible because I had only the vaguest possible idea of how evolution works and certainly didn't know enough about it to realize that unguided-ness is central to it. While I welcome anyone who recognizes that the evidence for evolution is such that it cannot sensibly be denied, to attempt to co-opt evolution as part of a divine plan simply does not work, and suggests a highly superficial understanding of the subject. Not only does evolution not need to be guided in any way, but any conscious, sentient guide would have to be a monster of the most sadistic type: for evolution is not pretty, is not gentle, is not kind, is not compassionate, is not loving. Evolution is blind, and brutal, and callous. It is not an aspiration or a blueprint to live up to (we have to create those for ourselves): it is simply what happens, the blind, inexorable forces of nature at work. An omnipotent deity who chose evolution by natural selection as the means by which to bring about the array of living creatures that populate the Earth today would be many things - but loving would not be one of them. Nor perfect. Nor compassionate. Nor merciful. Evolution produces some wondrously beautiful results; but it happens at the cost of unimaginable suffering on the part of countless billions of individuals and, indeed, whole species, 99 percent of which have so far become extinct. It is irreconcilable with a god of love.

Evolution poses a further threat to Christianity, though, a threat that goes to the very heart of Christian teaching. Evolution means that the creation accounts in the first two chapters of Genesis are wrong. That's not how humans came into being, nor the cattle, nor the creeping things, nor the beasts of the earth, nor the fowl of the air. Evolution could not have produced a single mother and father of all future humans, so there was no Adam and no Eve. No Adam and Eve: no fall. No fall: no need for redemption. No need for redemption: no need for a redeemer. No need for a redeemer: no need for the crucifixion or the resurrection, and no need to believe in that redeemer in order to gain eternal life. And not the slightest reason to believe in eternal life in the first place.

Christianity is like a big, chunky sweater. It may feel cozy, it may keep you warm, but just let one stitch be dropped and the whole thing unravels before your very eyes. Evolution is that stitch. Evolution destroys the loving creator on which the whole of Christianity depends. I can quite understand why the evangelicals throw up their hands in horror at the very idea of it and will do everything in their power to suppress it. But they can throw up their hands all they like: it won't make any difference to the reality. All that will be achieved by their determined efforts to keep young people misinformed about it is that another generation of Americans will be condemned to ignorance, unable to understand the world around them properly, and at a real disadvantage when having to deal and compete with their peers from more enlightened countries. Wilful ignorance is a choice; evolution is not.

Paula Kirby (Consultant to Secular Organisations) wrote this response to Governor Perry for On Faith, the Washington Post’s forum for news and opinion on religion and politics.

BHA campaign against Faith Schools

Help support the ongoing British Humanist Association's campaign to abolish Faith Schools in the UK.

 http://justgiving.com/nofaithschool

BHA petition to abolish collective worship in UK schools

Responsible department: Department for Education

"As it stands, the law requires all schools to hold an act of collective worship every day. Even in schools that aren’t ‘faith’ schools, this must be ‘broadly Christian’ in character. In a society which is increasingly diverse, this is an affront to the rights of young people to express their beliefs freely. Although there is the opportunity to opt out, this is reliant on parental permission and is not respected by all schools. The law is extremely unpopular, with opinion polls showing teachers don’t want it, parents don’t want it, and children don’t want it. As such, it is long past time for the daily act of collective worship to be replaced with inclusive assemblies that add to cohesion and a sense of community within the school. We petition the Government to repeal the requirement for compulsory collective worship in schools and to encourage schools to hold educational assemblies that will include all children, regardless of religion or non-religious belief."

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2086

Evan Harris - Secular Europe Campaign

Richard Dawkins on the Secular Europe Campaign

Join the London march for a Secular Europe 17th September 2011

Separation of Church & State - epetitions

Three epetitions have appeared on HM government website calling for disestablishment and the ending of religious privilege:-

• Disestablish the Church of England. "With the British Social Attitudes survey showing that just 20% of the population are C of E, and that 50% have no religion at all, England should no longer remain one of the only developed countries to have a state religion."
• Separation of church and state. "Modern Society has no place for preferential treatment to any religious organisation or faith. Freedom to practice religion is fundamental to democracy however state interference is undemocratic. Arguing the Church has no power through its establishment is false, 26 Bishops sit in the House of Lords. The United Kingdom is host to many different faiths, including atheists who are not represented by an established church. The UK government should lead a debate on the merits of church and state separation."
• Separate the Church from the State. "This petition calls for the Dis-Establishment of the Church of England, the end of the Bishops' automatic seat in the House of Lords, the removal of religious ceremony from our Government institutions and the end of State-subsidised faith schools. There should be no State-sanctioned religious privilege."

If you are a UK citizen and believe that there is no good reason why people who believe in sky-fairies should be trusted with the business of government, why not sign all three?