Confronting the fear of religious violence.

"I shall give in to your demands to suppress freedom of speech, purely because I fear your threats. But don’t for one nanosecond confuse fear with respect. I do not respect you, I despise you and everything you stand for – especially given that your faith is apparently so weak in argument that it requires violent threats to shore it up." ~ Richard Dawkins

The Young Atheists' Handbook

Growing up in a strict Muslim community in south-east London, Alom Shaha learnt that religion was not to be questioned. Reciting the Qur'an without understanding what it meant was simply a part of life; so, too, was obeying the imam and enduring beatings when he failed to attend the local mosque. Shaha was more drawn to science and its power to illuminate. As a teen, he lived between two worlds: the home controlled by his authoritarian father, and a school alive with books and ideas. In a charming blend of memoir, philosophy, and science, Shaha explores the questions about faith and the afterlife that we all ponder. Through a series of loose lessons , he tells his own compelling story, drawing on the theories of some of history's greatest thinkers and interrogating the fallacies that have impeded humanity for centuries. Shaha recounts how his education and formative experiences led him to question how to live without being tied to what his parents, priests, or teachers told him to believe, and offers insights so that others may do the same. This is a book for anyone who thinks about what they should believe and how they should live. It s for those who may need the facts and the ideas, as well as the courage, to break free from inherited beliefs. In this powerful narrative, Shaha shows that it is possible to live a compassionate, fulfilling, and meaningful life without God.

The British Humanist Association would like to put a copy of The Young Atheist's Handbook (Reviews Here) in every secondary school library in England and Wales.
This means raising the funds to buy, package and post copies. and so make it available to students to read if they so choose.

Many young people are brought up in the faith of their family, without ever really having the chance to choose for themselves. School is where we go to learn how to ask questions. Making the book available through school libraries is a good first step in educating young people so that they can choose to exercise their freedom of choice. 

The costs over-all are heavily discounted thanks to Biteback Publishing, for each book to be packaged and sent to a secondary school library.

If you would like to help this BHA project there is an easy way of donating online through this JustGiving page. And please tell your friends and family about the campaign if you feel able. 

Progress & religion 1967 - 2012

Dawkins talks to Mehdi Hasan

The Crisis of Secularism

A nicely argued case from Pat Condell.

Cognitive dissonance at its finest . . .

Yes! - We're ALL individual

. . but you could have fooled me . . . 

How to argue with a muslim . .

Petition supporting legal action in France against Bible & Koran.

On February 16th 2010, the Association “Athées en action / Atheists in Action » launched a new lawsuit in France against publishers of the bible and the koran.

"With the support of our lawyer, master Loïc Waroux, a complaint was lodged at the central police station in Rennes, France. This was the start of a legal proceeding that aims at obtaining the sale and distribution of the bible and the koran with a warning label on the cover.

Here is the text of the petition:

“I support the legal action of the Association “Athées en action / Atheists in Action” against publishers of the bible and the koran, in order to get these books to be sold with a warning label on the cover. An example of such warning label could be: This book contains sexist, homophobic, sectarian and crime-inducing passages. It is necessary to set it back in its historical context knowing it was written before the Middle-Ages”."

To sign go to:- http://atheists-in-action.com/392

Sharia poster boy

I think he means "peace" ironically.

Muslims

American Islamophobia

Geert Wilders cleared

Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders, who described Islam as "fascist", has been acquitted of inciting hatred against Muslims. 

Amsterdam judge Marcel van Oosten accepted the Freedom Party leader's statements were directed at Islam and not at Muslim believers.  They were, the judge ruled, "acceptable within the context of public debate". 

It is believed the plaintiffs may attempt to make their case before a European court or the UN.

Read whole BBC report. 

Pat Condell 'names the poison'

Peace anthem for Palestine

"The Palestine/Israel conflict finally put to bed for ever."

Geert Wilders trial - masterly final address

Pat Condell's postscript on Bin Laden

Billy Connolly - Religion is over

"You've had a couple of thousand years - and you've fucked it"

Banning the Burqa

From a report in The Independent:-

"The prospect of any attempt to ban the Islamic full veil in public in Britain has been firmly ruled out by Theresa May, the Home Secretary.

Ministers believe there is little pressure, either politically or among the public, for the UK to follow the French lead and outlaw the use of face-covering veils such as the niqab or burka.

Although David Cameron has warned of "different cultures" being encouraged by "state multiculturalism" to live separate lives, the Government is adamant that to impose a ban on the veil would run contrary to British instincts. Calls for a ban have been limited so far to one Tory MP, Philip Hollobone, and the UK Independence Party. Mr Hollobone attempted last year to champion a Commons bill outlawing face coverings, but received no public declarations of support from any other MP.

The Home Office said yesterday: "It is not for government to say what people can and cannot wear. Such a proscriptive approach would be out of keeping with our nation's longstanding record of tolerance. Accordingly we do not support a ban on wearing the burka."

Baroness Warsi, the first woman Muslim Cabinet minister, has also defended the right of women to choose to wear a face veil."

A burqa ban does run counter to British instincts but it is not a matter of "tolerance", it is a matter of personal freedom. We should have the freedom to be intolerant of burqa-wearers just as they should have the freedom to go on wearing it.

Why atheism is winning

"Why atheism is winning is because when a belief structure has no empirical basis, it only survives by everyone agreeing to maintain the illusion that it makes sense. It is the emperor's new clothes syndrome. But such beliefs are highly prone to sudden collapse as soon as it begins to be pointed out that there is nothing there. Once a tipping point is reached, changes in unsupported beliefs (whether it be god or racism and homophobia) can occur very rapidly.

Religion is more tenacious but even there I think that the switch to largely disbelief will occur within a couple of generations (maybe an extra generation in the Islamic world) as people realize that religion is little more than superstition and lies at the heart of many problems. The communication revolution, in addition to spreading the ideas of modernity to an ever-widening audience, will create a greater awareness, especially among young people, that one's religious beliefs are largely a product of where one is born and brought up, and not because they are self-evidently true.. Once you give up the idea that your own religion is obviously true, it is a short step to not viewing religion as a source of truth at all.

On the level of simply ideas, religion is losing because fewer are converting into religion than are converting out, especially amongst the young. That is the demographic time bomb that is going to doom religion. It is what is also working against racism and anti-gay bigotry. Attitudes that have no empirical basis persist mainly because people 'inherit' it from their parents, in that children learn these things at an early age from their families. It is unlikely that someone who grows up in a family that is accepting of people of other races and gays will turn against those views, while the reverse happens more frequently as modernity expands."

from Dr. Mano Singham's blog on "Why atheism is winning".