Archive for October, 2008
Justgiving: Faith Schools
Posted by: | Comments
With all the hubbub about The Atheist Bus Campaign (ABC) don’t forget the day-to-day important work that the BHA does. In parallel to the ABC, the BHA also has a campaign to help fund the staff working on the issue of faith schools.
The BHA has long been campaigning against divisive faith based schools, and is funding a member of staff dedicated to this activity. It was clearly demonstrated by many of the comments posted on the ABC Justgiving page that there is significant feeling against faith schools. In order to fund this important work the BHA says:
We need to raise £30,000 to continue employing our dedicated campaigner for twelve months. Our campaigner will make sure that the voice of UK citizens who oppose faith schools is represented in the most powerful way. To do this our campaigner helps to stimulate and organise local campaigns against new faith schools and lobby government and parliament to reform the laws that allow state funded schools to discriminate in their employment and admissions and to teach unbalanced curricula of religious education.
Its not simply a question of campaigning against faith schools, but faith in our schools, and the law that requires an act of daily worship in our schools. When I attended the BHA’s annual general meeting I was very impressed to hear about some of the work that was going on, and how organised and focused they were. However this isn’t a battle that will be won overnight. Not only do we need to make our voices heard by writing to our MP’s, but we also need to offer our backup and support on an ongoing basis in order to make significant progress.
If this is something you feel strongly about please visit.
Atheist Bus
Posted by: | Comments
I have to admit when I first read about this campaign in the news I was ready to write a scathing entry in my personal blog. My initial reaction was, “Why oh why do we get into these tit-for-tat battle of words with religion!”. Initially I thought the whole campaign smacked of me-too-ism.
I still dislike the actual slogan itself, because it’s so non-committal and wishy washy, but the thing which has amazed me is the money that has been raised. Every time I check the total has gone up?! It was originally supposed to raise £5500 which would be matched by Professor Richard Dawkins, in order to put a banner on a bus, with some sort of atheist slogan to counter the claims of religion.
Then I heard from a fellow humanist, and discovered that the slogan had to be watered down because of the advertising rules that said it couldn’t be “too fundamentalist”, hence the “probably”.
One blog entry I came across actually made a sarcastic comment about how few atheists there must be because there had only been a few donations. How wrong they were…..
The campaign was launched on 21st October 2008 with a target of raising £5500, and by 10:06am it had raised £59,210, this morning as of 08:45 the total stands at £103,468. The campaign has clearly had an enormous effect, with so many people (including the religious) making donations. I’ve seen comments from Christian’s, Jain’s and all sorts of other faiths. It clearly shows there is some strong feeling against organised religion and its constant intrusion on our daily lives.
It is my hope that this campaign is a success, because it took me years to figure out that I was a humanist. Raising awareness of the non-religious path can only be a good thing. There are so many good, humanists out there who probably don’t know they have a home in our community. This is one way in which we can reach out them and let them know they are not alone.
If you’d like to donate visit the web site http://www.justgiving.com/atheistbus or see http://www.atheistcampaign.org for more information.
Bakewell Heart
Posted by: | CommentsOf all the press coverage in the last few days, perhaps Joan Bakewell gets to the heart of message behind the slogan on the London bendy buses. The National Secular Society brings this article from TimesonLine to our attention
She pinpoints two main acheivements :
Its second achievement is to convey the fact that atheists believe in something rather than nothing. It is a canard of the religious to suggest that atheism is an absence, a void, a moral vacuum. It is no such thing. It constitutes a body of belief in humanity and its virtues. A lack of faith and the decline of religion are often blamed for the current evils of society. Those without belief in God want it to be known that they have as strong a moral framework as those who follow ancient biblical texts and commandments laid down long ago by desert tribes. It is not an unreasonable thing to expect, and the bus is perhaps a jokey way of saying so.”
May the Life Force be with you
Posted by: | CommentsThames Valley University [ TVU ], one of our local universities, offers courses in alternative (that is, unscientific) therapies, including, via the Slough campus, a bachelor of science (BSc) in homeopathy.
The TVU course is run by the Purton House clinic [http://www.purtonhouse.com] in Slough. To us as humanists (and generally sensible people) this is a scandal: homeopathy has no scientific basis, and yet it is being taught at British universities as a bachelor of science degree. Moreover, it is sold to the public, as a medical therapy, if only as a Supplementary, Complementary, or Alternative Medicine (SCAM, if you like).
Well, anti-pseudo-science blogger, Professor David Colquhoun, has published details of a lecture handout that he has received from another Thames Valley University BSc degree course in Nutritional Medicine. Nutritional medicine sounds very respectable, but as you’ll see, it is shamefully ridiculous.
Visit David Colquhoun’s blog [ http://dcscience.net/?p=260 ] to read for yourself. Here’s a small taster of what students were being taught (poor things):
“At the root of most hoIistic therapies lies the belief that all life is animated by a subtle force. We call this the Life Force. You either believe it or you do not. It cannot exactly be proved at the moment and the belief is not in accord with the yardsticks that we call ‘scientific’. The belief is a little akin to the belief in God or in spirits or ghosts, and yet at the same time it is not, because the Life Force is by no means so remote from us.”
If our readers know of any other publicly funded pseudo-science courses or activities, please let us know.We wish to know the number of dilutions of pure science that people can safely take.
WHAT SHALL WE TELL THE CHILDREN?
Posted by: | CommentsAmnesty Lecture, Oxford, 21st February 1997
By Nicholas Humphrey
This lecture not only says very clearly why parents should not be allowed to indoctrinate their children but also why science has a special claim to be taught to them. It’s obtained by clicking here