Debate: Should schools teach creationism?
Wednesday 11 February 2009 18:30
Presented by the Edinburgh Group of the Humanist Society of Scotland, in association with the Institute of Ideas and the National Library of Scotland.

Speakers include

Alex McLellan, Founder and Executive Director of Reason Why
Dave Perks, Head of Physics at Graveney School in London,
Christopher Brookmyre, Novelist, including Boiling a Frog
Julian Baggini, writer and philosopher
Marc Surtees, Paradigm Shift

Chair: Dr Tiffany Jenkins, Institute of Ideas Read more...

The consultation document for Margot Macdonald's Proposed Member's Bill called 'End of Life Choices (Scotland) can be downloaded from the Scottish Paliament web site here  

The UK’s first ever atheist advertising campaign launched on Tuesday January 6th 2009, with 800 buses featuring the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” running in cities across Scotland, England and Wales, along with 1000 adverts on the London underground and two large LCD screens on Oxford Street.
 
The campaign, which is supported by Professor Richard Dawkins, the British Humanist Association and The Humanist Society of Scotland, is a response to a series…

BHA Member Gavin Orland has pledged to e-mail the BBC (today[at]bbc.co.uk) during the week beginning 1st January 2009 to object to "Thought for the Day" but only if 100 other people will do the same. So far more than 1,140 people have supported the pledge. You can sign it too at http://www.pledgebank.com/thoughtfortheday before December 31st 2008. Don't forget to subscribe to the HSS Thought for the World podcasts that will roll out from Darwin Day in February 2009.

Two months ago, the new school year began. For a substantial and growing number of Scottish parents this raised a difficult and continuing challenge. They are the Scots who are non-religious and who are now one Scot in three, according to the Scottish Annual Household Survey (2005). Their children return, in many instances, to a school environment where religion, often largely Christian, predominates, where religious and moral education is a fixed element in the curriculum and where religious observation is…

The BBC is to tone down the amount of sex and swearing screened following the 9pm watershed, because viewers were dismayed by the moral decline in programme standards, report Anita Singh and Urmee Khan in The Daily Telegraph

While the world nervously watches the uprising in Iran, an even more important uprising has been passing unnoticed – yet its outcome will shape your fate, and mine, writes Johann Hari in The Independent.
 

For too long a foreign-inspired Muslim clergy that defends female inferiority and gender discrimination has subjected Muslims in the West to virulent indoctrination. This brainwashing stems from the Middle East and South Asia but has no Koranic foundation, writes Read more...

Islamic leadership, if it denies the sovereignty of the people, as in Iran, is no different to any other kind of dictatorship, writes Asim Siddiqui in The Guardian

Two thirds of teenagers don't believe in God and half have never prayed, according to research. Many say family, friends, money, music and even reality television are more important than religion. And 59 per cent believe religion "has a negative…

One option under consideration is a move towards an all-elected upper house. In the new, elected House of Lords, there would be no seats reserved for Church of England bishops or any other religious leaders, reports The Daily…