Families who don’t believe in God failed by education, Humanists say 

By Andrew Denholm, Education Correspondent, The Herald, 23.04.08

Families who don't believe in God are being failed by Scotland's education system, it was claimed yesterday.

The Humanist Society of Scotland (HSS) warned that both lessons and events such as assemblies in non-denominational schools were largely directed at those who had a Christian faith.

This Saturday, the society will launch an education campaign, founded on the UN…

The Gifford Lecture Series 2008
Date: Tuesday, April 15 2008
Time: 18:00
Venue: Sir Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre, University Avenue, Glasgow University
Category: Public Lectures
Speaker: Professor David Fergusson
David Fergusson, Professor of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, will present the Gifford Lecture Series 2008.
 
Founded in 1887 by the bequest of Lord Gifford, the annual Gifford Lecture Series was established to promote, advance and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of that term.…

IHEU has responded to claims that the “Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam” is “not an alternative” to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but “complementary” to it. In a written statement to the UN Human Rights Council, IHEU opposed any resolution that seeks to limit the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration. The official UN publication of the statement is available for download at the IHEU site

After months of painstaking transcription, our webmaster has finally relaunched the HSS Guestbook, where you can now pay tribute to individual celebrants or make suggestions on ways we can improve the site.

The Humanist Society of Scotland's second annual series of Thought for the Day podcasts is getting a lot of listens via iTunes where it's gone into their Philosophy chart at number 7. The 2008 campaign, relaunched as Thought for the World features more than twice as many contributors as the launch series, including members of the Society, the distinguished philosophers Julian Baggini, Nigel Warburton and AC Grayling, political commentator Iain McWhirter, comedian Arthur Smith…

Freedom from religion in Britain is becoming as important as freedom of religion, according to a United Nations investigation. A 23-page report by Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, says that the 2001 census findings can no longer be regarded as accurate. The report claims that two thirds of British people do not admit to any religious affiliation and calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England, writes
Ruth…

REALITY  was better than the sweetest of dreams said Vicky Haylott yesterday when she married her childhood sweetheart Robbie Murray. The couple, who are from Dalkeith and first met when they were just five, were the winners of The Sunday…

Polly Toynbee and others were interviewed about humanism as it finally makes it as a subject onto the Educational Curriculum in England & Wales on 'Sunday' on BBC Radio 4. You can listen again here

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in…

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who is nearing the end of his term in office as spiritual leader of the one million Mass-attending Roman Catholics of England and Wales, said: "Our life together in Britain cannot be a God-free zone and we…

The Bible story endeavours to tell us what will happen if we don’t change our wicked ways. Today, in the absence of God as a force that is taken seriously by society, those who want to scare us into accepting…

On Monday, when the human fertilisation and embryology bill gets its second reading in the Commons, the debate will feel like 1968 all over again, writes Polly Toynbee in The Guardian.