Author Archives: Cornwall Humanists

125 Schools “Opt Out”

125 schools opt out of Christian Worship.

More than 125 schools have applied over the past three years to be exempt from the legal requirement to hold collective worship of a “wholly or broadly Christian character”.

Information released to Schools Week following Freedom of Information (FOI) requests shows 127 schools have requested a “determinations” from their local Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) board.

Determinations allow schools to amend their collective worship from being “wholly or broadly” Christian in nature.

A full determination allows a school to change to a different religion – for example, a school with a largely Muslim population could hold Islamic worship. A part determination allows different acts of collective worship to suit different faiths within a school, including atheists and agnostics.

Read the full article.

Remembering 7/7

A message to the terrorists from Ken Livingstone,
Mayor of London 7/7.

Ken Livingstone

Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life.

I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others – that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail.

In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential. Continue reading →

Views of Nine Famous Women

Julianne_Moore500

Nine Famous women including Dame Helen Mirren and Emma Thompson give a brief account of their views on religion.
Julianne Moore said she let go of religion after the death of her mother.
“I learned when my mother died five years ago that there is no ‘there’ there,” she said.
“Structure, it’s all imposed. We impose order and narrative on everything in order to understand it. Otherwise, there’s nothing but chaos.”

Read the views of the nine famous women.

YouGov Poll on Religious Belief

As Cameron says UK “still a Christian country”, 62% tell YouGov they are “not religious”

Polling conducted in the run-up to Easter has found that almost two-thirds of Britons describe themselves as “not religious.”

In his Easter message, Prime Minister David Cameron claimed the UK was “still a Christian country,” but YouGov found overwhelming lack of religion in the UK in its latest poll on religion and belief.

62% said they were not religious, compared to just 36% who said they were, while 68% said that religion was “not important” to their own life. Despite over a third of Britons claiming they were religious, only 29% said that religion was “important” to them.

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BHA Protests Against Blasphemy Laws

In a speech to the assembled nations of the UNHRC, BHA delegate Amelia Cooper said that blasphemy laws are the ‘embodiment’ of these shortcomings, and that their continued presence stands as an affront to international law and freedom of belief.

The BHA, which is a partner organisation in the International Coalition Against Blasphemy Laws, has said that these laws have leant credibility to extrajudicial acts of violence, such as the mass riots in Pakistan which followed an alleged desecration of a Koran, resulting in six deaths, and the assassinations of officials Rashid Rehman, Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti.

As well as condemning states for tacitly sanctioning these crimes by failing to respond to them, the BHA pointed out:

‘It must also be noted that encoding corporal punishment for blasphemy convictions is nothing less than State violence in the name of religion. Four of the 13 states which punish apostasy or blasphemy with the death penalty are current members of this Council, and are thus mandated to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”. This is hypocrisy of the highest order.’

The BHA’s statement comes amid continuing abuses perpetrated against those deemed to have blasphemed. Avijit Roy was murdered last month after advocating for greater freedom of expression in Bangledesh, while Raif Badawi remains imprisoned in Saudi Arabia where he is being subjected to a punishment of 1,000 lashes for the crime of insulting Islam.

Legal restriction on freedom of thought, particularly affecting the non-religious, is widespread throughout the world, as shown by the latest Freedom of Thought Report, a global survey of laws affecting the non-religious and freedom of expression which is researched and published each year by the International Humanist and Ethical Union. In 13 countries, non-religious people face the very real threat of a death penalty if they do not live a lie and pretend to be religious.

Given these heinous restrictions on freedom of expression, which are often exploited by states to justify persecution of non-religious people and those of minority religions, the BHA has stressed its support for a UNHRC resolution to expressly forbid the ‘discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against persons based on religion or belief.’

 

Feminism and Humanism

8th March   International Women’s Day

Pussy Riot

‘Why feminism and not just humanism?’ is a question often invoked by closet misogynists attempting to highlight some imagined incoherence or hypocrisy embedded in the feminist ethical perspective. It is a question which lacks the intended effect, given that it incorrectly defines both Humanism and feminism, but does actually provoke some deeper questions about the historical and philosophical relationship between the two. So, even though the questioner is at best ignorant and at worst bigoted, there is a silver lining.

Continue reading →