Khaled Diab over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free has written a really interesting article that I can’t find much fault with: Contemplating God-free zones.
Caveat: the comments, as always, are something of a different matter.
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The Independent is, for the next eight days commencing on Saturday 14th June, covering six of the major religions in a two-part ‘encyclopædia’ and a series of mini-booklets.

Saturday 14 June : ‘The Encyclopedia of World Religions’ Part 1
Sunday 15 June: ‘The Encyclopedia of World Religions’ Part 2
Monday 16 June: Christianity
Tuesday 17 June: Islam
Wednesday 18 June: [...]

The British “guerilla” graffiti artist that goes under the nom de guerre Banksy has recently been to the Middle East to offer the locals his particular brand of controversial graffiti.
This example is to be found in Bethlehem in the Palestinian West Bank:

As a statement, this image of a dove (presumably a “dove of peace” from [...]

The latest edition — and, coincidentally, the first of the new-look Humanist Society of Scotland magazine, Humanitie — has an excellent essay on sexual morality written by student Eimear O’Casey, who jointly won a student essay competition run by the society with this essay.
Unfortunately I can’t find the essay online, but if you’re already a [...]

Atheist Ethicist has written an interesting and thoughtful article about the idea of faith hospitals.
I wonder if/when the UK government, to back up it’s proclivity to support faith-based institutions (as demonstrated in it’s increasing promotion of faith schools), will begin introducing the concept of faith hospitals. We’ll need something to replace the many hospitals [...]

After attending the Brights’ meetup that I mentioned the other day, I thought that I’d write a small bit about the impressions that I got from it.
I first heard of the Brights movement a number of years ago. When I heard the term, I must admit that I was sceptical about the use of [...]

In the UK media recently, I’ve heard various people of faith saying that we should respect their faith, as that way lies the route to understanding, discourse and peace.
What stuff and nonsense.
What should I respect about your religion? That it wants to impose your theocratic values as law on the rest of us? [...]

With the USA’s administration’s current predilection for fundamentalist christian values, it’s not difficult to see the USA becoming as Iran, although obviously of a slightly different, perhaps more bitter, flavour.
What sort of elements make up a modern-day theocracy?

A ruling party made up of rich politicians overly influenced by religious zealots - check
Access to legal representation [...]

One must have been living under a rock for the last few years if you’re not aware of the increasing influx of pervasive religious attitudes into daily life. I’m not talking about living in a theocracy here - I live in the UK. I’m talking about in the ’secular’ West, where increasing scientific [...]