It’s struck me that, as a secularist, I should be concerned with the current crisis within the anglican church, even though it seems at first glance to be simply a tiff between members of the same club who disagree about the rules as set down by a long absent founder. Which, frankly, it is.
My [...]

From The Times Online’s Nature Notes.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “The Times: Ornithology (cartoon)”, url: “http://www.nullifidian.net/2008/03/12/the-times-ornithology-cartoon/” });

BBC News 24 has just reported that Gillian Gibbons, the teacher at the centre of the Sudanese Mohammed Teddy stupidity, has been found guilty of “insulting religion”, and sentenced to 15 days in prison and is then to be deported, hopefully, for her sake, to a country not run by those who cling to their [...]

Yeah, you read that right…
I really have no comment to make on this story, apart from a great big
What The Fuck?
A British teacher has been arrested in Sudan for letting her children name a teddy bear Mohammed, the British Embassy said.
Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was detained on Sunday on suspicion of insulting Islam’s prophet.
The [...]

As I joked the other day about the ridiculousness of “faith hospitals“, the BBC is running an article written by University of Edinburgh Professor Aziz Sheikh who is arguing for faith based medical support for muslims.
“Male infant circumcision should be available throughout the NHS. Although a handful of NHS trusts provide it, most parents are [...]

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 [...]