Click here to subscribe to Newsline
“There is a strong theological case for saying that while the Church has a God-given authority to set its moral compass in ways of which governments might disapprove of, governments have an equally God-given authority for setting theirs in ways that the Church might disapprove of. Though the Church has a responsibility to challenge governmental authority when it is abused (as in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe), it does not have a claim on a government’s ear simply because it is the Church.”
(Stephen Plant, The Times)
“If you sincerely believe in any one religion, you have to believe that the others are wrong, not a good recipe for living peacefully with your neighbours.”
(Simon Prentis,Independent)
(Gregory Paul & Phil Zuckerman, The Edge)
The British Minister for Europe, Jim Murphy, is the latest high profile politician who feels he has a duty to promote religion as an important aspect of civic and political life.
The bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, has put another nail in the coffin of “interfaith relations” with yet a further call for the Government to restore Christianity to the centre of British life – and at the same time, take the focus off Islam.
A historic precedent was set at the European parliament on Wednesday. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom Religion or Belief, Mrs Asma Jahangir, addressed the European Parliament, much as religious leaders such as the Pope and the Grand Mufti of Syria have done.
We receive news that a man has been sentenced to death in Pakistan for “passing derogatory remarks about the prophet and defiling pages of the Koran”.
A London employment tribunal has awarded £4,000 compensation to a Muslim woman who was refused a job at a hairdressing salon because she wore a headscarf.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has been further brought into disrepute by the behaviour of human-rights abusing Islamic states.
The new leader of the post-communist Polish Democratic Left Alliance party (SLD), Grzegorz Napieralski, has issued a challenge to the country’s powerful Catholic Church.
There are severe rumblings of discontent in Australia over the Pope’s “World Youth Day” which is coming up next month. A huge amount of tax-payers’ money is being spent on the event and the New South Wales government has just announced that it is adding another A$60.7 million in the next financial year to fund operations and services for this global gathering of Catholic youth.
“The Catholic Church has a vital role to play in shaping social policies”. Who says so? Well, Pope Ratzinger, of course and, as we know, it is impossible for him ever to be wrong, because he’s infallible. Who says so? Well, he does.
A 16-year-old boy in the United States, whose parents rely on prayer instead of medical care, has died after his family failed to call a doctor when he became ill. As the boy’s condition worsened, sect members gathered to pray for him but still did not call for medical assistance.
From the web
Ever wondered what all those clichés that Christians endlessly spout really mean? Well, this blogger has kindly translated them for us
See Christopher Hitchens speaking at the recent conference in Washington DC organised by the American Humanist Association.
Part one
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Part two:
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
20 June 2008
Our spokesman Alistair McBay has been busy with media appearances and comments while the President and the Executive Director have been at a conference in Washington DC. This is his report: “I did a radio interview this week with BBC Radio Wales about the CofE report begging for privilege, discussing it with a vicar and a Muslim, and also the BBC News live session, repeated throughout the day last Saturday on the news and on R4, on the Hindu school in north London. The line I took on this was that in 2006, communities minister Ruth Kelly said the UK Hindu community was "a model of integration", speaking at the launch of the Ethnic Minorities Advisory Group. I pointed out that this had been achieved without a single segregated Hindu state school like the one now being opened, so we needed to know from Government if the successful model of integration it had identified was now being torn up. I said it seemed perverse that, having successfully integrated an ethnic minority with integrated schooling, we had now decided that future generations of Hindus would go through segregated schools, and that people would find it hard to understand how minorities spoke of the desire to be integrated on the one hand, yet demanded privilege and segregation on the other. There was other argument about parent choice which went the usual way.
I also won the debate at Durham Union Society with the motion “This house would abolish faith schools”. The heavy hitters lined up to oppose me all pulled out, including the Bishop of Durham, the Bishop of Jarrow and a woman who is, I think, the head of the Headteachers' Association, and I ended up debating against the former World Schools Debating Champion and a Yank who is at St Andrews, having attended a Christian college in the US where, he said, if you thought the world was 10,000 years old instead of 6,000, you were considered a liberal!”
Alistair also had this letter in the Independent
While in Washington DC last week, Keith Porteous Wood was called into the BBC studios there to debate the CofE report with Communities Secretary Hazel Blears on Radio 5 Live.
Terry Sanderson was on BBC Tees radio on Sunday, talking about the research that appears to show that atheists are more intelligent that religious believers. He was on LBC talking about the Muslim hairdresser case and also the BBC’s Asian Network on the same topic.
Keith Porteous Wood spoke to Oxford Humanist Group yesterday on the shenanigans at the UNHRC (see story above).
Terry Sanderson had this article on the Guardian’s Comment is Free (still time to comment). He also had a letter in the New Statesman http://www.newstatesman.com/letters and will be doing a newspaper review on Sunday morning on BBC London radio, around 7.10am.
20 June 2008
Please send your letters for publication to letters@secularism.org.uk. We want to publish as many letters as possible, so please keep them brief. We reserve the right to edit. Opinions expressed in letters are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the NSS.
Letters to Newsline
Letters for publication should be addressed to letters@secularism.org.uk. Please keep letters short so that others can have their say.
