Honorary Associate: Prof. Peter Atkins
Peter Atkins is a Fellow and professor of chemistry at Lincoln College in the University of Oxford. He is the author of several successful chemistry textbooks, among them Atkins’ Physical Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry. With Why Chemical Reactions Happen, Galileo’s Finger and Atkins’ Molecules, he established himself also as a popular science writer. Like Richard Dawkins, he regularly speaks and writes on atheism and the incompatibility of science and religion, regarding it as his mission to banish ignorance and to advance scientific understanding.
“I regard teaching religion as purveying lies.”
“To assert "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation.”
“To say that 'God made the world' is simply a more or less sophisticated way of saying that we don't understand how the universe originated. A god, in so far as it is anything, is an admission of ignorance."
“Religion's inwardly directed sentimental glow reflects on issues privately, exchanges information by assurance and assertion, discusses awkward points by warfare, terror, and coercion, and builds up a network of conflicting ideas that conceal ignorance under a cloak of high-flown yet empty prose.”
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Guardian, 21 August 2008
Yorkshire Post, 21 August 2008
Telegraph, 21 August 2008
The fact that this case was won while another case – that of 16- year old Lydia Playfoot and her claim in 2007 to want to wear a “chastity ring” in school – was thrown out of court seems in itself to be discriminatory.
Government transitional safeguards to protect the jobs and promotion prospects of head teachers and teachers already in post in Voluntary Controlled faith schools breach natural justice and are discriminatory, says the National Secular Society.