SE London calling

One of our members in SE London has asked  that anyone interested in forming a local atheist group should get in touch.

If you are near to the Greenwich and Bexley areas and would like to help form such a local group, please get in touch with Terry Liddle through this link:

SE London group

Another cover up by the Catholic Church

No sooner had the Catholic Church in Ireland began to lick its wounds Read more

A failed ideal?

I recently noticed some fine words by the first founder of Pakistan from 1947 reported in the Independent newspaper. He recognised that England had had its religious problems in the past, but that now the old divisions had largely disappeared and every citizen was regarded as equal. He held this up as an ideal that Pakistan could emulate saying, “My guiding principle will be justice and complete impartiality, and I am sure that with your support and co-operation, I can look forward to Pakistan becoming one of the greatest nations of the world” (click on image for full text).

The perception in the news of Pakistan seems far removed from that lofty goal and I would suggest that he did not receive the support and co-operation he was after, particularly from the religious (Islamic) establishment. Though not having had personal experience of visiting the country perhaps someone could put me right and correct the perception I have.

Podcast interview

Journalist and writer Alex Stanley interviews Atheism’s President. Read more

The slow, whiny death of British Christianity

An excellent article from Johann Hari, the full article can be found here at johannhari.com

And now congregation, put your hands together and give thanks, for I come bearing Good News. Britain is now the most irreligious country on earth. This island has shed superstition faster and more completely than anywhere else. Some 63 percent of us are non-believers, according to an ICM study, while 82 percent say religion is a cause of harmful division. Now, let us stand and sing our new national hymn: Jerusalem was dismantled here/ in England’s green and pleasant land.

How did it happen? For centuries, religion was insulated from criticism in Britain. First its opponents were burned, then jailed, then shunned. But once there was a free marketplace of ideas, once people could finally hear both the religious arguments and the rationalist criticisms of them, the religious lost the British people. Their case was too weak, their opposition to divorce and abortion and gay people too cruel, their evidence for their claims non-existent. Once they had to rely on persuasion rather than intimidation, the story of British Christianity came to an end.”

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lt_zippy2′s opinion:

This is a great article which we atheists should take as good news and as a warning. The religious will not take this lying down, if anything this may re-invigorate them to go and press harder for their views to be given extra airtime to try and bump up the numbers by converting people. We must not let this happen.

We must also not be complacent, remember this is just the result of one poll, and to quote the politicians there is only one poll that matters and that will be the National Census in 2011, so we at Atheism are encouraging our members and wider society to pass on the message “Don’t Believe It – Don’t Tick It!”. See our page in the campaigns section for more details.

The New Atheism

Victor Stenger’s latest book, The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason, is now in our shop. Read more

Summer break