Category Activism

Global Documentary Project – a Force for Change

This is something that has been a long time in the making from local friends of mine whom I met through Transition Fareham, part of the Transition Network, which seeks to tackle the peak oil problem on a local level. Kate and Paul are visionaries who have gone out there and done things make the world a better place.

Decision Time for the Sunday Assembly – Guest post by Simon Clare

This blog post is very much a timely piece as there is much newsworthiness concerning the Atheist Assembly and secular gatherings in general. It needs to be read so share away! Simon Clare is organiser of Horsham and Brighton Skeptics in the Pubs and one-time atheist street-preacher. Check out his website at http://www.simonclare.co.uk/ (and will soon feature new blog posts once again!).

Love, hate it or ignore it, the Sunday Assembly project has been successful enough to warrant a serious discussion about how it should be run.

The threat to Turkey is SERIOUS

The shitstorm going down in Turkey deserves more attention. I mean that our governments should be coming out and decrying the Turkish conservative government’s attempts to drive out secularism in the historically secular country. I get enraged when I read about what is going on there. Here is an ostensibly Muslim country which has remained, against all odds, secular in nature. The tide is turning, though, and outrageous things are taking place. This argue makes me bristle with the injustice of the world. Over to the Guardian.

Opus Dei accused of lobbying to prevent Irish abortion reform

The Guardian reports:
Leading doctor and politician John Crown says secret Catholic sect is trying to prevent limited abortion being made legal

Public support for abortion reform has grown in Ireland since Savita Halappanavar died from blood poisoning after a Galway hospital refused to terminate her pregnancy. Photograph: Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images
The secret ultra-conservative Catholic sect Opus Dei is mobilising within the Irish professions to stop the republic reforming its abortion laws, one of the country’s most prominent doctors has warned.
John Crown, a leading cancer specialist and member of parliament, accused the powerful organisation of trying to exercise influence on the medical profession and politicians to prevent limited abortion being made legal for the first time in Ireland.

Non-believers taking college campuses by storm

vAs Katherine Don reports here.
This month at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a select group of students will show their humanitarian spirit by participating in the Bleedin’ Heathens Blood Drive. On February 12, they will eat cake to celebrate Darwin Day, and earlier this year, they performed “de-baptism” ceremonies to celebrate Blasphemy Day, attended a War on Christmas Party, and set up Hug An Atheist and Ask An Atheist booths in the campus quad.