Written by Stuart Bechman | 25 August 2011

The Associated Press has reported that the "relics" of Pope John Paul II have arrived in Mexico to begin a four-month tour through 100 Mexican cities.

For non-Catholics, this sounds almost quaint. Many of us think of "relics" as family heirlooms and trinkets kept by our grandmother in an old chest with mothballs. But that's not what "relics" means to the Catholic Church. For the Church, "relics" are the REMAINS of the actual dead relative!

Per the AP report: "Worshippers applauded, cried and prayed Thursday morning as a vial of the ex-pontiff's blood and a wax figure of the pope donning a papal robe arrived at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe."

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26 August 2011

It is almost a year since the Al Shabab militia penetrated the Kenyan borders and caused havoc to international aid organizations. Aside from planting grenades in Eastliegh, they dropped grenades on to children’s playing fields, and many explosions were witnessed in Kenya around this time in 2010. Incidences pile up on the ‘yet to be investigated’ as the government assures its citizens, whereas nothing much is done on that front.

The Al Shabab incidence in Mogadishu consumed four of my relatives and left a huge gap in my family life. I lost people who contributed to my purpose of living. My wife founded and ran the Abu-Bakr Foundation, an organization that was permitted to distribute medical Aid in Somalia and Sudan, and apparently she was blasted in the name of Allah.

Sad memories. But I just recently met some refugees and some of these were Somalis who had benefited in great length from the hand of the Foundation. They were expecting me to have transformed into joining their religious ideologues, leaving the path of those who are astray, for my son had a Muslim name. Mostly so, they expected the magnitude of loss to have influenced my practice into softer relenting. Either I was destined to become a Rasta or some religious icon. But the JAF Festival disappointed many to a great length, and in my inbox, I started receiving questions related to my atheism. For example, where did mankind originate? And my understanding of the phrase, from dust we came and to dust we shall return. They were bothered by my theorem of no afterlife and no day of judgment, and astonishingly warned me thoroughly of misfortunes that could be planted in my path, for I am a disgrace to the African race.

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24 August 2011

From the Secular Humanist League of Brazil, an AAI Affiliate Member:
http://flyingteapot.haaan.com/2011/08/10

One year and a half has passed since the foundation of the Secular Humanist League of Brazil, LiHS, the owner of this debuting blog. So many things have happened since then that I am caught in the vertigo of loads of long term memory yet to be consolidated. (And my routine as a rebel sleeper has most certainly something to do with that.)

I remember vividly my dream of taking Brazil and more of Latin America to the global secularist community, especially reaching IHEU (International Humanist and Ethical Union). Well, we did it! And it happened last week, when our international relations director Daniel Martin traveled from France to Norway (yes, to Oslo, the site of that conservative Christian terrorist attack) to attend the General Assembly in the World Humanist Congress, where we were approved as members of IHEU. Also, before that, LiHS joined the Atheist Alliance International.

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23 August 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14573660

An increasing number of Nigeria's 70 million Christians are followers of the prosperity teachings - the belief that prosperity is a sign of spiritual blessing. Services are held in megachurches that hold thousands, with millionaire pastors preaching the word.

Written by Tanya Smith | 16 August 2011

This article was published on richarddawkins.net here.

“Religion provides support and comfort to people.” You’ve heard this one before. It’s a common refrain when the damage and suffering caused by religion is highlighted. It’s a common refrain even from people who aren’t particularly religious, which is a tribute to the effectiveness of religious marketing.

Atheism doesn’t offer a similar emotional support network. Accepting that the universe is uninterested in your well-being is not necessarily a source of comfort when things go wrong. While there are many (and, happily, a growing number of) atheist/freethought/humanist/rationalist/skeptic/etc. groups around the world, they are unlikely to have the infrastructure and funding of religious groups any time soon. The amorphous mass of individuals that is sometimes referred to as the “atheist (etc.) community” can be hard to rally for a specific issue.

When an atheist takes a stand on a religious/secular issue they often do so not knowing what the personal consequences will be or what, if any, support they will receive. They just know that the opposition will have a lot of support. 

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16 August 2011

Understanding the importance of the protection of the life and safety of all citizens of Russia, including that of the religious leaders in our country, the Good Sense (Zdravomislie) Public Fund has met the news of the upcoming amendments to our secular law with alarm.

The Public Fund Good Sense learned that the government of Russia initiated an amendment in the state Duma of the Russian Federation in the form of bill № 586178­5, containing a clause to expand the list of individuals being protected by government, with taxpayers money, to include an unspecified number of people that do not have any relation to government service or the functioning of the state. Among those listed in the expanded list was the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

This bill was apparently created in order to legalize the state security which has been provided for the church Patriarch for many years now without any legal basis.

In relation to this, the Good Sense Foundation addresses an open letter to the President of Russia, Dmitri Medvedev, in which we ask him to answer two questions:

1) Will somebody be held accountable for the violation of legal principles that have been going on for a number of years?

2) How does the government’s initiative to support just one out of many religious organizations registered in Russia correspond with the secular nature of our state, as indicated in our national constitution?

The Fund is also addressing a letter to the head of the dedicated Security Committee in the State Duma, Vasiliev V.A, with a request to act out of a sense for public consent in terms of ethnic and religious cross-relations when discussing the bill. We also ask that the Duma keep the secular basis of our national constitution in mind when determining what private Russian citizens should be eligible to receive government-paid security protection.