The UK Education Secretary thinks state schools should be pushing Christianity.

Schools must teach pupils that Britain is a mainly Christian country and have “no obligation” to teach atheism, the Education Secretary has said.

Seeking to clarify a High Court ruling last month, which found the Government had unlawfully excluded non-religious views from the curriculum, Nicky Morgan said schools are still free to prioritise religious teachings.

New guidance from the Department for Education insists that non-religious beliefs need not be given “equal parity” with religious belief and that non-faith schools should reflect the fact that British religious traditions “are, in the main, Christian”.

Seeking to clarify? That sounds more like seeking to ignore. The High Court ruled that the … Read the rest

A pop culture site drew up a list of most controversial tv show episodes. Coming in at number 2 is the one in which Maude (of Maude) had an abortion. It aired in November 1972.

If you think abortion is a touchy subject in pop culture now, imagine a TV show dedicating a two-part episode to it before the Roe v. Wade decision even came down. That’s exactly what the series Maude did in 1972 when it tackled abortion head-on in an episode where Maude discovers that at the age of 47, she’s pregnant. Throwing typical sitcom gags and quips out the window, this episode deals with the problem in a real world way, explaining the pros and

Much of Yorks and Lancs and Greater Manchester is still under water. The BBC has photos.

Central streets in York hip-deep in water, feet above the door sills of shops.

A heartbreakingly huge pile of full bin-bags outside a bookshop in Hebden Bridge.

A wholly submerged bridge in Cawood.

Two guys in water above their waists.

The north is a hilly area, but the towns and villages are mostly in the valleys. The valleys are river valleys.

To make it all worse, Cameron is there. Heckuva job, Davey.… Read the rest

The BBC reports:

An anti-Islamic State activist and filmmaker has been shot dead by assassins in broad daylight in Turkey.

Naji Jerf, 38, was shot with a silenced pistol in downtown Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, Turkish media reported.

Mr Jerf was the film director for Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), a group of journalists who risk their lives daily to report on IS abuses.

So he was slaughtered (silently) for reporting on slaughter. Of course he was.

It is the second murder of a member of the group in as many weeks, after Ahmad Mohammed al-Mousawas killed in Syria.

Mr Jerf was a vocal critic of the so-called Islamic State. He directed two recent documentaries about

The New Statesman – it’s sad. Emad Ahmed tells us about his year in Islamophobia. If his piece were all about people shouting on buses and attacking in the street and Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump, I’d agree with him, but this is the Staggers, so of course it’s not.

It’s so alarmingly difficult to identify as a Muslim today. I’m having to prove my sensible existence in a world dominated by dramatic headlines and tweets. The Charlie Hebdo attacks proved this. The whole purpose of that silly magazine (which has made international headlines in the past) is simply to offend, a degree above satire.

No.it.isn’t. It’s an anti-racist magazine, a magazine of the left. Its whole purpose … Read the rest

The BBC News helicopter has footage of flooding in the north of England.

Rescuers have been evacuating homes in York where water levels are still rising, and thousands of people in north-west England are without power.

Some of them are friends of mine, and probably of yours.

City of York Council said the River Ouse was 5.1m above normal summer levels and was expected to peak around lunchtime on Monday – close to its highest recorded level of 5.4m.

It said about 500 properties were directly affected by flooding and a second rest centre was being opened for residents.

Meanwhile, North Yorkshire Police is urging people not to travel to flooded parts of York, as well as the Selby

The Huffington Post asked 15 atheists some silly questions about Christmas, and there are a few amusing bits in the answers.

They put Dawkins at the top, of course, and what’s amusing about his answers is how in tune with his Twitter persona they are. It’s as if he thinks he’s been asked to perform “impatient” for a game of charades.

What does Christmas mean to you?

Unlike many a false caricature of an atheist, I have no problem with Christmas and no desire to rain on the Christian parade. I enjoy Christmas carols, especially when sung by a great choir like that of New College, Oxford, or King’s College, Cambridge. But only real carols about Jesus, NOT fake

Yvonne Ridley on Facebook:

Will men of Faith and no faith stop telling women what to wear – whether in general, in protest or in preference. Just get the hell out of our wardrobes and stay out!

This is probably in reaction to Maajid Nawaz’s tweet on December 21:

My Muslim sisters who support International Hijab day. Why not take off hijab to support acid victims like [t]his too?

Ridley isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, is she. Who told women to wear hijab in the first place? It was a man, wasn’t it? She wears it herself, and in doing so, she is obeying a rule laid down by a man.

 … Read the rest

I have this collection of letters by Sylvia Townsend Warner and I started rather randomly re-reading it yesterday. She’s a demon with words – I’d forgotten.

She went to Barcelona in 1936 to help with the resistance to Franco’s coup, working in a Red Cross office.

Heard of it by wire, sprang into the car, and drove across France at a rate which would have been intolerable if we had not been on our way to Spain.

I don’t think I have ever met so many congenial people in the whole of my life.

She describes how the workers are running everything, and how terrific it all is.

There are a great many shells and skulls of churches. It seemed

A horrible tale of violent domestic abuse in Watford:

A woman who beat her teenage daughter-in-law to death has been jailed, along with five members of the girl’s family, in what a senior detective described as one of the most harrowing cases of domestic abuse he had seen.

Shahena Uddin, 19, died after suffering severe injuries and choking to death on her own vomit.

Over the course of the trial the court heard that Ms Uddin had suffered mental and physical abuse at the hands of her family, including being forced to drink toilet water and eat her own faeces.

The other family members were all siblings. One of her brothers was her guardian, and his wife is the … Read the rest

Hopeful news for Galápagos tortoises, maybe. First, the New York Times last week:

Originally there were at least eight species of Galápagos tortoise, scientists now believe. (One was discovered only this year.) At least three species are now extinct, including tortoises on Pinta Island. The last one, George, was discovered wandering alone in 1972 and taken into loving custody. His death, in 2012 at more than 100 years old, was a powerful reminder of the havoc visited by humans on delicate ecosystems worldwide over the last two centuries.

Whalers and pirates grabbed them up because they could live in a ship’s hold for up to a year without food or water.

There are two types of Galápagos tortoises:

Good news, up to a point:

Saudi authorities have reduced a Sri Lankan woman’s sentence for adultery from death by stoning to a three-year jail term after an appeal, Colombo’s foreign ministry has said.

The woman, 45, who is married and had worked as a domestic helper in Riyadh since 2013, was convicted in August of adultery with a fellow Sri Lankan migrant worker. The man was given a lesser punishment of 100 lashes because he was not married.

It’s great that she won’t be killed by having rocks thrown at her head. (It’s disgusting that that was ever a possibility.) It’s not great that she’s been sentenced to three years in prison. It’s a violation of her rights. … Read the rest

Golly. CJ Werleman on Twitter:

CJ Werleman ‏@cjwerleman
Maajid Nawaz tells Muslim women to remove their hijab. Slobbering, white, fascist atheists still think he’s a Muslim.

Why is CJ Werleman policing who is a Muslim? Why is he implying that Maajid Nawaz is not a Muslim, thus aligning himself with Islamists who try to incite violence against Maajid? Why is Werleman helping Islamists bully Maajid for being a reformist? Why is he doing it in such an ugly, abusive, vituperative way? What’s the matter with him?

(Also what’s this “white” bullshit? Does Werleman think he’s not white? Why do people do that?)… Read the rest

I agree with Fredrik deBoer up to a point, but only up to a point.

I was quoted in a couple prominent publications yesterday, repeating my complaints with Oberlin’s protest against the supposed cultural appropriation of bad cafeteria food. Predictably, this resulted in both a lot of praise and a lot of criticism on social media. I don’t take either too deeply to heart. But I am disappointed that, from both critics and supporters, this has resulted in a common refrain: that I must be something other than a leftist, that to differ with (for example) Oberlin college students on the question of cultural appropriation must mean that I’m a closet whatever.

In fact, I critique that practice because I

Kenan Malik in the New York Times compares and contrasts Donald Trump and Maryam Namazie.

What links them is that there are many people in Britain who do not wish to let one or the other speak.

Mr. Trump’s recent call for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” caused outrage across the world. More than half a million Britons signed a petition to Parliament demanding that he be barred from Britain, a demand that has been backed by senior political figures.

The furor over Ms. Namazie’s views has caused fewer ripples, but is no less significant. Ms. Namazie is a founding member of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, an organization that campaigns on behalf

It’s Jesus and Mo day, i.e. the day a new J & M appears.

So that means people like Maajid Nawaz and Irshad Manji and Tarek Fatah and Tehmina Kazi and Sarah Khan are totally outsiders, right? Of course.

Volume 7, Wrong Again, God Boy, with a foreword by ME, is out now.

The Patreon.… Read the rest