The Wardman Wire

Humanism / Secularism

Simon Barrow reflects on conflict and confusion, and suggests that the place to focus is on the human beings in the middle - and work outwards from there.

Jerry Springer the Opera 1, Church of England 0?

Williams basic argument seems to be that the blasphemy law is finished, but that we do need to provide some sort of protection against religious abuse.

Hence he has been shot at by American conservatives for being limp on the blasphemy law, and by secularists for wanting to protect religion. But judging by the picture, he’s still smiling.

This is a Guest Post by Davd Keen, who blogs at St Aidan to Abbey Manor.

Exit pursued by a Bear (sorry)

Gillian Gibbons is safely back in the UK, thank God, thanks to the intercession of 2 Muslim peers, and widespread international condemnation of the Sudanese government.

What the whole sorry business has demonstrated, if a demonstration was needed, is that there are radically different versions of Islam at work in different places.

> An occasional series of posts to remind militant atheists that religion is by no means dead.

• Membership of National Secular Society in 2007: Around 7,000. Source and explanation.
• Membersip of churches planted by Holy Trinity Brompton since the late 1970s: 6617. (2002 figure: does not include HTB itself). Source.

> An occasional series of posts to remind militant atheists that religion is by no means dead.

• Membership of National Secular Society: Around 7,000. Source and explanation.
• Growth in membership of the CofE in London Diocese (i.e., North of the River) between 1990 and 2006: 24,000 (from 45,000 to 69,000). Source.

From the National Secular Society newsletter last week, an item about religion among “influentials” in London under the headline:

The London Evening Standard has conducted a survey among 700 “influentials” – that is to say businessmen, innovators, politicians etc – in the capital to find out their opinions about the impact of the Muslim community on London. The first finding is that 38% of the respondents have no religion; 47% say they are Christian (quite a drop on the 72% claiming to be Christians in the census); 1% said Buddhist; 1% Hindu; 6% Jewish 1% Muslim; 0% Sikhs; 1% other; 1% don’t know and 4% prefer not to say.

You can see an article about the survey here, including the graphic which gave the NSS their figures.

That (the text in bold) looks to me likely a rather dodgy statistical comparison, especially for advocates of an “evidence-based” tradition.