Mashable/Social Media: Fundraising is a key component for most social good campaigns and projects. Thanks to the the Internet and the social web, raising money for a non-profit, community project or charitable organization or relief effort is easier than ever before…
If you have an idea or a cause that you want to bring awareness to and raise funds around, there are lots of great online tools to help get you started… Read more
Posted in Philanthropy, Volunteering
“Our organization has a two-pronged goal. The first is as a think tank with a specific mission to “separate mosque and state” in the Islamic consciousness and to try to do that through a constant engagement of Muslims in the war of ideas between political Islam – Islamism — and western secular democracy. Americans and Muslims need to realize that this is a Muslim problem that needs a Muslim solution.”
Posted in Muslim, secularism
Gallup survey finds religiosity highly correlated to poverty http://ow.ly/2Bm0q
Posted in Religiosity, Research, Social Exclusion
In December 2008 the Institute for Public policy Research published Faith in the Nation: Religion, identity andthe public realm in Britain today A collection of essays by the Archbishop of Westminster, the Chief Rabbi and other senior faith leaders ‘to express their views on Britishness, multiculturalism and the role of religion in the public realm. ‘
The executive summary describes the document as ‘timely’
A growing sense of antagonism between some religious voices and a chorus of liberal secularists in the media and elsewhere is spilling over into political debate on such topics as faith schools and human embryology, and has arguably had a stunting impact upon our understanding of the place of faith in democratic society…. Continue reading
Madeline Bunting discusses Obama’s religious faith in today’s Guardian in particular his understanding of religiously-motivated civic activism:
Obama’s faith cannot be explained away as political opportunism to meet the conventions of American politics. The conversion was well before a political career seemed possible; besides, his faith has dragged him into plenty of controversy during his campaign. Recently, liberal secular allies have been shocked by his decision not to dismantle, but to take over and expand, Bush’s controversial flagship policy of funding faith-based organisations to provide social services. Even worse, he has chosen the evangelical preacher Rick Warren (opposes gay marriage, anti-abortion but passionate on social justice and climate change) to deliver the prayer at the inauguration. The point is that Obama has not wavered in his passionate faith in the progressive potential of religious belief since he first encountered it in south Chicago in community organising. He was in his 20s, and for three years he was trained in a politics based on a set of principles developed by a Jewish criminologist and an ex-Jesuit with borrowings from German Protestant theologians.
Obama described these three years of community organising as the “best education I ever had”. Michelle says of her husband that “he is not first and foremost a politician. He’s a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.” Continue reading
14 June is World Blood Donor Day: a special day dedicated to celebrating and thanking voluntary non-remunerated blood donors. The O Project supports blood donation as part of its Life after Death initiative.
Posted in Volunteering
The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on 21 March. On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid “pass laws”. Proclaiming the Day in 1966, the General Assembly called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.
Posted in Social cohesion
International Human Solidarity Day was established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2005 as an initiative in the fight against poverty. It is:
Posted in Social cohesion, Volunteering
The Guardian has a revieew of ICT resouces to support religious education classes.
It refers to REonline, “perhaps the best UK’s subject-centred site…run by the Christian foundation, Culham Institute”
“We’ve analysed the national framework and identified the key concepts,” says Tony Parfitt, who runs the site. “The framework now mentions 10 major faiths rather six, including Bahai, Humanism, Jainism and Zoroastrianism. We have 10 people from the faith traditions writing about them, and we give links to websites and supplementary reading. That’ll all be free with REonline.”
The inclusion of Humanism is welcomed especially in light of calls from Ofsted for religious education to include non-religious beliefs. Although in reality it is pretty uneven and not particularly favourable, with humanism lumped in with ethical egoismfor example (but not say rights or utilitarianism) in one section. At least it’s a start though and hopefully more, better resources will grow in time. (I am involved in developing some myself so watch this space!)
The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme is the focal point for International Volunteer Day (IVD), and provides many resources on its World Volunteer Web to help both volunteers and voluntary organisations make the most of the Day.
Included is an IVD Tool-kit with resources organisations can use to customise their own IVD publications and media relations. Organisations are invited to report their IVD activities to the UNV via the World Volunteer Web, so that these activities can be promoted on the web to UNV’s global audience.
In its 2001 resolution, the United Nations General Assembly called on “governments, with the active support of the media, civil society and the private sector, to observe 5 December, IVD, and to include activities focused on following-up on the achievements of IYV”.
For more information visit the International Volunteer Day website.
Posted in Volunteering
Following the United Nations Year for Tolerance in 1995, the International Day for Tolerance was first observed on 16 November 1996.
Activities on the Day seek to promote recognition of the need for tolerance and understanding of the practise of tolerance. Building tolerance and trust in diverse communities is not done overnight, but takes time and commitment. Building tolerance requires access to education. Intolerance is often rooted in ignorance and fear: fear of the unknown, of the “other”, other cultures, religions and nations. Intolerance is also closely linked to an exaggerated sense of self-worth and pride: notions taught and learned at an early age. Therefore in coming years, we need to place greater emphasis on educating children about tolerance, human rights and fundamental freedoms.
But we should not forget that education does not end in school, that adults – firstly as individuals capable of committing acts of intolerance but more importantly in their capacity as parents, law-makers and law-enforcement officials – also need to be considered a priority target of our educational efforts.
An International Day for Tolerance can serve as an annual occasion for tolerance education as well as for wider social and political reflection and debate on local and global problems of intolerance. It is a moment to take stock of the progress made during the year and to propose fresh policies to close remaining gaps.
While the problem of intolerance is global, in the sense that it is on the increase in many parts of the world, the manifestations of intolerance usually take on local or national forms. Thus, in order to be effective, global norms against intolerance need to be combined with local, national and not least individual measures.
For more information visit the International Day for Tolerance website.
Posted in Social cohesion
The New Humanist’s Paul Simms reports on the recent launch of the BHA’s secularism pamphlet.
The debate was opened by philosopher David Papineau…who put his case for a secular society as one intended not to cause differences, but rather to ensure that all citizens are free to practice their religion (or lack thereof) as they please, with the state favouring none. He presented secularism as a fair system, and one which encourages the loyalty of all groups to the state, since they have no need to fear that it is infringing on their religious autonomy. Continue reading
Posted in secularism
Today is the International Day against Fascism and Anti-semitism, an annual commemoration of the ‘Kristallnacht’ pogrom – a joint campaign of anti-fascist, anti-racist, human rights and Jewish organisations.
After World War II the Europeans decided that they would never let anything like the Holocaust happen again. Anti-fascist, anti-racist, human rights, Roma and Jewish organisations both inside and outside the UNITED network commemorate the Kristallnacht, which took place on 9 November 1938.
This partly state-organised pogrom against German Jews symbolises the beginning of the Holocaust. The commemoration has taken on a new meaning as we remember not only the victims from 1938, but also campaign against the rise of neo-nazism and racism in Europe today, and show support for the recent victims of racist and fascist attacks.
Posted in Jewish, Social cohesion
Next up to take on Richard Dawkins is the Guardian’s Anne Karpf. She begins:
If Richard Dawkins had his way, a fair number of you and, as it happens, me, would be had up for child abuse. According to him, that’s what religious indoctrination of children by their parents is. And if you can sue for the long-term mental damage caused by physical abuse, he argues, why shouldn’t you sue for the damage caused by mental child abuse?
If you accept Dawkins’s characterisation of religion, you’d probably agree. Religious parents, to him, are Mr Dogma and Mrs Bigot: they terrify their kids with tales of eternal hell, fire and damnation, when – that is – they’re not carrying out female circumcision or coercing them into forced marriages. Flat-earthers the lot, they’re brainwashers, fanatically opposed to science and rationality.
Isn’t it curious that we tolerate the stereotyping of religion in a way we’d never abide with race, religion [sic] or gender? I certainly don’t recognise myself in this caricature.
Hmmm in fact Karpf is the one doing the misprepresenation here. Continue reading
Posted in anti-secular/atheist, Atheist, Christian, Contribution of religion, Education, Muslim, Research
The Comombus Dispatch reports on a new project at Ohio University that aims to teach students how to have open, reasonable discussions about difficult questions of faith. The University is one of 27 colleges and universities receiving a $100,000 grant from the Ford Foundation through the Difficult Dialogues Initiative, a project coordinated by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.
The project aims to face up to the difficult topics that are too often glossed over or shied away from: Continue reading
Ali Abdel Raziq (1888-1966) was an Egyptian Islamic scholar and sharia judge.
An early modernist he was chiefly concerned with the role and nature of the caliphate in Muslim society.
His main work is called “Islam and the Foundations of Governance” (Al-Islam Wa Usul Al-Hukm) and was first published in 1925. Due to its controversial standpoints regarding the necessity of the caliphate and religious government, the book triggered an intellectual and political battle in Egypt.
He concludes that since there was no basis for the caliphate in either the Qur’an or in the Hadith there may not be anything un-Islamic about not having it either (but nor is there anything un-Islamic about having a caliphate). In essence he claims that the Muslims may agree on any kind of government, be it religious or worldly, as long as it serves the interest and common welfare of their society.
Ali Abd al-Raziq went a bit further than this, however, and recounting the horrors of the caliphate, among other things, also argued that religion should not be involved in government or politics. It is exactly this separation that is supposed to protect the religion from political misuse and to enforce morals.
He thus adopted what was essentially a secular approach to politics – there might not be a problem with religious values forming the backdrop to political debate, but he opposed the use of religion as the sole determining factor in political decisions. He was thus a defender of the separation of mosque and state for Islamic nations, a fact which earned him a great deal of opposition from traditionalist scholars and jurists.
Posted in Muslim, secularism
Today is ‘CSV Make a Difference Day’, 
the UK’s biggest day of volunteering in the community. It encourages people to try volunteering for one day, giving their time rather than money to make a positive contribution to their local areas.
Over 120,000 volunteers took part in 4,000 innovative activities across the UK for CSV Make a Difference Day 2006. Individuals turned wasteland into playgrounds, teddies were knitted for hospitals, students arranged tea parties for older people, sports clubs held training days for disabled people, and charities used the day to help recruit new volunteers!
Now in its 12th year, CSV Make a Difference Day hopes again to involve over 120,000 volunteers in more than 5,000 activities this October.
Posted in Volunteering
A subject close to the O Project’s heart– can religious and non-religious people work together on the secularist project? Giles Fraser accuses the National Secular Society (NSS) in the Church Times of “trickery…with respect to the word ‘secular'”:
I contend that the core meaning of secularism is the belief in the separation of Church and state. Religion, the secularist contends, ought not to have a place in shaping the laws or political realities by which we live.
…The NSS often employs this meaning of secular, especially when it is trying to look grown-up in making representations to government. Thus it says it wants “a society in which all are free to practise their faith, change it or not have one, according to their conscience”. It goes on about the importance of public space being open to all, irrespective of faith.
Yet, not far below the surface, another meaning of secular breaks out. Continue reading
Posted in Atheist, Christian, religious/humanist conflict, secularism
Ekklesia reports that Stephen Timms, the Labour Party’s vice-chair with special responsibility for faith communities, has highlighted the critical role of Christian organisations in shaping modern Britain.
Speaking at the national conference of Traidcraft, the Christian-based fair trade organisation he said:
“There is positive impact when Christians are involved in the lives of their community, because these people bring valuable qualities in their service which are rare elsewhere and they are qualities modern Britain urgently needs,”
“If our aim is a new world freed from the injustice and poverty, we need active input in our communities from people whose starting point is Christianity, and Traidcraft is a very good example of what can happen when we get it.”
His remarks have upset Muslim groups who… Continue reading
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