Suffolk Humanists & Secularists

Atheist ads can now be seen on buses in London and across the UK, thanks to the hugely successful campaign launched by the Guardian’s Comment is Free writer, Ariane Sherine. They read, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. Originally, Ariane appealed for £5,500 to place ads on London buses to counter nasty Christian messages, Prof Richard Dawkins pledged his support, the BHA took on the organisation through the Just Giving website, and the whole thing took off. Donations streamed in from across the UK and abroad, eventually totalling over £135,000 (and rising).

The BHA launched its new website yesterday. We’re assured they haven’t copied our colour scheme – we were just ahead of the trend.

Twitter is a free messaging and micro-blogging service - think of a combination of a blog, a messaging service, and a social network. See www.twitter.com for more info. More people all the time are joining Twitter to take advantage of quick, informal messages, the exchange of ideas and links, or maybe just daft comments about what's going on in the news.

The third of our stories since the new year to end with a question mark - over at Edge, some of our leading thinkers and scientists were asked the question what will change everything?. Answers range from the discovery of intelligent life from somewhere else through our ability to conquer death to superintelligence, universal translation, climate change and human-chimpanzee hybrids.

If you go to the Think Humanism site, there’s a quiz to test your knowledge of Darwin and his work. We’ll be celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth on 12th February this year. Anyone who’s interested in marking the event in Suffolk, please get in touch.

The atheist buses will be on the streets this month, challenging lazy assumptions and encouraging people to be open about their skepticism.

Obama takes over in the White House, thrown in the deep end with the economic crisis and the Israelis to deal with, but hopefully better at the job than Bush (no one could be worse, surely).

The economic downturn might prompt people to live more frugally, which will be good for the planet, and might encourage environmentally-friendly innovations.

Humanist Roy Brown attended the 60th anniversary celebration of the Declaration of Human Rights, “expecting to be appalled in equal measure by the extravagance of the surroundings and the hypocrisy of the speeches, but I left both moved and inspired.” Could attempts by Islamic states to set the clock back be thwarted?

We can influence events in 2009 with positive action. You might be surprised by what we can achieve.

Happy New Year!

The seasons are determined by the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun – just over 365 days – and the way the Earth tilts on its axis. The Summer Solstice is the longest day (Midsummer Day in June), and the two equinoxes (Spring and Autumn) are when night and day are the same length. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day (tomorrow, 21^st December 2008), when the North Pole is furthest from the Sun because of the Earth’s orbit and its tilt.

The Spring Solstice has been celebrated through the ages as a festival of new life. The Church introduced a religious festival called Easter (a name derived from an Anglo-Saxon goddess’s name) at about the time of the Spring Equinox; the date isn’t fixed in the ecclesiastical calendar, as Christmas is. The date that Christmas Day falls on has changed because the calendar has been changed. The most commonly used calendar today is the Gregorian Calendar, decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in February 1582. It replaced Julius Caesar’s Julian Calendar, which was introduced in 46 BC, and that replaced a series of Roman calendars that were essentially lunar. The Greeks had other calendars.

Consequently, the year began and ended at different times in different eras, and the midwinter festival that had previously been based on the solstice was claimed as a Christian festival and fixed at 25^th December in 237 AD. That’s 25^th December in the Gregorian Calendar. In the Julian Calendar it falls on 7^th January; Christmas is still celebrated in January by some Orthodox Christians.