Margaret Nelson will be on the James Hazell Show to talk about all the fuss generated by the Bideford ruling on council prayers, and the claims of “aggressive secularism”. Times shown aren’t exact. You can listen on i-Player or Listen Again.

Sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. Be wise, strain the wine; and since life is brief, prune back far-reaching hopes! Even while we speak, envious time has passed: pluck the day, putting as little trust as possible in tomorrow!

Click here to read Baroness Warsi’s speech to the Vatican today, in full. You might want to pour yourself a stiff drink first. You’ll need it. A sample: Europe needs to become more confident in its Christianity. Let us be honest – Too often there is a suspicion of faith in our continent, where signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings, where states wont fund faith schools, and where faith is sidelined, marginalised and downgraded.

Know anyone who’s likely to be taken in by snake oil salesmen? Just refer them to this handy guide. Click on the image to know more.

The naturalist Charles Darwin was born 203 years ago today, Darwin Day. In his book, On the Origin of Species, Darwin set out what is probably the most important idea in the history of science. He reasoned that plants, animals and all living things are not static and unchanging, remaining as they were made by a divine creator; instead they change subtly from one generation to the next and those that are better suited to whatever environment they find themselves in prosper and reproduce more, while those that are less well suited dont.

… the sharpest young opinion-formers are atheists. This is a development that seems to have been missed by the old boobies who pass for bishops in the Anglican and Catholic Churches. Its a rapid and startling change in our religious landscape and not one that is going to be reversed.

Following a Judicial Review initiated by the National Secular Society to challenge the practice of having prayers as part of the formal business of council meetings in Bideford Town Council (Devon), the High Court has ruled: The saying of prayers as part of the formal meeting of a Council is not lawful under s111 of the Local Government Act 1972, and there is no statutory power permitting the practice to continue.

Two stories about churches of various sorts. The first is a bunch of them in the US. Leaders from Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish, Lutheran, Mormon, and Pentecostal communities in the United States have signed an open letter about the “serious consequences of redefining marriage”. They say these consequences will … … arise in a broad range of legal contexts, because altering the civil definition of “marriage” does not change one law, but hundreds, even thousands, at once.

The UK gay humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) re-launched its online magazine in December last year with a new title, The Pink Humanist. The PTT, which was founded in 1992, started publishing a printed magazine entitled Gay and Lesbian Humanist back in 1993 and continued this until it went online in 2008. Though described as an LGBT publication, the new magazine is aimed at all atheists, humanists, sceptics and freethinkers and is the only one of its kind worldwide.