Our latest newsletter is out now. Sorry it’s rather brief. Will have more to offer next time. There’s a meeting on Tuesday 8th November –**Gospel Truth?**Richard Layton plans to explore the origins of Biblical myths, in particular the earliest writings on Jesus (before the Four Gospels) which some scholars claim reveal that the Resurrection was celebrated as a spiritual eventnot the physical event that later gospel writers claimed. For the venue and time, see the newsletter.

All the news about what we’ve been doing and what we will be doing over the next few months. Click here to download our latest newsletter (PDF) and share it with anyone who’s interested.

Whatever your views about the outcome of the British EU referendum, you may like to knowthat English, Irish and Scottish Humanists are members of the European Humanist Federation, and this won’t change. Click here to find out more about it. The British Humanist Association has been neutral about EU membership but has published some Leave and Remain views on its website. Click here to read them.

Taken on the set of ‘In Cold Blood’ in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas. Today is Sir David Attenborough’s 90th birthday. This is a quote from‘Life on Earth’, included in a ‘Humanist Anthology’, available from the BHA. “Man’s passion to communicate and to receive communications seems as central to his success as a species as the fin was to the fish or the feather to the birds. We do not limit ourselves to our own acquaintances or even our own generation.

Our latest newsletter is ready – click here to download it(PDF).

A videofrom an interview with primatologist Jane Goodall made for Yann Arthus-Bertrand‘s film ‘Human‘.

The UKis the only democratic country to have religious representation in its legislature as of right, which is absurd. Now that the Church of England has sanctioned its US branch because it supports equal marriage, there’s even more reason to boot the bishops out of the Lords. Sign this petition and write to your MP. The petition states: Remove Church of England Bishops from the House of Lords. With the publication of the Church of England’s intention to sanction the US Episcopal Church over the latter’s sympathetic stance towards equal marriage, the C of E is quite out of step with UK Law and indeed common humanity.

December 10th is Human Rights Day, when The UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948, is celebrated worldwide. Last year, the International Humanist and Ethical Union released its latest Freedom of Thought Report, while in Ipswich we contributed to a local celebration. The IHEU introduced itsreport as follows: The 2015 edition of the report documents how persecution of the non-religious has escalated in the past year.

Hope you’ll have a good time over the holiday. If you haven’t already done so, please consider the refugees struggling in the cold. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)saysthey don’t have enough money to help as many as they’d like. Click here to go to their site.

Our November meeting, the day before Armistice Day, is about Atheism and War. Elisabeth Thomson will lead the discussion, using prose and poetry. You’re welcome to bring your favourites. To start you off, here’s Mark Twain’s scathing indictment of war and the patriotism and religious fervour that’s motivated too many. For details, see our events calendar. The War Prayer O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended through wastes of their desolated had in rags and hunger and thirst, sport of the sun-flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it for our sakes, who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!