Tonight I had the pleasure to speak to the Board of Directors of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association about our campaign to end the distribution of Gideon Bibles in BC schools.

Below is the speech that I presented. I am pleased to report that the Board of the BCCLA has asked their legal staff to help us in our work on the Chilliwack case, the outcome of which will help them decide what further support they can offer.

It was unclear last night what the deletion of Regulation 518 meant for the practice of distributing Gideon Bibles in Chilliwack public schools. A number of stories came out today, however, that start to paint a clearer picture.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend this evening’s school board meeting in Chilliwack, so I only have second hand reports from Twitter to go on. Nevertheless, the news is out that the Board voted to repeal their policy supporting the distribution of Gideon Bibles.

James Croft at the Temple of the Future tipped me off to the new group Houston Oasis. The group looks to be reinventing the Humanist community.

Controversy has erupted in Chilliwack after Richard Ajabu protested his school board’s policy that explicitly permits the distribution of Gideon Bibles to Grade 5 children (with permission slips produced by the Gideons).

The Board recently reviewed the policy in a closed-door meeting and decided to uphold it.

A few weeks ago I was invited to contribute an essay on the Humanist position on animal rights for the Vancouver Humane Society quarterly newsletter. The edition is out and available online in PDF form. I’ve also reproduced my essay below.

A couple weeks ago I wrote that “Humanism makes belief in God irrelevant.” I ended that essay stating,

So while being a humanist doesn’t really mean you need to be an atheist, it doesn’t leave much room for any god worth believing in.

Since writing that piece, I’ve done quite a bit of thinking about this topic and have realized that I was mistaken. This thinking has been motivated by two sources.

I was at Skeptics in the Pub at the Billy Bishop and was asked a question that took me off guard for a second.

After more thought, I finally have my answer.

The question was posed by someone I later learned was a Christian who was checking out the skeptics group. He asked me, “do you have to be an atheist to be a humanist?”

There is an ongoing debate in the wider, online, Freethought/secular/skeptic community.

While I don’t want to rehash the specifics, name names, or argue the semantics, it does highlight what I consider to be a divide between humanism and mere atheism.

Our recent release attracted some attention of local and national press. Below are some links.