BBC News: “More than half in UK are non-religious”

There is a BBC article (dated 4th Sept) that reports that in the UK … 53% of people described themselves as having “no religion”, in a survey of 2,942 adults by the National Centre for Social Research. Among those aged between 18 and 25, the proportion was higher at 71%. What is their source? The … Read more

How many get fooled when Fake News goes viral?

Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist blogger who used to be a maths teacher, plucks out a gem regarding fake news going viral from a presentation by blogger Dan Meyer. Dan’s keynote presentation is mostly a talk by a maths teachers to other teachers, hence Hemant’s interest. Be warned, unless you are into teaching, it will mostly … Read more

Bangladesh blogger murders: False information is being planted and circulated

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IEHU) reports that there has been a deliberate attempt to plant and circulate false information in the media and so rather than pick bits out, I’m reposting the entire article in full below. What appears to be the motivation here is that the criticism directed against the authorities in … Read more

News Bias – Attacking Atheists

It is often quite interesting to look at how a specific event is reported, and note the tone of the article. Such a comparison often tells us quite a lot about the bias that is introduced by the article’s author and perhaps also reveals a hidden agenda. Here now is an interesting example of this:

First … the event. A Metal beam, in the shape of a cross (pictured here) was found at 9/11 ground zero, it was subsequently blessed by a priest and erected as a memorial. What has now happened is that a US atheist group filed a lawsuit asking a judge to order the removal of the cross-shaped steel beam or request that other religions and nonreligious views be equally represented. My thoughts? Well, it sounds fair to me, we live in a pluralistic society, all they are asking for is an even playing field.

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