Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system, or life stance that embraces human reason, logic, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism, while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision-making.
In secular usage, religious education is the teaching of a particular religion and its varied aspects: its beliefs, doctrines, rituals, customs, rites, and personal roles. In Western and secular culture, religious education implies a type of education which is largely separate from academia, and which (generally) regards religious belief as a fundamental tenet and operating modality, as well as a prerequisite for attendance.
The American Humanist Association (AHA) is a non-profit organization in the United States that advances secular humanism.
Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs" in the United Kingdom by campaigning on issues relating to humanism, secularism, and human rights. It seeks to act as a representative body for non-religious people in the UK.
Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels.
The Runnymede Trust is a British race equality and civil rights think tank. It was founded by Jim Rose and Anthony Lester as an independent source for generating intelligence for a multi-ethnic Britain through research, network building, leading debate and policy engagement.
The Secular Coalition for America is an advocacy group located in Washington D.C. It describes itself as "protecting the equal rights of nonreligious Americans."
The Faith and Belief Forum, formerly known as the Three Faiths Forum (3FF), is an interfaith organisation in the United Kingdom.
A faith school is a school in the United Kingdom that teaches a general curriculum but which has a particular religious character or formal links with a religious or faith-based organisation. The term is most commonly applied to state-funded faith schools, although many independent schools also have religious characteristics.
A person's life stance, or lifestance, is their relation with what they accept as being of ultimate importance. It involves the presuppositions and theories upon which such a stance could be made, a belief system, and a commitment to potentials working it out in one's life.
Discrimination against atheists, sometimes called atheophobia, atheistophobia, or anti-atheism, both at present and historically, includes persecution of and discrimination against people who are identified as atheists. Discrimination against atheists may be manifested by negative attitudes, prejudice, hostility, hatred, fear, or intolerance towards atheists and atheism or even the complete denial of atheists' existence. It is often expressed in distrust regardless of its manifestation. Perceived atheist prevalence seems to be correlated with reduction in prejudice. There is global prevalence of mistrust in moral perceptions of atheists found in even secular countries and among atheists.
Jonathan Charles Bartley is a British politician and was a co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, a position he shared with Caroline Lucas from 2016 to 2018, and then, from 2018 to 2021, with Siân Berry. He was the Green Party's national Work and Pensions spokesperson and the party's Parliamentary candidate for Streatham in the 2015 general election. He was the Unite to Remain candidate for Dulwich and West Norwood at the 2019 general election.
Truth in Science is a United Kingdom-based creationist organisation which promotes the Discovery Institute's "Teach the Controversy" campaign, which it uses to try to get the pseudoscientific concept of intelligent design creationism taught alongside evolution in school science lessons. The organisation claims that there is scientific controversy about the validity of Darwinian evolution, a view rejected by the United Kingdom's Royal Society and over 50 Academies of Science around the world. The group is affiliated with the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement, following its strategy and circulating the Institute's promotional materials.
The Tyneside Group of the North East Humanists (NEH) was founded on 17 September 1957, although organised secularism in North East England had been active from the 1860s. The group adopted the name North East Humanists in 1997, after merging with the Teesside Humanist group.
Religious literacy is the knowledge of, and ability to understand, religion. The importance of being religiously literate is increasing as globalisation has created greater links and migration between societies of different faiths and cultures. It has been proposed that including religious literacy as an aspect of public education would improve social cohesion. In addition to being familiar with and comprehending the nature of religious experience, religious literacy is a fundamental understanding of the complexities, contradictions, and difficulties of at least one religious tradition. It embraces diversity and promotes balanced and wise engagement with the religious aspects of human cultures.
Andrew James William Copson is a humanist leader and writer. He is the Chief Executive of Humanists UK and the President of Humanists International. He has worked for a number of civil and human rights organisations throughout his career in his capacity as executive committee member, director or trustee and has represented Humanist organisations before the House of Commons, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the United Nations. As a prominent spokesperson for the Humanist movement in the United Kingdom he is a frequent contributor to newspaper articles, news items, television and radio programmes and regularly speaks to Humanist and secular groups throughout Britain. Copson has contributed to several books on secularism and humanism and is the author of Secularism: Politics, Religion, and Freedom.
The Fair Admissions Campaign aims to abolish the faith-based selection of pupils in state funded schools in England and Wales.
The Trojan Horse scandal, also known as "Operation Trojan Horse" or the Trojan Horse affair, is a conspiracy theory that posits a plot to introduce an "Islamist" or "Salafist" ethos into several schools in Birmingham, England. The name, based on the Greek legend, comes from an anonymous letter sent to Birmingham City Council in late 2013, alleged to be from Birmingham "Islamists" detailing how to wrest control of a school, and speculating about expanding the scheme to other cities. The letter was leaked to the press in March 2014. Around a month later, Birmingham City Council revealed that following the letter release it had received hundreds of allegations of plots similar to those described in the letter, some claims dating back over 20 years. The letter has been characterised as "incomplete, unsigned and unaddressed", but led to two investigations commissioned by the Department of Education and Birmingham City Council, the Clarke and Kershaw Reports, respectively. The reports did not both endorse the idea of "a plot", but points to "behaviour indicative of a concerted attempt to change schools".
The Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life (CORAB) was convened in 2013 by The Woolf Institute. Its purpose was to consider the place and role of religion and belief in contemporary Britain, to consider the significance of emerging trends and identities, and to make recommendations for public life and policy. Its premise was that in a rapidly changing diverse society everyone is affected, whatever their private views on religion and belief, by how public policy and public institutions respond to social change.
The 50% Rule in English faith school admissions was introduced in 2010 and stipulates that where newly established academies with a religious character are oversubscribed, at least 50% of their places must be open places, i.e. allocated without reference to faith. The rule is sometimes referred to as the Faith Cap on admissions. However, as the open places are just as accessible to faith applicants as non-faith applicants, in practice the rule does not explicitly prevent such schools from having more than 50% of students with a faith affiliation.