Ross Greer with the Scottish Secular Society
We are happy to announce that Ross Greer has confirmed to be our guest and speaker for our August 2nd meeting. Sworn in as an MSP for the West of Scotland in 2016, Ross has been a tenacious activist since joining the Green Party at 15 years old. He has continuing deep roots with the youth wing of his party and was pivotal in getting young people politically aware and engaged and, of particular self-proclaimed interest: how to organise. Ross also bucks the trend of youth engagement with Christianity and is open about how his faith informs his politics and inspires his activism to...
Read MoreSecularists Must Challenge Racist Discourse Not Enable It
Secularism, like any other social concept, carries different connotations to different people in different parts of the world. To consolidate a purely definitional view of secularism as proposed by French academic Jean Bauberot: secularism is the formal separation of the state and religious institutions, freedom of thought, conscience and religion and no state discrimination against anyone on the grounds of their belief. No state in the world adheres to this definition entirely and because of the complexities of concepts such as discrimination it arguably never will be fulfilled for everyone...
Read MorePress Release – Dismay at the Scottish Government’s plans to increase funding for Catholic education.
On June 2nd Nicola Sturgeon revealed plans to multiply by a factor of almost 5 the amount of public money being spent on preparing trainee teachers for the Catholic Teaching Certificate (CTC), a requirement for teaching in Catholic schools but for no other purpose. Although the absolute sums involved are not large, this is public money, raised through taxation levied on a population of which now only one in eight is Catholic, while the majority has no religious affiliation whatsoever. This investment is particularly troubling in the context of the recent report published by the Accounts...
Read MoreOur response to the survey indicating that 70% of young people in the UK do not consider themselves religious
This week saw the publication of figures concerning the religiosity of Europe’s young people. These figures published in a report prepared by Stephen Bullivant for the European Council of [Catholic] Bishops are based on data from the European Social Survey 2014-16 and show that in the UK a majority of the adult population, and 70% of young people (16-29), identify as having no religion. These figures show the privileged place of religion in our system of government to be grossly out of step with the views of the governed. Currently the UK still has 26 bishops sitting and voting in the...
Read More7 June | Charlie Lynch – Adam Smith: Representing the Kirk on Screen in the early 1970s
Our Secretary Charlie Lynch will be joining us to discuss his paper on the 1970s Television series, Adam Smith. Adam Smith was co-written by the left-wing playwright Trevor Griffiths and starred Scottish character actor, Andrew Keir, and was produced with the assistance of the Church of Scotland. It depicted the life and struggles of a parish minister in a fictional village in the Scottish Borders. Charlie will discuss how the series can be analysed as a depiction of the Kirk and Scottish society in an age of rapid social and cultural changes. Charlie will pay particular attention to the...
Read MoreThe Scottish Secular Society Welcomes the News That The SNP Governing Body Are Moving to Debate the Repeal of Blasphemy Laws
The Scottish Secular Society welcomes the news that the SNP’s governing body are moving to debate the long overdue repeal of Scotland’s blasphemy laws. We fully support any move to more formally entrench freedom of expression as it is laid out in Article 19 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, and hope this action gains cross party support. We would support Scotland joining England, Wales and many other countries across the world in removing blasphemy laws from the books. We also agree that such action would allow Scotland a more firm moral position when...
Read MoreCan The Non-religious Be Moral? Well, Can The Religious?
Recently the topic of the moral decline of society has reentered the public discourse. This unwelcome topic has again reared its ugly head in the wake of the horrific shooting in a Florida school.
Read More5 April | Mhairi Black, MP: The Future of Scottish Politics
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FOR: THURSDAY 5 APRIL, 2018. TICKETS NOW ON SALE.
Read MoreScottish Declaration on Human Rights
Below is the letter drafted by our human rights adviser John Duncan in response to the unveiling of the Scottish Declaration on Human Rights. In response to this letter we were given information on how to sign up and can now proudly say we are signatories to the Scottish Declaration. You can find information on how to sign up either personally or on behalf of your organisation here: https://humanrightsdeclaration.scot/sign-up Any organisation from the public, private or third sectors can sign their support for the Declaration. Big or small, old or new – as long as your organisation works in...
Read MoreReligion and the Highlands and Islands Film Guild 1946-71
Dr Ian Good and Dr Ealasaid Munro present some of the key findings of their AHRC funded research into the Highlands and Islands Film Guild (1946-1971) Dr Ian Good and Dr Ealasaid Munro present some of the key findings of their AHRC funded research into the Highlands and Islands Film Guild (1946-1971). This was a travelling cinema funded by local government which sought to bring ‘secular entertainment’ to some of Scotland’s most geographically isolated and pious communities. How did churches respond to the arrival of cinema in rural areas? And how do people express their memories of...
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