The General Registrar Office of Scotland has just released its statistics on marriage in Scotland in 2007 and they make interesting reading.

While marriage overall, and religious marriage in particular, continues to decline, the number of marriages conducted by the Humanist Society of Scotland (HSS) has risen dramatically for the third year running.

In 2007, the HSS conducted 710 legal marriages, 285 more than the 2006 total of 434. This represents an annual rise of 64%,…

Two stars are born.  HSS members Clare Marsh and Derek Young are the headline acts on the latest podcast from the Institute of Humanist Studies and American Humanist Association, Humanist Network News, recorded at the recent World Humanist Congress in Washington DC.  The podcast can be downloaded from this webpage.  Needless to say, they get top billing and their "segment" lasts for much of the first 15 minutes of the programme, followed by…

Before the turn of the year I decided that this would be the Summer issue of Humanitie’s “Education Issue”. We would just have launched our own Humanism in Education campaign, founded on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, that “affirms the right of all children to an education that respects both their own cultural values and those of others”, and I thought that Alex Salmond would jump at…

Families who don’t believe in God failed by education, Humanists say 

By Andrew Denholm, Education Correspondent, The Herald, 23.04.08

Families who don't believe in God are being failed by Scotland's education system, it was claimed yesterday.

The Humanist Society of Scotland (HSS) warned that both lessons and events such as assemblies in non-denominational schools were largely directed at those who had a Christian faith.

This Saturday, the society will launch an education campaign, founded on the UN…

The Gifford Lecture Series 2008
Date: Tuesday, April 15 2008
Time: 18:00
Venue: Sir Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre, University Avenue, Glasgow University
Category: Public Lectures
Speaker: Professor David Fergusson
David Fergusson, Professor of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, will present the Gifford Lecture Series 2008.
 
Founded in 1887 by the bequest of Lord Gifford, the annual Gifford Lecture Series was established to promote, advance and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of that term.…

Let's have a heated debate! Stuart Ritchie, President of the University of Edinburgh Humanist Society, speaks up for the monkeys at a debate to be held at Edinburgh Zoo at 7 pm on Thursday September 4th, reports The…

Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, has told civil servants to release undisclosed material which could provide "evidence that the dossier was deliberately manipulated in order to present an exaggerated case for military action", writes James Macintyre, Political Correspondent…

The Pope wants to rebury John Newman separately from the man he loved, Father Ambrose St John, writes Peter Tatchell in The Guardian

An atheist prime minister need not be one who is unaware of the good work that religious groups can do, writes Catherine Pepinster in Comment is Free

Terry Sanderson explains why the NSS is not in accord with the new Accord coalition that opposes State sponsored religious schools.

 An Islamic organisation with close connections to the SNP has been cleared by public spending watchdog Audit Scotland for the way it won Scottish Government grants, reports Douglas Fraser in The Herald