T-shirts!

Our t-shirts look like this:

- You can order them by replying to this e-mail and telling me what size you would like.
- They come in mens’ and ladies’ sizes.
- They cost £5.
- You will receive one of the four badges shown below for FREE.
- You only need to pay when you collect your t-shirt.

Hoodies!

Our hoodies are white, with a large screen print of our logo on the back (without the name), embroidered on the front with our name on the left of the chest and yours (if you want, no extra charge) on the right.
- They only come in mens’ sizes, and “small” is the smallest size they have.
- You will get to pick two of the badges shown below for FREE.
- They cost £25.
- To order a hoodie you will need to see me *in person* and pay *before* they are ordered. This is because they are personalised, so cannot be given to other people if someone changes their mind. When you meet with me, I will ask you what size you want and what name you’d like embroidered, if any. To meet up, e-mail me (w.wybrow at warwick dot ac dot uk) and arrange a time and place, or speak to me (Will Wybrow) at any Warwick Atheists social or event.

***The deadline for ordering this merchandise (t-shirts and hoodies) is WEDNESDAY at 11.59pm***

Badges!

Buy a t-shirt and receive a free badge. Buy a hoodie and choose two badges to receive.

Events in week 8 include the showing of the ever-popular The God Who Wasn’t There. It will be shown in L5 on Wednesday at 3pm; our regular spot for film showings.

To complement this, we’ll be having a social in the Grad@Cholo on Thursday evening, officially kicking off from 8pm. Look for us! There will be some of us sporting the Warwick Atheists white.

Merchandise

On that note, Warwick Atheists will be offering t-shirts to those interested. If you would like to purchase one of these delightful pieces of clothing, it will set you back £5. You will need to e-mail me at w.wybrow[at]warwick.ac.uk to let me know you want one, and in which size (S, M, L, XL or ladies’ sizes).

The Atheist Bus Campaign needs your support! Donate as much as you can spare in an attempt to get these humanist adverts displayed as widely across the country as possible. Looking at the amount raised so far should give you an idea of how much good company you’re in by choosing to support the British Humanist Association in this, and the more donations they receive, the greater the chance of having the adverts on a bus service near you!

At last, we’ve got a guest speaker coming to talk to us! This will be our first external speaker, so this is huge news. I’ll keep you posted.

Greetings to Warwick Atheists members, new and returning, and welcome to another year of thought-provoking events, entertaining and interesting film showings, fun socials and delicious meals! We have got an excellent year lined up for our members. We want to reach out to as many people as possible and get them involved in the society’s activities. Last year, our Best New Society award showed everyone exactly how capable we were of creating a successful and enjoyable environment for anyone interested, and we hope to do even better this year.

Take a look at the announcements for our upcoming events, or visit and join our Facebook group for regular updates.

If you need to contact someone from the society, for any reason, you can e-mail me personally at w.wybrow[at]warwick.ac.uk, or another exec member.

Lastly, if you haven’t joined the society officially, please do so. By joining, you’ll have access to regular e-mail updates. The funds will also go towards bringing you bigger events (including a provisionally planned speaker from the BHA) and better merchandise. We’re only asking £2 to join (lower than lots of other societies), it’s less than the cost of a pint to you, but to us it’s one step closer to being able to fully fund our plans for the year.

As you may know, we were in the Boar this week. I’ve scanned in the articles we were featured in, plus one related article on famous atheists and atheism for reference.

• Front page: They Still Don’t Believe It headline article, by Sam Shirley (High-res alternative is available if you can’t read the smaller one - it will take much longer to load, so try the smaller one first)
• Page 5: Atheists’ Anger continued from front page, by Sam Shirley (High-res)
• Page 4: What’s all the fuss about?, uncredited (High-res)
• Page 4: Poll shows 76% against the ban, uncredited. There was a misprint in the original graphic; the two smaller pie charts were incorrectly coloured (it’s got the actual responses in the text body), so I have corrected the diagram (High-res)
• Page 5: Poster withdrawal an “over-reaction”, by Jon Ng (High-res)
• Page 6: Warwick Atheists defend their position, by Charli Fritzner (High-res)
• Page 6: Ed Callow explains decision to ban, by Andrew O’Brien (High-res)
• Page 8: Losing faith in Warwick Atheists, uncredited (High-res)
• Page 7: Brights’ Eyes, Shankar Jayaram (High-res)

We fucking rock.

I went to the talk that the Warwick Islamic Society society put on entitled “Sharia Law in UK”. It was given by Wasim Yaqub, apparently the Manager of Islamic Relief UK, a maintainer of diplomatic relations between Islamic communities and the rest of the world.
He began the talk with a very long prayer, then he proceeded.
I took notes in the lecture, and I will use them to try to summarise the points he made without out caricaturing them. It is absolutely not my intention here to misrepresent what he said.

• Everyone knows that British law is Judeo-Christian in tradition. What they don’t admit is that it doesn’t have anything to do with Judaism - British law is grounded in Christian tradition.
• Allowing any one religion to have special political status is unfair, and therefore the correct response is to allow ALL religions the same same increased status, specifically Islam.
• From all the outcry against the statements of Rowan Williams, it is clear that the press hates Islam.
• It should be noted that Sharia law does not undermine the rights of women.
• “If you’re not a fundamentalist, you’re not much of a Muslim.” [Here he qualified that by “fundamentalist”, he meant “someone who strictly follows the fundamentals of Islam”.]
• One of the things that people might not like about Britain *not* under Sharia law is that homosexuality is honoured. Another is that sex education is taught in schools.
• With Sharia, Islam can make Britain Great again.
• So what is Sharia?
• Sharia is based on the idea that humans are infinite eternal creatures, and that we can live in paradise.
• Sharia is a way that living on Earth can be made bearable. It is a way for us to get back into paradise after the Fall.
• The five most fundamental principles of Sharia are:
  • Life
  • Intellect
  • Freedom of Religion (though not freedom from religion)
  • Property
  • Honour

And these things should all be protected by force. Because the government uses force elsewhere in the world, we should use the same force here at home to make sure the rules are followed.

• What does “honour” mean?
  • Respect our elders
  • No more drugs of any kind - show me someone who drinks who isn’t a binge drinker!
  • Protect women.
• Notice, the current government uses student loans to ensure that students are in debt when they leave university so that they can’t use the power they’ve been imbued with via their education and university life. It is a conspiracy.
• We should absolutely bring up our daughters piously, though not our sons.
• Under current law, when an individual is punished for a crime, it is actually a punishment for society. If a man steals a car, and is put in prison, his wife and family suffer, can’t eat, loose their house etc. Instead, the punishments for breaking the law should be so severe that they would act as a real deterrent to committing such crimes.
• Secularism is anti-God. By denying God from the law and from the government, you are denying Muslims their right to freedom of religion.
• Basically, in modern Britain, we already have Sharia, but not Tauhid - governmental recognition for the oneness of God. This is what we, as good Muslims, should be working towards. This is what the country needs. This is what will make Britain Great again.
  • Without the oneness of God, we can have no good moral compass.
• Incidentally, although Islam is criticised as anti-Semitic, it’s not; because if you have a murderer, it’s possible to hate the crime and not hate the sinner.

After the lecture, he took questions (I asked him in what ways Sharia would protect women, he avoided the question). When someone tried to clarify his apparent misunderstanding of the term “secular”, he didn’t address that either. I don’t remember the other questions.

After the questioning session, everyone left, but I stayed behind to talk to him some more. Sam gave him a National Secularist Society leaflet and suggested he read up a bit more on what he was criticising! He had a friend there, the head of the Islamic Prayer Hall on campus. I talked to both of them for at least an hour. I will again summarise some of what they had to say.

• Creationism is correct, evolution is just a theory.
• Islam should be taught in schools. The problem with teaching comparative religion classes is that, by teaching all religions as equal, you deny that any particular one of them is true. This is a right that secularism has taken away from our schools. By preventing us teaching Islam in schools, we are preventing children from ever learning about what Islam really is, and this is an infringement on our rights as Muslims.
• Part of Islam says that we should be in Govornment - it is God’s will that we are in power. Secularism, therefore, is in direct infringement of our rights to practice our religion freely.
• Under Sharia, the integrity of the law is grounded in the integrity of Islam and the integrity of the prophet Muhammed(pbuh). Therefore, anyone who:
  • Leaves Islam, thereby stating publicly that it’s tenets are insufficient
  • Slanders the prophet Muhammed(pbuh) whether in speech or writing (fictional or otherwise)
  • Entertains radically alternative historical views of the prophet Muhammed(pbuh)
  • Insults Islam or the prophet Muhammed(pbuh) publicly in any way

Is undermining the integrity of the law, which is clearly an act of treson, and should be put to death in the manner specified in the Qu’ran and Hadith - stoning.

A good example of this is the recent case of Salman Rusdie. The Satanic Verses was a politically-motivated piece of writing, and is indefensible under freedom of artistic expression. He knew the consequences of what he was doing, and he chose to do it anyway, so the fault lies entirely with him. The other complicit in the publication of the book are guilty also. This is a good argument for why Sharia should be in place.

• Alcohol would be completely illegal, as this is one of the most clear laws laid down in Sharia. The only exception would be for Christian communion - prevention of them drinking wine would be an infringement of their freedom of religious practice - and so the state would actually have to provide the wine for them, as any other trade of alcohol would be illegal. The only possible exceptions to this law might be for other religious rites.
• A member of a Sharia state should be allowed to approach a Muslim and tell them when they aren’t preying often enough.
• Sharia should only be put in national government if it is voted in by a majority.
• We should not have a constitution, as it would prevent Sharia law being properly implemented.

I should be pointed out that, whilst they had outrageous views, they remained fairly civil throughout in the discussions. The head of the Prayer Hall even gave me an open invitation to talk to him any time at his office, and even borrow a book on the limits of free speech. It should also be pointed out that it is possible that I have misunderstood what they meant and have therefore accidentally misrepresented them in my paraphrasing, though I hope and trust this is not the case. If anyone else was at the meeting, and remembers things differently, please let me know. (I would be very happy if I am in fact mistaken.)

What I found most unnerving is that these people are heads of local Muslim communities, and a large number of Warwick-based Muslims, including many who directly associated them with the society’s Islamic Awareness Week, appeared to completely agree with what they were saying; nodding in earnest appreciation of, for example, the following argument;

Me: Since the illegality of alcohol is central to Sharia law, would I be, even as a non-Muslim, forbidden from drinking it? Since I might only be enjoying a fine wine with my dinner party, surely that is an unnecessary infringement on my personal private freedoms?

Mr. Yaqub: Here is a story from the Qu’ran - there once was a governor of an Islamic state who was walking through his province when he heard a party going on - he looked in through the window and saw alcohol was being served, so he jumped over the wall, went in at the door and told them they were breaking the law. In response they said: well, you’ve just broken three laws: spying, entering a property in the wrong fashion, and entering a dwelling without permission! So under Sharia law, you wouldn’t have anything worry about.

This, I think, is why secularism is so vitally important. If you want to talk about this, please do so on the forums.

Link to video player

This is a fascinating and lucid debate.  Rabbi David Wolpe is extremely intelligent, and seems to be genuinely seeking the truth, rather than just 1up-ing Sam Harris (the way many televised science vs. religion debates seem to go); Sam Harris is his usual eloquent erudite self; and they get straight down to some genuinely interesting issues, whilst (almost) side-stepping the usual meaningless rhetoric.

There’s a new photo gallery section, available from the buttons on the left.  Evidence of our debauchery will be available there.  [Let me know if you don’t want pictures of you on the internet…!]