It’s been a while since I posted, and quite a lot has happened (as you would expect, given that a month and a half have passed. I have resigned from the BCSE, and stepped back from campaigning generally for a while.

Quite a lot going on personally, and I need some “me” time for a bit.

That’s the plan anyway – I doubt that will last for long, now that Alex Salmond has made an incredibly dangerous announcement. I’m a nationalist, and this is the closest we have ever had to a proper government so I have been quite chuffed with the national debate over the last few months…

The one dark cloud on the horizon has been Alex’s blatant (and quite offensive) sucking up to the Roman Catholic Church, firstly on the issue of the UK monarchy (and given that many nationalists are also republicans, that in itself is pretty much a non issue for the leader of the SNP) and now, disturbingly, on abortion.

Those of us who believe that Scotland can stand on her own two feet are of the hope that Scotland can become a small nation like Norway or Sweden – not a small nation like Ireland where women have to leave the country in order to secure medical services, and the church has been able to cover up case after case of sexual abuse of minors.

I have commented already on the Catholic Church’s sickening attempts to inject itself into Scotland’s medical policy.

It was a bit of a surprise to see the RC Church endorsing the SNP prior to the election (ostensibly because of Labour’s support for Gay rights) and many of us wondered just when they would be back for their pound of flesh. Looks like it’s now – and we wait with baited breath to see just how much Salmond had to sell out to get that support.

Nice to see Richard Dawkins on the TV again – or at least, gearing up to be: The Enemies of Reason. I always like Richard’s stuff – it’s a refreshing antidote to the turgid mess I have to dig through in my other day to day stuff.

It’s actually been an interesting week for me – interesting for the usual “can’t talk about it yet” reasons, for another “can’t talk about it yet” reason, and a third, “can talk about it, but it’s as dull as dishwater” reason. hmmm. Not exactly riveting blog material, that.

In fact, there’s a bit of news that I cn talk about, and not one I would have expected at the start of the year – We are wrapping up the Scottish Atheist Council in the next few weeks. The big surprise has been that, basically, it’s not needed.

I’m well aware of Thomas Jefferson’s observation that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and to be sure these venomous groups need a nice bright light cast on what they are doing, but the simple situation is that Scotland is a lot Brighter than we had thought when we kicked off SAC.

In terms of keeping the more extreme religious views out of schools, we were pushing against an open door – a small survey that we carried out of Scottish Parliament members (we didn’t publish it, as there didn’t seem much point) showed up a very well rounded group of reasonable people, with only the odd one or two “swivel eyed loons” in their midst.

When it looked like Truth in Science had acually wormed their way into the SQA’s exam papers, it was smacked down faster and more thoroughly than any of us could have asked for..

The real big crunch was the Election – you can’t underestimate how much money these guys threw at this – you literally couldn’t go anywhere in the country without seeing their posters on almost every lamp post – in Motherwell, they covered nearly twelve miles of road, with every lamp post, roundabout and sign post getting a placcard…

And the result? a staggeringly weak FOUR percent of the vote – and given that the turnout was only about 45%, that’s less than 2% of the population – about 100,000 people in total across the country. To put this properly in context – nearly twice as many people put “Jedi” on their census forms last time around than voted for the Christian parties combined.

We have had to face the very real possibility that highlighting them in any way actually helps this vanishingly small group of bigots to get more airtime. The effort is probably better spent supporting the efforts of people like the National Secular Society and Humanist Society of Scotland.

It says good things about our country that so few people buy into their rubbish. I’m proud to be Scottish, thinking that the enlightenment is, in all likelihood, safe in our hands.

I just read Sam Harris’ “Letter to a Christian Nation” – hardly a great achievement given how slender it is: I started reading as we taxied out to the runway at Birmingham, and was finished before we started our descent into Edinburgh.

What it lacks in length, though, it more than makes up for in subject matter. Harris is clear on one thing – the unpleasant impact of so called christian “morality” on the pursuit of happiness and in particular, the downright prudishness of Christian views.

Nowhere is this seen more clearly in the idiotic, pointless and utterly misguided “silver ring thing”. Lydia Playfoot (and isn’t that soooo a porn star name?) claims that it was all her idea, and nothing at all to do with her parents, who just happen to be members of the silver ring thing team (her mother is the UK secretary of the organisation, for christs sake!!).

Liar, Liar, pants on fire. with lust, probably, which is perfectly normal.

Silver Ring Thing is always pushed with the suggestion that it’s a better alternative to proper sex education which provides kids with information about the risks of STDs, teenage pregnancies etc.

What they always seem to miss is the single biggest indicator in teenage pregnancy – as study after study has confirmed, the key factor in teenage pregnancy is the education level of the teenager’s mother. Mothers who achieve higher levels of education impart this to their daughters. They are better parents, smarter parents… and they bring their daughters up with an inherent sense of their own self worth (and dare I say it, a clearer drive to achieve themselves!).

What we are trying to do in school sex education is to compensate for crappy parenting – and the simple fact is, that compensating for piss poor parents is hard to do. That being said – when we provide information about sexual health issues, people can make better decisions.

In stark contrast, “just say no”, abstinence only campaigns have an incredibly negative effect – two incredibly negative effects in fact.

You see, the age at which people who sign up to the Silver Ring Thing indulge in vaginal penetrative sex is delayed by on average 18 months (quite a feat actually, to hold back raging teenage hormones for a whole 18 months!!), but when those people do indulge, they are more than three times as likely to not use a condom, exposing themselves to higher risks of disease.

The other side effect, of course, is where the “brown ring thing” tag comes from – a rather dry observation that girls who have taken the Silver Ring Thing pledge are much, much more likely than their peers to indulge in Anal sex: again, without a condom, thereby exposing themselves to an even greater risk.

Ultimately, it highlights one of the darkest parts of the christian faith. They honestly believe that a super powered creator god cares more about whether teens rub their genitals together, than about the countless thousands of people suffering horrible illness, hunger and so on.

Their idea of a “moral crusade” isn’t just ineffective and laughable – it’s downright repugnant.