Jesus Camp on TV tonight

Readers in the UK might be interested to hear that the Oscar-nominated documentary Jesus Camp is showing on Channel 4 tonight at 11.05pm.

The film profiles the Kids on Fire School of Ministry, a Pentecostal summer camp in North Dakota where fire and brimstone pastor Becky Fisher trains children to join the "army of God".

I haven't seen it, but it was critically acclaimed when it was released in 2006 and it looks suitably disturbing – see the trailer below:

Dawkins: Creationism on the rise among British children

Let's hope this isn't the case. Answering audience questions following a debate with the Bishop of Edinburgh earlier this week, Richard Dawkins said that he thinks there has been an increase in creationist beliefs among young people in Britain:

"It is a very worrying trend, and I think a lot of it has come over from America and Australia. I have spoken to a lot of science teachers in schools here in Britain who are finding an increasing number of students coming to them and saying they are Young Earth creationists. Now this is a belief that the Earth is only 6000 years old, and it is such a staggering mistake that it is very concerning to hear this. It is no small error – it is equivalent to someone believing, despite the evidence, that the width of North America from one coast to the other is only 7.8 yards."

Thankfully this is only based on anecdotal evidence but still, it's fairly worrying if British teachers are beginning to encounter problems with this.

Parents charged with manslaughter after choosing to let faith heal their baby daughter

Here's another grim faith healing story, following on from last week's news that an 11-year-old girl from Wisconsin had died from a treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray rather than take her to a doctor.

Now, the Telegraph reports that a couple from Oregon are to be prosecuted for manslaughter after they allowed their baby daughter to die from a condition that doctors say could have been treated with antibiotics.

Carl and Raylene Worthington chose faith healing over medicine for their 15-month-old daughter Ava, who was suffering from bacterial bronchial pneumonia. Following her death they were arrested and charged, and face up to six years in prison if convicted.

The couple are members of the fundamentalist church Followers of Christ, which according to the Telegraph has been involved in controversies in the past over children who died in similar circumstances.

Chris Hedges on the "fundamentalism" of the New Atheists

It's interesting to see that Chris Hedges' new book is an attack on the New Atheists. Perhaps best known as a foreign correspondent, early last year Hedges published American Fascists, which compared the Christian Right in America to the early European fascist movements. Around that time, he wrote an article for New Humanist on the opening of the Creation Museum in Kentucky.

Having attacked Christian fundamentalism, Hedges is now training his sights on what he perceives as "atheist fundamentalism" in his new book I Don't Believe In Atheists, which has just been published in America.

There's an intriguing interview with Hedges on Salon that I urge you all to read. He says he's only recently found the New Atheists on his "radar screen", but suggests that he finds them every bit as dangerous as the Christian right, putting his view that "Hitchens and Harris do for the neocon agenda in a secular way what the religious right does in a so-called religious way."

Hedges even expresses a fear that the religious right and New Atheism might one day join together in an attack on Islam: "What I worry about is that in a moment of collective humiliation and fear, these two strands come together and call for an assault on Muslims, both outside our gates and on the 6 million Muslims who live within our borders."

Much of this seems somewhat over the top, but it's certainly interesting that someone like Hedges would launch such an attack on the New Atheists. You only have to read the article he wrote for us last year to see that he would be in broad agreement with atheists on many issues – indeed, his views on the Christian Right should really mark him out as a potential ally for the New Atheists – but there's just something in the aggressive tone of Hitchens et al that's really troubled him.

Have a read of what Hedges has to say and let us know what you think. Is he right to accuse the New Atheists of fundamentalism, or is it outrageous and offence to compare them to the Christian Right?

Prince Charles fond of "proper fundamentalism"

Yesterday's Sunday Telegraph was kind enough to draw our attention to a previously private letter in which Prince Charles expressed his favourable views towards religious fundamentalism.

Writing in 1996 to Mahathir Mohamad, the then prime minister of Malaysia who later expressed the view that Jews "rule the world by proxy", Charles said he understood the "frustrations" Muslims experience "as a result of apparent Western misunderstanding and misrepresentation. I have, for a long time, despaired of the ignorant and thoroughly evil 'role' of the tabloid media in deliberately misrepresenting Islam and reducing everything to the level of the absurd."

He followed this up by declaring that he saw the appeal of "proper fundamentalism" in "a world, in my part of it at any rate, which is increasingly without meaning, without roots, without a spiritual dimension and which worships the God of Technology."

The letter ends with the words "There is much to be done", which only serves to make one thankful that Charles isn't actually in a position to do anything.

The 'mental' in fundamentalism

A fascinating piece in Tikkun magazine argues that the inability to do "divergent" thinking - the kind of non-linear creative thinking which, in Salman Rushdie's phrase "allows newness to enter the world" - might be down to the lack of development of the sophisticated frontal lobe area of the brain. They cite some interesting evidence and ask some good questions like: "Do extremism and an unconditional adherence to religious dogma result from a failure of a portion of the frontal lobe to develop, or fully developed, to activate?" Shades of biological essentialism in the conclusion that fundamentalism has a biological explanation, perhaps, but ... it makes ya think (with the frontal lobes, obviously).

Scottish student found guilty of terror offences

A jury has today found Mohammed Atif Siddique, a student at Glasgow Metropolitan College, guilty of three terrorism offences. He was found guilty of possessing suspicious terrorism-related items, including videos of weapons use, guerilla tactics and bomb-making, and collecting terrorist-related information, setting up websites showing how to make and use explosives, and circulating inflammatory terrorist publications. He was also charged with breach of the peace, related to claims he showed fellow students images of suicide bombers and terrorist beheadings.

Recent months have seen several students convicted for terrorist offences, as cases related to new legislation on the glorification of terrorism begin to reach court. These cases highlight the question of when a combination of anger and curiosity should be seen to spill over into illegal activity. In a statement outside court, Siddique's lawyer said his client was only guilty of "looking for answers on the internet", just as millions of young people do every day, and in court his QC pointed out that the material he possessed was freely available to anyone on the internet.

It's been a busy day for news surrounding campus extremism. The government's Universities Secretary John Denham has today encouraged lecturers to back the government in tackling extremism in universities. In May this year the Universities and College Union voted to reject government recommendations to monitor their students, and today Denham has reiterated the government's view that this decision was misplaced, stating: "All we are trying to do is to make sure that everybody has the strength to ensure that people are not recruited to the sort of organisations which are promoting and organising violence of whatever sort."

Asked to comment on Mr Denham's remarks, the Universities and Colleges Union welcomed comments by Rick Trainor, president of vice-chancellors' union Universities UK, who in a speech earlier today said: "We do not believe that developing measures that focus on a particular group within our community achieves this goal. Rather, harmony is achieved by openness, tolerance and dialogue - which are, after all, central to university life."

In light of the UCU's decision and the recent surge in convictions, our September/October cover story takes a look at the question of radical Islam on campus, asking whether Islamist groups should be free to spread their ideas to students, or whether they should be banned from doing so. Are instances of radicalisation occurring at an alarming rate on campus, as cases like Siddique's may suggest, or are they occurring in numbers too small to warrant restrictions on freedom of speech?

Rise of religious fundamentalism: Tatchell talks to Joan Smith

New Humanist contributor Peter Tatchell interviews columnist Joan Smith on the rise of religious fundamentalism across the world, and the need for a universal morality based on human rights

Guardian Discussion

I posted a version of the piece below - the response to Stuart Jeffries Faith and unbelief article in the Guardian - on that paper's Comment is Free blog. Its here. It has got more than 100 responses which is a bit suprising... it was a pretty straightforward argument. Just shows how much of an appetite there is for this stuff around. If you have a spare moment go and have a look. The responses say that it was poorly researched, badly argued and wrong are thankfully (just) outnumbered by those who liked it. Just.