Web links
Please contact us if you know of any links that could be added to this page.
UK-based secular and humanist web sites
General
Get to know the opposition
There are tens of thousands of religious web sites - from parish news to global evangelism. We have picked a few.
Believers who became non-believers
- www.apostatesofislam.com: Apostates of Islam - why they ceased to be believers
Quran 4:34: If you fear high-mindedness from your wives, remind them of the teachings of God, ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them."
History of secularism
History is important. We are part of a long process of dissent - dissent against religious ideas, against religious leaders and against the use of religion to oppress.
There is a wonderful hieroglyphic inscription cut by a mason into a stone well below the water-line in the Lake at the Temple of Karnak, near Luxor in Egypt:
If you are so powerful, why didn't you build this temple?
He was probably talking about his boss - or maybe a priest, or maybe the highest priest - the pharaoh.
Before the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 the common chant was:
When Adam delved, and Eve span,
who was then the gentleman?
Non-conformism - rebellion in the Derbyshire countryside
Derbyshire is full of large country estates (Chatsworth for example), and Derby city is surrounded by smaller ones, whose owners obtained their land directly or indirectly as a result of the theft of our country by the Normans.
William the Conqueror and his descendent kept large parts of Britain for themselves and the rest they gave to their friends. Over the years, rulers continued this process of rewarded their favourites with our land.
(Maybe it is time we took it back?)
The Christian church was used here, in Derbyshire, to justify ("rich man in his castle, poor man at his gate") and support a system of land ownership and class rule.
It is no wonder that the 18th and 19th centuries saw the growth of non-conformist movements - groups of people who did not want to sing and pray in the local churches established and run by their masters and "betters". The box pews remaining in many of our local church show the strong link between religion and class hierarchy in our county - and the numerous Methodist, Wesleyan and other non-conformist chapels show the level of religious rebellion common in the Derbyshire countryside.
Non-conformists rebelled against the church being controlled by the rich and used as a means of class control - they did not make the leap necessary to reject religion itself as a means of thought control.
Secularism completes that process by acknowledging the lessons of history and seeing religion for what it really is - oppressive, irrational, superstitious nonsense.
We can learn lessons from the past, but we can only change the future - and that is what Derbyshire Secularists & Humanists are all about.
Secular history links
Bad taste links
You will have gathered from this site that we secularists are almost as serious and boring as the religious.
There are a lots of anti-religious web sites - many of them in extremely bad taste.
So, if you are young (the pounding music on no-god.com may unbalance some oldies), carefree, non-religious and not easily offended, why not take a peek?
- www.nogod.co.uk - the Homer Simpson quotes are worth the visit.
- www.no-god.com - the games are particularly offensive, especially the crucifixion one, so we cannot recommend playing them (for long.)
- www.tshirthell.com - totally disgraceful - only for the brave.
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