Greetings from Manchester!

[Ciaran]

Hi All!

As you might hopefully have guessed my name is Ciaran and I'm the founding chair of the MU humanist society. Just thought I'd pop by and say hello.

feel free to drop me an email if you want any info

cheers
Ciaran

[norman]

Welcome to Secular Portal!

I have heard interesting rumours from Manchester, saying that your union has taken a dim view of atheist/Humanist groups on campus? Can you shed any light on this speculation?

[grammar king mike]

Welcome!

Just to clarify, are you University of Manchester or Manchester Metropolitan?

Good to see the NorthWest getting more involved. There seem to be a fair number of new societies too.

[Chris Worfolk]

Welcome to the community Ciaran! It's always great news when we hear from a new society.

[Ciaran]

We've not had any problems from the Union, in fact they've been very helpful so far.
The Union was taken over by a Muslim voting bloc a couple of years ago which may be why you've heard that. That was before my time though, we have some relatively sane Labour party people in charge at the moment.

And we're University of Manchester, although until MMU set up their own society (which hopefully might be quite soon) we are open to students from both universities and in fact anyone from Bolton, Salford and the RNCM who might be interested.

Ciaran

[grammar king mike]

The Union was taken over by a Muslim voting bloc a couple of years ago which may be why you've heard that. That was before my time though, we have some relatively sane Labour party people in charge at the moment.


I didn't hear about that!

[norman]

We have had a Muslim voting bloc at Leeds for some years now. Interestingly enough, the same Muslims are head up the Respect voting bloc too.

[Nicola]

Hey I heard that Manchester University wasn't allowd an Atheist Society, by a current student. Next time i see him i will try my best to make him join you guys.

[AlexMagd]

I sometimes find that the religious authorities don't mind humanism because at least you're replacing their tosh with *something*, rather than that nasty negative atheism. But then a lot of religious people are way more tolerant of us irreligious types than you'd expect (or their holy books tell them to be)

[grammar king mike]

I find most religious people are more tolerant of atheists than most atheists are of religious people tbh...

[AlexMagd]

Often the way when one belief system is on top though. As a religious people you're far less likely to face criticism for your beliefs than as an atheist for your nonbeliefs. In the UK I generally find bemusement (probably, as Douglas Adams pointed out, for holding a strong view on anything) as opposed to outright hostility.