An angry Italian priest has persuaded soft drinks company Red Bull to withdraw an advertisement setting its product in a nativity scene on the grounds it is disrespectful to Christianity. Father Marco Damanti, from Sicily, wrote to the makers of the caffeinated energy drink denouncing their commercial as “a blasphemous act” and said yesterday he had received a prompt reply promising to remove it from Italian television. Tags: Red+Bull, Italy, Blasphemy

Professor Dawkins will be answering questions on the BBC’s World Service Have Your Say programme on Sunday 9 December at 2.06 pm. Pope Benedict has attacked atheism in his latest encyclical. He says it is responsible for some of the “greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice” in history. He adds “man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope”. Professor Dawkins says “many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense … September 11th 2001 changed all that.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Margaret Nelson will be interviewed about Christmas by presenter Rachel Sloane on BBC Radio Suffolk. BBC Radio Suffolk’s FM frequencies are 103.9 (Ipswich), 104.6 (west Suffolk), 95.5 (Lowestoft), 95.9 (Aldeburgh). It’s not available on medium wave or DAB, but you can listen live online – see link below. You can read about Christmas on our site, and buy R J Stovold’s little book, “Did Christians steal Christmas?

I make a mental note of new words I hear or read if I think they may come in useful. Last week someone used the word “anthropocentric”, and I had to look it up because it had been used in connection with Humanism. Anthropocentric is an adjective that means regarding humans as the central element of the universe, or interpreting reality exclusively in terms of human values and experience (I’m not sure how else we might interpret reality, but that’s another matter).

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Suffolk Humanist Nathan Nelson will report on his latest stint as a volunteer at the Sangkheum Centre for Children, Siem Reap, Cambodia. Nathan writes: “I’ve been living and working in Cambodia for five months now. Cambodia is a country that constantly surprises, amuses and frustrates, where the few rich ride Lexus and Mercedes, while most of the population still live on a dollar a day or less.

The latest salvo in creationism’s increasingly ferocious battle with evolution is about to be fired in Lancashire. Not in a fiery sermon preached from the pulpit, but in the form of a giant Christian theme park that will champion the book of Genesis and make a multi-media case that God created the world in seven days. The AH Trust, a charity set up last year by a group of businessmen alarmed by the direction in which they see society heading, has identified a number of potential sites in the north west of England to build the £3.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrats’ new leader, has defied political convention with a frank admission that he is an atheist. During a round of media broadcasts on the morning after his election to the post, he was asked by one interviewer: “Do you believe in God?” “No,” Mr Clegg answered simply, during an appearance on BBC Radio 5 Live. Nick Clegg says: ‘I don’t believe in God’ -Times Online.

Since I became President of the National Secular Society, I have been aware that some religious people, who know me only through this public persona, regard me as some kind of hateful monster who is trying to kill their faith. People who know me personally, on the other hand, think I am an old softy, who is as anxious to please as an aged golden retriever waddling to fetch a stick.

This time of year is invariably a challenge with small children, particularly if you aren’t Christian. For the past few years, my halcyon days of totally ignoring Christmas have been entirely forgotten. I got away with not celebrating when my first child was one, but as she turned two I couldn’t hold out any longer. Once my second child came along, I had no choice but to rethink how I’d manage over the festive season.

My letter published in the East Anglian Daily Times on Wednesday, 19th December, after there’d been at least two letters in the last month calling on people to celebrate the “true Christian” origin of Christmas: In our society the freedom to practice religion is a fundamental right, so Christians are perfectly entitled to celebrate their own take on life, the universe and everything, at this time of the year.