In the following video Richard Dawkins kindly refers to Ray Comfort as an "idiot." He also evades the question of what happened or existed before the "Big Bang" by stating that's a question for "cosmologists" whereas he (Dawkins) is a "biologist."

Update: If you're having trouble viewing the video click here and watch it at CNN.

From a purely literary perspective, the parts of the Bible I've read have been incredibly boring and poorly written. For a book that's supposedly God's word, you think he could have done a bit better. I have a queue of excellent books waiting on my bookshelf, and I much rather spend my time reading those than some 2,000 year old mediocre tome that will likely annoy me with its inanity.

Click the link to read more.

About the author of the blog: "I am an Atheist, liberal, college student, living in the bible belt. I think I may have taken "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" a bit too far."

Note to self: read some of these blog posts when I get a chance

Arguing that there was “no hope” from atheists who scorn God, he said the best way to confront the secularist agenda was for all faiths to unite against it.

The final phase of the atheist bus campaign will challenge the idea that children can be labelled with their parents' religion

Ariane Sherine

Wednesday 18 November 2009 10.00 GMT

A poster from the atheist billboard campaign. Photograph: Public Domain

This week, the final phase of the atheist bus campaign will appear in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast – not on buses, but on billboards. Due to the amazing sums donated to the campaign fund by many Cif readers at the end of last year, we raised enough for a second wave of adverts – and the above posters will launch today.

When, in this Cif piece back in October 2008, we asked how the extra funds should be spent, one of the issues which came up repeatedly in the comments concerned the growth of of faith schools in the UK and the segregation of children according to their parents' beliefs. Many of you felt strongly that children should be given the freedom to decide which belief system they wanted to belong to, if any, and that they should not have a religion decided for them. Commenter Finite187 wrote, "A campaign against faith schools would be good as a next step," ciderpower said "You could address faith schools – religions want schools for the few, not for all" and 555555 asked, "How is this distortion of school education happening in this country?"

The atheist campaign team shared this point of view. However, rather than using adverts to try and campaign politically, we thought it would be more beneficial to try and change the current public perception that it is acceptable to label children with a religion. As Richard Dawkins states, "Nobody would seriously describe a tiny child as a 'Marxist child' or an 'Anarchist child' or a 'Post-modernist child'. Yet children are routinely labelled with the religion of their parents. We need to encourage people to think carefully before labelling any child too young to know their own opinions, and our adverts will help to do that."

We have scheduled the launch of the billboards to take place during the same week as Universal Children's Day (20 November), which is the United Nations' "day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children". We hope the advert's message will encourage the government, media and general public to see children as individuals, free to make their own choices as soon as they are old enough to fully understand what these choices mean, and that they will think twice before describing children in terms of their parents' religion in the future.

Lastly, I'd like to take a final opportunity to thank everyone who donated to the campaign, supported it, commented on it or blogged about it – you really did make a difference to public discourse in this country and around the world. We hope you feel the new poster campaign is worthwhile and effective. After this phase, I will be taking a step back from atheist campaigning and returning to journalism. For those of you would like to continue to donate to campaigns on this issue, the BHA have launched a new pro-inclusive schools initiative here.

If you're coming to the final night of Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo on Sunday 20 December, then we have some very exciting news – we can now announce that the special guests that night will be Al Murray and Dara O Briain.

For me, Dara O Briain's set at Hammersmith was possibly the highlight of last year's shows – if you're a fan of him as host of Mock the Week, but you haven't seen his stand-up yet, then you've definitely been missing out. He's one of the best stand-ups I've seen, and I've been looking to go and see him do a full show ever since Nine Lessons last year. In the meantime, I'm excited about seeing him do another spot at this year's Hammersmith show.

Al Murray will be appearing as his Pub Landlord alter ego – here in the New Humanist office, we're hoping the Landlord chooses to share his views on science, evolution and religion. If you're familiar with his rants, you'll know exactly what we mean.

We've also added Canadian rapper Baba Brinkman, who'll be performing his Rap Guide to Evolution, which received glowing reviews at this year's Edinburgh Festival. Take a look at his website to find out more.

It's going to be quite a show - Murray, O Briain and Brinkman are added to a bill that already features Richard Dawkins, Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden, Simon Singh, Richard Herring, Robyn Hitchcock, Ben Goldacre, Chris Addison, Brian Cox, Martin White's Mystery Fax Machine Chamber Orchestra, the BHA Choir, all hosted by Robin Ince.

Tickets are selling fast, but there are still some available – if you haven't already booked, be sure to do so now to avoid disappointment. Tickets are priced £25 or £27.50, and are on sale now from the box office on 08448 444 748 or via the Ticketmaster website. The show is produced in association with the Rationalist Association and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Mustard Seed Secular School in Uganda.

With 5 nights at the Bloomsbury Theatre already sold out, this is your last chance to see Nine Lessons this year – with a line-up like this, you wouldn't want to miss out, would you?