Apr 24: Film on John Safran Vs God

We watched four episodes of John Safran Vs God. If anybody is interested, a lot of the episodes are available on youtube, such as this one (treat for those of you who hate John Safran or think Buddhism is all fluffy and cute):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUXJrO_FiWk

Hope to see you next week for the next four episodes, including the most interesting one on his exorcism by an evangelical minister.

Apr 17: Discussion on burial rituals

We had a discussion on a variety of topics including:
Burial and cremation: costs and ceremonies in different countries and different religions
Kevin's tour of Greece
Anti semitism and anti-gypsies in different european countries
10% taxes given to the Catholic or Lutheran church in Germany
Jack Van Impe, the walking Bible, who has memorised large protions of the Bible
Apocamon, a Bible revelations comic in Manga style at e-sheep.com

Next week (25 April) we will be seeing a funny film (provided by John) about a person in search of God, who gets beaten by Buddhists in Japan, asks to join KKK in America although he is jewish, confesses something nasty in a Catholic confession, etc. We will hopefully be arranging a tour to the Mosque in Didsbury the following week.

Apr 15: Sikhi Week

Its Gursharan Singh from Manchester Universities Sikh Society. I just wanted to let you guys know that there's a massive exhibition taking place at St. Peters Chaplaincy, Oxford Road on the 25th of April called 'Sikhi Centre'.
There's going to be a stall based exhibition on the basics of the Sikh faith, together with Talks by the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail and some other eminent speakers, on topics such as Sikhs in the World Wars and Meditation etc.
Kirtan (Hymns) will be sung by Baba Fateh Singh Academy (based in India), together with a Sikh Martial Art Demo and also evening meals will be provided! It's all looking, with the grace of God, like it'll hopefully be a great day, so please come along.

So please send this information aswell as the poster attached to as many faith societies as possible.

Mar 20: Abraham's Table on Science and Religion

Speeches were as follows:
Bahai faith: Duncan, Buddhist: Oxana, Christian: Kevin, Muslim: Tariq, Hindu: Sanket

After that we had delicious curry food.

Mar 20: Interfaith society presentation during multifaith conference

You can download the presentation here

Mar 7: Women's week at student union: faith events

Following are the events related to faith/religion as part of student union international womens week:

Thursday: International Women's Day!!!
MR4 1-3pm: Women in religion's stalls -
MR4 will host tables/walls/general areas where women from different cultures will get to share with pride some of their cultural heritage.

MR4 3-5pm: Faith in Feminism discussion.
With women from various religious (or non-religious) groups. All are invited to hear and discuss what they feel the women's movement has done for them in their particular faiths.

Mar 6: Discussion on publicity matters

Thanks to Hana and also Kevin, we are almost on our way to becoming a recognised society in students union: Hana and Kevin have already submitted the forms and in tomorrow's meeting theres a good chance we may be recognised already, and then we can have an union email address, pigeonhole, noticeboard, publicity, van hiring for trips to places of worship, use of the rooms etc etc. Once we become formal, think we can do the following for publicity:

a) Invite every member on facebook and on the email list to meet together and get to know each other to work more closely in future
b) Approach the student religious societies directly, ask them to send representatives to attend our meetings and also publicise our activities among their members
c) Hold an AGM and decide on next years organisers (I am probably leaving, Oxana might have to leave, Nicholas will be in Egypt, Kevin and Hana will be around though) and maybe a draft pln, which we could synchronise to the student union events such as LGBT week, international multicultural week, womens week etc etc.
d) And more: if you have ideas please email me.

This week the student union was celebrating Women's week: think we should discuss about the topic of women in religion or religions approach to womens issues in some time. We decided next week to go to a place we have never been before as a society: Mass at the Holy Name church!!! It starts 5:15 pm and should end by 6 pm: after that we will go for having a Falafel together to Rusholme. Please all of you, come join us, especially if you've never been to a Catholic Maass before! However, as you might know, only Catholics are supposed to have holy communion so the rest of us can watch that part.

The week after that is Abraham's table, with free food from 6 till 8 pm. Topic of Abraham's table discussion is "Faith Vs Science" so should be interesting: we are already looking for at least one member (preferably a student studying science based course) from each faith to speak on the topic, and also an athiest. Hana said she might be able to get Student Direct newspaper to cover the event, so it should be great for publicity too! After that week its easter holidays, but after the easter we will be visiting the Mosque in Didsbury, which is really very friendly and welcoming to non muslims to learn about Islam.