Richard forwards me this link, about a plan for Australian schools to get grants to employ chaplains:

Asked if the program crossed the boundaries of church and state, Mr Howard stressed it was an entirely opt-in scheme and schools did not have to take part.

Charming. And there’s only one per school of course, so if you’re not in the majority sect this will also server as a nice reminder of who’s in charge.

Once again the assumption is that some religion is better than no religion. Because it’s comforting and all that. Except I never found comfort in advice from a church representative, ever. Somehow I managed to find comfort in advice from friends, family, teachers, counsellors, etc, and none of them gave a shit about my immortal soul— For this I am grateful.

The most popular search to this site is one for an atheist symbol, and I’m glad that more than a few people are taking an interest in the idea. It’s a touchy area, since many argue that having a symbol is in itself somehow anti-atheist (or maybe aatheist?).

Anyhow, it got me looking at my idea again and refining it a little, to the symbol you see here. It’s a little more robust than the heavily styled Times New Roman asterisk, but also more neutral, and easier to adapt I think. Click on the image for the high quality SVG drawing, which you can import into a vector drawing program and reuse as you see fit. I really like this version because it is familiar and yet kind of unique (of course it’s probably very similar to some font out there, please let me know if you can find a good match).

Read more about the design in an update of the original atheist symbol entry.