BHA Vice-President Sir Bernard Crick Dies

One of the Vice-Presidents of the British Humanist Association, Professor Sir Bernard Crick died on Friday aged 79. He will be remembered as the philosopher and constitutional expert who invented citizenship education and devised the 'Britishness' test for immigrants to the UK. The thing that I will remember him for is his articles in the Guardian and the New Humanist magazine where he insisted that Humanists need to be less fussy about working with the religious who share our commitment to social justice, saying that this age of fanaticism is no time for non-believers to make enemies of moderate, liberal religious people. He was of course referencing the probably apocryphal story of François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, on his deathbed, when a priest bursts in on him crying, "Renounce the devil and all his works!", to which Voltaire replies, "This is no time to make enemies." I would agree with Crick that Humanists should build good relations with moderate believers of all persuasions in order to unite against the enemies of enlightenment, democracy and freedom. I am a member of the Hull and East Riding Interfaith (www.heri.org.uk) and recently gave a talk about my own beliefs and how they contrast with the beliefs of religious members of the community. I would prefer this kind of dialogue to be called a "Religion and Belief Network" rather than "Interfaith" because I don't consider Humanism to be a Faith, but by any name, these meetings can help to create mutual respect between diverse believers, even if they do not increase respect for the diverse beliefs themselves. We can still maintain our intellectual honesty and criticism of religious belief and our commitment to rationalism, science, scepticism, freethought and the open society.