Jacob Bronowski Plaque

Leeds Perspective Citywide: Humanism

This is a recording made by the Chris Workfolk Foundation of a talk on Humanism I gave in Leeds earlier this year. The talk was part of a series of talks given by people of different religions and beliefs. There is new website which collects all of the talks given as part of this Perspectives series which includes much better speakers than me and would recommend a visit to this excellent web resource:

http://www.worfolklectures.org/

Albert Einstein's Nobel Prize

This is the script for my two minute broadcast on BBC Radio Humberside on Tuesday 9th November 2010:

Good Morning. On this day, the 9th November 1921, exactly 89 years ago, Albert Einstein, the most famous and celebrated physicist in the world was awarded the Nobel Prize for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. Einstein revolutionised our understanding of space and time and his theory of Relativity occupies a central position in our modern scientific understanding of the universe. His famous equation, e=mc squared is one of the few physics equations familiar to the general public. I even remember a song about it in the pop music charts of the 1980s. People often think of Einstein’s wild hair and eccentric appearance, the quintessential absent –minded professor and a gift to cartoonists throughout the world. What fewer people know about Einstein is that he was a Humanist and was one of the founder members of the first Humanist Society in New York in 1929. He was also an honorary associate of the British Humanist Association and of the Rationalist Press Association whose journal was among the items present on his desk at his death. It’s true that Einstein had an almost mystical appreciation for the lawful harmony of the universe revealed by science. He once said “I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” On another occasion he said “I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment”. I think Albert Einstein was probably the greatest genius who ever lived and was all the more remarkable for his compassion and commitment to ethical humanism.

Humanism, Politics and The Blank Pamphlet

This has been a bad election for Humanists. Two prominent members of the 110 strong All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group (secretary of the group Paul Holmes and Evan Harris pictured above) lost their seats. Dr Evan Harris, a medical doctor, is particularly well known as an advocate of science and secularism. Unfortunately he lost his Oxford seat by a few hundred votes. I can only hope that he can find some way to continue being a strong advocate for Humanism in some other way. Indeed, Dr Harris is going to be a speaker at the upcoming Enquiry Conference in Birmingham in June, along with other notable Humanists such as A.C. Grayling and Andrew Copson.

I find it puzzling that I still come across the perception of Humanists depicted in the cartoon above. The assumption is that Humanism is like a religion with no core beliefs and values. Most Humanists don’t want to go door-to-door Jehovah’s Witness style to talk about their beliefs (though you will find the odd person who does). The truth is that we Humanists have very definite ideas about the open society, democracy, ethics, secularism, free speech, human rights and the value of science and education, even when we differ on other views such as taxation or the desirable size of government, which is why there are Humanists in most of the major parties (UKIP, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Labour and Green). We have plenty of pamphlets and books and they are not blank, but our ideas are not dogmatic. Humanism is more of a method, involving the weighing of evidence when deciding on any matter. It’s about asking the question, “What sort of reasons do you have for holding the position you hold” or “What evidence is there that what you say is true”. It is a rejection of arguments based on authority or faith. It promotes engagement with political life through democratic processes; it does not dictate any party political allegiance.

Touched by His Noodley Appendage

I gave a talk at the Humanist Society of West Yorkshire in Leeds on Thursday evening, which appears to have been well received, though I went on a bit longer than I should have. Titled The New Atheists it was an opportunity to reflect on the end of the first decade of the new millennium which I suggested would be remembered for the rise of the new atheism or what some people would call “militant atheism". In the audience was Chris Worfolk of Leeds Atheist Society who I had met for the first time earlier in the week when he gave a talk to the North Yorkshire Humanist Group in York. I have been looking at some of the stuff Chris has been involved with on his website (see www.chrisworfolk.com) and on the Leeds Atheist website (see leeds.atheistsoc.org) and I have to say that for a young guy in his early twenties who has only recently finished university, he has achieved a great deal to promote Atheism and Humanism in the UK, going so far as to set up his own Foundation and organising a conference with big name speakers such as A.C. Grayling. Chris seems to be walking his talk, living out the Humanist mantra of living this one life to the full. Life is not a dress rehearsal for eternity, this is it and that it will never come again is what makes life so sweet. The great Humanist Carl Sagan was once asked what the meaning of life was. He answered “Do something meaningful”. Too many people are content to be spectators in the game of life, waiting for others to provide ready-made social institutions and belief systems. That’s too easy. The Humanist way is to seek happiness through self-fulfilment, daring to make your own decisions about the best way to achieve that happiness. Self-fulfilment does not imply a solipsistic, narcissistic self-obsession. The nineteenth century freethinker Robert Ingersoll thought that the way to be happy was to seek first the happiness of others. He was not wrong. Sometimes the best way to be self-fulfilled is through a commitment to activities which involve other people and most importantly, to ideas that are themselves more important than you are. Humanist ideas such as the open society, secularism, democracy, and free scientific enquiry fit the bill. I suppose all this sounds a bit austere and serious. One of the great strengths of the younger generation of atheists is a capacity to have a good time as can be seen from this clip of the Leeds Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster with the Revd. Chris Worfolk officiating.

Suspension of Disbelief

This Christmas saw the last episode of the classic BBC children’s Sci-Fi drama Dr Who to feature the actor David Tennant in the lead role. Tennant has proved to be one of the most popular of the eleven actors to play the role. It might feel awkward for some adults to admit to liking this long running and immensely popular show, mainly because of an association between science fiction and nerdy socially inadequate adolescent boys. I’m sure the cap fitted in my case and I was always interested in Science Fiction as a child. I used to read Isaac Asimov, who wrote The Foundation Trilogy. Asimov’s books The Bicentennial Man and I Robot were later made into movies and the eagerly awaited Foundation movie is currently being made. I also enjoyed watching the original series of Star Trek on a Saturday morning, another indicator of developing geekishness. At the time I was unaware of the close link between Science Fiction and the Humanist beliefs I adopted later in life. Isaac Asimov was a former president of the American Humanist Association, as was the science fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut and more influentially Gene Rodenberry who was the creator of Star Trek - remember that there were no priests and no God on board the Enterprise in the far future! In fact the vision of the future presented in the Star Trek universe, a United Federation of Planets (with a logo almost identical to that of the United Nations) and a racially and culturally diverse humanity working together to explore space probably did a lot to lodge Humanist ideas in the developing minds of children everywhere, though they were almost certainly unaware of the word Humanist. The idea of a perfected logical and rational Spock, devoid of emotion clouding his judgement seems a bit naïve but Star Trek was way ahead of its time. On this side of the pond, the development of Dr Who was influenced by Douglas Adams who was a Humanist and an early writer on the series, also a close friend of Richard Dawkins who’s wife, Lalla Ward was one of the Doctors companions during the Tom Baker years. Dawkins even appeared in Dr Who himself in a recent episode. Arthur C. Clarke, writer of 2001 A Space Odyssey was another writer who was closely associated with the Humanist movement.
Whilst sat enjoying the Christmas episode of Dr Who, it’s hard not to start thinking of the absurdities of the Dr Who narrative, especially about the paradoxes of time travel, but enjoying science fiction is all about suspension of disbelief. I think that this enjoyment of magical thinking is healthy. The narratives associated with traditional religious beliefs are every bit as absurd as a Dr Who plot line. They only really become worthy of ridicule when someone chooses to take religious stories as corresponding to historical reality.

Dour atheistic Calvinists?

I have seen the annual recurrence of the debates within Humanism over the celebration of Christmas in the Think Humanism online discussion forum. Some, rather odd people in my opinion, are vexed over the issue of whether joining in with Christmas is a sell out to the still dominant religion that they have chosen to turn their back on. I lived in Edinburgh during my time at university and the Scots make a bigger deal of New Year (Hogmanay) than Christmas - indeed the English celebrations have a definite Scottish flavour . I saw in the New Year eating haggis, dancing to I would walk 500 miles and Donald where’s your troosers, not to mention the obligatory rendition of Auld Lang Syne, what’s more Scottish than that? Does joining in with Hogmanay suggest I am impersonating a Scotsman? Perhaps if I donned a kilt (as some do in England) I would be going too far. I think that there is an irony in that the reason the Scots focus on Hogmanay for their drunken revelries rather than Christmas is not that they are less religious (I think they are more so - or at least they were) but that the pious and puritan Christians of 16th century Scotland effectively banned the traditional Christmas to impose a more Christian version of it. The truth is that the cultural milieu we find ourselves in is not of our making but traditions gradually change and eventually new traditions will be invented that future generations will imagine to have existed since time immemorial. We all play our part in the formation of that future culture but I doubt if many of us will be around to see it arrive. Our Christmas probably owes more to Prince Albert and Charles Dickens than to the synoptic gospels and if you want to abolish it, perhaps you have more in common with those dour Scottish Calvinists than with the spirit of Humanism.

The God Delusion Decade

I wonder how many reading this have maintained their own blog for a time only to suddenly find that they no longer have anything pressing to throw out in to the blogosphere, resulting in a never updated ghost blog. Well, it has been a while since I posted. I have been busy this year promoting the Humanist cause. I spoke at a couple of debates at Hull Guildhall, one on Faith Schools (I was against them) and another on Free Will (I was all for it). I questioned the false trichotomy of the Alpha Course at the Rowntree Park Birthday Party in the Summer (see photo). I gave a talk on Bad Science in York and took part in a Humanist/Muslim dialogue at York mosque as part of the exclusively named Interfaith Week. I even gave a Humanist Thought for the Day on BBC Radio Humberside for the week before Christmas. But did any of it help to increase the number of free thinking religion sceptics in our region? We read in the press how the number of people in our country committed to a religion is in constant free fall, especially the number of Anglicans. Apparently there is a half-life decay in religiosity. If one or both of your parents were religious, then there is only a 50-50 chance that you will follow in their footsteps. At this rate, it is hard to see how the official religion of our country will survive in the coming decades. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s misguided criticisms of the American Episcopal church’s appointment of a lesbian as a Bishop, in the same week as the Anglican Bishop of Uganda expressed support for the death penalty for homosexuals (which the said prelate was remarkably silent about), will surely hasten the exodus of liberal thinking men and women from the CofE. The Pope has been wooing the Anglo-Catholic wing from the Anglican fold, though the never ending child abuse scandals rocking the Catholic ecclesia should make the faithful question taking that path. I suppose this will leave the happy-clappys dominating the Anglican pews. Has all this decline in religious observance led to a corresponding increase in support for the nations Humanist Societies? Though the level of support for organised Humanism has shown a moderate increase, I am disappointed that the God Delusion decade did not win more converts to the naturalistic, scientific and rational world view.

Belief and Unbelief

It has been said that atheism is a belief without content. It is not so much a belief as the absence of a belief. It is the refusal to believe in absurdities. Does my position that there is insufficient evidence to claim that there is a transcendent power controlling existence itself constitute a faith? There are people who think it does, but atheism is the rejection of faith in favour of reason. Isn’t the position I describe agnosticism? I don’t like the distinction between atheism and agnosticism. Sensible atheism always assumes an implicit agnosticism. That you don’t know what you don’t know is an obvious tautology. To be dubious of a claim that is not supported by the available evidence is just common sense. So what do atheists believe in and why do I go on about it so? I think that knowing what you believe and why is one of the most important things in life because actions follow from beliefs for good or ill. We believe in what is left when you have cleaned out all of the worn out ideas of theism, but what specifically? Some of us describe ourselves as Humanists because this suggests a positive assertion about what we believe in. Humanism assumes atheism but not all atheists are Humanists. Anyone wanting to find out about what Humanism adds to atheism could do worse than explore the spiffing new website of the British Humanist Association, but in brief, I would suggest that our scepticism extends beyond questions about the existence or otherwise of deities. Humanism is concerned with the good life and the right way to live. Humanist beliefs are provisional, a work in progress. Humanists think that for there to be human rights, there have to be human rights for everyone, they have to be universal. The kind of society that Humanists defend is that which is open, democratic and free from the tyranny of the past. Not everyone believes in these things and they should not be taken for granted. Humanists believe in reason and science as methods for guiding our lives. Not everyone agrees, some are hoodwinked by mumbo-jumbo and the latest pseudoscience fad. Humanists think that people are valuable as ends in themselves and not just as means to some greater future. Rather than being ascetic, Humanists value pleasure and appreciation of the arts. Humanists value learning and personal development as a desired goal in itself and not just as a means to economic prosperity, though economic prosperity is also an important part of the good life. Is it only Humanists who believe in these things? No, but the more a person’s focus is shifted in the direction of the proximate concerns of this life rather than thinking about something beyond this world, the more humanistic they become. Thinking about the world as it could be made does not have to be wishful idealism. Indeed, some of the people from the past who were responsible for thinking up some of the best ideas for our way of life described themselves as Humanists. Humanism is an invitation to exuberant creative living. It is an optimistic embrace of our bright future in this world.

I took the photo of the Albert memorial when I was in London the other week.

Schools for the Future

Björn Free Thinker

Anyone reading my blog might be forgiven for thinking that we Humanists, atheists and assorted free thinkers were concerned only with expounding on neo-Darwinian theory and the debunking of postmodern nonsense, a dour and serious enterprise. I am going to lighten up a bit to talk about non-believers in the entertainment industry. We usually only find out about celebrity Humanism when reading the obituary of a recently deceased showbiz persona. Good examples would be the late Bob Monkhouse and Ronnie Barker who were both Humanists and had BHA funerals. Comedians feature strongly on the list of celebrity Humanists, with Ricky Gervais leading the pack of current comics who wear their atheism on their sleeves. You only need to watch the hilarious send up of Genesis in Gervais’ Animals standup routine to know that he has some serious doubts about religion. Gervais was one of the comics who took part in the Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People this Christmas which I am hoping will be released on DVD this year. Other acts included Robin Ince who sometimes writes for New Humanist magazine, Richard Dawkins fan Dara O’Briain and Stewart Lee, writer of Jerry Springer the Opera, someone known for making appearances at local Humanist societies. Rowan Atkinson was a leading light in the campaign to end the blasphemy laws. The BHA even had a comedienne as it’s President until the tragic and premature death of Linda Smith in 2006. Well known atheists in comedy across the pond include Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live’s Julia Sweeney and the late George Carlin.

The world of stage magic also has it’s fair share of scepticism for good reason. Derren Brown and Penn & Teller were prominent cheerleaders on the publication of Dawkins’ God Delusion. James Randi is another famous sceptic. Lord of the Rings star Sir Ian McKellen heads the list of prominent actors known for their Humanism. Fewer people are aware of the atheist inclinations of Angelina Jolie, Keanu Reeves and Bruce Willis. Angelina Jolie is apparently making a film version of Atlas Shrugged by Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand.

Perhaps the most famous showbiz person who is explicitly linked with the International Humanist movement is Björn Ulvaeus of Abba who is a prominent and outspoken supporter of Humanisterna, the Swedish Humanist Association. The original lyrics to the song Thankyou for the Music included the lines

"…thanks for all the songs, words and tunes, who needs religion? We can do without that, but imagine if music didn’t exist, not anywhere. Everybody needs a song and a dance…"

Photo: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RickyGervais.jpg

On the Wrong Track

This week I attended a conference at the Yorkshire Rail Academy next door to the National Railway Museum in York. The conference was put on by NASACRE (the National Association of Standing Advisory Councils for Religious Education). I was involved because I was recently invited on to theEast Riding of Yorkshire Council SACRE as a co-opted Humanist member. I had to be co-opted because a rule made by the last Conservative government prevents Humanists from sitting on SACREs with full voting rights. Religious Education is not part of the National Curriculum and the syllabus is decided locally by the SACRE. The current syllabus for the ERYC schools does not contain the words “atheist” or “humanist” (I did a word search). Is this right when about 17% of the local population have Humanist type beliefs and do not believe in the doctrines of the major religions. When children in our schools are presented with a text book scenario with a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Bahai, etc, should there not also be a Mrs Smith, the Humanist who doesn’t believe in God? Should there not be a look at an assessment of the sacred and profane from the perspective of someone who has no sacred text or icons? Recent human rights legislation outlaws discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, or the lack of belief. A story in the news this week tells of how a head teacher in Sheffield has resigned after her attempts to move away from separate Muslim and Christian school assemblies, both attempts at “collective worship”, towards “inclusive assemblies” for all the students together were resisted by religious school governors. As the trains thundered past the conference facilities, shaking the foundations, I could only contemplate what the future holds for multifaith and multicultural Britain if we allow our education policies to be dictated by the thinking of Lord Reith’s generation. Some think that not exposing children to an experience of religious worship deprives them of an important opportunity. The world has changed and our laws about “collective worship” in state schools which are blatantly flouted by 70% of head teachers, should be dragged kicking and screaming in to the 21st century in the interests of community cohesion if nothing else.

Photo by ChrisO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Railway_signals.jpg

Founder of Humanist movement dies aged 105

The founder of the British Humanist Association, H.J. Blackham, died this week. Believe it or not, this methuselah of Humansim was 105 years old. Blackham was one of the originators of the worldwide Humanist movement and that he was still alive in 2009 underlines the fact that organisations to promote ethics and the good life without any religious basis are a relatively recent phenomenon. I bought a copy of one of Blackham’s books on eBay a few years ago. Simply titled “Humanism”, it was first published in 1968, the year of my birth. Voltaire said “One owes respect to the living, to the dead one only owes the truth” and to be honest, with the exception of some memorable quotes, I don’t think his writing was particularly readable when compared to contemporary Humanists such as Alfred Ayer or Bertrand Russell. However, it is clear that Blackham was instrumental in bringing Humanists together in the 1950s and 1960s and that he played a huge part in elucidating what constituted the Humanist view. The part of his book that I found most memorable was the first sentence which sums up a minimum criteria for considering oneself a Humanist:

“Humanism proceeds from an assumption that man is on his own and this life is all and an assumption of responsibility for one’s own life and for the life of mankind..”

Darwin Bicentenary

Why Atheism?