Evict the Bishops Debate

On Wednesday I went to London for the Evict the Bishops debate, which was held by the Labour Humanists in Committee Room 10 in the Houses of Parliament. We were advised to turn up early to get a seat, and this was just as well since everyone had to spend a long time queueing outside in the cold before even getting through the door. This was due to over-the-top security arrangements, involving everyone having their photo taken and attached to a tag round the neck, and having their coat and bags passed along a carrier through a detector while themselves passing through another. I suppose this is the sort of thing that now happens routinely for air travellers, but to me it was a new and most unpleasant experience. This is no way to treat invited guests. After that there was an enormously long walk to the committee room through the vast open space of Westminster Hall and up innumerable steps past many pretentious statues and busts followed by a twenty-minute wait in the corridor outside.

After this the debate itself was something of a let-down. It seems the Lords had voted on the Equalities Bill the previous night, but no-one present seemed to be aware of much about this or of the role of the Bishops in voting down the amendments. The meeting was advertised as being from 7:30 to 9:30 but the chairman David Aaronovitch seemed intent on ending ot at 9pm, and I felt that comment was consequently cut short. Not as much fun as I had anticipated!

Earlier in the day I had paid a visit to the Cocoon at the Natural History Museum. That also I found a disappointment, but I will report on that elsewhere.

Our February Darwin Day Meeting

I've just sent out the following notice to the local papers:

PRESS RELEASE
23 January 2010

Creationism and the Teaching of Evolution

Hastings Humanists are pleased to welcome James Williams of Sussex University who will speak to us on Thursday 11 February from 7pm at the Arts Forum, 36 Marina. The entrance fee is £2, and all are welcome.

Mr Williams is a Lecturer in Science Education at Sussex University, and has written on how science works, and on the ways creationists have tried to introduce propaganda into state schools. Only in December for instance a free book was sent to many school and college libraries with the misleading title "Explore Evolution", which was really antiscientific nonsense.

Hastings Humanists began on Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, 12 February last year, and it is proposed to hold a Darwin Day lecture around this date every year. The ideas of evolution by natural selection are of course of great importance for Humanists, since they provide the basis for understanding many aspects of human life.

PRESS RELEASE ENDS

I've omitted a bit at the end that gave the link to this blog and my telephone number for enquiries, and put in some extra links for this blog entry.

My Nasty Suspicious Mind?

I've just noticed that there was a debate on Night Waves on BBC Radio 3 from 9:15 to 10 pm this evening on "Is the Enlightenment still relevant today?" Besides the chairperson, one Rana Mitter, no names are given for the other debaters, only that they include "historians, theologians and politicians" (no mention of philosophers). Perhaps I am overly suspicious that this is going to be a largely anti-enlightenment debate? It does say that "To critics, however, the Enlightenment has become a twisted dogma". I'll have to wait until it is available on Listen Again to find out.

The main BBC webpage tonight has a prominent picture of Michaelangelo's ubiquitous God from the Sistine Chapel, overlaid with the leading question "Why Does God Allow Natural Disasters", followed by "Your thoughts". This however, it turns out, is not a request for our thoughts, but leads to the BBC News Magazine which, it says, earlier this week 19 January published an article with the given title, by Philosopher David Bain, which prompted more than 4,000 emails sent in. It gives a selection of about 20 of these, and there are about 11 on the original article, but no invitation for further responses.

Only one commenter, John O'Toole, responds with the obvious "The reason why god does not reduce suffering and evil in the world is simply because he does not exist!" Though he then goes on to embroider his case unnecessarily. The others are convoluted exercises in theology that all contradict one another. This hardly seems to be a balanced discussion, but perhaps the leading question didn't attract sceptical readers. I've never heard of this magazine before.

EDIT: The "Night Waves" programme wasn't as bad as I anticipated, but it certainly wasn't a celebration of the Enlightenment. Here are details of the speakers, not given on the BBC site:
Justin Champion see also. Phillip Blond see also. Karen O'Brien. Baroness Haleh Afshar and also.

Some Assorted Links

Here is a nice video, gleaned from RD.net, in which Stephen Fry talks an awful lot of good sense about Humanism and Religion.

"The Essay" this week on BBC Radio 3 at 11 pm continues the series on "Enlightenment Voices" with a look at Denis Diderot and the Encyclopedie.

The Libel Reform Campaign continues. Quote: The law is so biased towards claimants and so hostile to writers that London has become known as the libel capital of the world. The rich and powerful bring cases to London on the flimsiest grounds (libel tourism), because they know that 90% of cases are won by claimants. Libel laws intended to protect individual reputation are being exploited to suppress fair comment and criticism.

Our member Graham draws attention to another petition, directed at the General Optical Council. Quote: We, the undersigned, call on the General Optical Council (GOC) to take one simple step to give us, the consumers, a fairer deal and greater choice when buying our prescription glasses.

Concerning the Haiti disaster, and other charitable causes, see the BHA Good Causes and Charities List for links to secular organisations.

Religious Responses to Haiti Disaster

The despicable response of the US televangelist Pat Robertson is hardly worth giving wider publicity, but he was the first off the mark.

The Archbishop of York John Sentamu interviewed on the Today programme on Thursday 14 January criticised Robertson, but also said that he himself "has nothing to say that makes sense of the horror" in #Haiti.

In the Thought for the Day on Friday Giles Fraser of St Paul's Cathedral could likewise offer no theological explanation other than to pray. Here is an alternative interpretation of his thoughts.

At the end of the Today programme on Saturday a sensible response from a humanist was at last broadcast in the form of an interview with A. C. Grayling.

A correspondent on the NSS Newsline, Michael Green writes:

A little advice for those who want to donate in aid of victims of the Haiti earthquake but want to avoid giving money to a faith-based organisation – don't give through the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). Of the thirteen members of DEC, 5 are faith-based: CAFOD (Catholic), Christian Aid, Islamic Relief, Tearfund (Christian) and World Vision (Christian). Instead, give directly to one of the other 8 or, indeed, to any other secular emergency relief charity which works or will work in Haiti.

A Note on Our January Meeting

This evening's Hastings Humanists meeting went quite well, with eight people in attendance, including one new member, Graham. We held a round-table discussion on "What Does Humanism Mean for You?" and it was evident that we all come from very different backgrounds, some having received a very religious upbringing and others a much freer life. We also considered what other activities we could initiate to have more effect on the community locally.

I think everyone present agreed to pay £5 to become formal members. I must apologise that I failed to get a proper receipt book, or to print out copies of our programme of events. This will be corrected at our next meeting, if not before. We have now opened a bank account in the name of Hastings Humanists.

When I came home I listened to The Essay on Radio 3, and several back issues from earlier in the week. This week it has resumed it's "Enlightenment Voices" sequence, with a series of essays on Spinoza, who was born in 1632, was influenced by the philosophy of Descartes and his followers, and argued for religious tolerance and a rational basis for ethics. The terms of his excommunication by the Jewish authorities in Amsterdam for atheism were quite terrifying, but he seems to have been unperturbed.

Attempts to Amend the Equalities Bill

Our local MP Michael Foster was appointed Government Minister for Equalities in June 2009, and is responsible for helping to steer the Equality Bill through Parliament.
According to his website the Bill, published in April, sets out "new laws which will help narrow the gap between rich and poor; require business to report on gender pay; outlaw age discrimination; and significantly strengthen Britain’s anti-discrimination legislation."

The BHA maintains that the Bill should be amended to tackle ingrained discrimination against non-religious people in our equality laws. However the Conservative Baroness Warsi, has tabled an amendment to the Bill which would remove the phrase ‘or philosophical’ in the definition of belief, which currently reads: 'belief' means 'any religious or philosophical belief'. This is opposed by the Conservative Humanist group.

The BHA states: "There are now amendments that seek to privilege religion over philosophical beliefs such as Humanism in law, to grant even wider exceptions to permit religious organisations to discriminate in their employment on a number of grounds, including sex and sexual orientation, and to permit people providing public services to refuse to provide a service should that conflict with their personal beliefs."

There was a letter in the Hastings Observer last Friday from a Liam Atkins which maintains "This bill is discriminatory to all religious groups ... and erodes relgious liberty completely ..." but does not give explicit examples of what liberties he means. I hope that the MP will respond in this weeks paper.

This is our 100th post to this blog, since it was started in February last year, so we have maintained a steady flow of ideas, about two a week.