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Thursday, August 28, 2014

Andrew Copson (BHA) talks to Ignoranti prior to World Humanist Congress

source: http://www.ignoranti.org/2014/08/02/andrew-copson-chief-executive-british-humanist-association/

Andrew Copson talks about:-

  • Christian & Muslim Apologists cf Politicians
    • Formulaic answers
    • lack of extemporising
    • Justifications for a belief already held (not testing of hypothesis)
    • Polemics
  • Faith
    • Knowledge v Faith
    • 'Faith is believing what you know ain't so' (Mark Twain)
      • Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World (1897), CHAPTER XII.
        • There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." —Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
    • bundling some evidence with Faith
  • moderate believers
    • cover for fundamentalists?
    • moderates prop up Catholic institution that is rotten at the top
  • working with religious people
    • humanists work with religious by sharing belief that state schools should be open to everyone
  • Faith Schools
    • England has a State Church, in N Ireland and Wales Church is disestablished
    • 100% state funded schools run by CofE is ridiculous
    • 1944 Education legislation is outdated as is Collective Worship
  • Birmingham muslim schools
  • World Humanist Congress
    • Defence of the Enlightenment through Freedom of Speech & Expression
  • What Humanists believe
    • Tribal Faith is as dangerous as Religious Faith
    • Ethnic & Irrational / Superstitious / Mysticism thinking is dangerous - abuse of power
    • WHC promotes Universal Humanity
  • Terry Eagleton
    • Culture and the Death of God (Feb 2014)
  • Humanistic Culture
    • don't need to replace Religion
    • library, hospitals, concert halls, museums, parks, portraiture, music, art, literature (Shakespeare over Bible)

        

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