BHA Press Release: House of Lords debate the non-religious

Peers this morning are debating the position of the non-religious in Britain today. Against the background of an increasingly faith-based approach by government, Lord Harrison of Chester , a member of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group and distinguished supporter of the British Humanist Association, has called the debate to bring attention to how the many non-religious people in Britain are affected by this policy.

Polls and surveys consistently show that many if not most people in the UK do not define themselves as religious. 63% of people in an ICM poll last December said they were not religious, and a survey of 12-19 year olds for the DfES in 2004 showed 65% saying they were not religious. Only a minority of marriages are religious ones, most people are not baptised, fewer than a million people go to church each week, and in a MORI poll last year, the domestic group most people thought had too much influence on government was ‘religious groups and leaders’.

For the last ten years, however, the Government has privileged religion and religious representatives in a way totally at odds with these facts about British society.

Welcoming the debate, BHA Chief Executive Hanne Stinson said, ‘A proper consideration of these issues is long overdue.

‘The increase in the number of state-funded religious schools and a drive by the Government to hand over other public services to religious groups have alarmed people, both religious and non-religious, who are committed to equality, non-discrimination and social cohesion. These moves all disadvantage those whose beliefs are humanist rather than religious – non-religious parents cannot get their children into their local state school because it is a faith school or they can only get them into a faith school and find their beliefs and values denigrated at that school; non-religious teachers lose out on promotion and employment prospects; non-religious citizens seeking access to a service may feel marginalised by the religious ethos they encounter and non-religious professionals in these sectors are disadvantaged in the job market.

‘These concrete instances of growing disadvantage are set against a background of Government being increasingly keen to take a ‘multi-faith’ approach to issues such as community cohesion and intercultural dialogue – an approach which, though lazily assumed to be inclusive, in fact excludes the many non-religious people in the UK as well as the many religious people for whom religion is not their main concern in matters of identity.’

NOTES

For further information or to arrange interviews, please email or call Andrew Copson on 07855 380633

The All Party Parliamentary Humanist group is a cross party group of over 100 MPs and peers whose purpose is to monitor matters of interest to humanists in Parliament and respond as appropriate. Over the last year the group has grown rapidly – increasing from just over twenty members to just over 100.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) supports and represents the non-religious in the UK and is the largest organisation in the country campaigning for a secular state. The BHA has a long history in working for an open society, working in education to improve beliefs and values education in particular, and in the provision of non-religious ceremonies.

reposted from: BHA
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

Guardian comment by Andrew Copson on House of Lords debate 19th April 2007

Andrew Copson

Andrew Copson

Andrew Copson is responsible for education and public affairs at the British Humanist Association.

Without God on your side

Those with no religion risk being marginalised, but will today's debate in the House of Lords help?

April 19, 2007 10:00 AM

It may seem rather eccentric to some that the House of Lords has dedicated this morning to a debate on the rights of the non-religious. After all, Britain is an increasingly secular place. Social attitudes are largely non-religious and the personal freedoms we enjoy have expanded over the last 60 years as religiously motivated restrictions that caused so much misery - laws against divorce, against abortion, against homosexuality - have been removed. Unlike in some countries, we don't have to fear a death penalty for giving up our religion, or even the sort of social opprobrium that atheists face in countries like the US. What have the non-religious got to complain about?

The answer is quite a lot and, although this debate may have seemed unnecessary even a decade ago, right now it is timely - if not overdue. Ten years ago no one dreamt of the increase in the number and type of state-funded religious schools that the current government has promoted (before 1997 applications for new faith schools were being turned down). A third of state schools are already faith schools and expanding this provision can only worsen the situation for non-religious parents, who often cannot get their children into their local state school because it happens to be a faith school. Ironically, in some areas - especially rural ones - non-religious parents face the opposite problem: they have no choice but to send their child to a faith school because it is the only state school in the area and once there, children can find that their own developing non-religious beliefs and values are ignored and the beliefs of their parents denigrated or censured. It is not just non-religious pupils and parents who are disadvantaged in this way - faith schools are also permitted to discriminate in their employment, and in November last year the government actually extended the rights of faith schools to discriminate.

The faith-based approach that the current government has adopted over the last decade is not limited to the unpopular increase in faith schools. As part of its determination to contract out the provision of public services, the Department for Work and Pensions is actively encouraging religious groups to take over aspects of our welfare state. This is certainly going to impact on non-religious workers in this sector, if current examples of religious public service providers are anything to go by. Crossreach, "one of the largest social care agencies in Scotland", is a social care agency run by the Church of Scotland. Most of their funding is public money - it comes from local authorities - but take a look at the recruitment section of their site and you find that applicants for every job currently advertised are "required to have a Christian commitment". Might health and social care professionals soon find they have to lie about their beliefs or get a letter from the local church if they want a job, in the same way as so many parents already do in order to ensure that their child can attend a local school?

In employment and education the situation is certainly getting worse for the non-religious (even as we increase in number) but there is another process in train, with the potential to be just as pernicious. The government now isolates religion as the principle marker of identity, and with "multicultural" increasingly used to mean "multi-faith", we risk making a fetish of one attribute which, while very important to some, is a total irrelevance to many more. The website of the Department of Communities and Local Government, under whose auspices this work now falls, says: "The traditions of all major faiths contain teachings commending the fundamental values of equality and respect which are so important to community cohesion." The appropriation of key human virtues as the typical characteristics of religious believers, with the implicit or explicit suggestion that these virtues are not shared by the non-religious, is becoming a constant offensive irritation to non-believers, and politicians all-too often aggravate the situation. Hazel Blears, for example, in a recent speech to rabbis and imams, contrasted the virtues of the religious with the idea of society becoming "more secular, more consumerist, [and] more avaricious".

It is this tendency, as much as the increase in actual disadvantage suffered by the non-religious, against which peers in parliament are speaking today, and if the next decade is to be any better for the non-religious than the last, we must hope that the government is listening.

WASP Summary of the speech of Baroness Andrews for the Government: in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Religion: Non Believers debate.

WASP Summary of the speech of The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government DCLG (Baroness Andrews): in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Religion: Non Believers debate.

Full text of speech here in Hansard (or with WASP highlights here).

WASP highlights Main Points & Key Points.

• TheyWorkForYou Baroness Andrews entry

• Baroness Wilcox Wikipedia entry

Action: WASP to Send a message to Baroness Andrews urging government implementation of debate proposals

WASP - Key Points of Baroness Wilcox speech:

• challenge to disestablish the Church of England
• religion v secularism history
  
• Government role - respect freedom to believe or not believe
• shared values
• European Convention on Human Rights
• Equality Act 2006
• Public service tenders
• Prostelytising - no support by Government
• Faith Schools
  

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews):

I think that the response from around the House will have pleased him and those noble Lords who embrace a humanist and secularist point of view. I did not know that he was going to challenge me to disestablish the Church of England at the same time.

The Government must aim to let all voices be heard with equal respect, not least through the strengthening of the law to promote greater respect and social cohesion in all ways in our communities. We have heard that some consider that our society is becoming more explicitly, even aggressively, religious. On the other hand, we have heard the view expressed with equal conviction and eloquence that Britain is becoming more secular, more materialist and more intolerant.

religion is sometimes seen to cause and be at the root of conflict. I say right away that it is not belief that impacts so negatively on us or society more broadly, it is the actions and manifestations by small numbers of people who distort religious texts or hold fanatical views. It is essential that we make, understand and express those differences. let me just give an assurance to all noble Lords who spoke from the secular and humanist perspective. We fully acknowledge that the humanist tradition in this country has a long and honourable history and a positive contemporary role.

The impact of humanists has clearly contributed to the sum of human good and happiness in innumerable ways. Humanism has a proud history of almost three centuries.

The tension between belief and non-belief is profoundly historic and has shaped so much of the way we are today. From Dover Beach to Richard Dawkins, the ebb and flow of the contest about faith and religion is part of our evolving culture. We should reflect that, after Dover Beach, which was published at the height of materialism in the Victorian age in 1851, came the anti-science movement of the 1880s and the search for spiritualism. So these fashions and understandings come and go and those tensions are at the heart not just of Christian traditions but of faith traditions generally.

My reason for exploring what lies behind and even beyond the debate, therefore, is to ask: what is the Government’s role? We must be clear, as noble Lords have been, that we must celebrate and respect the basic freedom to believe or not believe. Is it proper for government to be involved in what for all of us is primarily a private matter? For many centuries now, we have held that faith is a private choice. In large part, the Government have no role in changing or challenging that. However, the private realms cannot be a neutral zone in matters of faith and morality because private faith sometimes has public implications, and the Government have a responsibility to ensure that the minority of people who do not identify with a faith are not, and do not feel, excluded from the mainstream political debate or uncertain about their rights. The Government has a responsibility to ensure that people who do not identify with a faith do not have fewer choices or are less able to live out their lives in the way in which they would choose, to contribute to the life of the nation, or to take opportunities wherever they arise.

We must make space for people, ideas and values from all traditions to contribute to that debate in a way that enables people to reflect a diversity of views, backgrounds and traditions. What does not help to achieve neutral space or mutual tolerance is when the debate over faith and non-faith is conducted stridently or in an atmosphere in which it is only too easy to be misrepresented as an oppressed or misunderstood minority.

This is an important debate because it also allows us to recognise shared values across a range of traditions—values that are shared by all faiths and by none: community, personal integrity, a sense of right and wrong, learning, wisdom, the love of truth, care, compassion, justice, peace, and respect for one another, for the earth and its creatures. Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights makes it quite clear that everyone has the right to think what they will and believe what they choose - protects both non-religious and religious beliefs.

As a Government, we have a good record of promoting those principles of equal treatment, most recently in the Equality Act 2006, which prohibits discrimination against persons because of their religion or belief. The Act specifically includes lack of religion or belief in the protected grounds. It offers protection on an equal footing to everyone, whether atheist, theist or humanist—to anyone who bases their life around a serious philosophical belief. Part 1 of the Act gives the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights as much scope to support people of no religious belief who believe that they have been discriminated against on that basis as much as any other person. Changes have occurred that have created more space in which to reflect the changing cultures of our society, as reflected in our important rites of passage. The courts already recognise that not all people wish to take an oath on a holy book before testifying and can ask to affirm. People are no longer forced to get married in a religious building or a registry office. The number of humanist funerals is increasing significantly. Those changes reflect a society that is asking for more choice.

I listened hard to what the noble Baroness,Lady Murphy, said about the importance of all organisations that tender for public services. They must satisfy the conditions laid down by the local authority providing that service. The Government believe that the third sector is a vital component of a modern and healthy society. There are millions of acts of support, help, co-operation and selflessness every day, which are not confined to faith-based voluntary organisations. There are 22,000 third-sector organisations. They are a key part of that sector and are best placed to provide public services, so they should be able bid for contracts on a level playing field, whether they are religious or secular.

Let me reassure my noble friend Lord Harrison that the Government do not fund or support the proselytising of organisations.

We also had the beginnings of a debate about faith schools. For some parents, faith schools will be the answer; for others, they will not. I listened to what my noble friend Lord Harrison said about the difficulty of finding a non-faith school. I have taken the best possible advice about this, but I am aware of no areas of the country where there is no choice in that respect. It is important that faith schools are not held responsible for ethnic or social segregation, but it is equally important to note—we are clear about this—that although we want parents to have choice, we also want to ensure that schools bring together children of different cultures and backgrounds. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 placed a duty on the governing bodies of schools in England to promote community cohesion. Ofsted will report on that contribution, which is an extremely important step.

Let me, in conclusion, reach into the wider work of government and the wider debate in promoting greater tolerance and community cohesion. How can we promote those shared values and perceptions which bring people together in common purpose rather than drive them apart? We are working across all sectors to create a shared sense of belonging in our country, to tackle racism and extremism through the work of the independent Commission on Integration and Cohesion and to consider how all communities can be empowered to improve cohesion. Faith-based and non-faith-based organisations play key roles in that. We support the non-faith organisations, including 49 which will shortly receive more than £600,000 to promote community cohesion. Among them will be the British Humanist Association.

I can give my noble friends Lord Harrison and Lord Graham the assurance that they seek: we consult with and involve non-faith groups whenever we can. My noble friend Lady Whitaker requests that all local regional and national bodies convened by my department on matters of religion, belief and community cohesion should have humanist representation. But she will be aware that the British Humanist Association was part of the religion and belief stakeholder group created by us. The British Humanist Association and the National Secular Society are active stakeholders in the development of the provisions of Part 2 of the Equality Act. We have a very rich and diverse range of organisations. The reason we do not engage with them all in the same way is not an exclusive choice, it is sheer pragmatism.

WASP Summary of the speech of Baroness Wilcox in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Relgion: Non Believers debate.

WASP Summary of the speech of noble Lady Baroness Wilcox in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Relgion: Non Believers debate.

Full text of speech here in Hansard (or with WASP highlights here).

WASP highlights Main Points & Key Points.

• TheyWorkForYou Baroness Wicox entry

• Baroness Wilcox Wikipedia entry

Action: WASP to send a message to Baroness Wilcox - disagreeing with Humanist schools

WASP - Key Points of Baroness Wilcox speech:

• those with faith feel pushed to the outskirts of society and find our values and beliefs infringed and belittled
• Humanist schools
• the trouble with Humanism
  

Baroness Wilcox:
I declare an interest. I am a communicant member of the Church of England.

Sadly, it sometimes, and increasingly, seems to some of us, as was so powerfully stated by the cardinal archbishop lately, that those of us with faith feel pushed to the outskirts of society and find our space, values and beliefs that are the very core of our daily being infringed and belittled.

No one would disagree with the belief of the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, that in a democratic state a person’s lack of religion should not lead to any kind of prejudice or deprivation. We agree that religious groups should be controlled in any misuse of their position. The modern state has tried to meet the position of those who profess no religion by allowing them to withdraw their children from religious assemblies. It is open to non-religious people to raise money and to set up schools of their own. Of course it might mean that their children have to travel long distances. That is very often so for religious parents who wish their children to attend a school of their choice.

Those who profess no religion have not yet evolved a common ritual and philosophy that appeals to the mass of the population. Perhaps that is why they have not yet set up any schools. Where are the humanist schools? I wonder how many people would attend them. Maybe now that this little group has been set up in the Houses of Parliament, it may work towards that end.

The trouble is that humanism can seem too intellectual or remote. There is also disagreement about the prevailing non-religious philosophy, stretching from Nietzsche’s superman to a vague humanism. By contrast, although religious adherence seems small, surveys show that around 70 per cent of people profess a belief in God. Many people’s morality is still tied to the traditional religious patterns.

WASP Summary of the speech of Lord Graham of Edmonton in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Relgion: Non Believers debate.

WASP Summary of the speech of noble Lord Lord Graham of Edmonton in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Relgion: Non Believers debate.

Full text of speech here in Hansard (or with WASP highlights here).

WASP highlights Main Points & Key Points.

• TheyWorkForYou Lord Graham entry

• Lord Graham Wikipedia entry

Action: WASP to Send a message of thanks to Lord Graham of Edmonton

WASP - Key Points of Lord Graham speech:

• role of faith
  

Lord Graham of Edmonton:

I am a member of the British Humanist Association, and I heard discrimination against those who support my views that I had not appreciated. That is not to say that they are not correct because, of course, I accept the integrity of the speakers.

I speak as a socialist and someone who believes in the brotherhood of man and in tolerance and fair play. There is no religion in the world, including Christianity, that should not hang its head in shame at the acts of its followers at some time or other. However, we are living in a period when we ought to respect each other.

The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, whom I respect very much, said that everyone must have faith. I envy people who have faith because for them it is powerful, personal and precious. I have never been able to embrace that. My faith is in the human spirit and the ability of ordinary people to control their affairs. I do not besmirch or belittle people who think differently. Society needs an examination of the ways in which we can work more closely together. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Harrison on bringing this matter to the attention of this House. Those of us here today know from the media that there is some disquiet about people like me who do not believe in religion but who are religious about respecting the views of others. The Minister would do this House and the country a power of good if she were able to say that by some means or other the exclusion or non-inclusion of those who share my views would be looked at with respect. This debate has done a great service.

If the Minister can help us by saying something about her intentions about a consultation that will be all embracing and will cover people with no religious views, as well as those who have them in the conduct of affairs in this society, we will be very well served.

WASP Summary of the speech of Baroness Whitaker in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Relgion: Non Believers debate

WASP Summary of the speech of noble Lady Baroness Whitaker in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Relgion: Non Believers debate.

Full text of speech here in Hansard (or with WASP highlights here).

WASP highlights Main Points & Key Points.

TheyWorkForYou Baroness Whitaker entry

Baroness Massey Wikipedia entry as BHA Vice President.

Action: WASP to Send a message of support to Baroness Whitaker

WASP - Key Points of Baroness Whitaker speech:

• Ethics - can be unattached to religious belief
• Humanism - defined
• Humanism - a brief history
• Berlin Declaration 2007 - no mention of Christianity
  

Baroness Whitaker:

My Lords, the idea that ethics can be unattached to a religious belief has ancient roots. It is a significant strand in our heritage which we have downgraded in comparison with faith-based morality, but which can offer help in many of our modem dilemmas. I remind the House of my interest as a vice-president of the British Humanist Association.

I will not rehearse the many Asian, Greek and Roman thinkers, from the Indians of 700 BCE to Seneca in the first years of the Christian era who upheld this idea, but they are most interestingly analysed in Karen Armstrong's latest book, The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah. She emphasises their focus on conduct. It is in this spiritual development of thinking about conduct that humanism belongs and has its origins.

Humanism offers a coherent ethical structure which goes something like this. Life is finite and we must therefore make choices. We must take responsibility for these choices ourselves. Human thinking and human nature are so constituted that we want to justify our choices. We want them to be worth taking responsibility for and to be consistent, hence a system of ethics. The great schema of conduct like the Code of Hammurabi, the doctrines of Confucius and the Buddha and the precepts of the Old Testament prophets are great early ethical frameworks.

Skipping a few centuries, the Enlightenment added a new chapter to the humanistic strand, growing as it did out of the evidence-based discoveries of the scientific renaissance, but, perhaps following the excesses of the French revolution, humanism later became publicly much less respectable. Although nobody tried to imprison Thomas Hardy, George Eliot or Joseph Conrad, the MP Charles Bradlaugh was sentenced to six months for refusing to take the parliamentary oath and had to speak from a barge just outside territorial waters to avoid arrest. I hope we know better now.

After all, humanists were at the forefront of some of our more recent progress. They were active in the founding of the United Nations and its agencies, that great leap forward in human rights, as those who knew Lord Ritchie Calder could testify. They were not against religion, simply apart from it. In the 1970s, long before the setting up of the Inter Faith Network, humanists took a lead in founding bodies like the Standing Conference on Inter-Faith Dialogue in Education and the Social Morality Council, together with people of faith.

Humanism can include many cultural bases. Jawaharlal Nehru said to George Bernard Shaw:

“We are both atheists but the difference between us is that I am a Hindu atheist and you are a Christian atheist.”.

Perhaps I may put myself in the box of Jewish atheist, very attached to one of the precepts of the prophet Micah:

“to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly”.

But other faiths would claim these values too and why not? I am delighted that the Berlin declaration published on 25 March by the German presidency reflects the broad sweep of Europe’s heritage and values and does not confine itself to the narrow Christian strain. I am also glad that this was supported by many religious groups and all those who think that church and state should stick to their separate roles.

But I also want more space in this country for the non-religious universe. Faith is not the only basis for morality and I want to inhabit that culture, not in opposition to religion but in opposition to its monopoly. I do not think that makes me an aggressive secularist; but it does alienate me from aggressive proselytising. The website of the Department for Communities and Local Government says:

“The traditions of all major faiths contain teachings commending the fundamental values of equality and respect which are so important to community cohesion.”.

It is not only the major faiths that commend these fundamental values—it is, at least as much, that great strand of non-religious belief that has carried them forward. I think my noble friend’s department has government responsibility for non-religious belief as much as for religion and I hope she will listen with her usual perspicacity and push for more recognition for the non-religious approach. We are grateful for the grant of £25,000; but I think we would all benefit if local, regional and national bodies convened by the DCLG on matters of religion and belief and community cohesion had humanist representatives, who could more accurately reflect the beliefs and values of that large minority who do not profess a religion.

WASP Summary of the speech of Lord Wedderburn of Charlton in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Relgion: Non Believers debate.

WASP Summary of the speech of noble Lord Lord Wedderburn of Charlton in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Relgion: Non Believers debate.

Full text of speech here in Hansard (or with WASP highlights here).

WASP highlights Main Points & Key Points.

TheyWorkForYou Lord Wedderburn entry; Lord Wedderburn Wikipedia entry.

Action: WASP to Send a message to Lord Wedderburn of Charlton

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I speak as a humanist. I agree with the position of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for introducing this debate. I do wish to convert anyone, but I understand how difficult it is for right reverend Prelates even to understand the sort of position that humanists adopt; the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey, who is sadly not in his place, was one.

This issue raises a question of human rights, because the European Convention on Human Rights, adopted in the Human Rights Act 1998, proclaimed in Articles 89 and 14 the freedom of religious belief and freedom, as interpreted by the Strasbourg court, of other beliefs—including, as it puts it, atheism or scepticism—to be human rights. Practical matters arise from that. The Government are bound by the standards which the Human Rights Act has adopted into our law. I will advert as quickly as I can to areas where the Government should take note and, perhaps, begin an inquiry or, as has been suggested, some dialogue with humanists, who suffer a number of disadvantages in a religious environment.

First, on broadcasting, everybody knows that you can hear “Thought for the Day” at a quarter to eight. The British Humanist Association asked whether some humanists without a belief in God could be selected for these talks, which are currently usually given by people who think that morality and a sense of behavioural conduct can be introduced only by those who believe in God. The BBC replied in correspondence, saying that it could not include such speakers. Why?

Secondly, on charities, a religious organisation automatically passes the first test imposed by the Charities Act 2006. Organisations for other purposes and beliefs do not. That is straightforward discrimination. On health, as noble Lords have mentioned, the National Health Service recruits chaplains; so do prisons. All of them are either Christian or some other faith. As I found, being in hospital a lot last year, no humanist chaplains appear to exist.

I ask the right reverend Prelates who have spoken whether they will support a move to liberalise broadcasting in that respect from public service bodies, which are bound to a balance of religion and other beliefs. Then there is the Government’s structure of consultation, based on the paper Working Together in 2003. In fact, the standing advisory panels and other groups that control the consultative process include no humanists and no persons other than those who belong, with great respect, to religious organisations.

On education, we all know that a church school can be either the only primary school in a district,or certainly the best. I congratulate the Church of England on maintaining the quality of church schools, but when you see humanist parents going to church on a Sunday for perhaps the first time ever, certainly only for a short period, you know why:they wish to get some advantage for their child in school selection. I have personal experience of a great number of people doing this; it really does discriminate in society. More importantly, Church of England schools, for which a report was produced for Archbishops in 2001, still aim to proselytise and convert. It is a problem in our society that schools based on religious faith must have a divisive effect. The new academies include an increasing number of aggressively religious schools teaching creationism. One such school states that its object is to instruct pupils that,

“those who love Jesus the Lord will enjoy his presence forever. But those who do not will face God’s judgment”.

That is hardly an inclusive philosophy to put to children who enter.

Lastly, the justification for some of these things is, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said in a recent debate, based upon the census of 2001. It stated that 72 per cent of the population ticked a box saying “Christian” in a long list of religions ending with “None”. That result has clearly been exploded by the Office for National Statistics. Other surveys have shown that the number of humanists in society with no religious belief is much higher than the Government state. I must end there, but I suggest that there are practical matters for ordinary people here which demand some inquiry or consultation from the Government with the British Humanist Association.

WASP Summary of the speech of Baroness Massey of Darwen in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Relgion: Non Believers debate.

WASP Summary of the speech of noble Lord Baroness Massey of Darwen in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Relgion: Non Believers debate.

Full text of speech here in Hansard (or with WASP highlights here).

WASP highlights Main Points & Key Points.

TheyWorkForYou Baroness Massey entry, Baroness Massey Wikipedia entry.

Action: WASP to Send a message of thanks to Baroness Massey of Darwen

Baroness Massey of Darwen:

My Lords, I am very pleased that my noble friend Lord Harrison has secured this debate. It gives us the opportunity to explore some important issues to which I hope we shall return, including the view that spirituality, mystery, values, a full life and concern for others are not the property of the religious alone....

All types are entitled to respect, equal status and an equal profile. This does not always happen to those who profess no faith.

Fundamentalist views in religion are largely responsible, of course. Wars, torture and discrimination are some by-products of religion as well as human venality. I want to consider attitudes towards sexuality and women in religion....

... attitudes to sexuality and repression of sensible, healthy debate has been adversely affected by historical, religious attitudes. Extremism may appear ridiculous, but it is alive and well, and it is dangerous. It adversely affects those who do not adhere to its tenets. For example, recently an applicant for a postat a right-wing Christian college in Middlesbrough was grilled in the interview about his views on the Catholic Church, birth control and whether he believed in Noah's Ark. This man happens to be a Methodist lay preacher.

I was in the United States recently where it was reported that extreme members of a Baptist Church in Topeka had picketed burials around the country of American troops killed in combat in Iraq, claiming that their deaths were God's punishment for a nation harbouring homosexuals.

What is going on here? In his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins suggests that religion may be a by-product of something else. Large numbers of people,

“flatly contradict demonstrable scientific facts, as well as rival religions followed by others”.

They do indeed, and they often hide their prejudices behind professed religious faith. This prejudice shows itself in relation to sexuality, women, gay people, science and a host of other things.

People sometimes ask me, “Can you not accept that religion has inspired wonderful art, music, poetry and architecture?”, as referred to by my noble friend Lady Rendell. Well, not quite. Some great religious art, in its broadest sense, was initially condemned by religion, even defaced or destroyed. In any case, I argue that those artists were displaying a creative instinct rather than a religious one. I have immense respect for many courageous and humane people who profess a faith in your Lordships’ House. While I do not support the retention of the Bishops’ Benches, I have admired brave stances by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, the former Bishop of Oxford, when he decried Section 28; and by the late Lord Sheppard, the former Bishop of Liverpool and a great cricketer, for devoting his life to the under-privileged. Such people and others like them would not deny rights to anyone, and would support diversity. I respect them as people, not as representatives of their faith.

I still distrust religion in its fundamental form, and am proud to be a humanist. I do not feel threatened. We are a growing number, and a more vocal group. We have a valid and important contribution to make to society. We should be consulted, locally and nationally, on issues which affect society. I hope that politicians will take note. Does the Minister agree?

WASP Summary of the speech of noble Lord Baroness Murphy in the House of Lords debate Relgion: Non believers, 19th April 2007

WASP Summary of the speech of noble Lord Baroness Murphy in the House of Lords 19th April 2007, Relgion: Non Believers debate.

Full text of speech here in Hansard (or with WASP highlights here).

WASP highlights Main Points & Key Points.

TheyWorkForYou Baroness Murphy entry, Baroness Murphy Wikipedia entry.

Action: WASP to Send a message of support to Baroness Murphy

Baroness Murphy said:

I speak as a rationalist, agnostic—I shall not say atheist in the light of the comments of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey. It is not a particularly comfortable matter, but one reason to contribute to this debate is to stand up and be counted.

I was going to remain rather calm throughout this, but I was rather offended by the comments of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey, about the role that people without faith have played in doing good in the world. He is entirely and wholly wrong. We feel just as passionately as those who have faith about ensuring that society is just.

I want to spend my few minutes expressing concerns about the growing influence of religion on the delivery of public services. I am very uncomfortable with the 2003 Government policy of encouraging faith-based organisations to participate in public service provision. Of course, I acknowledge that there are occasions when religious organisations or their representatives can reach the unreachable by statutory sector workers.

The crucial issue for me is whether religious service organisations compete on an even playing field for public service contracts, are explicitly committed to delivering services to people of all faiths and none without prejudice, disapproval or prosyletisation, and whether they have employment practices consistent with public service values....

An example that is more worrying is CrossReach, which was formerly known as the Church of Scotland Board of Social Responsibility. It employs more than 2,000 staff in 80 services stretching from Shetland to the Borders, providing care and support services for thousands of people. Indeed, it has an excellent reputation for the quality of care that it provides. I say that first of all. It has an annual expenditure of more than £45 million, of which more than 99 per cent comes directly from local government. It is overtly proselytising, its website is as embarrassing as Radio 4's “Prayer for the Day” and it makes quite clear that it reserves jobs in the organisation for those who share its particular brand of faith. The Scots are even less religious as a nation than the English or Welsh. I wonder what it feels like to have your social care delivered by this overtly missionary organisation.

How can the Government encourage local government to contract with religious organisations for public services? What guidance do they provide on mission statements and the policies that they follow before handing out public money for back-door ways of pushing beliefs that most people now find unbelievable?

WASP Summary of the speech of noble Lord Lord Carey of Clifton in the House of Lords 19th April 2007

WASP Summary of the speech of noble Lord Lord Carey of Clifton (aka Archbishop of Canterbury 1991-2002) in the House of Lords 19th April 2007. Full text of speech here in Hansard (or with WASP highlights here).
WASP highlights Main Points & Key Points.

TheyWorkForYou & Wikipedia entries.

Action: WASP to Send a message to Lord Carey of Clifton re: "atheists are not renowned throughout the world for their commitment to the very poor, the starving and the needy."

12.44 pm

Lord Carey of Clifton:

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harrison in finding common ground between us, and I hope that my contribution will help towards that end.

For me, the issue is largely about the kind of society that we all aim to create and how responsible listening and arguments might strengthen the building up of community. The debate hangs on the word “religion”, and thereby also hangs a problem. We simply cannot lump religions together in that way as though they mean the same thing; they do not. What is common to most religions is an acceptance of a creator who brought all things into existence and that this creator gives meaning, hope and life to everyone.

If those two opinions separate the believer from the unbeliever, we should not then assume that religion is necessarily the place of superstition, credulity and ignorance. Both the unbeliever and the believer are essentially handling the same data—the same raw material, of which Professor Brian Hebblethwaite posed the question: how do we best account for the data all around us? That is, how do we best account for the existence of a universe endowed with powers and laws when apparently none of this has to be? How do we account for the capacity of the fundamental stuff of the universe to evolve not only life and consciousness but also mind, intelligence and personality? I find that some atheists seem to be unaware that their beliefs, too, are at best a faith. Indeed, it seemed to me to be a lot to swallow that from absolute chaos, confusion, chance and futility have emerged intelligence, moral awareness, beauty and purpose.

I make those points to underline the fact that many intelligent believers are anxious to relate their beliefs to truths of different kinds. We are not all obscurantists or flat-Earthers. From these observations flow my concern that, in building a good, strong, free and secure society in which truth and beauty exist, we need to co-operate more—I think that that is the purpose of the noble Lord’s Motion—and to find ways to overcome barriers to our working together. It is certainly untrue that the voice of the humanist is silenced in our land; indeed, these days it is often harder for the Christian believer to be heard.

The challenge breaks two ways. It is certainly true that those who profess a religion must realise their responsibility to contribute to the health of society. They must not impose barriers on freedom to think differently or compel their adherents to believe in set ways. That there is bad religion around cannot be doubted. We have only to consider what Sunni and Shi’ite believers are doing to each other in Iraq at the moment to see what evil can be done in the name of Allah Most Compassionate. The same could be said of Christianity in the past. But there is another side of religion: the vast majority of believers of all faiths are honourable, decent people who live by their creeds and want to make a better world.

By the same token, those who profess no faith or belief have a responsibility to put their own personal beliefs to work. If the profession of no faith simply leads people to assume that life is meaningless and ultimately purposeless, then its contribution to life is worthless and not worthy of debate in your Lordships’ House. But if the professing of no religion leads, as it often does, to humanism, it can make a great contribution to our world, and that should be encouraged. However, if I may be a little provocative, in my opinion, atheists are not renowned throughout the world for their commitment to the very poor, the starving and the needy. Whereas, as I have already indicated, believers have made and are making an effective contribution throughout the world, it will not do for others to rubbish that and then do little to make up for what they feel are its inadequacies. Those who have nothing but contempt for religion should heed the comments in the Guardian of 12 September 2005 by the noble Lord, Lord Hattersley. He is not known for his great belief in religion as such, but he says in the article that unbelievers are less likely to care for the poor or spend time with outcasts of society. He writes:

“‘Good works’, John Wesley insisted, ‘are no guarantee of a place in heaven. But they are most likely to be performed by people who believe that heaven exists’”.

It is not my intention to score points. Our world has enough divisions without deepening controversy and taking attention off its serious problems. I believe that the Motion charges us all to move beyond using our freedom to disagree, to building a world where all believers and unbelievers may use their beliefs as building blocks to create a better society.

WASP Summary of the speech of Baroness Rendell (aka Ruth Rendell) in the House of Lords 19th April 2007

WASP Summary of the speech of noble Lord Baroness Rendell (aka Ruth Rendell) in the House of Lords 19th April 2007. Full text of speech here in Hansard (or with WASP highlights here)
WASP highlights Main Points & Key Points.

TheyWorkForYou & Wikipedia entries.

Action: WASP will send a message of support to Baroness Rendell of Babergh

12.38 pm

Baroness Rendell of Babergh: I begin by quoting the final lines of a poem;

“for the world which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night”.

Thus Matthew Arnold on Dover beach watched the receding tide of Christian faith, at a time when science was starting to assert its claims and people began to turn away from Christianity. Many of them, like me, began as Anglicans but lost their faith in youth or middle age.

The trappings of the religion we have lost remain dear to us. Let us take church music. Where would we be without Bach or Handel? What about the writings of the saints? I wonder how many times, with increasing enjoyment, I have read the Life of St Teresa of Avila and The Confessions of St Augustine. When I go to Florence, one of my greatest pleasures is to visit the Carmine to look at Masaccio's “The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden”, an event in which I emphatically do not believe. In the words of Thomas Hardy, an atheist but a “churchy” man, who loved ritual and church music:

“It is only a sentiment to me now”.

Darwin wrote:

“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars”.

Most of us would agree that it is this conflict between beneficence and omnipotence which makes belief impossible. There is no answer to it. We are obliged to own that something which was beautiful and once seemed an incontrovertible truth was acceptable only when magic was a reality and science a mystery.

It seems to be true that, if God did not exist, we would have to invent him and that many who would call themselves atheists turn to other objects of veneration or are drawn to witchcraft, black magic, astrology and various types of divination. In Greece, I understand, a group of people have returned to the worship of the Olympian gods and sacrifice to Zeus and Aphrodite. Was society morally better when:

“The Sea of Faith Was once ... at the full”?

If I am speaking mainly of Christianity in western Europe, it would seem not. The 20th century has been called the bloodiest and most savage humanityhas ever known, but those preceding it were, in proportion, as violent and brutal. Arnold’s ignorant armies clashed by night then as now. Atrocities and massacres occurred when almost everyone believed in obeying the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”.

Are we better now? Not noticeably, although we may be more aware. Most of us know that we should not abuse children, commit perjury or steal, but we go on committing crimes that we no longer call sins. Lately, a child in London has been murdered nearly every week. There are still 7 million slaves in the world. God could not make us good but nor does his absence. It is strange that so many people declaim, when misfortune comes, “What have I done to deserve this?”.

The countries of Scandinavia, intensely Lutheran while Ibsen was writing, later became almost entirely secular. They are widely acclaimed as societies nearer to the ideal than any others and are held up as an example to the rest of us. Post hoc is not proper hoc, but the fact remains that, when Scandinavians were at their most devout in the 19th century, their peasantry was desperately poor and emigrating in droves.

It appears that society is much the same when atheist as it was when godly. It has lost a certain kind of cohesion—the comradeship of Bible language and church assemblies—but not the music, literature and art of Christianity, and there is no sign that it will.

WASP Summary of the speech of Baroness Greengross in the House of Lords 19th April 2007.

WASP Summary of the speech of noble Lord Baroness Greengross in the House of Lords 19th April 2007. Full text of speech here in Hansard (or with WASP highlights here)
WASP highlights Main Points & Key Points.

TheyWorkForYou entry.

Action: WASP will Send a message of support to Baroness Greengross

Baroness Greengross said:

The Human Rights Act outlaws discrimination between people on the grounds of religion or belief. Two words are used in those Acts—“religion” and “belief”, which are obviously considered to be different or one word would suffice.

Non-religious beliefs are defined as spiritual or philosophical convictions which have an identifiable formal content—humanism being an obvious example. Unfortunately, the Human Rights Act has been slow to be fully enforced and to make its full impact in all the areas where humanists and other non-religious people need it to. Non-religious beliefs are of a single type in their legal aspect along with religious beliefs. They are legally equivalent to religious beliefs, but we have seen again and again that the implications of that are not being felt.

When the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights advised that, to be compliant with the legal requirement not to discriminate between religious and non-religious beliefs, Parliament should explicitly include “belief” along with “religion” in the current Charities Bill, the Government paid no heed to its recommendations. To comply fully with the law, non-religious beliefs must be recognised across all relevant public policy in their own right as having equal validity to religious ones. The implications of this must be fully realised in services, employment, marriage and so on—and in all areas where religion is currently an issue.

I have been inspired in my life by people who live their faith—and they are of many faiths—and by people who do not have a faith and who believe that we should have total responsibility for our own moral codes. I hope that fairness and equal treatment under the law will be what we can all expect.