News and Opinion

WAKE-UP CALL FOR SLEEPING HUMANISTS An article by George Jellis, from our local paper, the Leicester Mercury. It is time for people of no faith to demand that they are no longer ignored by government. Are you one of those who does not go to church, except on special occasions? One who, if you think about religion at all, considers it a medieval relic of little relevance to the modern world? Yet, when asked "What religion are you" (as in the census), you name the religion you were brought up in? You are probably really a humanist. There are many people like you - sleeping humanists. The truth is that the non-religious people in this country now form a third of the population. The trouble is, they are an unseen, silent mass. It is time for them to speak out. Politicians often try to appeal to "people of all faiths or none", but often they forget the "none" because the non-religious are almost invisible to them. They do not have a "vicar" in every p...

Some Thoughts for the Day What idiot was it said that 'those who fail to remember the past are destined to repeat it?' (Having consulted my reference books it seems it was George Santayana, whoever he was.) My conclusion over the past few days, or possiby weeks, listening to the radio, reading newspapers, watching occasional television, is that the opposite is true. Those who remember the past are destined to regurgitate it for ever, and never to do anything original. Next year could we perhaps have a christmas without the endless carolling, without endless versions of Scrooge, without the ridiculous nativity story, and without that fat bumbler in the fluffy beard and red suit? Perhaps such a ban would result in some original work. In my search for the source of the quotation I also found a counterblast, from George Eliot: 'The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.' I must read her sometime. The biologists have been trying for some time to encourag...

Our New Website The Society has a new web address and a new site to go with it: http://www.leicestersecularsociety.org.uk the old site will remain for the present, and there are links between the two. Note that some of the pages on the new site are still 'work in progress'. ====== Now to our quote of the week: In The Guardian G2 on Wednesday this week there was an excellent interview by Danish journalist Martin Krasnik with American author Philip Roth, now 72. Asked if he is religious he replied: " I'm exactly the opposite of religious. I'm anti-religious. I find religious people hideous. I hate religious lies. It's all a big lie. " Unfortunately on Friday The Guardian decided to follow this up with a piece by Robert Winston, whose new TV series The Story of God makes him suddenly a pundit on religion, claiming "Philip Roth was wrong". His article reiterates a series of "big lies" unworthy of someone who is supposedly a scientist, an...

Islamophobiawatch attacks Gays and Jews Obviously the notion of seasonal goodwill to all does not apply to those homophobic and antisemtic idiots behind the website Islamophobiawatch. To read what I'm talking about click here This site has the scary overtones of Red Watch. The article I've linked to singles out Brett Lock of Outrage! (and also carries a photo of him) but much of the rest of it is full of the bile and hatred that one would normally associate with the BNP and other far-right groups. Indeed, I'm probably putting myself up for inclusion just by posting this, but having heard first hand comments about gays and Jews from members of so-called 'moderate' Islamic groups at this year's NUS conference I'm no longer under the illusion that Islam preaches tolerance towards either of those groups. As such I fear that this website is not actually an attempt to track instances of Islamophobia in the media, but actually to use this excuse as a thin v...

Nativity Story Drops in the Ratings "For generations, the Nativity was the greatest story ever told. But today's children regard The Snowman by Raymond Briggs as their favourite tale for Christmas, a new survey shows." Read the entire article at the Independent: http://tinyurl.com/84xmb

Christmas Charity Booksellers, freethought booksellers included, make about 50% of their sales in the last quarter of the year. This keeps them going through the long hot dry desert of, well, February to October, enabling them to eat, pay the rent and keep jobs going. Like every other trader, we need to bring ourselves to people's attention, and remind our loyal customers that we're still here. How best to do this, at this seasonal time of year? We've given in and organised a series of late night "Christmas Charity Evenings", where, essentially, people can shop for presents, and feel virtuous about it, knowing that 10% of all sales are being donated to two local charities. Last year, we had "Not the Xmas Party" a rollicking good affair attended by all our friends and MCed by the incomparable Arnie G. They say the Devil has all the best songs, but it looks to me as if the Christians have helped themselves to all the best festivals. We could refer to the ...

Ethical Business - Is There Such a Thing? The short answer is: I don't know. However, having spent years working in the voluntary and publicly funded sector, I now think there is far more chance of achieving things I want to see happen through running my own business. I guess business is like most things: it's a tool, a method of organising, a way of doing things. It can be used for good purposes and bad purposes (although who decides what's "good and what's "bad"?), the same as the Internet and the telephone. It's also occurred to me, having spent five years providing business start-up services to other people, that running your own small business is probably the closest we can get to self-reliance and mutual aid in this overwhelmingly establishment-controlled society.

Corporate Censorship Ok, let's make this clear from the outset, I am in a VERY bad mood right now. The sort of bad mood that is invariably generated by prolonged exposure to my department. I need a holiday, a change of city, and a change of PhD (anyone looking for a bright young PhD student with a broad background in environmental science and environmental impact of technology who is currently feeling undervalued and generally being shat upon from multiple orifices please contact me). I could also do with a laugh, especially as Space Cadets failed to deliver last night. What makes someone laugh depends on their personal tastes, and those tastes vary dramatically from person to person and from time to time. Right now something 'unfortunate' happening to one of the numerous members of my department who seem to be conspiring to piss me off would have me in stitches, but no doubt given sufficient time away from this place I'd feel otherwise. Conversely, in several years ti...

The Sunday 4th December meeting, the last for this year, was one of our 'Headstrong' discussions. This time we had visitors: Tony M. Robinson of the Humanist Party came up from London and Mike Lake of the new Derby and Derbyshire Secular Society came down from Derby. My hope was that we could concentrate on 'Activism' issues, but as usual the talk wandered over a whole range of topics, from representation on SACREs to demonstrating in support of the production of 'Jerry Springer the Opera' at De Montfort Hall. At one point there was some dispute about what is and what is not 'Religion'. One speaker maintained that Buddhism is not a religion because it does not involve belief in a god or gods. However, this seems a mistaken idea about Buddhism. They have a concept of 'Brahma' which means 'Great One' which is very like a god to me, though probably of an impersonal nature. Brahma is also the supreme creator god in Hinduism. I'd started t...

Lord May takes a parting shot at fundamentalism Tomorrow sees the retirement of Lord May of Oxford from his post as President of the Royal Society, but his valedictory speech contains a few choice words for those who think their beliefs carry more weight than scientific evidence and opinion. The speech, entitled 'Threats to Tomorrow's World' contains the lines, "Fundamentalism doesn't necessarily derive from sacred texts. It's where a belief trumps a fact and refuses to confront the facts. All ideas should be open to questioning, and the merit of ideas should be assessed on the strength of evidence that supports them and not on the credentials or affiliations of the individuals proposing them. It is not a recipe for a comfortable life, but it is demonstrably a powerful engine for understanding how the world actually works and for applying this understanding." Now there are some who would argue that even engaging in debate with fundamentalist cla...

Blatherer of the Week I've just been listening to Robert Winston on Start The Week (BBC Radio 4) blathering on about 'spirituality' and 'soul' and 'the transcendental' (as if these are meaningful terms) in advertising his new series The Story of God on BBC1 TV beginning on 4th December. At one point he seems to take a Sea of Faith type of position, that 'God' means very different things to different people, and its all in the mind, and that polytheism is just as good as monotheism. Then he mentions that some people are more susceptible to religiosity than others due to the actions of the serotonin 'reward' system in their brains, which is a materalist position. Then he cites the 'dark matter' problem as being a reason for physicists to get religion, when it's either just a form of matter that we cannot detect or an error in our understanding of gravitation. It seems to me that an explanation for a lot of religion is that it is m...

Most annoying article of the month This article by a certain Nicholas Buxton in The Guardian, Face to Faith column, Saturday November 19, 2005, I found so totally annoying that I just had to respond to it line by line: It is a secularist article of faith to maintain that religion will soon be eliminated as a by-product of "progress". * We can live in hope, and a report by the Church of England itself suggests it may not be long for this world, but there is no sign of religions in general succumbing. Since there is no reason to suppose that life has some overarching meaning, the notion of a benevolent God who intervenes in history on our behalf is basically nonsense and should be abandoned. * A greed Atheists complain that religion proposes unprovable accounts of life and death. But this is uninteresting. * I would say they weave fantasies around life and death, such as tales of life after death, reincarnation, karma, ghosts, resurrection and judgemnt, etc, etc. Death is obvio...

Sunday's (20th November) lecture at Secular Hall, about Climate Change, was given by Bettina Atkinson and colleagues from Leicester Friends of the Earth and attracted a good attendance. Their main purpose was to publicise a 'BigAsk' campaign, which involves asking your MP to support the law on control of CO2 emissions. http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/big_ask/faqs/index.html The FoE is in favour of wind and wave power and other renewables. Today however the government chief scientist Dr King is saying Britain should consider a new generation of nuclear power stations. On Monday evening I went to the local Interfaith Fellowship, only to find that the talk was beng given by LSS member Allan Hayes. He talked about the last novel The Island written by Aldous Huxley shortly before his death. The story is about a utopian community on a tropical island, involving various experiments in social engineering, and a hybrid religion based on Hinduism, Buddhism and drug use. The p...

Another assortment of web links today. First, a welcome to another new secular group, the Balcombe Freethinkers in West Sussex: http://www.balcombefreethinkers.org.uk/ Next, a marvellously satirical blog from 'Dark Syde', who explains 'What it's like to be an Atheist', among the Santaists! http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/11/15/12016/649 One of the main news stories is the split in the worldwide Anglican Church over homosexuality. The main movers are the Nigerian archbishop, Peter Akinola, and the Archbishop of the West Indies, Drexel Gomez. Perhaps they should rejoin the Roman Catholic church. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1876059,00.html http://www.kstatecollegian.com/article.php?a=8018 http://tinyurl.com/doz68 Another news item is the OLPC proposal to provide 'one laptop per child' for $100 each. The batteries can be recharged by hand-winding. However, one report I've seen claims that religious organisation has offered to sponsor it and,...

Sunday's meeting (13th November) was the Annual General Meeting of the Society and was well attended. Plans for refurbishment of the Secular Hall over the next few years, with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund, seem to be on track. This also fits into plans for the general redevelopment of the 'cultural area' around the Hall. Our member Allan Hayes reported on these developments on behalf of the Building Committee. The President Lyn Hurst and Vice-President Michael Gerard were re-elected, and most of the existing committee re-appointed, but I decided to retire from it (though I will be carrying on maintaining the website), and Chris Williams, who used to be active with the Leicester Radical Alliance, has agreed to join the committee. It was agreed after a good presentation by Eleanor Davidson, and a debate to which most members present contributed, that our literature (i.e. the programme of lectures) will add details about secular weddings, affirmations and naming ceremon...

I sent the following message to committee members of Leicester Secular Society. The same invitation is open to any members: Now that I've, more or less. got the hang of it I'm proposing to open up the "Leicester Secularist" Blog to allow other members of the Society to post messages or links to interesting sites, etc. Would those interested in being part of the "Team" please let me know and I will put you on the list and send you instructions for posting messages. You can post something once a month, or weekly, or more often - you will just need to check that someone else hasn't posted it already. At the moment I will be the only one able to edit the posts, but this could probably be widened once we see how it goes. I've just posted a message (date 11 November), the previous one being 31 October. However I often find that it doesn't appear on the blog until the next day, or else it appears in the "archive" section but not on the main pa...

Sorry for the break in communications. My telephone line was out of order for several days. Also I've been a bit 'down' myself. Our meeting last Sunday was a general discussion, since the advertised lecturer was unable to come. The talk on Palestine is postponed to next season. Here are some links to items I've found of interest recently: * About that courageous lady Ayaan Hirsi Ali: http://tinyurl.com/bazq8 * "The Suicide Bombers Among Us" by Theodore Dalrymple. "The two forms of jihad, the inner and the outer, the greater and the lesser, thus coalesce in one apocalyptic action. By means of suicide bombing, the bombers overcome moral impurities and religious doubts within themselves and, supposedly, strike an external blow for the propagation of the faith." http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_suicide_bombers.html * The furore over the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. One of the cartoonists is auctioning his picture in aid of the earthquake appeal. I w...

It's a long time since I've been to the British Museum in London. It seems they now have a permanent "Enlightenment" exhibition in the former King's Library. (Last time I was there it was fenced off for alterations.) There's an online tour: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/enlightenment/en_tours.htm I'll definitely go there next time I'm in London. Oddly I found this link on the Internet Infidels discussion forum, an American site! Modern America seems to have lost sight of the principles of its founding fathers like Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson, whose views on religion were far more radical than any present-day politician seems prepared to express.

For anyone who wants to follow the fascinating goings-on at the "Intelligent Design" trial in Pennsylvania, this seems to be a good blog to go to: http://aclupa.blogspot.com/ ACLU is the American Civil Liberties Union which is supporting the families that brought the case. Judgment is due in November. If the case is lost watch out for a big push by the christian fundamentalists to get it into every school. The New Scientist (Editorial, in issue dated 29 October) notes that almost everyone involved (on both sides) is devoutly christian, those bringing the prosecution see no conflict between natural selection and their religion. If only the Church of England would make a statement of this type! I've tried to get a declaration from them but the view given to me is that evolution by natural selection is still a matter of scientific controversy (which it is not). Yet they are willing to make a declaration in support those who maintain that global climate change is due to hum...

John Hoffman, a member of the Society, and a former Professor at Leicester University, has donated the following books to our Library: * John Baynton; Aims and Means, The Bodley Head, London, 1964 * H. Fagan; The Commoners of England, Part I, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1958 * Philip S. Foner; The Case of Joe Hill, International Publishers, New York, 1975 * Bill Freund; The African Worker, Cambridge University Press 1988 * Paul Kennedy; African Capitalism: The Struggle for Ascendancy, Cambridge Unversity Press, 1988 * Sam Kushner; Long Road to Delano: A Century of Farmworkers' Struggle, International Publishers, New York, 1976 * Hyman Lumer; Poverty: Its Roots & Its Future, International Publishers, New York, 1965 * Albert Luthuli, Kenneth Kaunda, D. K. Chisiza, Tom J. Mboya, Julius K. Nyerere; Africa's Freedom, Unwin Books, 1964 * Eddie Madunagu; Problems of Socialism: The Nigerian Challenge, Zed Books, London, 1982 * Woodford McClellan; Revolutionary Exiles: The Russian...

I'm getting a bit fed up with the way this Blogspot works (or doesn't!). The message I posted on Saturday 22nd has not yet appeared although it is recorded as "published". There seems to be a delay of up to a day every time. This message is just an extra one to see if it will move the system on a bit. Our meeting today (Sunday 23rd) is a "Headstrong" evening of general discussion on topics raised by those present.

A welcome to the Derby & Derbyshire Secular Society. http://www.dryfire.com/ddss/ Our new neighbours just to the North. Does this represent the resurgence of Secularism in response to the newly perceived dangers of religious fundamentalism? A little booklet called Common Sense has just been produced by our member Wilfred Gaunt. In it he writes: " If our culture is not to slide back into a new dark age of bigotry and intolerance, then the secularists within our community must come together, organise, and demand that the voice of reason is heard, and acknowledged. " During the week, thinking of ways we can be more effective politically, I've been looking into the Humanist Party, and to correspond with their London spokesperson. http://www.humanistparty.org.uk/ The people at the BHA are not keen on them, some seem to regard them as a sort of "cult", but the evidence I've seen for this is slight. Apart from their ideas being rather vague and utopian it is d...

Religious Nonsense of the Week It is time exorcism was exorcised! How can the Vatican be allowed to get away with these sorts of crude practices? Aren't they contrary to medical ethics? http://tinyurl.com/d3nov Priests queue up to qualify as exorcists - by Richard Owen - "A decline in faith among the young is leading to an increase in demand for rites to ‘drive out the Devil’." --- "About 120 priests and theologians gathered in Rome yesterday, anxious to learn the increasingly demanded rite of exorcism. "There is no doubt that the Devil is intervening more in the life of man these days," they were told." I was going to post this item on FreethoughtFilter, but it seems to be offline for updating, so I'm using it as the first of a hopefully weekly choice of choice religious nonsense.

The Sunday 9th October meeting was given over to a sort of party celebrating two years since Frontline Books took over from Little Thorn Books in the bookshop associated with Secular Hall. Wines and nibbles were provided, as well as subdued lighting, cafe-style tables and a book display. Shani Lee gave some brief comments about Radical Fiction, but we ended up with a round-table discussion on secular topics, though we were unsuccessful in getting the youngest people present to join in to any extent. There has been some difficulty in getting this blog to publish properly; it only seems to appear the next day. Perhaps it will work better if I post something each day. This will mean widening the scope to general issues and personal opinions rather than just to Secular Society news. I've been posting news items on Freethought Filter which is well worth a visit: http://www.freethoughtfilter.com/b/ This was set up by Tom Morris.

The Sunday lecture by Colin Hyde of the East Midlands Oral History Project combined a talk with extracts from recordings. One of these was of Mrs Louie Croxtall whose reminiscences of Secular Hall were also reproduced in part in the Newsletter that I published in 2003. She became a member in 1930, at age 16, and as a teenager had actually lived in the Hall where her father was the caretaker. The Society has typed transcripts of these interviews, or they can be heard (on headphones) at the Record Office in Wigston. From Alan Hayes I learn as follows: BBC [television] were at the Hall on Monday. They filmed short interviews with Michael, Lyn, Keith, Caroline, Satish and myself, and a group discussion, inside the Hall. Michael was also filmed outside with the Hall as background. They also filmed various aspects of the Hall, including, I believe, dancers in the dance academy and children practising marshal arts [in the basement]. In all they seem to have been at the Hall from about noon u...

Our new season of programmes starts this week. Until Friday there is an exhibition on display (9.30am - 4.30pm approximately, except Thursday morning) of photographs and maps, with accompanying text, telling the story of the epic march of some 400 and more of the Leicester unemployed to London and back in 1905. Many of the photographs are hand-coloured as was the practice at that time, before colour photography was developed. Members will have seen some of these before from Ned Newitt's talk given in June on the exact 100th anniversary. There are also photos of his previous exhibition in October 2004 on Leicester's Radical and Working Class History among the past talks pages. This new display has been put together with help from the Records Office at Wigston. I hope to include a photograph shortly. Ned Newitt's site: The Labour Movement in Leicester from 1883: http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/leicester_labhis/index.html The Record Office: http://tinyurl.com/a8bd4 The fir...

Thanks to Shani Lee of Frontline Books there is now a version of the programme for September - December on the LSS website. This is a provisional version and may be revised once the printed version comes out. The first meeting 27-30 September, is another showing of Ned Newitt's fascinating collection of historical material, with emphasis on the 1905 March to London. There is now a link at the top of the home page, leading to this blog. I've also revised the layout of past talks; there is now a separate page for each year, accessible via the Programme page. Having started off with a post a day we will probably settle down to a more sensible one or two per week. There is a facility on Blogspot to allow other people to post to the blog by joining as a Team member. Members of Leicester Secular Society who think they may have regular news items, and would like to post themselves, can apply to me to be included in the team (or I may contact you direct). You would not have the facilit...

The winter programme of events at Secular Hall is expected any minute, from our Secretary Michael Gerard, but all I know at present is that it begins with an Exhibition at the end of September. Meanwhile I've been doing some research on the history of the Society. We have some microfilms made in 1981 based on material in Leicester Record Office, which I've started to view on the reader in the Central Reference Library. The first Reel contains F. J. Gould's History of Leicester Secular Society written in 1900 (part of which is reproduced on our website), and G. J. Holyoake's eulogy written on Josiah Gimson's death in 1883. Then there are some copies of LSS Minute Books 1852 to 1902. In a historical introduction, written by Edward Royle of the University of York, there is an account of the Leicester Secular Hall Company. This was set up in 1873 to raise funds to build the Hall, by issuing 1000 shares at £5 each. Half of these were bought by Gimson, 60 by John Sladen a...

I went to the meeting of the 'Leicester Campaign to Stop the War', with Manzoor Moghal, of the Muslim forum, and Akram Hawwash, from Palestine, as speakers. There were 18 people in attendance in all, including myself and the speakers. Alas very little was said about what can be done now, rather than raking over old history. At the end I was able to ask Mr Moghal if he could say why there were (as far as I could tell) no Muslims in the audience, when the speakers were Muslim and the topic so obviously of interest to the Muslim community, and seems to have been well publicised. We had the same problem when Ziauddin Sardar spoke to Leicester Secular Society on 'Islam and Secularism' last January. (Dr Mukadam of the Islamic Academy was the only other Muslim evident.) Mr Moghal spoke of Muslims having the duty of prayer five times a day, and of family duties. This may be so, but is surely not sufficient. I pointed out that when I took part in a debate at a Leicester Universi...

A Report on the 'Law, Religion and Secularism' Conference This is a necessarily short note on a four-hour conference. Suleiman Nagdi spoke of the difficulties of meeting the requirements of Muslim customs particularly in the case of deaths in hospital, where burial within 24 hours may not be possible, due to post mortem delays. He also indicated that autopsy procedures might be seen as violation of modesty. In the question and answer session he indicated that the views of Muslims on transplants were divided; those from the Indian subcontinent tending to be against, and most other areas in favour. By far the most impressive talk was given by Peter Veitch, Consultant Transplant Surgeon, on his experience with kidney patients. He made quite clear the ethical dilemmas faced by such surgeons. He would never in practice use a kidney from a deceased patient without permission of the coroner and the patient's family, even if the patient had signed a donor card. Jean McHale describe...

Activities at Secular Hall A lot more happens at Secular Hall than just the meetings of the Secular Society, which are held in the Library on the ground floor. The much larger ballroom upstairs is used by the ABC Dance company and occasionally by the Society for specially large meetings. The basement is occupied by Leicester Martial Arts. A bookshop has been a feature of the building since it was opened in 1881, and part of the frontage is now occupied by Frontline Books. The Library and the adjacent Members' Room are available for hire, and are well used by numerous different groups. Bookings for these rooms are now made through Frontline Books: http://www.frontlinebooks.co.uk/ . There are some restrictions on who can hire the rooms. Obviously, for instance, we do not permit them to be used for religious services. There are higher rates for hire by commercial companies than for social groups. There is a Public Meeting scheduled for this Tuesday, 13th September, 7:30pm organised by...

I've been thinking of starting up a weblog for a while, but didn't want it just to be a place to impose my own views on the world, or to chat inconsequentially about anything that came to mind, since my mind is anything but orderly and disciplined. One of my favourite sayings is from Lewis Carroll: " never do anything without a porpoise ". The purpose of this blog is therefore to provide a News Service related to Leicester Secular Society, whose website I set up and maintain at: http://homepages.stayfree.co.uk/lss/index.htm . By reporting activities of the Society and other relevant events I hope it will be possible to stimulate greater interest, especially among younger people. Someone recently said to me that the Society is seen as a club for grumpy old men! Unfortunately I fear that there is some truth in this observation. That was one of the stimuli that led me to set up this site. We regularly attract younger people to look into our meetings, but the trouble is t...