News and Opinion

Our President Emma Chung responded to a letter in the Leicester Mercury fromDr Clive Marsh, Director of Learning and Teaching at the Institute of Lifelong Learning , University of Leicester ( www2.le.ac.uk/departments/lifelong-learning) who stated: Behind the headlines created by Baroness Warsi's talk at the University of Leicester recently was a basic concern which many, religious or not, might agree with: the need for a better understanding of religion in society. It is widely accepted by people across the political spectrum, and with widely differing views about religion, that you don't really understand British culture without grasping religion's place within it. Even if you think religion's a bad influence, and the Church should be kept well apart from the state, it is vital to know something about Britain 's Christian past, and about the many different religions which feature in British society. But how do we develop our knowledge of faith traditio...

The Society with the support of Skeptics in the pub recently announced the launch of this campaign and achieved good coverage in the Leicester Mercury . The article began: People who claim to be Christian when they do not practise the religion are creating a "misleading" picture of Britain , it has been claimed. Leicester Secular Society is calling for non-believers to tick the 'no religion' box on this year's census. The society says that during the 2001 census, many people felt compelled to answer 'Christian' when it came to their religious belief, either out of habit or because they felt they ought to. But it says that doing so leads to inaccurate figures, which are then used to justify policies that "do not reflect the real demographics of our society".  The piece attracted 45 comments, but unfortunately many concentrated on accusing the Society of targeting Christianity and ignoring Islam. Kulgan began:   I wonder what would be...

The speech by Baroness Warsi at Leicester University provoked several letters from members of the Society and comments in the Letters area of the Mercury. The first comment published was from Harry Perry "Some Muslims are extremists" on 26 January. His main point was made at the beginning of the letter: You report (Mercury, January 21) Baroness Warsi saying that making a distinction between "moderate" and "extremist" Muslims fosters prejudice against Muslims as a whole. This is surely nonsense. We make these same distinctions in respect of all political and religious groups. For example, her own government has just barred the American Christian pastor Terry Jones from Britain because he holds "extremist" views! Click here for the full letter. The only comment this raised was "Excellent letter". The next letter " Confrontation will not create a better society " from Allan Hayes  on 28 January began: I came away f...

This item is by Wilf Gaunt. In Lone Frank's book 'Mindfield ,' she describes how, in conversation with the (superstar) neuroeconomists Colin Camerer and George Loewenstein, they reformulated Plato's old metaphore: comparing the human mind to a chariot drawn by two horses, one representing reason, the other emotion. This is true enough they said, with the important difference that reason should be represented by a pony, and emotion by an elephant. The book then goes on to point out that reason cannot be put into practice without the involvement of emotion: emotion being the primary driving force of our system, inherited through evolutionary time, and reason being a more recent, subordinate application. Autism can be defined as a malfunction of the connection between the reasoning part of the brain and the origins of our emotions. No matter how high the IQ of an autistic person, their attempts to apply the results of their reasoning fall apart because of the non-invo...

My letter to the Leicester Mercury (published 30/8/10) was edited so I thought I would publish the full text here: *********** Dear Sir, Michael Myers (Mailbox, August 19) disputes my assertion that “Hitler came to power helped by a deal with the Vatican” and puts the blame on other parties. While I agree he is quite correct in pointing out that others were involved, I still believe it is reasonable to say that the Vatican, through its agent Baron von Papen, was one of the parties that “helped” Hitler take power in Germany. Von Papen, a papal chamberlain , was  a leading member of the Catholic Centre Party. It was largely von Papen, who persuaded President Hindenburg to put aside his scruples and approve Hitler as Chancellor. The political manoeuvring included the negotiation of  a “Reichskonkordat”  between the Vatican and Germany, guaranteeing the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. As to Michael's remarks on the La...

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), charged to determine whether drugs are good value for money for the NHS, has decided that the anti-bowel cancer drug avastin, also known as bevacizumab , is not worth the average cost of £21,000 per patient for an average extension of life expectancy of only six weeks. It is used only in advanced cases. The campaign group Bowel Cancer UK has protested against the decision, arguing that the 6,500 sufferers each year have a right to any medication that might extend their lives. However, I have to agree with NICE: £21,000 for six weeks extra life is not good value for money for the taxpayer. On the figures quoted it appears the extra cost to the taxpayer would be £136m per year. I certainly would not expect that sort of public expenditure to keep me alive for an extra six weeks and if ever I am in the unfortunate position of suffering from bowel cancer I will refuse the drug if offered on the NHS. I or my re...

The National Secular Society weekly Newsline has asked subscribers for opinions on banning the burka. This was my response: The Burka Wearing the veil is regrettable. It cuts the wearer off from normal human interactions through which communication, understanding and friendship can grow. But our commitment to the freedom of the individual to do as they wish, as long as it harms nobody else, means we cannot support legislation to bar certain types of clothing. However, there are circumstances where freedom may be circumscribed owing to the need for the individual to undertake particular roles in employment or to satisfy reasonable security requirements for identification and openness. These limitations are best defined by employers, agencies and trading organisations in their particular circumstances. The courts must be careful to ensure the veil is not recognised as a religious requirement (which could make it unchallengeable) and that the rights of others to withhold job...