Humanism, atheism and other freedoms

The UK Government is looking to amend the law to allow organisations to discriminate against their workers on grounds such as sexual orientation and marital status. But these organisations will be allowed to act in this bullying and prejudicial way only if they are founded on arcane, unverifiable, supernatural beliefs.

The ability to harrass and oppress workers, or discriminate against potential new hires, will continued to be denied to any organisation whose attitudes are founded on rational, modern principles.

As the British Humanist Association points out, the UK’s Equality Bill already provides some scope for religious organisations to behave in an unreasonable and unfair manner. However, there is a possibility that they will be given even more leeway in applying their prejudices in the workplace if proposed amendments to the Bill go through.

Some commentators have seen this as just another piece of fallout from New Labour’s multiculturalism. It’s certainly an example of how religion enjoys a privileged place in society. Attitudes and actions that would be seen as immoral and unconscionable in any reasonable society are automatically excused when they are given the cloak of protection by religion. Identical behaviour would be criticised or banned if it stemmed instead from political or philosophical beliefs.

For example, a religious organisation may be allowed to fire someone who turns out to be gay, if homosexuality offends their religious sensitivities. But would we tolerate the firing of a gay person by, say, a far-right political group?

This comes at the same time that the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) has appointed a bunch of ‘faith advisers’ to advise on “the big issues facing society such as the economy, parenting, achieving social justice and tackling climate change.” No-one has explained how being religious has any bearing on these issues, or why these people are better qualified than those whose knowledge is based on, say, facts and research rather than superstition and mythology.

And while the current Government has affirmed its support for the right of humanists to have equal status with religious believers in the Equality Bill, the Conservatives (who will probably form the next government later this year) are trying to weaken the status of non-believers. They want to change the meaning of the term ‘religion or belief’ by removing the words ‘and philosophical’ in the definition of belief, which, in the current Bill, reads: ‘”belief” means any religious or philosophical belief’.

Given the state support for faith schools and its appointment of faith-based organisations to carry out work that has nothing to do with religion, this all points to a worrying trend. Not only is religious prejudice granted a free ride in society, it is also getting special treatment in the halls of power.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, recently passed in the UK, was a triumph for reason, science and common sense. But not everyone has seen it that way: one religious group has tried to have the law overturned.

One of the advances permitted by the Bill is the use of cross-species research. Scientists believe this research – monitored and regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) – may unlock the secrets of cures for such devastating diseases as cancers and HIV/AIDS. Two licences have been issued by the HFEA – to Newcastle University and King’s College London – allowing work on human hybrid embryos.

This research can only be of great benefit to mankind. It has the potential to release untold numbers of people from suffering and premature death. Yet one small section of society feels that its archaic and bizarre supernatural fantasies give it the right to deny this benefit to the whole of society. The scaremongering by certain factions – that this research would create ‘monsters’ – shows an ignorance of science that one might expect from people whose intellectual framework was formed 2,000 years ago and hasn’t evolved since.

The Christian Legal Centre (CLC) brought an action in the High Court in an attempt to have the law overturned. Fortunately, common sense prevailed. The judge threw out the case saying that it had no merit whatsover and was “unarguable”. More importantly, she underlined that this kind of research is clearly “the will of Parliament” (you know, the democratic body that represents everyone, not just minority cults). CLC was ordered to pay £20,000 costs.

I’m sure this won’t make these arrogant Christians change their minds about this research. Nor will it help them bring their thinking into the 21st Century. But it might just give them pause for thought the next time their try to impose their narrow beliefs on a society that doesn’t share them.

The UK Government has passed a law which means that fortune-tellers, mediums, spiritualists and other peddlers of the supernatural must label their services as ‘entertainment only’. I can think of a few other organisations that should do that.

In ‘Fighting fraud in the spiritual realm‘, I said how I felt this law should be extended to all religion. In essence, the new law – which has now come into force – puts a legal obligation on businesses to ‘trade fairly’ (as explained in this BBC report). This is a catch-all law designed to be used against scams of all kinds.

It will be illegal to make claims you can’t support or use dubious or fictional endorsements and testimonials.

No religion can support its claims, many of which are bizarre and outlandish (like heaven and hell, for starters. Faith healing comes to mind, too).

And religions are awash with fake and unsupportable testimony. That’s what miracles are.

And yet many religions get rich and powerful by feeding off the gullibility of their adherents. Religion is the greatest scam ever perpetrated against mankind.

This law really does need expanding.

The four votes on aspects of the Embryology Bill in the UK presented an opportunity for the religiously blinkered to put narrow-minded dogma before compassion and scientific progress. They were soundly and properly trounced.

It’s always good to see reason prevail. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill represents the most important development in fertility law in the past 20 years.

The UK, being largely free of the religiously inspired shackles that hamper scientific progress in other countries (including the US) is already a world leader in areas like stem cell research. This is important science: advances in embryology offer the possibility of cures for crippling and fatal diseases.

But not everyone is happy about this. The Roman Catholic church, for example, did its best to cripple this bill. It lobbied hard, placing enough pressure on the Government to force a free vote, so that Catholic members of Parliament could do their best to impose that church’s prejudices on the whole population of the UK.

There were four key issues:

• The use of hybrid or ‘admix’ embryos. This is where the nuclei of human cells are inserted into the egg of an animal, treated so that no characteristics of the animal remain. The resulting embryos are kept for only 14 days, in order to harvest stem cells.
• Tissue typing of embryos so that parents can choose to give birth to a ’saviour sibling’. This would happen where a current child has a disease that could be alleviated or cured by having a sibling with the right tissue type.
• The removal of the need for a father when considering the eligibility of applicants for IVF treatment. This paves the way for lesbian couples and single women to receive the treatment.
• The reduction of the limit for abortions from the current 24 weeks to 20 weeks.

Each of these issues attracted an amendment attempting to ban the process or (in the case of abortions) lower the limit. All four amendments were defeated by very healthy margins.

In most cases, those opposed to the processes or treatments presented their case based on junk science or dubious statistics. It was painfully clear, however, that the motivation for the amendments was not built on evidence or reason but on religious prejudice.

In the case of hybrid embryos there was much gibberish talked about ‘Frankenstein’ babies and the creation of freaks. Yet these embryos would never be viable and are, in any case, destroyed after two weeks.

People argued that the creation of ’saviour siblings’ is wrong. They talked about bringing a child into the world purely to provide ’spare parts’ for an existing child. This argument is just as cretinous. It suggests that arms or livers might be harvested, which is pure nonsense. The saviour sibling provides bone marrow and other cells. And any idea that the saviour sibling might not be loved equally by his or her parents is clearly wrong: if anything, they are likely to love it even more for its role in saving the life of the older child.

The opposition to the changes in the IVF law centred around the idea that it would somehow marginalise men. I noticed that this argument was mostly put forward by men. It ties in with that tired old idea that a family is not complete without a father. That would be more convincing if all fathers were perfect. The truth is that, regardless of whether IVF is involved, many children are raised very successfully without one parent or the other. So this amendment was inspired by notions of the family that belong in the Victorian age, not in the 21st Century. And I think there was an unhealthy dose of faith-based homophobia in there too.

Abortion is a more emotive subject and one where the desire of a religious minority to impose its views on the whole of society was most clearly evident. The 24 week limit was set in 1990, based on the best scientific evidence about the viability of the fetus up to that point. Nothing has changed. No new evidence has come to light. Yet there were two attempts to push the limit back – first to 20 weeks and, when that failed, to 22 weeks. That failed too.

Some MPs wanted the limit reduced to 12 weeks, which is where it stands in some (mostly Catholic) countries, such as Spain. Many women don’t even know they’re pregnant at 12 weeks.

The statistics make for interesting reading, though. In the UK, some 55% of abortions are carried out at under 9 weeks. This type of abortion usually involves nothing more than an injection. The fetus is reabsorbed by the body. (So much for its being a fully fledged human life. Could you have a clearer illustration of the fact that it is nothing more than a bunch of cells?) A very high percentage of pregnancies also spontaneously abort within this period, too – often without the woman ever knowing she was pregnant. That, too, doesn’t sit very well with the religious viewpoint and is a fact largely avoided by the anti-choice faithful.

A further third of abortions are carried out in the 9-12 week range. That means that 89% of abortions happen at 12 weeks or less anyway. In fact, only 1.5% of abortions happen in the 20-24 week band. And the vast majority of these are carried out for reasons of health complications or problems with the fetus.

So the ‘moral’ objection that so many proclaim is nothing of the sort. It is simply an attempt by a self-righteous few to impose their irrational, superstitious and medieval ideas on the whole of society. That’s arrogant and, given that they wrapped their arguments in pseudo-science and bad statistics, deeply dishonest.

Fortunately, rationality prevailed. So did compassion for those whose suffering may be relieved and whose lives may be saved by the science that will result from this bill.

Spiritualists, psychics and other frauds are up in arms about a proposed change to UK law that will make them prove their claims (how did they not see that coming?). But the law doesn’t go far enough: it’s time to extend it to all religion.

According to the report on the BBC website, ‘There may be trouble ahead’, the change to consumer laws will generally tighten up the need for suppliers of services to show that they do what they say they can do. The rules will apply to all areas of commerce that fall under the Consumer Protection Regulations. By including spiritualists, mediums and the like, the rules will also replace the rarely used Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951.

Most sane and intelligent people will applaud this. Psychics, mediums and spiritualists prey on the weak and vulnerable. They exploit grief, fear and uncertainty to fill their pockets or exert their influence.

The Office of Fair Trading has said it won’t target seances or services at spiritualist churches – it is more concerned about out-and-out scams (although telling the difference could be tricky). Nevertheless, it’s a useful precedent.

A real paranoid might see darker forces at work here. Psychics and other fringe practitioners are often sought out by people who feel they have been failed by the more conventional religions, but who still have a weakness for spiritual solutions. Criminalising such practices would be a first step to forcing people back into the main faiths where they are more easily controlled. That would be the preferred totalitarian solution.

I don’t see that happening here, though. This seems more like a rational and socially beneficial acknowledgment that these practices are fraudulent and should be treated accordingly.

Apparently, some spiritualists have complained that they are being victimised, that they are not being treated on an equal footing with other religions. And I agree. They have a very good point. Let’s face it, all religions are fraudulent: not one of them can substantiate its claims. So why not push this law to its logical conclusion? Let’s have all religions either put up or shut up.

In the intemperate controversy surrounding the Archbishop of Canterbury’s unwise remarks about Sharia, there are several voices – and not just muslims – pleading for a more liberal view of Islamic law. And they nearly all miss the more important point: why should religion play any part in shaping a nation’s laws?

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has once again proven how distant he is from reality by suggesting that UK law might incorporate some elements of Sharia. His statements have been widely condemned, but they are not entirely surprising. It is another example of how those infected with religion consider that faith always takes precedence over society in general.

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The UK’s blasphemy laws are an embarrassing anachronism. It’s time to get rid of them and an amendment to a bill going through Parliament might just achieve that.

If you’re a British voter, go to this site maintained by the British Humanist Association to find out how to contact your MP and make your views known. Time is short, so act now!

The ordeal of British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons, who was jailed for blasphemy in Sudan, ended quickly. We can be grateful for that. But the religiously oriented regime in which she was convicted remains unchanged. Who will be its next victim?

It was an act of pure malice. The school secretary, who had been fired, reported Gibbons as a way of getting revenge on the school. Such grudges, such petty behaviour, are a fact of life everywhere. What is significant here is that Sudan’s laws, shaped and enforced by religious observance, provided a mechanism by which an otherwise trivial act – the naming of a teddy bear – could be exploited to extract a savage retaliation.

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The police state creeps up on us, step by stealthy step. Every law, every restriction, is invoked for our safety and convenience. But a totalitarian state feeds on laws, twisting them to its own ends.

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