Humanism, atheism and other freedoms

In a poll of 2,000+ British people, 79% declared no interest in the forthcoming visit by Pope Benedict XVI.

This level of apathy towards such a high-profile religious leader is significant given the nature of the visit. Popes have manifested themselves in the UK before. But this is the first state visit. Benedict is coming not just as the Holy Father but also as head of state of the Vatican.

But the British, bless ‘em, still don’t care. According to the poll, carried out by ComRes for religious think tank Theos, those who have strong views are in the minority. Only 29% think that the visit will be good for Britain, while a larger number – 33% – disagree. The biggest proportion, 38%, have no opinion.

The apathy vanishes, however, when we get to the not so small matter of cost. A whopping 76% believe that the taxpayer should not foot the bill for the visit (which rises to 81% in Scotland). After all, the Roman Catholic church is rich. Guilt and oppression is a business model capable of surviving any recession.

The press release about the poll rather disingenuously claims that, when it comes to the Pope’s views, people largely “agree with his social teaching”.

Theos cherry-picked 12 “representative statements” from the Pope’s third encyclical letter, Caritas in Veritate and asked people if they agreed with them. But look at the kind of thing they chose.

Some 82% agreed that ‘technologically advanced societies can and must lower their domestic energy consumption’; 79% agree that ‘the natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure’; 63% agree that ‘investment always has moral, as well as economic significance’; 69% agree that ‘the consumer has a specific social responsibility’; 90% agree that ‘food and access to water are universal rights of all human beings’.

This is heartening, of course. It shows a strong moral sense among the general public. But the Pope doesn’t own these attitudes. Nor does any church. These are ethical beliefs common among all kinds of people, including we atheists who are in no need of an authoritarian figure like the Pope to tell us how to think.

It is typical that the faithful should try to lay claim to these moral and ethical beliefs. After all, how often do we hear the nonsense those without faith have no source of morality. (As we know, there is an evolutionary basis for morality, something I’ll come back to soon.)

So, the Pope is far from unique in espousing these attitudes. There are many of us who have come to the same conclusions without being lectured to by an ex-Nazi in a silly hat, thanks.

It’s interesting that the support started to waver with the assertion that ‘An overemphasis on [human] rights leads to a disregard for duties’, with 59% agreeing. What duties are these, by the way? One suspects that many of them may be purely religious. If would be no surprise that the Pope would prefer obedience to the church, even if it means relinquishing human rights the rest of us regard as important.

One wonders how many of those polled would have agreed to statements like, ‘It is more important to be obedient to an oppressive view of contraception even if this means thousands of Africans dying of AIDS’ or ‘Women must not have control over their own bodies or fertility’. Now, those are attitudes the Catholic church can call its own.

There’s an excellent article – My Christmas message? There’s probably no God – by the reliably feisty Polly Toynbee over at the Guardian website. Aside from being a leading journalist, Ms Toynbee is the president of the inestimable British Humanist Association (BHA – of which I am a proud member).

The piece is largely about the disestablishment of the church in the UK – a fine ambition but one not likely to be realised any time soon. For those who live in more enlightened countries with regard to religion, one might need to explain that the ‘establishment’ of the Church of England refers to the fact that it is the official state faith. And this has greater implications than the choice of carols sung at the House of Commons Xmas party.

For example, although there has been some slight reform of Parliament’s upper house, the Lords, there are still 26 unelected bishops who sit – and vote – in the house purely by dint of their cassocks. And the very existence of an established church provides ammunition for those who would perpetuate the myth of Britain being a ‘Christian’ country.

And yet, though I (and, as it happens, many church leaders) would like to see disestablishment, the fact that the UK has a state religion bothers me less than the more surreptitious ways in which religion is creeping into government business.

Given that ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair was so cosy with soon to be ex-President George W Bush, one might not be surprised to find that – following the American model – faith-based organisations are playing an ever greater role in government programmes in the UK.

Such faith-based initiatives have been a disaster for the US. For instance, there are countless examples of evangelists with no training or experience running such things as drug counselling programmes. Usually, the hapless victims who attend them do so under duress – usually at the order of a court. And the so-called ‘counselling’ often consists of no more than religious indoctrination.

In the UK, both Blair and his successor, the equally god-bothering Gordon Brown, have seen to it that organisations with religious agenda have been given preferential treatment in winning contracts to carry on what should be government work. There are more details at the BHA site, which explains:

Faith communities already have privileged access to Government. But the Government also wants to involve them in policy making, and to expand their role in the provision of services in the community. And why doesn’t Human Rights Law apply when public services are contracted out to charities?

Depressingly, President-Elect Barack Obama has stated that he wants to increase the use of faith-based initiatives. And there is no sign that this trend is abating in the UK.

The BHA is highly active in campaigning against this. It has the respect of politicians and the more progressive and intelligent members of the clergy. And I would recommend that anyone who lives in or cares about the UK should become a member.

What the UK needs isn’t just disestablishment but a genuine separation of church and state – along the lines of that in France, rather than the somewhat poor impementation of the principle in the US. The state should and must represent all citizens. Faiths are, by their very nature, exclusionary and discriminatory and they have no place in government business.

The National Union of Journalists has released an important new film about police harrassment of photojournalists. It’s required viewing for anyone who cares about freedom of the press or civil liberties in general.

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.

A UK Government minister is in trouble – for telling the truth. While religions may like to glory in their revealed, universal verities, they often have problems with run-of-the-mill facts. Because when myth conflicts with reality, religion demands you choose the myth.

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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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