SACRE AT SOAR VALLEY COLLEGE

At Soar Valley College, Gleneagles Avenue, this afternoon for the regular scheduled meeting of Leicester SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education).

We hear Sandfield Close Primary School's petition for determination, presented by Head Teacher Amanda Dhillon.

We have the third presentation in our ongoing series, Faith Focus, in which one of the members of SACRE is given the opportunity to introduce the group to their religion or belief. Today it’s a presentation on Humanism by Allan Hayes.

We’re brought up to speed with the latest developments in our series of electronic booklets of guidance for schools staff, Engaging with Leicester’s Faith Communities.

We’re presented with the SACRE Annual Report and with the SACRE development plan, January 2011 – January 2013. This plan describes the following five key priorities:

1. To monitor the impact of the Leicester Agreed Syllabus on raising standards of RE in schools
2. To raise the profile of SACRE and the positive contribution it can make to community cohesion
3. To support the work of the Youth SACRE
4. To provide guidance and support for schools of effective provision for Collective Worship and support for determinations
5. To develop links between Leicester SACRE and schools as well as local / national bodies

MINDFULNESS & WISDOM 7: THE PLACE OF WISDOM IN THE HUMANIST TRADITION

At Christchurch, Clarendon Park, for the penultimate session in the course, "Mindfulness & Wisdom", offered by Christians Aware as part of their Faith Awareness programme. The eight-week course has been devised by Ian Grayling and Kevin Commons from the Leicester Serene Reflection Meditation Group.

Our topic this evening: "The Place of Wisdom in the Humanist Tradition", presented by Dr Allan Hayes.

Allan discusses the wisdom of Proverbs and of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels and makes a case for their value as human-created, human-centred sources of wisdom, without the need to appeal to supernatural origin. When asked to clarify what he means by "supernatural", Allan defines it (without recourse to any text) as "an agency with intention, acting with its own purpose, that is outside the normal discourse of science." 

Allan references two books, published within a year of each other, which illustrate opposite ends of the spectrum of belief: Don Cupitt's Jesus and Philosophy (London: SCM Press, 2009), in which the author presents Jesus as a radical humanist and John Shelby Spong's Jesus for the Non-Religious (New York: HarperOne, 2008), in which the author argues that Jesus is such an extraordinary figure, he must be divine.

INTER FAITH WEEK, DAY 4: HUMANISM 101

At 1200 today we've scheduled the fifth of ten public meetings for Inter Faith Week, “Communities of Faith or Belief in Leicester" at Leicester Adult Education College (or, more precisely, in the Leicester People's Photographic Gallery, which is part of the Adult Education College).


The speaker for this Beginners’ Guide to Humanism – or Humanism 101 - is Dr Allan Hayes, Director of Leicester Secular Society.


Unfortunately, due to ill-coordinated information about the venue, Allan is unable to deliver the talk. Through no fault of his, he's not directed to the right place, where at least a couple of people are waiting to listen to him. I'm sorry about this and offer our apologies for a good opportunity having been missed. This is especially regrettable as Humanists are not one of the communities of religion or belief represented on Leicester Council of Faiths and they have not taken part in any of the activities that we've organised for this annual event in previous years. I had deliberately put this public meeting in this year's programme of activities to help rectify this and to help bridge the gap between us - and Alla was the first speaker to commit to the talk out of all ten scheduled.

WISE WORDS?

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Wise words?

I cannot understand why Allan Hayes, of Leicester, describes the Bishop of Leicester's description that the atheist position is a tale told by an idiot, as an unfortunate remark (Mailbox, October 7). It was not an unfortunate remark. Of course, the atheist position is a tale told by an idiot.

In St Matthew's Gospel chapter 25 is a parable of the 10 virgins. Five were wise and five were foolish. Humanists, atheists and the secular people, are all like the foolish virgins.

At the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, if they do not get baptised and believe in Him, they will not go to heaven.

Frank Evans, Enderby

RELIGION UNDER ATTACK

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Religion under attack

Mr Allan Hayes (Mailbox, September 10), member of the Leicester Secular Society and the humanist movement, again tiresomely calls for religious influence to be abandoned.

Some of his views I can find favour with. The need to co-exist, the need for all of us to respect one another's views, the need for understanding.

There he should leave it, but, no, he insists on picking a fight with us of faith, all faiths.

He reminds me of the story of two tribes, the "Haves" and the "Have-nots" that lived on either side of the wide densely covered jungle valley. They each survived and lived in peace for many generations unaware of the other's presence.

One day, they discovered each other's existence, and although they lived only several miles apart, they had developed quite separately. The "Haves" had religion, the "Have Nots" had not.

Most of the tribe members were prepared to continue their way of life undisturbed and trade with the new tribe, except one person in the "Have Nots", who felt their way was the supreme way and continually harassed the other tribe to change their ways until the "Haves" patience was exhausted. Readers can finish the story themselves...

It was well over a year ago the Leicester Secular Society and the UK Humanist tribe set out to harass us religious people, even though we had co-existed for years. I cannot claim the Church has a clean record – recent reports would prove me to be deluded if I tried – but the actions of a few selfish, arrogant and perverted individuals in positions of trust should not condemn the millions who do charitable work day in, day out in centres, churches, streets and schools.

If a small minority's actions forecast the fate of millions, atheists would suffer, whatever My [sic] Hayes and his colleagues would claim against religion.

If atheism is so good, and for some it may be, why do committed atheists harass faith followers rather than centre on atheism's merits for recruitment?

Stephen A Warden, Wigston

The atheistic critique of humanism has been all but forgotten

This is the Face to Faith column in today's Guardian, written by Giles Fraser (Canon chancellor of St paul's Cathedral).

The atheistic critique of humanism has been all but forgotten

The World Atheist Convention is currently under way in Dublin. Among those addressing the conference is Richard Green from Atheism UK. His is a new and small group seeking to establish itself in the marketplace of ideas where the most familiar voices are those of the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association. What is distinctive about Atheism UK, Green insists, is that it's an atheist organisation for all atheists, including those not committed to humanism. "We cater for atheists who are not humanists," he says.

These days, atheists who are not humanists are an unfamiliar breed. Most atheists, and in particular the new atheists, regard themselves as committed humanists. Indeed, they are new in name only for they appeal back to the atheistic humanism of the Enlightenment, with its optimism about human nature and strong belief in the power of human reason and the inevitability of progress. Here humanism and atheism formed an alliance against all that stands over and against human flourishing. God must be dead so that humanity can thrive. Once emancipated from religious tyranny and dogma, humanity will thrive. As Kant believed, humanity must be its own highest being and ultimate end.

Yet throughout the 20th century many atheists rejected this picture. The sunny optimism of the Enlightenment – not least its commitment to progress and a sense of the intrinsic goodness of human nature – was profoundly dented by the horrors of the first world war and the Nazi death camps. The Enlightenment hadn't found another word for sin. And just as Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, a developing anti-humanism started to announce what, in less gender-conscious times, Foucault was to call "the death of man". Indeed, Nietzsche himself insisted the belief in humanity was itself just a hangover from a belief in God and, once God was eradicated, the belief in human beings would follow the same way.

It was mostly Marxists who developed this idea and ran with it. Louis Althusser coined the term anti-humanism. Forget the significance of the human individual, he argued, it is historical processes that make the difference. There is no such thing as intrinsic humanity, we are all the product of external forces. Everything that cannot be analysed structurally is false consciousness. Humanism itself is false consciousness. Others made a parallel critique using Freudian psychoanalysis. Human beings are not little gods free to choose for themselves on the basis of reason alone. We are subject to forces outside the reach of rational scrutiny. And, broadly speaking, the intellectual left all rose in applause. As Emmanuel Levinas observed in 1957: "Contemporary thought holds out the surprise for us of an atheism that is not humanist."

It is worth recounting a small part of this increasingly forgotten tale to lament what has become of a noble tradition. For it seems the atheistic critique of humanism has been all but forgotten. Richard Green's "atheists who are not humanists" could meet in a phone box. Indeed, the new atheists simply duck the challenge made by atheistic anti-humanism, believing their expensive scientific toys can outflank the alleged conceptual weakness of their humanism. Thus they dismiss the significance of philosophy just as much as they have always done of theology – as if the two were fundamentally in cahoots. But this is nonsense. Nietzsche, Marx and Freud attacked Christianity with passionate ferocity.

Christian theology of the 20th century has spent much of its time wrestling with the consequences. Why won't the new atheists do the same?

Read this article, along with reader comments (and the opportunity to leave your own) on the Guardian Comment is Free cif Belief website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/04/atheistic-critique-of-humanism-forgotten?INTCMP=SRCH

Has atheism become a religion?

Very interesting article in the Huffington Post, reproduced below. I like the different stance it takes on the topic, which reveals some of the nuances between how atheism is regarded here and across the Pond. It's thoughtful and thought provoking and adds a subtly distinctive flavour to the debate.

Has Atheism beome a religion?

By David Lose

Before you dismiss the question out of hand, consider these four inter-related bits of evidence:

1) As recently reported in the New York Times, military personnel who identify themselves as "Atheists" have requested chaplains to tend to their spiritual needs. As the Times article notes, "Defense Department statistics show that about 9,400 of the nation's 1.4 million active-duty military personnel identify themselves as atheists or agnostics, making them a larger subpopulation than Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists in the military." Having their own chaplains, the article explains, would give Atheists a sense of legitimacy and help validate their own system of values and beliefs.

2) The U.S Government reports that in 2008 those identifying themselves specifically as "Atheist" composed the 18th largest group of 43 possible categories of "self-described religious identification." The number of persons so identifying themselves almost doubled from seven years earlier. Admittedly, "Atheist" is one of the options listed under "no religion specified," but given that other options for respondents included checking "Agnostic" or "No Religion" or not answering the question at all, it appears that identifying oneself specifically as an Atheist, as opposed to simply "not religious," is growing in appeal. This points to the utility of a distinction made by Jonathan Lanman between "non-theists," those with no particular religious belief, and "strong atheists," those who view religion not only as irrelevant but as misguided and dangerous.

3) Similarly, it's worth noting the degree to which Atheists routinely, strategically, and often vociferously position what is often described as their "secular-humanist" views against religious traditions. Read or listen to any of the celebrity Atheists of the past decade like Richard Dawkins, Chrisotpher Hitchins and Sam Harris and you realize that they fashion many of their arguments not against some alternative economic, political, or philosophical position but against organized religion. Religious faith is clearly their primary opponent in the contest for the intellectual allegiance of the population, which makes it hard not to conclude that they offer their views and beliefs as a viable alternative to traditional religious systems.

4) Finally - and you probably knew this was coming - consider all the comments made by self-identified Atheists on articles published in the Religion section of the Huffington Post. Seriously. Either Atheists have way more time on their hands than the rest of the population or they've got something to prove. This assertive, us-against-them tone (in this case, against established religion) is characteristic of new religions. (Think of the Christian gospels', especially Matthew and John, stance toward first-century Judaism, for example.) As Rabbi David Wolpe observed a few months ago, there is an astonishing garrulousness to the comments made by Atheists to posts about religion that suggest not simply a lack of interest in, or even disdain for, religion but a competitive anger directed against persons of traditional religious faith. (Obviously plenty of religious folk radiate the same garrulousness, but this post is about Atheists.)

Taken together, these four elements suggest that Atheists regularly demonstrate attributes -- desire for spiritual sustenance, the importance of self-identification, offering their worldview as an alternative to other religious systems, and an assertive if not competitive style of engagement with other religious points of view -- usually exhibited by religious folk of all persuasions.

While Atheism as a movement doesn't have the formal structure, celebrations, or creedal dogmas of organized religions, we might at least identify Atheism as it exists today as an increasingly vibrant faith tradition. Still, when speaking of Atheists, why use the f-word (for "faith," silly) rather than speak of a worldview or personal philosophy? Three reasons suggest themselves.

1) It conveys that both a conventional religious worldview and atheistic worldview require a measure of faith. I don't mean this simply about the rather limited question of whether God exists, but rather about whether the material, physical dimension of life immediately apparent to our senses is all there is. The question can't be reduced, as Atheists regularly have, to observing that there are many beliefs - in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus as well as God - that can't be proved and must be taken on faith, but rather to ask whether there is a dimension of existence that supersedes or eludes our physical senses. Ultimately, any speech about God implies such a dimension that conversation about the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus do not.

2) Religious faith - and I'd argue atheistic faith - doesn't begin and end with the question of God or a spiritual dimension to life. One needs also to construct an interpretation of life (describing its purpose, goal, worth) and set of values by which to live that life. Ethics and values are not self-evident from religious creeds -- witness, for instance, the distinct values of the varieties of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam that run the gamut from liberal to fundamentalist. Similarly, there is no self-evident value system shared by Atheists and projecting such a system requires imagination, critical reflection and, yes, faith.

Third, characterizing both organized religion and emergent Atheism as distinct faith traditions invites a measure of mutual regard and even respect that is sorely lacking in present discourse. Professing belief in God, as well as rejecting such belief, each requires equal measures of imagination and nerve. As it turns out, doubt is not the opposite of faith; certainty is. For this reason, we can hold out the hope that religious and non-religious believers alike may recognize in each other similar acts of courage and together reject the cowardice of fundamentalism, whether religious or secular. Being able to disagree respectfully is a small but significant step that believers and non-believers could take as they, together, contemplate admiring, understanding, and preserving this wondrous world we share.

Read the article, along with reader comments (and the opportunity to leave your own) on the excellent Huffpost Religion website (and don't rush off after reading just this one): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-lose/atheism-religion_b_867217.html

MY SISTER WANTED A GODLESS FUNERAL. BUT STILL INVITED GOD

Bereavement services - burial and cremation - is a topic that takes a lot of our attention at Leicester Council of Faiths. With that in mind, I was very interested to read this distinctive take on the subject in today's Guardian.

My sister wanted a godless funeral. But still invited God

A royal wedding in a register office – that's the sort of validation those of us who want to live and die as non-believers need

By Jon Canter

My sister Rosemary died of cancer in March, aged 61. As her next-of-kin, it fell to me to organise her funeral. The undertaker's office, I soon discovered, is no place for the bereaved. You can't afford to be dazed or vulnerable, otherwise you will weakly agree to all the standard things, which was not what my sister wanted.

I fought against a wooden coffin and a hearse – securing, after some negotiation, a final journey in a cardboard coffin in the back of a Volvo estate. (Don't worry. It was black.) Then the undertaker asked what religion my sister was. "Atheist," I replied. That, of course, was a nonsense. Atheism is – doh! – not a religion. In that case, he asked, who was going to conduct the funeral? If the Volvo was the unconventional substitute for the hearse, who was the unconventional substitute for the vicar?

Happily – I insist on that word – it was me. Told before Christmas that she had months to live, my sister had the inclination and the courage to prescribe the kind of service she wanted and ask me to conduct it. What she wanted, in a word, was a godless funeral. How easy was that to achieve?

In many ways, the planning of a godless funeral was a liberation. For our mother's cremation we had, via that secular miracle the internet, procured the services of a rabbi. (Oh yes, my sister's non-religion was, in fact, "Jewish atheist".) He recited the prayers with commendable gusto. But he was much like the vicar so familiar from Church of England funerals – he didn't know the deceased; he couldn't eulogise her, except to say he'd heard nice things about her from her family. How many times have you shifted in your pew with embarrassment, as a vicar tries to celebrate a member of his flock who, it's soon apparent, is a bit of a mystery sheep? I knew my elder sister for all but the first four years of her life. In celebrating her, I had infinitely more knowledge and authority than a religious intermediary only doing his or her job.

So. I would talk about her, as would two old friends she nominated.

Then what? How, in the name of godless, would we fill our allotted span? Rosemary wanted a silence, to allow everyone to think their own thoughts. To that – without telling her, for fear of embarrassment – I added a coda, derived from those football matches in which the crowd observes a minute's silence for a dead former player or manager: that silence is followed by rousing applause, which somehow conveys: "Thank you for everything. But now we have to get on with the game."

So that is what we did at my sister's funeral: I announced there would be a silence, at the end of which everyone should applaud, long and loudly, to give thanks for Rosemary's life. It worked wonderfully, though I say it myself. Others might call it gimmicky and new-fangled. At a religious funeral you draw on rituals and prayers with the gravitas only centuries of usage can bring. You take from The Book of Common Prayer, the liturgy, the Qur'an, the Torah; but there we were, at my sister's funeral, paying homage to Match of the Day.

Eulogies and silence, Rosemary felt, should be punctuated by music. ("Do you think I'm being too controlling?" she asked, as she sat on her sofa, scribbling notes about her own funeral. "Of course not," I said, making a mental note to tell the congregation of her question. For that is another benefit of a godless funeral: humour can be encouraged.)

Without hesitation, she specified the opening song. Nothing, she said, more evoked her early childhood than We Plough the Fields and Scatter. Brilliant. Now I could stand up and say, as I duly did: "By the power invested in me by my sister and Richard Dawkins, please stand and sing We Plough the Fields and Scatter." To return to Match of the Day, it certainly felt like an early away goal for God. More such goals were to follow. She wanted Milton's On His Blindness, about a man who, in losing his sight, finds that his soul is "more bent / To serve therewith my Maker". I could go on. And I will.

She craved the Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem Mass: "Huic ergo parce, Deus, pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem." Yes indeed. Amen to that.

She may not have wanted Him at her funeral, but she needed Him. My sister, born in England in 1949, a singer of hymns in her primary school, grew up with Him. She knew that He elevates. God is the man for the big occasion. So, this is what I hope will happen before my own funeral: there'll be a great state occasion that is godless, to give hope and a kind of validation to all of us who want to live and die as non-believers.

Imagine it: a state funeral or a service of remembrance for those killed in war, in a crematorium, built by Zaha Hadid, as awesome as St Paul's Cathedral. Now imagine this: a royal wedding in Westminster register office, with a registrar standing in the archbishop of Canterbury's God-fearing shoes, as the unbelieving bride enters to the sound of an ancient and venerated secular love song, of the order of the Beatles' Here, There and Everywhere..

Unthinkable, isn't it? Treasonable, probably. Socially embarrassing, certainly. We are not a religiously observant nation – except when it really counts.

Illustration by Otto Detmer

MINDFULNESS & MORALITY 7: HUMANIST PERSPECTIVE

Session seven of the Mindfulness and Morality course at Christchurch, Clarendon Park Road, offered by Christians Aware in their Faith Awareness programme.

This evening, Dr Allan Hayes presents a Humanist perspective. Allan (on the left of the photo above, with Ian Grayling) is Humanist Chaplain to the Lord Mayor of Leicester, a Trustee of the British Humanist Assocation and immediate past President of Leicester Secular Society.

Allan defines "Atheist", "Agnostic" and "Secularist" for the beneift of those of us who can't tell the difference. Allan tells us that he prefers to define himself as a Humanist. He shows us some texts that have been influential in helping him form his opinions over the years, starting with a book he says he first read in 1957 (when he was in the third year of his PhD - and three years before I was born). The Family of Man is a collection of photographs of anthropological interest, published by the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York to commemorate an exhibition there in 1955 (and it's still in print). He has also brought along DVD boxed sets of Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man and Carl Sagan's Cosmos for the same reason.

Allan outlines how a Humanist would approach the topic of morality in general and highlights basic differences between that position and those of some of the religious people who have spoken in earlier sessions. While he is happy to admit that we'll all have learned a lot from previous speakers, it can't justify religion(s) being afforded the privileges of organs of state. Allan sides with the Scots philosopher David Hume (1711-76) in seeing that emotions tend to lead the intellect, rather than the other way round. Therefore, we need to understand the emotional foundations of people's behaviour; although the intellect is used to hone one's position or define a public stance on issues. Feelings are supported and refined by intellectual analysis.

Humanism is the opposite of a materialist, intellectualised view of life which disregards what some would describe as the "spiritual" dimension of life. But since Humanists don't believe in an afterlife, all good must be done in this life. Our commitment has to be to this life: there is no other and there is no other chance. Advances in science and technology have made life at one and the same time simpler and more complex. There remain the mysteries of consciousness and (of particular relevance to our discussion this evening) of free will. If we can't use our imagination, understanding will power and intelligence to deal with the bigger problems we all face then we will not continue to be here. Building humanity is the heart of the issue.

Here are a number of principles that we may assume when encountering Humanism and Humanists:

• that people are essentially good; not totally good, but there is enough goodness in us that we can offer good will, expect and accep good will;
• that one should promote the Golden Rule (roughly summed up as "that one should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself") without expecting reciprocity;
• that morality and values are entirely human constructs and are not laid down by any other entity (e.g. "God") or derived from some extra-human realm (e.g. Plato's forms);
• that what is right and what is wrong are decisions made by human beings, for themselves and for other human beings;
• that in personal and interpersonal relationships there is an emphasis on enjoying life together;
• that there is an emphasis on certain vital collective enterprises, such as the upbringing of children - there's a collective responsibility to tell our children our common human story (what we are, how we came to this point and what we might become - to instil what it is to be human);
• that there's much to learn from religions and from the religious, but it must always be borne in mind that "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath";
• that all human beings are of intrinsic worth, not for some other reason (e.g. all being children of the one God);
• that we have to work to ensure that we obtain, preserve and progress the Good Society (through the arts of learning by disagreeing, testing and being wrong; through engagement and significant dialogue; through welcoming diversity as bringing greater input to the life and thought of the community);
• that political rights have had to be fought for and - as we see today in many parts of the world - still must be fought for;
• that we have to treasure what has been achieved already (e.g. Islamic civilisation in Medieval times)
• that humanity is a part of nature, rather than apart from it.

For the final half hour or so of this session, we occupy ourselves with the moral dilemma Allan gives us, which is described below:

In the coming Census the following question will be asked:


What is your religion? (This question is voluntary)

• No religion
• Christian (including Church of England, Catholic, Protestant and all other Christian denominations)
• Buddhist
• Hindu
• Jewish
• Muslim
• Sikh
• Any other religion, write in 

1. Matthew practises a religion (but is opposed to faith schools)
2. Mark believes in his religion but does not practise it (and is opposed to faith schools)
3. Luke no longer believes in the religion he was brought up in but feels culturally attached to it (and is opposed to faith schools)
4. John is completely non-religious (but is in favour of faith schools)

What should each of them do?

Here are some of the comments from the groups in which we discussed this dilemma:

Completion of this question is a small act and most respondents won't think twice about it. then again, that's where the "mindfulness" in which we're interested is to be found.

Most people won't think about how information gathered in the Census is used and will do it as a civic duty (one fo the few that is incumbent upon us). Even the fact that it's a voluntary question may not register with many respondents.

Question of abiding by the law versus the privacy of the individual. Can one be a conscientious objector to the Census?

Comply now - campaign later!

Concern was raised over the fact that the contract for collecting the Census information has been given to the US firm, Lockheed. It was felt that this might well be a source of anxiety to Muslims.

People feel unhappy about a question like this, with personal implications, so perhaps there could be part of the Census questionnaire that could be detached and separated. This would allow other sensitive questions (e.g. about sexual orientation) to be asked.