HumanistLife

Discussing atheism in highly religious countries

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With the news replete with stories of humanists and freethinkers killed and persecuted for ‘blasphemy’ around the world, Alex Sinclair-Lack asks ‘How candid can I be about my beliefs’?

Amman’s Citadel in Jordan. Photo by Alex Sinclair-Lack.

All humanists must grapple with the question of when it is appropriate to tell people that you don’t believe in their god, and when, if ever, you might choose to hide your beliefs for fear of causing offence. Across the atheist spectrum there is strong disagreement about how to approach these issues. At one extreme, there are those who keep their beliefs completely hidden. At the other, we have keyboard warriors with an uncanny ability to turn the YouTube comment sections of pop videos and cookery guides into pseudo-theological, venomous outpourings about the failings of the Catholic Church. Frankly, I have a little sympathy for both. However, the dilemma I describe becomes more apparent and important in highly religious countries. During a six-month stay in Amman, Jordan, I discovered my own answer to the question.

Having found comfort and confidence in
shared values of compassion. I made the conscious
decision to tell people of my lack of faith.

As a liberal and a humanist, I had reservations about moving to a Middle Eastern country. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Jordan does not share many of the intolerances of the surrounding nations. In fact, it blows many perceptions of the region out of the water. Surrounded by Iraq, Israel, Syria and Saudi Arabia; Jordan has remained peaceful, safe, and welcoming. While the UK Parliament pats itself on the back for having voted to let in a couple of hundred child refugees, Jordan was taking them in by the million. It is worth noting that King Abdullah II does this in spite of a devastating water shortage because he considers it Jordan’s moral duty to help refugees regardless of nationality and religion.

Having found comfort and confidence in shared values of compassion, I made the conscious decision to tell people of my lack of faith. At first to Jordanian friends, and then to colleagues, and eventually to inquiring strangers. The inquiry comes up more often than you might expect. Reactions ranged from sheer horror, to intrigue, to nonchalance. My personal favourite occurred during filming for an unfinished pet project, a documentary short: Syrian Santa. It was centred on a young Muslim refugee working as Father Christmas in a mall, who when I asked him if my non-belief offended him, replied: ‘Oh please, all of my friends are atheists!’

A multi-faith mural in Jordan. Photo by Alex Sinclair-Lack.

Questions usually followed, and I was happy to answer. Each Q&A session reassured me that these conversations were valuable. This is not because I had any intention of ‘proselytising’ or ‘converting’ or whatever the non-religious equivalent is (de-proselytising, perhaps). Any attempts to convert Muslims or hurt ‘Muslim feelings’ would have landed me a three-year prison sentence. But far more importantly, because it is not my business as a guest of the country to even be considering such an act. I have as little desire to proselytise as I do to be proselytised. My interest lies in conversation not conversion.

Any discussions of faith should be treated with sensitivity and cultural awareness, otherwise they are not only disrespectful and neo-colonial, but counter-productive. I will never preach my beliefs, but I will happily engage with those who are willing. When my admission was met with a grimace, I would follow up with, ‘I realise that atheists do not have a good reputation, but I welcome any questions about my beliefs, if you are interested’.

Reasonable people from all belief systems are keen to understand how non-believers come to ethical decisions and agree that discussion is valuable

The very act of having a friendly conversation…
goes a long way to combating prejudice.

Firstly, the discussion counters widespread misconceptions about what it means to be an atheist. For most people, I was the first openly atheistic person they had encountered. Although my ex-partner might disagree, I like to think that I don’t match up to the idea of an atheist as a nihilistic, ethically reprehensible sinner with a black hole where my heart is meant to be. The very act of having a friendly conversation with a well-meaning, open, and non-pushy non-believer goes a long way to combating prejudice.

Secondly, just by opening a dialogue you create a safe space for other people to explore their own doubt or scepticism, but who are unlikely to have had the same freedoms you have had. This is more likely than you might think. According to a 2012 WIN/Gallup poll, 18% of people in the Arab world consider themselves ‘not a religious person’. That is the equivalent of 75 million people. The percentage rises to as high as 33% in Lebanon and perhaps even more surprisingly, 19% in Saudi Arabia. Even if you do not meet these people directly, you may indirectly inspire tolerance towards them. And there is a reasonable chance you will have enough influence on someone to make them consider before jumping to harsh judgement and disownment. Atheists and agnostics within highly religious countries have one hell of a trail to blaze. What I am advocating is recognising your privilege and using it to help their journey run a little smoother.

I’m not supporting walking around the holy land with an ‘I love Richard Dawkins’ t-shirt. I only had this conversation when I was somewhat confident that I was safe. I would not be so brave as to openly discuss it in Bangladesh or Saudi Arabia, where the price of standing up for non-belief has been such a tragic one. In at least thirteen countries, atheism is punishable by death. And in these countries, the bravery and dangers faced by activists fighting to protect their right to non-belief is not to be compared with anything I will ever encounter. Nor would I be naive enough to claim that everyone has the luxury to speak so openly about non-belief. But it is recognition of that privilege that motivates me. I have been lucky enough to grow up in a society where I am free from these dangers; most people are not.

Use your wits and your intuition, when you feel unsafe, keep your views to yourself. Check the Freedom of Thought Report before you visit any religious country and only do what you feel comfortable with. Given an opportunity, atheists who live with the privilege of safety have a responsibility to detoxify the debate for those that don’t. For me, it is a risk worth taking. Some of my most humbling experiences were when Jordanian people were telling me that I had helped them combat their prejudices. All humanists have a small part to play.

Alex Sinclair-Lack is a writer with an appetite for travel. You can follow his writing and his exploits on Twitter at @alexsinclair.

Seven reasons why this year’s Easter egg debacle was ridiculous

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Last week, the Archbishop of York criticised the National Trust and Cadbury for dropping the word ‘Easter’ from the name of their annual egg hunt. This prompted Prime Minister Theresa May to take time out of her visit to the Middle East to state: ‘I think the stance they have taken is absolutely ridiculous.’

Here are seven reasons why the whole story was was ridiculous.

1. The National Trust and Cadbury didn’t actually drop Easter

In fact the National Trust claimed there were over 13,000 references to Easter on its website. When we went through the website at the time, every page we looked at prominently mentioned Easter in its headline and in most graphics. The same is true for Cadbury’s own site. For example:  

2. Almost no-one wants to drop Easter anyway

There have been no calls by any campaign groups to remove Easter from marketing materials. We respect the right of National Trust and Cadbury to name their egg hunt what they like, but this is not something anyone has been campaigning for so the notion that this has come about (were it even true) as part of some secular erosion of Christianity in Britain is, again, ridiculous.

3. Quakers don’t celebrate Easter

The Archbishop of York claimed that dropping the word ‘Easter’ was ‘tantamount to spitting on the grave’ of Cadbury’s Quaker founder John Cadbury. However, as one of his great-great-great-great-granddaughters pointed out, John Cadbury ‘believed that every day is equally sacred and, back then, this was expressed by not marking festivals.’

https://twitter.com/est_mcc/status/849184112745345024

4. Both the word ‘Easter’ and the symbol of eggs are derived from non-Christian traditions

Neither are even Christian anyway. The word ‘Easter’ comes from the Germanic goddess Eostre. Eggs have been used as symbols of fertility and renewal in many cultures from Ancient Egypt to Zoroastrianism, including in the pre-Christian celebrations that became the Easter we know today. So ironically the Archbishop of York is using the supposed separation of two aspects of Easter that Christianity has appropriated to claim that Christianity is being marginalised.

5. This is not the first time the Church of England has essentially fabricated a story

In 2015 the Church of England wrongly claimed that a company controlling cinema advertising had ‘banned’ its advert featuring of the Lord’s prayer because there was a risk of the prayer being ‘offensive’. In fact, the company has a blanket policy of not allowing any religious or non-religious advertising, which is very common, due to fears that some advertising in that range could offend some people, and the specific advert had in no way been labelled offensive. This is another attempt to misleadingly claim that Christianity is being ‘marginalised’. The Church of England was in fact told of the decision before it had even finished making the advert in question, then made the advert anyway, and only then publicised the decision, in order to get blanket coverage for its campaign (which was about getting more people to pray). Sound familiar?

6. This annual debacle around ‘Easter’ and ‘eggs’ coincides with the rise of an evangelical egg company

In his criticism of the National Trust and Cadbury the Archbishop of York suggested that consumers should purchase eggs from a proselytising chocolate company with strong ties to the Church of England instead. Since that company came onto the scene in 2012, there have every year been stories about Cadbury and others downplaying the significance of Easter on their chocolate eggs. Funny, that…

7. There are more important things in the world

Theresa May made these comments whilst on an official state visit to Saudi Arabia, distracting from more important issues such as the post-Brexit trade relationship, the arms trade, or the persecution of Christians, who are forbidden from practising their faith openly in the gulf state. And the same day the egg story broke there was also news around a new case on assisted dying. Shouldn’t we be focusing on these more important issues instead?

The debacle over what to call an Easter egg hunt is really a storm in an eggcup created in a bid by the Church of England to maintain its relevance in an increasingly non-religious country. We should not be duped by this ulterior motive into giving such blanket coverage to the Church, or else we will see these non-stories continue to dominate the news cycle and distract from more important affairs.

The people who keep us safe

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Heroes are not the stuff of myth: they keep us safe each and every day

It’s normal when confronted by horrific events someplace in the world to feel a mixture of emotions. Grief, for the victims whose stories you have read about in the papers. Anger, for the fact that such a tragedy could be allowed to happen. Despair, that the world is in such a rotten state that such horrors can occur. Relief: that it didn’t happen to someone you love. Guilt, for thinking that.

Last week’s terror attack came closer to home, and for many these feelings were heightened. Among those, something else: fear. When the unthinkable happens, what do we do? In moments like these, it’s natural to feel hyper-aware of one’s own mortality and to think of all the people we cherish. We become aware of life’s fragility. We reflect on how important it is to tell the people we love that we love them.

This fragile, precious life is the only life we’ll ever have. It makes sense to make it count, and most of us will try our bests to lead positive, happy existences that do not cause harm to others. It is a sad fact of existence, however, that some people mean to cause harm. When they do, and when tragedy strikes, it is profoundly traumatic. It shakes us. And it brings home just how much we owe to those extraordinary people who put themselves in harm’s way to keep us safe, to keep us healthy, to keep us alive.

When the gunshots rang out at the Palace of Westminster last week, many people fled. But while police rushed passersby away from the scene, their colleagues ran towards the fray. Nearby hospital workers leapt from their posts… and ran towards the chaos. PC Keith Palmer, in the course of protecting civilians, was mercilessly stabbed to death by a fanatical Islamist and terrorist who had already murdered several others with his car that afternoon. We are moved by the heroism of Keith Palmer and all the emergency services workers, and by the incredible job they did that day, and do every day, to keep all of us safe. It is to their credit that the casualties of this terrible incident, though severe, were not so much greater.

Life is fragile. Life is short. Life can be lonely. It can be sad. And grief can seem too much to bear. But it is thanks to the everyday heroism of individuals like Keith Palmer that we are able to make so much of such short lives as we have. They afford us space to experience the very best of the human condition: things like love, happiness, fulfilment, the comforts of family. We all must realise that as human beings, our lives are inextricably linked. All of us must cherish those bonds, for they make us who we are and give us license to live our lives in the ways we choose. And this is just as true: we must remember, and pay tribute, to the brave individuals who make the good possible. Thank you.

The ‘good news’

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‘All I had done was to nurse from my heart. How could it be harmful to tell someone about Jesus?’

These are the words of Sarah Kuteh, an experienced nurse, who is suing Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford for unfair dismissal with the backing of the Christian Legal Centre.

Kuteh was dismissed in August following complaints from patients that she had held ‘unwanted discussions’ about her Christian faith with them. She was issued with a written warning in April this year, and claims to have modified her behaviour since; yet the hospital reportedly received three further complaints from patients, after which Kuteh was suspended pending an investigation and ultimately sacked.

There has been predictable outcry from the converted. As one commentator says on the Christian Concern Facebook page, ‘What a wonderful nurse. That is exactly the sort of person I would want nearby for myself or a family member when facing their own mortality in a time of serious illness. This action is totally unjustified and a further example of our PC society gone mad. God bless you!’

But let us imagine for a moment an alternative scenario, in which an experienced nurse is a committed and vocal atheist. When interviewing a frail old lady who volunteers for the Patient Information Form that she is a member of the Church of England, our nurse informs her enthusiastically and with love in her heart that there is no God, and that grasping this truth has made her happy. Supporting a grieving relative, who whispers through his tears the sincerely-held belief that he will see his dead wife again, she butts in to inform him that this is not the case, and assures him that he will find strength and happiness in embracing the truth.

Unthinkable, is it not? Yet it is this kind of cruel and insulting imposition which some Christians defend and practise. My own experience of it has been regular and appalling. Perhaps the worst example was when an evangelical colleague told me that a dead friend was ‘in a better place’; the friend was in his thirties and had died very suddenly, leaving his partner – a much closer friend – with her world and her future smashed to pieces.

The repeated inability of many believers to grasp just how heinous this kind of behaviour is truly baffles me – and yet is Christianity itself not founded upon the principle of sharing the Good News? In Kuteh’s own words ‘how could telling anyone about Jesus Christ really be harmful to any patient?’

To a believer, this is presumably irrefutable: when your mindset is transfixed by the alternative reality that salvation awaits the converted, the desire to proselytise to those who are touching fingertips with their own mortality must be difficult to resist. But it must be resisted, for the sake of empathy and compassion – which is exactly why the hospital issued guidelines to its staff advising them explicitly to observe restraint when it comes to their personal beliefs. This is not about ‘political correctness’ – it is about professionalism and humanity.

Listening to the interview given to camera by Kuteh, one cannot doubt her sincerity. In her view, she was giving patients strength: “I have had to reassure [patients] based on the joy and peace that I really have found in the Lord.” In the absence of full evidence, I make no comment on the fairness or unfairness of her dismissal, and trust that those involved in the legal processes will make a judgement based upon the detailed evidence brought before them – there may well be a case to answer if the investigation was not handled in the appropriate manner, as Kuteh has claimed.

Yet this story is another reminder that empathy is one of the most crucial characteristics for those who work in health care – the ability to listen to others and to support them without judgement or imposition, whatever their belief-set. Without this capacity at the centre of our approach – and even with the best and sincerest of intentions – we risk insult, harm and distress to those who are at their most vulnerable.

MP claims Christians are ‘fearful’… but Church of England research shows the opposite is true

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Alexander von Koskull reports on how Christian fundamentalists face an inconvenient evidence gap when suggesting that Christians are scared to express their faith in modern Britain.

A street preacher on Buchanan Street, Glasgow. Photo: mot/Flickr

A street preacher on Buchanan Street, Glasgow. Photo: mot/Flickr

Last week, Conservative MP Fiona Bruce attracted a lot of media coverage after making the claim in the House of Commons that Christians ‘are worried, or even fearful, about mentioning their faith in public.’ Even the Prime Minister sympathised with her statement, intimating that religious liberty could indeed be under threat in Britain, much as Bruce alleges.

But the research to back up Fiona Bruce’s claims isn’t there. Or rather, there is research commissioned by the Church of England on the attitudes of practicing Christians, but it actually suggests the opposite: that Christians do in fact feel comfortable talking about their faith openly.

Bruce is a patron of the Conservative Christian Fellowship, and her comments during Prime Minister’s Questions were intended to echo a report from think tank ResPublica which called for legal amendments that would require employers to accommodate religious beliefs of employees, which it can only do by asserting that such a thing is not already the case, or that there is some kind of public outcry worth responding to. The Church of England’s survey clearly shows there isn’t, and that Bruce’s views do not represent the Christian community as a whole.

In the Study of Practising Christians in England, respondents were asked to record their level of agreement with statements on their practice of faith and relationship to god. The results found that:

  • 71% of respondents agreed with the statement – ‘I feel comfortable talking to non-Christians about Jesus Christ’.
  • 65% disagreed with the statement – ‘I am afraid of causing offence when I talk to non-Christians about Jesus-Christ’.
  • 73% disagreed with the statement – ‘I almost always feel unable to take up opportunities which present themselves to me to talk to non-Christians about Jesus Christ’.
  • 76% agreed with the statement – ‘Talking to non-Christians about Jesus Christ is an act of evangelism’.
  • Finally, 66% recalled that they had talked about ‘their relationship with Jesus Christ with someone who was not Christian’ in the last month, half of which did so in the last week.

The calls to review the human rights law in relation to religion and belief have also been called into question by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which argued that changing the law so that employers are explicitly required to ‘reasonably accommodate’ employees would be superfluous and would even require employers to privilege the rights of religious people to discriminate against others. The British Humanist Association embraced the EHRC’s findings and welcomes the surmounting evidence which refutes claims that Christians are fearful about expressing their faith in public under current legislation.

It is hard not to see such false claims of victimisation as a small thread in the fabric of Christian groups lobbying for greater autonomy to discriminate against others on religious grounds. They’ve been calling in recent months, both in the UK and other countries, for greater freedom to discriminate in the workplace, schools, and elsewhere.

What the Church of England’s data shows however is that no consensus even exists among Christians that their right to exercise a religion is under threat – and surely that’s because it isn’t, as the recent ECHR report found.

Changes to equality laws are not only unnecessary, but are likely to undermine the existing equal protection of people in the workplace by favouring people with certain religious beliefs over members of the LGBT community, women, and even people of other religions.

If anything, the law should be changed to limit discrimination, particularly in schools. But there is precious little sign of movement in that direction. The Government is currently planning to change the rules so that schools in England can discriminate by religion in 100% of places, with potentially very damaging results for community cohesion and fair access to local schools.

Uncertainty, democracy, and the role of reason

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This editorial originally appeared in the British Humanist Association’s ebulletin, a weekly briefing to BHA members and supporters covering the latest news, views, videos, events relating to Humanism in the UK. Sign up for the ebulletin to receive the BHA’s briefing each week.

mussolini

It didn’t start in America and it didn’t start with the election of Donald Trump. For months pundits have discussed the phenomenon of ‘post-truth politics’: politics deliberately based on simplification, appealing to the raw emotions of the electorate. Evidence, historical precedent, well-reasoned analyses: all count for nothing. In fact they are repudiated as being the preserve of elites.

This populism replacing reasoned politics is now global and a major threat to universal human rights, to secularism, to reason, and to humanist values.

In India, Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government disparages the open secular framework that has long held the most diverse nation in the world in some sort of social harmony. In Poland, the Government is preparing once again for an aggressive assault on the rights of women, justified entirely through appeals to Catholic dogma. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte indulges in sermon-like attacks on atheists, interwoven with rabble-rousing cries to bring back the death penalty. And in Russia, Putin, re-elected President in 2012, has used aggressive foreign policy to settle domestic political issues while imprisoning those who offend the church or criticise his regime. In Turkey, we see one of the greatest tragedies of our age: a country full of cosmopolitan potential transformed into a police state under Erdoğan, without democracy and without a free press or judiciary. In Hungary, the rule of law is rapidly becoming history. Elections in the next few months threaten the rise of far-right authoritarian parties in Austria, France, and the Netherlands.

When the world is so very far from what we want it to be, there is a temptation to retreat, to tend to one’s own garden and look to the private and the domestic. These are, after all, areas of our lives where we at least have some sort of control, and where we can have some positive effect.

This isn’t entirely the wrong instinct. Just as peace between nations starts with love between people and happiness in societies, our little choices can affect the bigger picture. So much of the BHA’s work is directed to the lives of individuals: our school volunteers encourage young people to open their minds and their sympathies, our pastoral carers give like-minded support to those in personal crises, and our celebrants guide families and couples through some of the highest and lowest points in their lives.

But public crises call for our public involvement, not just private actions.

As humanists, we champion secularism because we believe everyone is treated better when governments and churches are kept apart. We champion human rights not simply because we believe in the equal dignity of every living person, but because we know that this is something all-too easily forgotten by humankind. And we steadfastly champion democracy and the rule of law, along with those civil values that ensure their smooth functioning.

In all that we do, these social values are our guides, along with reason, empathy, and kindness. The future is uncertain and ever-harder to predict. But we must enter it optimistically, rationally, and with a cool head on our shoulders. Our humanist way of thinking has given the world so much over the centuries and its resources are far from depleted. We are entering a dark chapter in the human story, but the light has burned brightly in darker times than this. Today we all have a responsibility to tend the flame.

Offended? That’s the price of freedom.

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Photo: Jennifer Moo

Photo: Jennifer Moo

In 2008, the blasphemy laws were abolished in England and Wales. They protected the tender sympathies of the Anglican God against any insults whether spoken in public or written. Relics of a more theocratic age, their eventual abolition may have seemed inevitable, but in practice many organisations and individuals had to campaign hard for it for many decades. Real change was anything but a foregone conclusion: at the same time as the case was being made for progressive reforms, there were those pushing not for the abolition of blasphemy laws, but for their extension.

These calls went back to 1989 when the then Archbishop of Canterbury had called for the blasphemy laws be extended to criminalise offences against Islam. This was in the context of the violent street reaction to Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, stoked by the incendiary rhetoric of the Ayatollah Khomeini, which left many dead around the world. He didn’t get his way, but perhaps the Archbishop needn’t have bothered, as it seems that criticism or mockery of religion is now being censured by many public bodies of their own free will, and a social climate prevails which allows this to happen.

The last few years have seen many examples of religion being made immune from criticism or mockery in our public spaces, especially in universities, where student union authorities have played the role of heavy-handed thought police. In University College London, the humanist society was sanctioned by the authorities for using a cartoon of Jesus and Mohammed at a bar to advertise their sociable events. That same week, a humanist society talk at Queen Mary’s was cancelled due to death threats. A week later, at LSE, students were censured over ‘Jesus and Mo’ cartoons, and excluded from their own fresher’s fair a year later over T-shirts. At London South Bank, it was for using Christian imagery of the creation of Adam the advertise their drinks. And at Warwick, it was for using a cartoon of a stick man throwing religious symbols like crosses into a bin. Similar incidents, ranging from the troublingly absurd to the decidedly threatening, have taken place at Goldsmiths, Reading, and on many other campuses around England.

The latest victim of course is four-time Olympic medallist Louis Smith, forced to apologise and banned by British Gymnastics for enjoying a silly joke at the expense of religious practices which many people find ridiculous, and, in the course of doing so, offending those who would prefer to see religious ideas protected from scrutiny. Conceding to those demands sets us on a worrying course.

Absurd though we may think them, religions are big and powerful ideas. Many people think they are not just absurd but malign: barriers to human intellectual and moral progress. Whatever we think of them, in the history of Europe almost all social progress has come from criticising – yes, and ridiculing – their ideas and practices. All the benefits of free thought and free speech that we enjoy in Britain today come as a result of overturning their control.

In 2016, close to 70 countries have real blasphemy laws in statute. 43 of these treat it as an imprisonable offence, and in six others it is a crime punished with torture or the death sentence. The countries that actually enforce these rules are not places where you would want to live. The laws create a totalitarian atmosphere where people are so unfree that many live out the entirety of their lives never speaking their true thoughts, even to their closest friends and family. I have met many emigrants from Saudi Arabia in particular for whom this was true, but it is a pattern true of any country where the price of freedom is mortally high. Conform, be silent, never speak your mind. The alternative is to give up your liberty, your health, or even your life.

In our liberal democratic society, public authorities have a duty to protect and advance human rights, including our right to freedom of expression. They should not be victimising individuals for lawful actions, however offensive. Individuals, of course, have other obligations, and will keep their own conscience. We may exercise self-restraint in our own expressions out of politeness or respect. We may even urge others to do the same. But we should never call on the law to enforce our personal values or tastes, however deeply held these may be.

We have all had our most cherished beliefs, identities, or ways of life subject to ridicule at one time or another. When we feel that way, we have a choice. Our duty as citizens in a liberal society is to either engage with our detractors and attempt to persuade them to our way of thinking, or to shrug and ignore it. And then we get on with our lives, accepting that the discomfort we feel is a very small price to pay for freedom.

Opinion: The humanist case for staying in the EU

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This blog is part of a series of perspectives on the EU referendum from prominent humanists on either side of the debate. Each puts forward a humanist case for the United Kingdom either remaining a member of, or leaving, the European Union. All six perspectives are linked in the image below.

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Joan Smith Mary Honeyball David Pollock Matt Ridley Crispin Blunt Kelvin Hopkins Default

Joan Smith: The humanist case for staying in the EU

Ideas know no boundaries. For at least two-and-a-half thousand years, Europe has been the testing ground of ideas about who we are, why we are here and the best way to live. From Greek philosophers to French anti-theists and the English and Scots thinkers who played a key role in the Enlightenment, European thinkers have driven forward the march of progressive ideas. They’ve done it against a tragic background of internecine warfare, pitting neighbours against each other in some of the most terrible conflicts to disfigure the planet.

Against the odds, the EU has persuaded huge numbers of people to focus on what unites us rather than old divisions – just look at all the individuals and institutions outside the UK pleading with us to stay. As I write, we are part of a community of more than 500 million people living in countries with a commitment to shared values and universal human rights. Those values are vital to humanists, creating a legal framework in which we are protected from age-old demands from religious and other extremists who would like to impose their beliefs on people who don’t share them.

I love living in a European community where my right not to have a religion is protected by law. I love the fact that no member state of the EU can use barbaric punishments like the death penalty. I love the fact that equality is at the heart of the European ideal, challenging centuries of bigotry (much of it sanctioned by church and state) towards women, the disabled and LGBT people. Of course individual countries could do this on their own but it’s easier – and our hard-won rights are easier to protect – when we are part of a larger whole.

I am proud of what Europe has become since the Second World War. I don’t think for one moment that it has destroyed the nasty side of human nature, and I have watched the rise of xenophobic forms of nationalism in some European countries with horror. But I think we are stronger when our political leaders recognise that they are part of project based on universal values and respect, drawing strength from each other. That is more important for me than the economic arguments, which are in any case a no-brainer.

I live in a continent influenced by Plato, Galileo, Voltaire, Simone de Beauvoir, people with inventive minds who shaped what it means to be modern. As a humanist, I don’t want to return to the petty nationalisms and squabbles which have torn Europeans apart so many times in the past. The EU isn’t perfect but I want to remain part of a community with a commitment to equality that’s made the lives of so many people immeasurably better.

Opinion: Remain in the EU for peace, security, women, and our economy

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This blog is part of a series of perspectives on the EU referendum from prominent humanists on either side of the debate. Each puts forward a humanist case for the United Kingdom either remaining a member of, or leaving, the European Union. All six perspectives are linked in the image below.

2016-06-16-LW-v1-EU-blogs-headerComplete-board

Joan Smith Mary Honeyball David Pollock Matt Ridley Crispin Blunt Kelvin Hopkins Default

Mary Honeyball: Remain in the EU for peace, security, women, and our economy

We must never forget where and how the European Union was born: It followed two devastating World Wars and great anticipation and significant expectation followed. Nothing like those atrocities could ever or would ever happen again. And so the European Union was born.

And let us not forget that a fundamental principle of the European project is to secure common shared European values and to protect people’s fundamental and human rights.

Today, we must not seek to isolate ourselves from 27 of our nearest neighbours; instead we must work in collaboration with others to fight the threat of terrorism, to tackle climate change, to trade freely and simply and to protect the most vulnerable in society.

When our neighbours face serious terrorist attacks like the recent atrocities in France and Belgium we must stand side-by-side in solidarity and neither turn our backs or run away.

Part of what makes us safer as a nation is our ability to cooperate with other member states to exchange and share information. Being part of the European Union and having access to institutions such as Europol is a huge benefit to all member states security.

Of course the European Union, like all organisations, is imperfect and there are things we must improve. We must not run away from the European project but embrace it, work with it and continue to be at the heart of it. We are better and stronger together.

Meanwhile while myself and colleagues continue to fight for it, the Brexit campaign has played on people’s fear of immigration. I’m not dismissing those fears, but the truth is that whether we remain in the European Union or vote to leave, immigration will continue.

Official figures from the Office of National Statistics reveal that immigration from outside the EU is higher than from those within the EU. So for those who have a problem with immigration- it simply will not go away by voting to leave.

‘Much of my work since I entered the European Parliament has concerned women and gender equality. I know that some parts of the Europe have anti-gender mobilisations and the European Union is an important safeguard against such far-right beliefs.’

An Australian points based system has been floated among euro sceptics as an answer to the ‘problem’, but closer examination of the model reveals that immigration has increased in Australia since the introduction of the system. In the UK we rely on immigration, just look at the care sector where one in five of those people working this industry is from outside the UK. We are living and working for longer we need enough people within the sector to support us.

If people come to the UK, pay taxes and contribute more to the economy than they take out then surely it is a good thing?

But the question is not and should not be confined to immigration. The IMF, the OECD, the World Bank the Governor of the Bank of England all warn of the consequences to our economy if we leave. How often does such a varied and learned group of people agree on such a huge issue? If you believe all of these world experts are wrong, then cast your vote as you wish, but do so with great caution.

And what happens in the event we do vote to leave. Our economy may not collapse overnight but we will be under huge strain. The clock starts ticking on negotiations immediately. There will be a period of around two years to negotiate with 27 countries. If we fail to reach a suitable negotiation in that time, then we revert to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms. An example of the consequences if we are forced to abide by the WTO terms is clear immediately. Currently the UK exports some 2000 cars a day to Europe and because we are members of the European Union they enter tariff free. Under the WTO terms, the UK will be forced to pay a 10% tariff like The United States and Japan.

There are also concerns over our continued loss of sovereignty from the Brexit campaign who claim we relinquish our ability to be sovereign to the European Union. We are and remain sovereign state and two clear examples show unambiguously how we have maintained our sovereignty: We decided not to be part of the Eurozone or part of the Schengen free zone either.

Much of my work since I entered the European Parliament has concerned women and gender equality. I know that some parts of the Europe have anti-gender mobilisations and the European Union is an important safeguard against such far-right beliefs.

Those who have a traditional view of the family, gender and reproductive rights are launching anti gender mobilisations. This isn’t an abstract or baseless fear- it’s happening across Europe, now.

Such groups claim that the European Union is promoting a gender ideology and that it is trying to break down traditional gender roles. In fact, the European Union is progressive in all of these areas.

It has been influential in starting to change women’s position in the workplace, family and society as a whole. It promotes gender parity for women on boards and advocates a system of quotas to redress the imbalance. We need to be part of the European Union to encourage the UK to drive forward progressive change for women and gender equality. In addition, EU laws ensure that women are guaranteed the right to at least 14 weeks’ maternity leave as well as protection from maternity related discrimination.

It’s not just within the workplace that the European Union is working to improve the lives of women, it also seeks to protect them against violent individuals, abusive criminal gangs, traffickers and other areas of organised crime. The Victims Directive guarantees specialist support and protection from repeat victimisation. In addition, the European Protection Order and the Mutual Recognition in Civil Matters both protect women from perpetrators when they travel to any part of the European Union. And the Anti Trafficking Directive is a comprehensive framework which supports victims of this crime- 80% of which are women.

The European Union is progressive. It seeks to promote peace over hate and fairness over discrimination. It is something we must continue to be part of for our own sake and for that of future generations.

Opinion: Religious skeptics should be EU skeptics

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This blog is part of a series of perspectives on the EU referendum from prominent humanists on either side of the debate. Each puts forward a humanist case for the United Kingdom either remaining a member of, or leaving, the European Union. All six perspectives are linked in the image below.

2016-06-16-LW-v1-EU-blogs-headerComplete-board

Joan Smith Mary Honeyball David Pollock Matt Ridley Crispin Blunt Kelvin Hopkins Default

Matt Ridley: Religious skeptics should be EU skeptics

My biggest reason for voting leave this month is the European Union’s democratic deficit and bureaucratic surplus, which makes it an ill-suited organization for bringing prosperity and peace in the evolving and emergent global world we increasingly inhabit. It’s too top-down in philosophy, and too parochial in mindset. My euro-scepticism is dead in line with my religious skepticism, though you certainly don’t have to be an unbeliever to vote leave: I don’t like being told what to do by a priestly class.

‘My euro-scepticism is dead in line
with my religious skepticism, though you certainly don’t have to be an unbeliever
to vote leave: I don’t like being told
what to do by a priestly class.’

There is a certain similarity between the way fans of the European Union talk about Brussels and the way believers talk about the Almighty. Benevolent, omniscient, and remote, the European Commission sees far into our hearts and knows exactly when we need to be told through a directive not to buy something, not to make something, not to build something. It’s currently trying to tell us not to vape, for instance, at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry which has a nice little earner in prescription nicotine replacement, even though it is now clear that vaping is massive life-saver.

The entire basis of the EU is that leaders know best. It was set up by people horrified by what demagogues had done in the twentieth century, and were determined to put technocrats in charge instead, and insulate them from the democratic winds. It’s a stretch to call this religious, but the parallels with the papacy in its pomp are all too clear.

In Britain we nurtured a very different tradition, broke with Rome, killed a king who thought he had a divine right to rule and gradually absorbed the message of the enlightenment that the world is not run by great men, let alone deities, but is changed by ordinary people through trade, innovation, habit, and fashion. More than any other European country we resisted the urge to worship a leader and lend him (never her) the power to tell us what to do.

It is in that tradition that the current movement to leave the European Union should be seen. We do not like the imposition of a single currency, with the acute pain it has caused to many people, just as a way of forging a united polity. We do not like the fact that more than half our laws originate in the European commission and are justiciable by the European court, neither of whom is answerable to the people. We do not trust priesthoods and never have.

In the 1950s, when central planning was in its heyday, when we in Britain also still lived under a thicket of rules about what we could eat, buy or do, it was no surprise that the fore-runner of the EU began as a centralized, top-down, dirigiste bureaucracy. That was the way of the future then, before the collapse of living standards in Russia, China, and more recently Venezuela shows just where central planning’s faults lay.

In the 1970s, it just about made sense for Britain to join this regional bloc, which was at least partly dominated by the highly liberalized and free-market German philosophy of Werner Ehrhard. But now, in an era of cheap container shipping, free Skype intercontinental phone calls, budget airlines, rock-bottom World Trade Organisation standards, and global trading rules negotiated industry by industry at the global level, the regional focus of the European Union is an irrelevance and an anachronism. It perpetually tries to dictate rules for consumers and citizens within one continent, ignoring the wider world where we all trade.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the tech sector and the digital industry. Europe has not manage to negotiate a trade deal with America despite years of trying, yet that does not stop you or me buying software and hardware from the big American digital firms all the time. The EU has a dismal track record in creating digital start-ups, throttling them at birth with petty rules, so that we have not one to compare with Apple, Google, Facebook or Amazon. (One of our best candidates, Spotify, is threatening to leave the EU for America.)

The parallel with Humanism is pretty obvious. Humanism means suspicion of superstition, but is also means respect for human beings’ wishes. People have voted for a digital world with great enthusiasm over the past few decades by buying digital products, joining digital networks and embracing egalitarian values. Into this world lumbers a bunch of highly paid, lowly taxed, richly fed Eurocrats, who never saw this coming, saying things like “we must have a minimum of boring French films on Netflix” or we insist that hyperlinks respect intellectual property, or whatever the latest wheeze big companies have breathed into their ears over a four-course meal in Brussels.

In the sixteenth century, admittedly for carnal reasons, the English got a chance to tell a wealthy and parasitic priestly class, answerable to nobody and with a top-down view of the world, to get stuffed. We have the same chance again today.

Matt Ridley is a journalist and Conservative Party peer who is a member of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. He is also a patron of Conservative Humanists.