HumanistLife

The art of ‘losing faith’

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Where does one find meaning when they have lost their faith? That is a question that has been posed to me on numerous times as someone who was once a fully signed up member of an evangelical church who now lives within a non-religious, humanist spiritual setting.

It is only as I approach my fourth decade of life, 20 years after leaving the church that actually I realise this question has a lot wrong with it. So much so that it has possibly contributed to my taking so long to get comfortable within my own skin as a human being without a god.

The problem with the term ‘losing faith’ is that it originates from where you have come and from those whom you have left.  It is all too easy to make the assumption that this is an adequate description of someone whose previously deep belief system has been rocked and shattered to the point of non-existence. It is a term which potentially prolongs the bereavement process that a person goes through when they leave the structure of their religious community; their friends, and sometimes family, along with an underlying belief structure. A term that focusses on loss and distracts from the fruits gained.

The big misunderstanding here is that both parties i.e. those leaving and those who are being left behind, put faith in the notion that he or she who leaves religion is abandoning a bedrock of holistic security to jump into a chasm of chaos on every level. The ‘stray sheep’, ‘prodigal son’, or ‘fallen’ has left behind meaning, a moral compass, cosmic stability. Often the feeling that is ingrained in someone leaving a religion is that they are disobeying the laws of the universe itself and are therefore no longer allowed to play a part in it.

This however is just not the case on many levels. Doubt in a belief or a theory or anything you rely on is not unhealthy. It is not a sign of lack of faith but of intelligence and spiritual maturity. When someone who has come from years of adopting their parents’ faith suddenly wake up one day to find they do not believe it, it doesn’t mean they have been cosmically neglected. It means they are entering into a realisation that to continue in life with someone else’s projection of the universe is unwise, unreal, and dishonest.

My point is that faith actually is not ever lost in this process. Faith is a tool we use to gauge personal surety of the things we trust. When we redefine the parameters of what deserves our faith, when we scrutinise what we know and how it can be applied to the universe around us, we are actually tending to ‘faith’ in a diligent and mature way. We are certainly not losing it.

The other assumption is that when you leave a religion, you have to leave everything behind. A bit like leaving your company and all the bonuses and perks right down to your beloved stapler.  Leaving religion doesn’t work like that because no religion, regardless of what it professes, holds the monopoly on morality, ethics, kindness, or truth. Indeed it is only on leaving some of these groups that it becomes clear that they have little grip on any of these things.  Often people leave the faith of their birth because they realise that they cannot fulfil the full extent of their sense of compassion towards their fellow humans or indeed animals. Religion doesn’t give you your license to be kind or be compassionate. In fact should there be a god, then surely your existence at his/her hand is authority enough for you to promote kindness without needing to use their name to do so. Surely you are already an expert in compassion if you have been made, as some beliefs profess, in the image of an all compassionate being.

Often one leaves their religion because it’s a coat that just doesn’t fit any more. That may be because of what you do or don’t believe, but often it is simply because you are no longer able to respond to the language of that faith.

Sat here now, I honestly cannot recall the time I stopped believing in God. I suspect I never believed in one. Rather, I realised gradually that the language used to portray god and respond to the universe was a human construct and not a cosmic or divine one. Man makes his god in his image. It is never the other way around. Islam in part recognises this by not allowing images of Allah; Judaism recognises this by restricted the names given God. I didn’t stop believing in God so much as the language and the concept surrounding God merely became impotent. It lost its relevance to the point that to even question whether or not such a being existed was irrelevant. God, if you like, imploded as much linguistically as philosophically.

The trick then of moving up and outwards in your faith is not to find another set of beliefs but merely to find a language which you find you can respond to fully. That may involve another set of beliefs, it may not. Belief or lack thereof is so much less important than the community in which you embed. Often a person moves from their religion because, for them that community is no longer fit for purpose. It no longer bears the fruit of compassion and love that it professes to deliver. That has nothing to do with belief but everything to do with the human qualities of compassion. If a community lives with a language of love and compassion but then uses it as a set of euphemisms for oppression, staleness both in its human interaction and its language sets in. ‘Falling away’ then becomes a noble act rather than a sinful one.

A few of us have found some sort of home within Humanism. I like not knowing. I like testing everything I think I know is true. I like my world being rocked if at the end of it it makes me a better person. My embedding within Humanism is not to embrace the certainty of science but certainty of its processes. The aspiration to be humble enough not to assume knowledge but wrestle with it until it’s the closest thing that resembles the truth for that brief moment in time. It is the excitement that comes with being proved wrong only to find something more true. It is the fruits of doubt. Humanism doesn’t fulfil that in itself. It’s not a package you sign up to and find sudden fulfilment. It’s a process and an attitude one can adopt. It is a tool to help you aspire to being the best person you can be. Humanism isn’t the answer, it just demands you ask the right questions whilst showing compassion and respect to those around you. That approach leaves me free to respond to the world around me with a language and creativity which is true to itself whether its in the way I act or whether I’m blurting out beatles songs on my ukulele. These are my voice, my actions, my accountability my blank canvas. At this stage then it is difficult to recall what it was I ever thought I’d lost.

 

Matt Hicks is a nurse in the Royal Navy as well as being one of the RN Service Representatives for the Defence Humanists. In his spare time, Matt can be found touring Devon with a bag full of songs and his ukulele. He blogs at The Wooden Duck.

Happily Godless

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Tony Akkermans shares a short excerpt from his book, Happily Godless.

Happily Godless: Tony Akkermans shares his thoughts on Humanism, and much else, in this book, released 29 August 2014.

Happily Godless: Tony Akkermans shares his thoughts on Humanism, and much else, in this book, released 29 August 2014.

Once upon a time there was, in the Western world at least, but a single god. Closely defined with clear-cut attributes. Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent. In fact so many omnies that from here on in I shall refer to him as Omnigod. I am talking, of course, about the god of the Bible and the Koran, the creator of heaven and earth. A hands on god who controls every happening here on earth, who is compulsorily worshipped in school assembles, who is at the heart of church services, who hears prayers and who, if they cross themselves in good time, makes footballers score goals.

For some two thousand years this father figure god has had a very good run for his money. He has been feared and worshipped unfailingly and his every capricious move has been meekly documented and accepted. But things are changing. All is not well with Omnigod. Wicked, troublesome rationalists have started ganging up on him. They have been pointing out major weaknesses in his lifestyle, such as the total lack of evidence for his existence. This is greatly worrying his self-appointed representatives on earth. All the great minds in the churches have got together in a telephone box and have racked their brains over a proper line of defence. After Herculean metaphysical labours, laced with much prayer, they have come up with the solution: Omnigod must be given a makeover.

A collection of brand new words and phrases have been brought to bear. Out goes the Omni and in comes the obfuscation. God is now the ‘Ground of all Being’ he is the ‘Ultimate Reality’. He is unfathomable, ineffable and unknowable. He is woollier than a champion sheep. Let Dawkins try and shear him now. The trouble is that if rationalists can’t get to grips with such an elusive customer, then his befuddled apologists can’t either. As Freddy Ayer has said in Language Truth and Logic: if things are unknowable there is no point in entering into further discussion. After all, unknowability and nothingness have much in common. So ‘Blurry God’ as I shall dub this ineffable creature won’t let the religious off the hook. Nice try Don Cupitt, Paul Tillich and the rest, but it must be Omnigod or nothing.

But boy, oh boy is Omnigod on thin ice these days! When he was the idol of the desert tribes his fiefdom was restricted to the sun, the moon and pancake earth. The size of real estate a god worth his salt could manage. But, it turns out, the acreage has grown. Let me give you two remarkable statistics: there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. And more staggering still: light from the exploding star GRB 090423 has taken 13 billion years travelling at the speed of light to reach us. (To give you an idea of the magnitude of 13 billion you would not reach that number if you counted uninterruptedly for more than 400 years). Bearing in mind that a single light-year represents a distance of 6000 billion miles this would tend to hint at the insignificance of our otherwise so self-important little planet earth.

Within this mind-numbingly huge universe there must be many other civilisations that would demand God’s undivided attention. Think of the trillions of prayers that must be answered or arbitrarily ignored; and if you are a football fan think of the all the wonderful goals scored with God’s help on all the pitches in the galaxies. The theologians have the answer (if they don’t they always make one up): God is Omnipotent and moves in mysterious ways. But so does Santa Claus in his annual toy deliveries. For centuries men of God have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing. There is a choice here: resort to increasingly contorted explanations or simply conclude that God is imaginary.

Omnigod’s biggest bugbear of course is the problem of evil. For human induced catastrophes such as murder, mayhem and war, Omnigod’s apologists think they have found a clever get out clause: free will, it’s the people’s fault, God is off the hook. This expedient may be sufficient to mollify the unthinking flock but cuts no ice with rationalists, who are in the habit of thinking things through. The free will idea goes as follows: God is in charge of the boardroom decisions while we, the minions on the shop floor, may decide the petty detail. If we get it wrong we must carry the can because God is too busy with the bigger picture. But this convenient division of responsibility must have its limits. There must be a point where certain misdemeanours by the workers are of such a magnitude that they endanger the corporation’s survival and can no longer be ignored by the MD. Free will and Omnigod’s overall control are mutually exclusive. If Omnigod allows the Germans the free will to vote for Hitler and he also allows Hitler the free will to murder six million Jews, then Hitler is running the show and Omnigod is a cowardly bystander pretending not to notice. Would it not have been the decent thing to zap Adolf with a heart attack?

To crank this up a little further I have devised the ultimate freewill test. Suppose a deluded Ayatollah, wishing to meet his 72 virgins in paradise or an Armageddon-crazed redneck fundamentalist, hoping to be raptured soon, managed to get hold of an arsenal of nuclear weapons and employed his acolytes to plant devices in all population centres of the world and that all the bombs were connected by mobile phone signals to his hideout, where he is sitting with his finger poised over the button. Ready to blow God’s beautiful creation to smithereens. (a fanciful scenario I admit, but you get my drift). The ultimate moment of truth. Would God strike him dead or would he have to shrug his shoulders and say: “well, I have granted this person free will – do your worst; no exceptions to my scheme, nothing I can do about it”? At that point theologians must stop waffling and make up their mind. Either they must say that God would act to stop the earth’s destruction or they must allow that a mere human being has become more powerful than God. If, as I suspect, they would argue that God would act, they would have to face the follow-up question: if he can act now, why not in Auschwitz, why not in Dunblane? Why not in thousands of other dreadful scenes of human suffering? And if God cannot or will not act, where is the justification for all the centuries of worship and prayer?

Tony Akkersmans is the author of Happily Godless: Humanism for a Better World, which is available to buy on Amazon.

The Epicurean revival

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Hiram Crespo writes for HumanistLife about the philosophy of Epicureanism, and argues that is has made a resurgence in modern works of positive psychology. 

Stumbling upon happiness in the garden of Epicurus? Flowers: Tim Daniels.

Stumbling upon happiness in the garden of Epicurus? Flowers: Tim Daniels.

As the annals of history have it, in the sixth century Emperor Justinian had all the schools of philosophy that competed with Christianity finally closed. This was the last we heard of the Epicurean School, whose tradition had remained culturally vibrant for seven centuries. Epicurus had been among the first to propose the atom—2,300 years ago—the social contract as a foundation for the rule of law, and the possibility of an empirical process of pursuit of happiness: a science of happiness. These progressive schools were oases of tranquility, reason and pleasure known as Gardens, where the ideals of civilized friendship flourished and men, women and even slaves engaged in philosophical discourse as equals.

If any set of doctrines can be considered the foundation of the Epicurean philosophy, it would be the Tetrapharmakon: the Four Remedies. For didactic purposes, the teachings were imparted in the form of short, easy to memorize adages. There are, to be fair, many more than four remedies in Epicureanism. However, these are known to be the core of the teaching out of which the rest of the philosophy flows:

Do not fear the gods
Do not fear death
What is pleasant is easy to attain
What is painful is easy to endure

In his Principal Doctrines 11-12, Epicurus argued for the study of science as a way to emancipate ourselves from irrational fears. For naturalists who don’t believe in gods or spirits, the first two negative statements may be translated as ‘Do not fear chance or blind luck, for it is pointless to battle that which we have no control over. It generates unnecessary suffering’.

Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius, in his De Rerum Natura, dedicates long portions of the philosophical poem to explaining how natural phenomena such as lightning and the movements of heavenly bodies are not the work of the Gods and that fear of the Gods is inconsistent with civilized life. Since he was unable in those days to produce a fully scientific theory to explain all these phenomena, he provided several possible theories for many of them without officially endorsing one, and humbly acknowledged that future thinkers would prove the main points of his naturalist and scientific cosmology, which they eventually did. And so we can say that his basic attitude was a sound one, and also that he respected our intelligence enough to not exhibit arrogance and certainty where he did not have conclusive theories. He allowed time to prove him right … and sincere.

That the prohibition against fearing the Gods, and against fear-based religion in general, is the first and main taboo in Epicurean philosophy, remains refreshing to this day.

The second remedy is elaborated in a series of teachings and aphorisms which serve as a form of cognitive therapy to deal with the trauma of death. Among them, the most memorable is the purely hedonistic one. It is summed up thusly:

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not

There is also the symmetry argument, which compares the time after our death to the time before our birth of which we have no memory. Since there is nothing there, why fear it? It is as unintelligent to be needlessly tormented about the afterlife as it is to be tormented about the state prior to birth. I frequently argue that it wasn’t just the teachings, but the manner in which they were imparted –within the context of a loving community of philosopher friends– that served as a consolation and that it is impossible to replicate the peace and conviction that Epicurus gave humanity without this sense of community.

The latter two positive statements in the Tetrapharmakon lead to Epicurean teachings on how we should evaluate our desires and discern which ones are unnecessary versus which ones are necessary, which ones carry pain when satisfied or ignored versus which ones don’t. By this analytic process, one learns to be content with the simple pleasures in life, those easiest to attain and which carry little to no pain. It is here that the real fruits of Epicurean insight begin to be reaped. The best things in life are free.

One of the first psychological tasks of every Epicurean is to become mindful of his/her desires and whatever pain or anxiety they may be generating. Another task is to learn to relish and appreciate the simple things when they’re in front of us. The good friends, the good foods and the refreshing beverages, the family, the good music, our proximity to nature, even our view of the sky which (as Carl Sagan advised us) should always humble us.

The good news, according to Epicurus, is that happiness is easily attained if we cultivate philosophy. He cites the need for thankfulness and for robust friendships as fundamental ingredients for the good life, and not only categorizes desires but also discerns between kinetic (active) pleasures that happen when we satisfy a desire, and katastemic (inert) pleasures that happen when we have no desires to satisfy, which he labeled as superior.

Harvard psychologist and happiness researcher Dan Gilbert confirms Epicurus’ insights, including how meaningful relations significantly increase the amount of pleasure and of memorable experiences that we gather throughout our lifetime. He uses different verbiage: natural happiness is that attained when we satisfy a desire (kinetic pleasure, in Epicurean parlance) whereas synthetic happiness is that which we enjoy regardless of attaining desires (katastemic pleasure).

Because synthetic happiness requires no externals, it is therefore superior, it is a sign of a liberated being. He argues the case for synthetic happiness by citing the example of the lottery winner and the paraplegic who exhibit similar levels of happiness one year after winning the lottery and losing the lower limbs, respectively. These cases had been studied by happiness researchers Brickman et al.

This, in positive psychology, is being called the hedonic treadmill or hedonic adaptation: the habitual happy state that we always return to. Methods are being researched to increase the heights that are normal for each individual.

Gilbert’s theories, as far as I’m concerned, are Epicureanism by another name. One of the elements of Epicurean teaching that philosophers have struggled with the most throughout history is the idea of katastemic pleasure. It is often argued that lack of pain is not a definition of pleasure, but this is the art of happiness that Epicurus taught: that we must learn to be happy regardless of external factors and that it’s possible and desirable to cultivate katastemic pleasures via the philosophical disciplines. In fact, Epicurus argues that the very purpose of philosophy is to ensure an end to suffering and to create a beautiful, happy, pleasant life.

Gilbert’s research upholds katastemic pleasure as a necessary ingredient in human happiness and is beginning to reinvigorate the discourse on the philosophy of happiness that Epicurus had begun, and which was interrupted by Justinian 1,500 years ago. He also adds new concepts to our science of happiness and even proposes that we have a psychological immune system that fights unhappy moods.

Gilbert’s findings, along with research dealing with wellbeing in fields such as neuroscience and diet, point modern Epicureans in the direction of an interdisciplinary, practical reinvention of philosophy, which is just what we need if philosophy is to become once again the revolutionary, emancipatory cultural engine that it once was.

As to the Fourth Remedy, Epicurus reminded us of the temporal nature of bodily pain. We may get a fever, or a stomach ache, but within days our immune system fights it. In the case of more chronic pains, one gets used to them after some time. In nature, no condition lasts forever. The impermanence of all conditions is a consolation when we consider whatever pain they generate. A dismissive attitude towards pain takes discipline but it can be cultivated if we are mindful, disciplined, and develop a resolve to protect our minds.

Then there are mental pains and anxiety. These are systematically worked through via cognitive therapy. The resolution to follow Epicurus is a resolution to protect one’s mind. It’s impossible to be happy if we can’t control our anger and other strong emotions: we will go from one perturbed state to the next and never taste the stability of ataraxia, which translates as imperturbability and is the ultimate maturity that a philosopher can reach.

We live in a dysfunctional consumerist society filled with anxiety and neuroses, where few people analyse their life, most have a short attention span and are usually uninterested in disciplining their minds and curbing mindless desires. If philosophy is understood as the Epicureans understand it, then it becomes evident that people desperately need philosophy today.

Many more things could be said about the consolations of Epicurean philosophy. I leave my readers with an invitation to study Epicurus and engage themselves and others in philosophical discourse. I promise that your life will be enriched.

Hiram Crespo is the founder of societyofepicurus.com and the author of Tending the Epicurean Garden (Humanist Press, 2014).

Defending morality undermines your values

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Sean Spain responds to a recent article on HumanistLife with a novel solution to the ‘is-ought’ problem.

'We will act compassionately towards one another. We will act fairly towards one another. We will be kind to one another.' Photo: Jesslee Culzon.

‘We will act compassionately towards one another. We will act fairly towards one another. We will be kind to one another.’ Photo: Jesslee Culzon.

I recently read an article by George Keeling, mounting a defence for humanist morality. The crux of the argument is that morality is the natural expression of advantageous evolutionary activities – ‘[That] moral passions exist to ensure co-operation and ultimately the perpetuation of our genes’.  Social co-operation is the grounding of this morality, and can be seen to be advantageous to species across the animal kingdom. Man, it is argued, is a naturally social animal whose co-operative instinct has flourished into empathy which is unique to higher-functioning cognitive abilities. Thus the humanist morality stems from an inherent drive to treat others as they would be treated, and the humanist acknowledges this drive as his moral compass. Of course we can’t just rely on this drive to steer us all on the course to ethical action; instead we simply acknowledge the roots of our ‘disposition towards compassion, fairness and kindness’ and in doing so affirm the grounds upon which our value judgements stand.

I admire this value-compass for human action. In the reality around here, the humanist finds truth. In the world around her, she finds wonder; in the society around her, she is optimistic; in her intuition, and the knowledge of its emergence, she finds an ethical grounding.

But Ethics demands more from us than this. Co-operation may be advantageous to my survival, but that doesn’t necessarily make it ethically good. I may feel compassion towards the members of my group, but that won’t suffice to justify my command for others to not harm them.  It can’t be good because it is: a statement which outlines what is can’t be used to logically deduce what ought to be. The two are different statements in kind and as such need a mediating principal as justification. Once this mediating principal is introduced (e.g. a utilitarian framework) then the ethical discourse becomes one of choosing X over why; and the mediating principal props up the ought – the is becomes redundant.

Hume realized this:

‘I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ’tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.’[1]

Translated, Hume observed that there is a jump in reason when one presents phenomena which is the case (i.e. co-operation, and empathy, are evolutionarily advantageous- and may even perhaps be argued to be the etymological roots of our notions of morality) and then deduces from it that what is the case ought to be. The justification of a moral proscription must be grounded in reasoning beyond just the description of events.

The burden of an ethical framework demands an external justification for the Ought. Plato grounded his idea of the ‘Good’ in a plane of the forms; religion finds good in ‘God’. Even philosophers like Kant, who have attempted to reposition the notion of what is good, systematically ground its value beyond themselves- in something absolute, and metaphysical.  What is often forgotten in these ethical systems is the appeal to a position of value as something which is beyond the world as it is. They do this because they have to. Ethics demands a firm ground for value which must be more than a description of events, or relative in a mechanistic world-view.

But there is an alternative approach.

Wittgenstein realised this problem of value, and the implications which the value problem had for ethics and more fundamentally aesthetics.

In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein notes:

6.4 ‘All Propositions are of equal value.’[2] ( clarification: Truth propositions)

6.41 ‘…In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value – and if there were, it would be of no value.’[3]

6.42 ‘Hence there can be no ethical propositions.’[4]

A fact, what is, can’t have a value in itself. The values around us are valuable to us, not outside of us. The value of co-operation might be found in the benefits of an improved feeling of safety among each other; a personal satisfaction may be felt when an empathetic urge is fulfilled; we feel relief when our compassion for an individual in danger is rewarded with their safety. The value is a feeling. But ethics demands an external ground for this value to meet the requirements of absolutism. Thus throughout history we have tried to establish this value and in doing so have had to ground it in metaphysical postulations, or religious gods.

The problem is the ethical discourse itself.

The solution? Don’t try to defend morality. It’ll undermine your value system, and the values of your actions. Reject the discussion of ethics because it is misleading. We don’t need to rationally defend what is good. We feel it is good. It shows itself to be good. But the good we make use of isn’t some ethereal absolute – it is a dependent evaluation which is justified by our empathetic intuition and intellectual reasoning.

And the same purposes can be fulfilled. We will act compassionately towards one another. We will act fairly towards one another. We will be kind to one another.

And if you are asked to defend what someone else deems your morality, you can respond in the infamous words of Wittgenstein:

  1. ‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’.[5]

Sean Spain is an undergraduate student of Easter & Western Philosophy. He is primarily interested in the Philosophy of Language & Value- particularly in their application to ‘real-world’ events

 

Notes

[1] Hume, David ‘Treatise of Human Understanding’, end of section 3.1.1.

[2] Wittgenstein, Ludwig ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosohicus’, pp. 29-31.

[3] Ibid Wittgenstein, Ludwig

[4] Ibid Wittgenstein, Ludwig

[5] Ibid Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Freedom of expression under threat: freedom of expression and preventing attacks on journalists

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When journalists can't speak freely.

When journalists can’t speak freely. Freedom of expression: ‘one of our most abused civil liberties’.

“Freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly are rights that enable people to share ideas, form new thinking, and join together with others to claim their rights. It is through the exercise of these public freedoms that we make informed, considered and intelligent decisions about our development. To restrict them undermines progress…I take this opportunity to echo the Secretary-General’s condemnation of acts of reprisal against individuals by reason of their engagement with the United Nations.”

Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights

Freedom of expression is the indispensable condition for the full realization of the spectrum of human rights covered by UN covenants and resolutions. However, it is also one of our most abused civil liberties.

During this session, the need to prevent impunity for attacks against journalists has been raised a number of times, in conjunction with the tabling and passage of two resolutions: the first specifically targeting the issue (and builds on UNGA’s 2013 landmark resolution), while the second seeks to protect civil society space.

Such attention is well warranted. Not only does an attack on a journalist represent an attack on the whole of society’s right to freely seek and impart information, but the level of impunity enjoyed by perpetrators – 9 out of 10 attacks on journalists goes unpunished – sets a precedent for censorship and recurrence. In a side event hosted by Article 19, Guy Berger, Head of Freedom of Expression and Media Development at UNESCO, noted that due to the societal role of journalists as representatives of free expression, ending impunity for attacks against them demonstrates that impunity in any form is simply unacceptable.

While intimidation and violence against journalists is not always carried out by state actors, institutionalized censorship and attempts to limit freedom of expression for journalists and whistleblowers remains a modern day scourge, both outside and within the Council. Externally, blasphemy, offence and defamation laws, typically used to protect religious sensitivities and consistently denounced as inconsistent with international human rights law, are increasingly being used as a sweeping term to silence debate or dissent on politics. Inside the Human Rights Council, states are interrupting statements made by NGOs with alarming frequency, calling for the speaker to be silenced, often citing spurious procedural grounds.

The case of Raif Badawi serves to illustrate both the external and internal challenges to freedom of expression. His case has been well publicized, no doubt due to the shocking sentence of 10 years, 1000 lashes and a fine of 1 million riyals that he received for establishing a liberal website, and has been duly raised numerous times at the Human Rights Council. The repeated references to his case and the international pressure to #FreeRaif has been much to the distaste of the Saudi Arabian delegation, who last week made the audacious claim that ‘the right to freedom of opinion and expression is guaranteed in the Kingdom’, and that there are no political prisoners in the country. Showing their respect for freedom of expression, the delegation proceeded to interrupt Badawi’s sister, Samar, who had flown to Geneva to raise the case of her brother and his lawyer – her husband, Waleed Abu Al-khair, who has also been arbitrarily detained – throughout the course of her speech, in a scene reminiscent of their attempt to silence Center for Inquiry representative Josephine Macintosh in June.

However, as Badawi’s case as a victim of blasphemy or defamation laws is by no means unique, Saudi Arabia is not the only delegation to interrupt NGOs. The number of points of order has been steadily creeping upwards, yet skyrocketed this session with almost 100 made this Session by a range of states (for further information, see here). Verbal attempts to silence NGOs within the UN, frustrating though they may be, are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of reprisals faced by activists who appear before the Council. In a side event, the International Service for Human Rights emphasized the extent of reprisals faced by human rights defenders who engage with UN mechanisms, citing, among others, the case of Cao Shunli. Shunli took part in the Universal Periodic Review of China, was imprisoned on her return, and subsequently died in prison following the authorities’ denial of her access to medical care, paying the ultimate price for engaging in human rights advocacy.

Just yesterday, Nabeel Rajab, Head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and Deputy Secretary General of FIDH, was arrested following his European advocacy trip, during which he attended the Human Rights Council and met with various representatives of state missions and NGOs. Rajab was in prison from 2012 until May this year, on protest-related charges and for ‘insulting Bahrainis’; his current interrogation is based on ‘insulting a public institution’ on Twitter. Today, he will be transferred to the Public Prosecution Office. I had the pleasure of meeting Nabeel in September, and encourage anyone reading this to join the call for his immediate release.

In the words of Phil Lynch, Director of ISHR, ‘the Human Rights Council should be a place where NGOs are safe and free to advocate, agitate and, at times, irritate. That is our role, our responsibility, and our right.’

Ensuring this right necessitates the practical implementation of the existing resolutions on the protection of journalists and on Civil Society Space: theoretical adoption does not suffice.

While adopting a resolution by no means ensures protection in practice for the work of civil society organisations and human rights defenders, it contributes to the establishment of a legal framework that can be used in their defence, and will ensure that the issue is raised in a formal discussion before the Council in an upcoming session. However, it is important to emphasise that protecting journalists, human rights defenders and civil society space is not a matter of creating new rights: it is ensuring that the democratic and participatory space for the full realization of human rights is secured for all.

In defence of humanist morality

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Geoff Keeling contemplates the biological origins of morality and ethics in humans.

Something about Hobbes

Thinkers like Thomas Hobbes believed that, short of the social contract, human nature only afforded humans a life that is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. 

I recently watched a conversation between WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek and the American conservative David Horowitz. In the heat of the argument Horowitz made the following claim:

‘War is the natural condition of mankind. There’s always been wars – right? From the beginning – and many of them. Peace occurs when there’s a concert of powers or a single power that could intimidate would-be aggressors.’

I couldn’t help biting my tongue here. As a humanist I believe in the inherent goodness of human beings. That we can be good – and that we are good – for the sake of goodness itself. Religious people sometimes ask sceptical questions about my ‘humanistic morality’. The idea is foreign to them because their thinking is grounded in the idea that ‘War is the natural condition of mankind’. In this article I want to defend the humanistic idea of natural morality. I hope it will be useful for other humanists facing the same questions.

Horowtiz’s thinking is based on the work of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes’ basic idea can be summarised as follows:

‘There must be some coercive power to compel men equally to the performance of their covenants by the terror of some punishment greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their covenant’[1].

Thinkers like Hobbes and Horowitz believe that humans existed in a state of nature before political society. It’s only through a social contract that we liberate ourselves from barbarism. In the Hobbesian state of nature life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Modern human morality is a veneer: the Freudian superego that struggles to restrain our savagery. But as any social anthropologist will explain: there has been no period where humans lived outside of political society. This is also true of bonobos and chimps – our nearest evolutionary cousins – who have complex matriarchal and patriarchal societies respectively. The first step to refuting the idea of a ‘moral veneer’ is to show that humans never existed in the warlike state of nature.

The next step is to refute a common misunderstanding about evolution. The phrase survival of the fittest doesn’t lend itself to images of altruism and fairness. But in many cases organisms with genetic pre-dispositions towards co-operation have the upper hand when it comes to natural selection. A popular example is the ‘insurance policy’ that vampire bats have developed over food-allocation. It doesn’t take long for a bat to starve to death. But on any given night, it’s likely that a non-trivial percentage of the colony will come back on empty stomachs. In this instance the unsuccessful bats beg their peers to regurgitate some blood and feed them. And their peers usually do.

This may seem counter-intuitive. Surely, natural selection ought to preserve the best hunters? But think about it this way. Two randomly selected bats in the colony have a reasonable chance of sharing some DNA. Siblings share 1/2 of their genes and cousins 1/8. The bats need not know which of their fellow-bats is related to them. Do not let fellow bats die will increase the probability that their genes stored in other bats (including genes that code for co-operation) will be passed on to the next generation. This is because the set of related bats is a large subset of the colony, so there is no hard selection pressure for a more specific rule. There is also a second benefit. In the near future the regurgitator herself might be close to starvation. In sharing now she is more likely to receive blood when she needs it most[2].

Robert Trivers outlines the extent of natural co-operation in his paper The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism[3]. Co-operation ranges from the symbiotic relationships of cleaner fish and their hosts, to birds warning their flocks when predators are near. But morality is more complex than simple co-operation. The distinction is that the co-operative instinct in higher primates is grounded in empathy: the ability to stand in another’s shoes. And our empathy is not just towards each other. Frans de Waal recalls a bonobo who nursed an injured bird back to health[4]. Humans often put themselves at substantial risk to save animals and other humans.

The brilliant thing about evolution is its use of general rules. Be nice to those you meet is much easier to code for than Be nice to close relatives – the latter of which is largely unnecessary as primates tend to grow up in the company of relatives. It’s these general rules that enable us to develop elaborate social constructs that underpin human morality. Evolution has programmed us to see empathy as a reward in itself. Evolution is indifferent to whether the biochemical reward comes via a religious framework or secular principles. What remains universal is the human propensity towards goodness. The Scottish philosopher David Hume observed:

‘How great soever the variety of municipal laws, it must be confessed, that their chief out-lines pretty regularly concur; because the purposes, to which they tend, are everywhere exactly similar.’ [5]

Though social anthropologists have observed huge variation in cultural traditions, the human moral passions exist to ensure co-operation and ultimately the perpetuation of our genes. But it’s so important to appreciate that this series of mutations – which has led to genuine compassion for others, is a real force that exists in each and every one of us. The fact that evolution has preserved this disposition doesn’t mean that kindness is just an evolutionary mechanism. With the constant barrage of ISIS atrocities and stories of lavish-bonuses in the finance sector, it’s easy to forget that although humans are capable of great wrongdoing, our natural stat is not one of war but of understanding. At the core of human nature – whether religious, secular or spiritual, is a profound evolutionary disposition towards compassion, fairness and kindness.

Geoff Keeling studies in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics. He is a humanist interested in philosophy of biology and cognitive science. He can be reached at g.keeling@lse.ac.uk.

 

Notes

[1] Thomas Hobbes (1651) Leviathan

[2] See O Curry (2005) Morality as Natural History or R Dawkins (1976) The Selfish Gene for a good explanation of this. For the original paper see GS Wilkinson (1988) Reciprocal Altruism in Bats and Other Mammals Ethology and Sociobiology pp85 – 100

[3] R Trivers (1972) The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism Quarterly Review of Biology pp35-57

[4] F de Waal (2005) Our Inner Ape Granta Books p2

[5] David Hume (1989/ 1777) Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals Oxford University Press p202

The joy of changing one’s mind

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James Miller reflects on a particular privilege of those who base their opinions on evidence.

This article will end with a question for you all. But first I want to talk about something that I’ve found to be one of the most mentally rejuvenating experiences one can have: changing your mind.

Despite a reputation among my peers as an inexorable foe when debating, a rock in the river that none of their ideas cling to, many of my opinions are radically different now to how they were five years ago.

To name a few: I was against the 2003 invasion of Iraq until I learnt more about Saddam Hussein; I was much more sceptical of climate change before reading more studies and reports; I supported more ‘terror laws’ until I learnt more about civil liberties. Animal rights? Didn’t really give two hoots until I thought about what it really meant. The ever-controversial Hijab? I was very against it, until I realised that I was holding it to a different standard to Christian nuns’ headwear. (The niqab – covering the face – I still think is degrading and disempowering).

All of these things, you’ll notice, were basically ill-thought out opinions that I moved beyond by learning. I’ve voraciously consumed book after book to find out more about the world and the people in it, and it’s such a rewarding experience.

Much like the tipping point when putting together a jigsaw, the true picture of things starts to appear. And while the final piece of the puzzle will never slip into place, because (sadly!) you can’t know everything, the feeling that you’ve just arrived at an informed, supported and well-reasoned opinion about the world is almost dizzying. Especially so if it contradicts something you once held to be unshakeably true.

So why don’t we see more people changing their minds? I was astonished a few months ago when the former Archbishop of Canterbury changed his mind in the ‘right-to-die’ debate. It was the first time I’d seen someone in the public eye with a previously-entrenched opinion change their mind so radically. I couldn’t stop talking about it.

But that’s one case. It’s just one instance where someone has come out and figuratively said: ‘I now disagree fundamentally with the opinion I held previously.’ It almost seems brave, doesn’t it?

I think that perhaps there are two facets to why we don’t see this happen more. There’s how we receive ideas, and also how they’re linked to notions of identity.

The majority of us learn our first ideas from our parents, teachers, and friends. We all know that most Christians had Christian parents, most Muslims have Muslim parents etc. (I’d wager that most Conservatives, Labourites or Lib Dems have parents who instilled those views into them too). And in our younger years opinions are like fashions – you want the ‘right’ ones to fit in with your peers.

It’s only as we get older that some of us really start to look to the world – rather than the people we’re close to – to inform our views. My own anecdotal experience suggests that not everyone does this. It seems that often people accept points made on the basis of authority, or tradition, and don’t have an internal drive, or mission, to find out what they themselves actually make of things.

Which leads on to the second point: ideas as identity. It’s hard not to bundle the two things together sometimes. We hear sentences that start: ‘As a Christian…’, ‘The Conservatives think that…’. or ‘A socialist view would be…’. These constructs are allowing ideas or ideologies to govern who we are, rather than using who we are to form our ideologies.

And it’s something that we’re all often guilty of. I’ve caught myself before saying ‘As a humanist…’ at the start of a sentence. This is limiting – it’s suggesting that my view is couched in a set of values that are prescribed by a group. What I really mean is that I have taken a particular view point, and that view blends in with the backdrop of humanism.

Tying together ideas and identity can dangerous. It can be allowing oneself to be absorbed into tribalism, or group think. A desire to conform to the rules or lines of thinking set down by others: ‘I believe x, because x is what a Christian/Buddhist/capitalist/feminist should think.’

Just as silly, and equally lazy, is imposing such constraints from the outside-in. Racism, sexism, homophobia – these are all things that only persist because we marry ideas and identities. A racist viewpoint is largely saying ‘I don’t like Black/white/Asian people because I believe x, y and z to be true about all Black/white/Asian people.’ It’s a patently absurd view to take, but it persists nonetheless.

I’ve been personally riled up by it on a few occasions. Seeing articles or videos that lump atheists together, or suggest that ‘atheism is turning into a religion’ boil my blood. Does anyone seriously think that a lack of belief in something is enough to successfully predict what that person does believe?

These are the kinds of things we need to deconstruct. We need to untie ideas from identity, and encourage people to question their own views. Gently remind someone that believing something because their parents told them to, isn’t a particularly good reason to believe something.

What people need is to experience changing their minds on a topic that’s bigger than them. It does two things. It reminds them that most ideas don’t dictate who they are, and (for the most part) how to act each day. Changing your mind doesn’t shatter the earth beneath your feet.

But it also brings the unique delight of opening up new realms of thought and discovery. When a scientist is proven wrong, he or she goes down another avenue. We need that mentality to be more pervasive across society.

Let’s discuss concepts and ideas without cultural baggage. Let’s promote the joy of learning and seeking truth. Let’s get rid of the notion that changing your mind is a weakness, or a betrayal of your identity.

Because ultimately, ‘free thinking’ means being free to dissent, free to be sceptical, and free to change one’s mind. Your ideas might have labels for them, like humanist or Christian ideas, but I think that those labels aren’t for you as a whole.

So here’s the question I promised you at the beginning, and I’d really love to see some interesting answers: on what topic(s) have you changed your mind, and why? You never know, you might change the mind of someone else in the comment section too.

James Miller is an in-house writer for a public organisation and proud supporter of the BHA.

Humanist Heroes: Roy and Hayley Cropper from Coronation Street

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Screen and stage writer Rob Fraser writes about his humanist heroes: Corrie‘s Roy and Hayley. 

Roy and Hayley

Hayley Cropper (Julie Hesmondhalgh) and David Neilson (Roy Cropper) are Rob Fraser’s humanist heroes. Photo: ITV.

True To Character.

First, a confession: I am a deeply religious person. I began practising my faith at the age of six which I know many would consider too young, and it’s true that there was an element of parental indoctrination – this was a belief system I shared with my mother. We would attend a ceremony together two evenings a week, fifty two weeks a year. Later, there would be more opportunities to celebrate, almost on a daily basis, but it was the twice weekly observance which formed the bedrock of my faith and remains a comforting ritual some thirty seven years since the (half) hour I first believed. Yes, for the best part of four decades I have worshipped Coronation Street.

I would happily crawl along the cobbles on my knees to the Rovers Return, like a Mexico City pilgrim approaching the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I would treat a splinter from Stan Ogden’s window cleaning ladder with the awe due a sliver of the one true cross. Alma, Curly, Hilda, Raquel, Bet –  I revered these characters in my childhood and youth as I would prophets, archangels and saints, but in adulthood two unlikely figures have ascended to truly iconic status, Roy and Hayley Cropper. The pair had inauspicious beginnings – he basically an ineffectual stalker of Deidre, she introduced as a pre-op transgender girlfriend in what was to have been a short term and potentially sensationalist storyline – in the sixteen years which followed they became the heart and soul of a hugely popular, mainstream, prime time television soap. Not only that but they served as the moral core of the show – compassionate, non-judgemental, and engaging with transformative effect in the lives of two troubled young women (Fitz and Becky) who became Weatherfield favourites. Their values were those often claimed as Christian by, well, Christians.

When Julie Hesmondhalgh decided to leave the series, a major exit strategy was required. But rather than some tabloid titillating ‘who killed character X?’ plot the writing and production team opted for a rather more mundane tragedy: Hayley would be diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer, and die. This wholly relatable storyline reflected the characters’ evolution on the show – they were an inarguably unusual couple to whom the audience felt empathy and affinity – but there was an unusual aspect in how they would handle their ordeal: Roy and Hayley would face death, grief and loss from a Humanist perspective. Capital H. Explicitly, defiantly Humanist.

Now, Roy’s atheism had been long established and tied in to his love of knowledge and his fascination with science (in fact he even lectures the Street’s most devout denizen, Emily Bishop, on the futility of ‘talking into thin air’), but Hayley had a slightly more conflicted history. She had for example, gone to great lengths to have her marriage blessed by a Church of England vicar. Even at the time this has felt more born of a desire for acceptance and acknowledgement rather than any deeply held religious belief but still her embracing of Humanism is significant. Here was a person whose entire life had been about choice and self-determination so it was perfectly logical that she should reach a/her Humanist conclusion. And so it was that in the weeks leading up to her death she met with a Humanist minister and planned her funeral: it’s become a cliché to say these services are a celebration of life but in Hayley’s case it’s the only phrase possible, there would be Queen songs and bright colours and a cardboard coffin emblazoned with flowers, carried by ‘the girls from the factory.’ All lovely stuff but the truly heroic – and I would argue truly Humanist – moments came not in preparing a send off but in dealing with death itself, when Hayley decided to end her own life.

The episode in which Hayley took an overdose and slipped calmly away in her own home, in her own bed was the highest rated of 2014 and nearly ten million viewers watched through tears as Roy lay down next to her for the last time. Coronation Street is not an avowedly political programme but it does consciously and conscientiously strive to promote acceptance and inclusion. It has gay, straight, lesbian, disabled, black, and Asian characters but none are defined by their race or sexuality – and the audience react to them based on their actions not their appearance. For no one was this more true than Roy and Hayley – initially described by onscreen neighbours as a ‘nutter’ and a ‘freak’ who became the most beloved and trusted people on TV. How fantastic then that when two caring, curious, and charitable individuals found themselves in extremis the only step they could naturally take was towards Humanism. It’s hard to say with any great certainty whether or not will prove to be one of those watershed moments when popular culture reflects changes in wider society, but to hell with certainty, I have ‘faith’.

Rob Fraser has been a television writer for fifteen years, with credits ranging from Monarch of the Glen to Taggart via Holby City, and has recently completed his second stage play, Faith School.

On the use of the term ‘spiritual’

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Another response to the ‘spirituality’ debate, this time from Alan Rogers.

 All religions of whatever variety try to find words which imply virtue and special qualities and which are accepted without question. Politicians do the same. American politicians use ‘America’ and ‘the American people’ in this way, as does Tony Blair use ‘family values’. The word ‘spiritual’ might once have meant simply ‘relationship to God’ but now it is a Humpy Dumpty word which means whatever the speaker wants it to mean. Thus, whenever someone uses the word ‘spiritual’ to me I have to ask, ‘What do you mean by “spiritual”?’

—Dorothy Rowe, world-renowned psychologist and writer

 

Jeremy Rodell of the British Humanist Association wrote an article in August defending the use of the term ‘spiritual’ by an atheist for describing emotional response to a variety of circumstances. I disagree.

Jeremy Rodell cites the experiences of looking at the night sky, seeing a superb mountain vista, being moved by great music and serving an ace in tennis as examples of spiritual experience. I struggle to see what these experiences have in common that requires an umbrella term and, if one must be used, why it should be the highly inappropriate word ‘spiritual’.

I am well aware of these experiences. I live in rural West Wales. We may not have many gin-clear nights but we are spared the far too prevalent phenomenon of light pollution. Looking up into that awe inspiring sight I am acutely aware of a sense of privilege. To be alive and aware at this time and place, to be the beneficiary of over 3 billion years of evolving life, to have received an education which allowed me to read the science which established the scale in space and time of the observable universe, such that I can see and understand what this spectacle means, is a privilege which I have done little or nothing to deserve. Where I live I am surrounded by beautiful scenery and have been fortunate enough to visit some of the greatest landscapes our planet has to offer. I enjoy music. The constructions in the syntax of melody, harmony and orchestration created by the greatest talents of my fellow man are pleasurable, joyous and often moving.  To link these disparate experiences seems to me to be an artificial and unnecessary device. They each affect the senses and the mind in different ways. To name all these experiences with a word like ‘spiritual’ conveys the impression that they are outside human mental processes. In fact there is little evidence of permanence or universality in these things. The night sky was once the source of superstitious fear. Some still follow the idiotic utterances of astrologers. Mountain scenery was, a few centuries ago, regarded as oppressive and ugly. Not until the Romantic movement was established did the appreciation of such landscapes develop. Music too has its fashions. I know this myself since I appreciate virtually nothing written after Elgar and Holst. I simply do not understand the language, the syntax of modern composition.

So I think the need for a universal term is not demonstrated. Worse by far is the choice of ‘spiritual’ for this unnecessary purpose. Let us firstly dispose of the homographs.

The phrase over the pub door ‘licensed to sell wine and spirits’ does not mean that you will necessarily receive spiritual guidance within. The root of the word spiritual is ‘spirit’ with the meaning of a supernatural presence within or without the human body. Inside it is a soul. Outside it is a free soul or a ghost.  The concept of material body and supernatural soul (spirit) is called Cartesian Dualism by philosophers. In 1949 Cartesian Dualism was put to the intellectual sword by the Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle in his book The Concept of Mind. He proved methodically that Cartesian Dualism was bunkum. Subsequent research in neuroscience completely vindicates Ryle. The computational theory of mind has removed the need for a supernatural explanation of mind every bit as much as the theory of evolution has removed the need for a supernatural creation of the species. A modern scientific view of mankind is that we have a body including a brain and nervous system and that the mind emerges from the working of these physical components. The mind is what the brain does. We see the placebo effect and the possible benefits of holistic medicine because the body and mind are one integrated system – necessarily, since they evolved together.

The followers of received religion which affirms the possibility of an after-life have no alternative but to suspend disbelief and visualize an immaterial soul which can escape the physical body upon death. They need the concept of spirit and the word ‘spiritual’ in order to sustain this self deception. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines spiritual as: Of spirit as opposed to matter; of the soul especially as acted upon by God, holy, divine, inspired…. It has recently become very noticeable that religious leaders find the word “religious” inadequate. They refer pompously to “the Religious and Spiritual Life of the Nation”. I think it would be unkind to steal this word from them at a time of their greatest need.

Jeremy Rodell admits that the word is ambiguous. I think that this is due to its use being stretched to breaking point. I will give what I think is an important example later. He quotes the Church of England opposing an atheist or humanist contribution to Thought for the Day and seems to think that, if we can convince the C of E and the BBC that we have ‘spiritual’ experiences, they will graciously allow us to contribute; that we must present our beliefs as quasi-religious. I think that is too high a price to pay for five minutes of air-time. Personally, I would rather we concentrated on getting Thought for the Day renamed as Religious Platitude for the Day.

But the most dangerous result of the use of ‘spiritual’ from my own experience is its use in the NHS. Remarkably Jeremy Rodell quotes the NHS use of this term as a justification for the non-religious use.

The ambiguous use of the word ‘spiritual’ has been seized upon by the College of Health Care Chaplains. Despite the impressive academic name the CHCC is a branch of UNITE the union. This is an example of the trick I mentioned previously of using Religious and Spiritual as a cover, a smoke screen, for justifying the extension of religious interference into a wider sphere than that of the dwindling number of Christian adherents.

As I mentioned earlier I live in Wales. In 2010 the Welsh Government produced a set of documents called Standards for Spiritual Care in the NHS Wales.  In fact the documents were written by the CHCC (in fact mostly copied from the CHCC sister organisation in Scotland) and signed off by the Minister for Health in Wales. These documents contain the following ‘definition’ of spiritual care. From the Standards for Spiritual Care in the NHS Wales 2010 we have an attempt at a definition of spiritual care.

Spiritual Care and Religious Care

The document Service Development for Spiritual Care in the NHS in Wales (2010) differentiated between spiritual care and religious care:

Spiritual Care in usually given in a one to one relationship, is completely person centred and makes no assumptions about personal conviction or life orientation.

Religious Care is given in the context of shared religious beliefs, values, liturgies and life style of a faith community.

Spiritual care is often used as the overall term and is relevant for all. For some the spiritual needs are met by religious care, the visits, prayers, worship, rites and sacraments often provided by a faith leader or representative of the faith community or belief group.

Spiritual care can be provided by all health care staff, by carers, families and other patients. When a person is treated with respect, when they are listened to in a meaningful way, when they are seen and treated as a whole person within the context of their life, values and beliefs, then they are receiving spiritual care. Chaplains are the specialist spiritual care providers.

Notice the sentence within the definition of Religious Care: Spiritual care is often used as the overall term and is relevant for all.

From this point on there is total confusion about these terms Religious Care and Spiritual Care. When we use one do we mean both? In the end there is a further definition following ‘Spiritual care can be provided by all… ‘and the whole thing simply becomes a requirement to be kind and empathetic. This should be in the job description of every health care worker in contact with the public and doesn’t need to be labelled ‘spiritual care’.

If we had only the definition of Religious Care ‘…shared religious beliefs, values, liturgies and life style of a faith community’ and an expression of the need to treat patients with humanity and with empathy then a great deal of the nonsense about ‘spiritual care’ could be eliminated.

In the past four financial years every chaplaincy post funded in the NHS Wales has been held by clerics. Of these 97.4% were for Christian clerics.

The care delivered in this time, at a total cost of over £5 million, has been religious care. I hope the chaplains are kind and empathetic towards all patients that is, or should be, a responsibility for all NHS staff in contact with patients. The chaplains are trained clerics and are in hospitals to provide religious care. The use of the word ‘spiritual’ is obfuscation. We really must not allow ourselves to be a party to this deception.

In the Standards for Spiritual Care Guidance document (2010) the Acknowledgements section is as follows (my comment in square brackets):-

Rosemary Kennedy, Chief Nursing Officer    [A political appointee]

Rev. Peter Sedgewick

Rev. Alan Tyler

Rev. Chris Lewinson

Rev. Peter Gilbert

Rev. Cliff Chonka

Rev. Wynne Roberts

Rev. Edward Lewis

Rev. Robert Lloyd-Richards

Rev. Lance Clark

Imam Farid Khan

Carol English UNITE    [The College of Health Care Chaplains is a branch of UNITE the union]

Steve Sloan    UNITE

You will notice that the Standards for Spiritual Care Guidance have been prepared by clerics (as it happens, exclusively male clerics), their trade union officials and a political appointee of the Welsh Government. I can find no reference to a consultation with the public or with hospital patients. I understand that a letter was sent to the Royal College of Nursing which received a brief, formal reply.

Could it be any clearer that hospital chaplaincy is about delivering religious care and the use of the word ‘spiritual’ is an attempt to justify the use of tax payers’ money for this purpose? That’s what I personally think is going on.

In Wales, we have a Charitable Chaplaincy Campaign intended to save £1.3 million of NHS Wales budget for nursing and medical use by encouraging organised religion to set up a charity to fund this service. I contend that the use of the Humpy Dumpty word ‘spiritual’ by the non-religious muddies the waters, allows it to be used unchallenged by organised religion and obstructs our campaign.

 

Losing my religion – how my ‘faith’ school nurtured an atheist

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Children are naturally curious.

Children are naturally curious. But they’re also susceptible and impressionable. Emma C Williams shares her experience of education in a ‘faith’ school – but does it match up to yours?

My school was proudly old-fashioned. Questions were viewed with suspicion and contempt, especially in the context of religion. We were not allowed to study RE as a subject, since exposure to a variety of religious views would have ‘confused’ us. Instead, we had Divinity with the School Chaplain: we read passages from the Bible and he explained them.

My parents were deliberately neutral in their stance, and so I came to my religious schooling with a completely open mind – in many ways, an easy convert. I was profoundly respectful of what I assumed were the sincerely-held beliefs of those around me and I would bow my head during prayers. I was utterly fascinated by the ritual of Chapel, and knew all the traditional hymns; I can still sing most of them all the way through, much to my husband’s consternation, and can recite the Creed, some of the Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer and several others.

While I would listen with interest during the Sermon, it took me a long time to realise that I was pretty much the only one doing so. On an increasing number of occasions I would find myself enraged by the message that we had been given in Chapel, or puzzled by the hypocrisy of our situation. If Jesus said to ‘sell all thou hast and give to the poor,’ what were we doing in an expensive boarding school? Did God honestly care how I performed in my exams – didn’t He have something more important to worry about? And why on earth did I have to pray for the Queen? Ignored by the staff and ridiculed by my peers, it became clear to me that most people neither listened to nor cared about the lessons that we were taught by the Reverend. Even he didn’t seem to care that much. Yet when I questioned the charade, I was bullied for it – by students and some of the staff.

Atheists are often accused of being ‘angry’ and I guess it’s hard for believers to comprehend the unpleasant mix of condescension, prejudice and paranoia that some of us have faced, growing up in a society that tends to equate faith with morality. Soon after I started attending school, I went to a meeting that was announced for ‘all students who are not Christians.’ In my innocence, I failed to realize that this was a euphemistic way of gathering our tiny handful of Muslim students so that their non-attendance at Chapel could be agreed. The Housemistress nearly fainted when I showed up, the only girl in the room without a headscarf. She asked me what on earth I was doing there, so I explained that I didn’t believe in God and was therefore not a Christian. She told me not to be so ridiculous, said that my views ‘didn’t count’ and sent me away. That was probably the first time that I felt really angry.

Despite the pressure (or perhaps because of it – I was a rebellious child at heart), I became more and more convinced during my childhood that an unswerving acceptance of a bundle of ancient writings made very little sense. In addition, a school rife with bullying was a fine place to observe that religious beliefs have no effect on a person’s humanity. Over the years I watched some of the worst bullies in the school pass through their Confirmation ceremony, in which they agreed to ‘turn away from everything which was evil or sinful.’ Some of them became servers in Chapel. My distaste for the whole sham increased, and by the time I reached University I was thoroughly relieved to be away from it.

Yet given that we’re all a product of our experiences, I sometimes wonder what kind of person I would be had I not attended such an old-fashioned ‘faith’ school. I fully support the BHA’s campaign against them, as in principle I believe that every child should have an education that is free in every sense – not least free from indoctrination and prejudice. Yet for me, my experiences shaped my convictions – and not in the way that the school had intended. Maybe I’m unusual, but if my story is anything to go by and you want to nurture an atheist, then I guess you proceed as follows: send them to a ‘faith’ school, ladle on plenty of hypocrisy and tell them not to ask questions. The result may surprise you.