Campaigning to end religious privilege

Welcome to secularism

This site is designed for those who wish to be active in the secular cause - to get religion out of public life.

  • We are not opposed to people having a religion. Some people need one, others don't.
  • We are opposed to their attempts to impose their religious beliefs, ideas, superstitions, prejudices and laws on others.

Our primary questions to those of religion

Are you for or against the following in education:

  • children being encouraged to adopt a spirit of open-minded enquiry into all aspects of life, including religion,
  • children being taught fairly about all belief systems, religious and non-religious so that they can make an informed choice,
  • children being taught a strong set of personal values and social responsibilities,
  • children being instructed in a single religion ignoring all other belief systems?

Why are religious people afraid of teaching about all belief systems in an open-minded and unbiased way?

The danger of linking moral values and social responsibilities with religion

Religious people must always be challenged when they claim that religion is the source of moral values and social responsibilities. Not only is this wrong (such ideas are older than any religion) but it is also deeply insulting to those of us who lead responsible lives without religion.

As well as being wrong and insulting, this idea is also highly dangerous.

If children are taught that religion is the sole source of values and responsibilities, and they later reject religion - as most of them do in Western Europe - there is the danger that they will reject not only the fairy stories of religion but also everything that goes with it - including the values and responsibilities.

It is therefore absolutely essential that children are taught that moral values and responsibilities are products of what we share - our humanity and the society in which we live. They are not the product of what divides so many people - religion.

Basing values and responsibilities on the things that unite us, rather than on the things that divide us, is the best hope for social harmony.

Quick links

Some of these links are to our colleagues at Derbyshire Secularists.

Definitions

Religion is a set of acquired ideas - it is not innate (no-one is born a "Catholic child") and has to come from somewhere.

As such, discussion about religion is discussion about abstract ideas - so we need to start with some definitions.

Religion Religion meets a psychological need that some people have and it includes belief in the following:
  • A supernatural creator god - to try to answer the question "where did everything come from?"
  • A supernatural soul that survives death - to respond to some people's fear of death.
  • A supernatural after-life - heaven/paradise and hell. (*)
  • A holy book - written by men but believed to be "the word of god."
  • A prophet or messenger from god. (*)
  • A "church" - buildings and a hierarchical priesthood (predominantly male) between people and god. (*)
  • "Scholars" or "Learned men" who have to interpret the holy book and define religious rules/laws. (*)

* a few religions may not have these but anything that does not have the first two is not a religion.

One god - so many religions.

Sect A sub-group within a religion.

All religions squabble about who has "the right interpretation" and all religions split and split again until there are now hundreds of different sects, some large, some tiny, in all the world's religion. For whatever reason, their gods and their holy books do not make things crystal clear - so sectarian interpretation is rife. At times it seems that every charismatic preacher sets up a new sect - and frequently lines his pockets when doing so.

One religion - so many sects.

Atheist Atheists have no need for a god and they do not believe in one - nor in any of the other trappings of religion.
  • A hard atheist states simply: "there is no god".
  • A soft atheist states: "I can see no need to propose the existence of a god - so I won't. Since there is no need to propose one, I don’t believe in one."

This may seem like splitting hairs (it is!) but some people take the difference seriously.

Agnostic The author is an atheist and has never understood what an agnostic is - despite reading widely on the subject and having over 50 years experience talking to people who claim to be agnostic. One dictionary definition is:

"One who holds that nothing is known."

This can't be the case because we all know that we exist and the universe exists - we can touch it, feel it, kick it.

You should see a doctor immediately if you don't know that you exist.

Perhaps the agnostic says "you can't prove it one way or the other - so I will keep an open mind."

This is dodgy ground for three reason:

  • There is a fundamental rule of logic: "he who proposes must prove." If you postulate something, you must prove it, or at least present tangible, reproducible and testable evidence that is 100% consistent with what you propose.
  • It follows from the above that one never has to prove a negative. "I believe in little green men from the planet Zog and I challenge you to prove that I am wrong." This is silly nonsense.
  • There are endless silly things one could postulate - from fairies at the bottom of the garden to The Pink Hippo. Does an agnostic keep an open mind about all of them?

If one asks a direct question: "Do agnostics believe in god?" the answer is usually "no", but sometimes "it depends on what you mean by believe."

So, now we don't know anything and we don't know what believe means. You may begin to see why the author has a problem with the agnostic position.

On the other hand, a lot of agnostics talk about "the spirit of the Universe" (whatever that is or means - see our definition of "spiritual" below) and they even refer to Einstein's comment that "a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe" - without following up with Einstein's own angry comments when people deliberately misinterpreted what he said and assumed that he was either religious or an agnostic - he was neither - he was an atheist - he did not believe in a supernatural entity of any sort..

They also seem to need an answer to the question "why do we exist?" - rather than the more practical question: "how do we come to exist?"

Asking "why" is a very human-centric, if not arrogant, question because the very asking assumes that there must be a reason for our existence.

The religious ask "who created the universe?" and answer themselves with "god" - thus begging the question "who created god?"

Agnostics seem to be in a similar position with "why do we exist?" - thus begging the question "why does there need to be a reason?"

Atheism There is no such thing as atheism.

An "ism" usually implies an ideology - a set of structured ideas and beliefs. There is no such ideology as atheism since atheists have a non-belief - we do not believe in a god or the necessity for religion.

There are Socialist atheists, liberal atheists, tolerant atheists, intolerant atheists, non-political atheists, Conservative atheists, Fascist atheists, New Labour atheists, Liberal Democrat atheists, Communist atheists, hippy-dippy atheists, anarchic atheists, rampant greedy capitalist atheists - what on earth would be the ideology that they all share?

Religious people often turn to atheists are say:

"Your religion is atheism - so you are just the same as us really."

This is nonsense. Atheists believe exactly the opposite to religion (see above) so how could there be an atheist religion?

Secularism Secular means "concerned with the things of this world rather than a supernatural, ecclesiastical, religious one."

Secularism promotes freedom for religion and freedom from religion. Those who need a religion are free to have one - as long they do not cause or threaten harm to anyone else and they not try to interfere with the freedoms of those who do not need a religion.

Some religious people, ones who are secure in their beliefs, are secularists. They believe that religion should have no special privileges, should not be part of the state, should stand on its own two feet and should not be funded in any way by taxpayers. However, the vast majority of secularists are humanist atheists or agnostics.

Secularism is not an ideology - it is a set of practical aims:

  • To separate church and state - at the moment the Church of England is the state religion.
  • To remove religion from law-making - at the moment C of E Bishops sit in the House of Lords and make our laws in their own interests.
  • To stop taxpayers' money being used to subsidise religions.
  • To remove religious worship and religious instruction from schools.

    We support teaching pupils about religions but we are totally opposed to pupils being instructed in a religion.

  • To convert all faith schools to secular schools. Taxpayers pay 100% of their costs anyway so this would cost nothing.
  • To legislate against private schools that promote religion.
  • To remove religious symbols from all public institutions and buildings.
  • To remove special time and space being given to the religious to promote their ideas in the public media.
  • To return religion to where it belongs - the private realm, not the public realm.
  • To remove all privileges enjoyed by the religious.

    If religious people want time-off to pray or to attend religious ceremonies, they should accept that they will not be paid for this time, and that such absences may make it impossible for them to be employed.

    Taxpayers and companies should not be expected to subsidise the religious.

  • To ensure that the views and beliefs of the non-religious are fairly represented.
Humanism A world-view with a set of values and shared responsibilities that are independent of religion.

Humanists place the physical, emotional and mental welfare of people first - here, now, on this Earth.

Humanism defines values that pre-date religions, and which are often shared with religions. Some of the most simple are:

  • Do not threaten or cause harm to others.
  • Treat others as you would like them to treat you.
  • Help those who are less fortunate than yourself.
  • Treat people as equals and do not discriminate on the basis of things they have no control over: colour, race, gender, sexuality or disability.
  • Be free to think as you wish, believe what you wish, say what you wish and do what you wish as long as you stay within an agreed framework of law.
  • Keep an open and enquiring mind and take joy in finding out - and finding out that there is even more to find out!
  • Respect people for doing good - not for what they say or what they believe.
  • Do not indoctrinate children but give them the information they need to make their own decisions about the important issues of life.
Spiritual Atheists believe in the tangible (things we can perceive through our senses) and the emotional (love, hate, fear, anger, sorrow, grief, wonder, awe, that feeling that makes you tingle when you listen to a wonderful piece of music or when you look up at the stars on a dark night, etc.)

We have no idea what "spiritual" means beyond the emotional. We know that it is often defined as being "of the spirit or soul" but since we do not believe in a supernatural, immortal "soul", we are stuck.

Of course, we are fully aware of the concept that we all have of ourselves (the "I" of being) and the concept of "mind" - the gestalt (the "wholeness" that goes beyond the sum of our parts) of everything that makes us an individual. We don't need to define this as some supernatural, metaphysical soul - it is simply our consciousness of ourselves.

Two of the greatest emotions are sympathy and empathy and of these, empathy, the ability to see and feel things as others see and feel them, is the most important.

Without empathy there can be no society and no civilisation.

Psychopaths cannot feel empathy - hence they feel no remorse for their actions. It could be argued that those with certain political and economic beliefs also have a underdeveloped sense of empathy - after all, it was Margaret Thatcher who said that "there is not such thing as society" and went on to create an environment where "greed is good", where the fittest survive and where the weakest are trodden underfoot. Thatcher was (is?) a Christian.

Perhaps someone would be kind enough to provide a definition of "spiritual" that actually means something to those who need neither god nor religion - but please don't claim that it is on too high a plane for those of us who do not need the crutch of religion to appreciate.

Race DNA testing has made this an increasingly meaningless idea since we are all a mixture of genes from all over the world.

Race relations legislation finds it a difficult term to define and really uses it for skin colour.

There is frequent confusion between "race" and "nationality". You are English by nationality if you were born in England (legally you are a citizen of the United Kingdom - not England) but your ancestors may have come from Syria via the Roman army, come across with the Vikings from Scandinavia, moved in with the Jutes, Saxons or Angles, crossed over with the Normans, escaped from France with the Huguenots or came in with the hundreds of different major and minor immigrant groups that have crossed the North Sea, Atlantic or English Channel.

Even if you could show you came across with the Angles or Saxons, they were themselves mixed up as a result of the continuous movements of peoples throughout Central Europe and Asia.

People
Tribe
Clan		 Sub-groups of race - and just about as meaningless.

Jews are probably the most closely knit racial sub-group since marriage outside the group was (and is) strongly discouraged.

However, a Jew is defined as someone whose mother was Jewish - so there is plenty of room for genetic mixture there.

Just to clear up one frequent misunderstanding. Jews are not a religious group. There are atheist Jews (Jonathan Miller, Karl Marx, Michael Rosen etc.), Christian Jews (Google for it!), Muslim Jews (yes, it's true!) and Judaist Jews. The religion exclusive to Jews (conversion is possible but rare - unlike Christianity, Judaism is not a proselytising religion) is Judaism based on the Old Testament which is shared with Christianity and Islam.

For whatever reason, some religious Jews deeply resent being called Judaists - they claim that they are merely "Jews". We think this is an argument that religious and non religious Jews should have amongst themselves. To us Judaism is the religion and Jews are a self-defined group of people based on female lineage.

We who are atheists:

  • take great joy in freethinking and open-minded enquiry. Apart from the company of others, the greatest reward in life is to investigate, to learn and to attempt to understand the universe around us. We positively enjoy not knowing - and finding out.
  • are human with human weaknesses. We don't claim to be perfect and we are not hypocrites when we aren't!
  • are humanists - we put the welfare of people first, last and everywhere in between and we place great emphasise on social and personal responsibility based on a strong moral and ethical code which pre-dates all the world's religions and is shared with most of them.
  • accept the cycle of birth, life and death. We have no problem with mortality and after death our atoms are recycled.
  • have no need to invent a god to explain those things which we do not yet understand.
  • have no need of the rewards of a heaven or the punishments of a hell to encourage the living of a good life.

Why do we care? Why don't we just let religions get on with their mumbo jumbo?

We care because we see things done in the name of religion that threaten our freedom and, in some cases, our lives.

We would be happy to let the religious get on with it in private - and that's the key - when their beliefs and delusions start to impose on what we can do, or even on what we are allowed to think and say, then we draw the line.

Every day around the world, we can see people being killed, maimed, raped, having their homes destroyed, being made refugees - all in the name of religion.

Religion is the elephant in the room - and it is time we did something about it.

It is religious terrorism and religious sectarian violence that is killing people - and the people who do it use their religion, their holy books and their religious leaders to justify it.

Religion is extremism and has always led to conflict, terrorism, violence and war - no matter how much the liberal, tolerant, sensitive, middle classes try to claim otherwise.

Respect and tolerance

Limits to our tolerance

We place certain reasonable conditions on our tolerance of the religious:

  • They should not attempt to impose their beliefs on others.

    Examples include extremist Christians trying to impose views on contraception, abortion and stem-cell research as well as Muslims trying to dictate what people wear and how women behave.

  • They should not attempt to indoctrinate children in their beliefs.

    There is no such thing as a "Catholic child" or a "Muslim child" - there are only "Catholic parents" and "Muslim parents." No-one is born a Catholic or a Muslim - becoming one requires information, freedom of choice and decision making - or indoctrination.

    Adults can make up their own minds about religion but children should not be pressurised to believe, or not believe.

    We oppose the existence of socially divisive "faith" schools. For example, Catholic and Protestant schools in Northern Ireland; Catholic, Church of England, Muslim, Judaist and extremist evangelical Christian schools in England.

    About 1/3rd of schools are already faith schools - and we taxpayers pay 100% of their costs.

  • Their actions should not bring harm to others.

    Examples include religious persecution, religious wars and physical/intellectual religious terrorism - which we see every day on the news.

  • They should be tolerant of other beliefs and they should not set their religion above all other beliefs - religious or non-religious

    Religious arrogance leads to religious fundamentalism which leads to religious intolerance which leads to religious terrorism which leads to religious war.

    There is no doubt that the views of non-believers are totally unfairly represented in our national institutions - simply because church and religious leaders (often self-appointed and totally undemocratic) are given public appointments by default.

  • They should accept that religion is about ideas - and all ideas should be open to criticism, satire and ridicule.

    We oppose all forms of discrimination against individuals based on race, sex, sexuality, age, disability or religious belief. However, religious ideas have no protection against our right to free speech.

Zero tolerance towards the intolerant

Muslims are demanding protection against "Islamaphobia" and "moderates" everywhere are calling for "tolerance" and "respect".

Everyone has the right to believe what they wish but our position is simple: you have to earn respect by your actions and we will not tolerate the intolerant.

It does not matter whether it is "moderate" or "extremist", whether it is Islam, Christianity, Judaism or whatever, we will not tolerate you if:

  • you condemn homosexuality so that homosexuals in your religion live in fear of being outed;
  • you force particular dress styles on women through your preachings or through the pressure of your religious community;
  • you force women into arranged marriages;
  • you deny a woman the right to control her own body and to choose for herself about abortion;
  • you discriminate in any way against anyone on the basis of their sex or sexual orientation;
  • you deny contraceptives to other people on the basis of your religious beliefs;
  • you demand the right to educate your children separately from children of other beliefs;
  • you attempt to indoctrinate children into your belief without given them the chance to study other religions and non-belief systems;
  • your aim is to establish a state which is run by the rules of religion;
  • you condemn people who choose to leave your religion;

Religion is an idea and, like any idea, is subject to continuous criticism, satire and mockery.

There can be no protection under the law for "the Muslim race" (you are not born a Muslim) and there can be no protection under the law for an idea. The Race Relations Act defined Jews as a racial group (technically debatable) but the protection is not for the belief some of them share (Judaism) but for their racial group. The Act created an anomaly when it defined Sikhs in the same way simply to avoid problems that arise from the wearing of turbans.

You make a deliberate choice when you select your religion - in the full knowledge that others will criticise and mock your beliefs. Just because a belief is "profoundly held" and "at the core of our community" does not mean that it is right nor that it should not be mocked.

So, as with all intellectual debate, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

Respect

  • People may or may not be entitled to respect - it depends on how they behave and what they do.
  • Abstract ideas, such as those behind religions, are never entitled to respect - they should be open to testing, to challenge, to criticism - and often to mockery and ridicule.
  • We are deeply upset and offended when the religious behave as if they have some special insight into humanity and some monopoly on morality that allows them to dictate what we should think and how we should behave.
  • We respect the ideas of religion as much as we respect the idea that the earth is flat or that fairies live at the bottom of the garden. We view supernatural religious ideas as a relic of the superstitious beliefs of the early iron age when they met the needs of those who understood little of the universe.
  • We fully understand why some people have a personal need for a religion - however, we have no such need. To us religion is a force that has cost millions of lives over the last two millennia - people killed in the name of religion.
  • One glance at the news shows that religions continue to kill in religious wars and religious terrorism.

Being deliberately offensive

Having said the above, we would certainly not approve of anyone going out of their way to deliberately offend someone else just for the sake of it - whatever the issue. We would not wish to enforce our disapproval by law of course.

Your comments are most welcome

We welcome comments (positive or negative) and corrections (typographic or factual) so please contact us and let us know what you think.

Strong views

Many religious people have strong views and are passionate about their beliefs and the actions that stem from them. It is these actions that so deeply offend us.

We also have strong views and we are passionate about our beliefs - and our passion is more than likely to offend those who are religious.

If religious people wish to preach about their god, their heaven and their hell they should have the good manners to do so in private.

Religion is like smoking and it is true to say that "religion kills". We would prefer that people gave it up in the interests of their mental health. However, we recognise that some people find it difficult to give up so we are happy for them to do it in private - as long as the rest of us do not have to suffer from "passive religion" as they rabbit on and on about their beliefs, their morals and what we should do.

Attention teachers, lecturers, colleges and religious groups

We are happy to provide a speaker for any group that would like a good healthy controversial debate. We have done debates and discussions on all sorts including "Is belief in god rational?", "Did Jesus exist?", "Is Islam homophobic and misogynistic?", "Should there be limits on the freedom to criticise and mock religious ideas?" and "Should we tolerate the intolerant?" We are happy to talk on any faith-related subject.

We don't charge for our time or travel - a glass of water is all we ask! So, if you can get together a decent sized group for a meeting, please get in touch and we will be there.

© 2006 UK Secularists