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Fifty years ago, the founding fathers of IHEU could look back on two centuries of almost uninterrupted progress in the secularization of western society. And they looked forward with confidence to a world in which religion would have lost its power over the hearts and minds of ordinary people; a world ruled by the twin Humanist virtues of rationalism and compassion. How shocked they would be today by the resurgence, not only of religious belief, but of religion as a political force. Almost everywhere, secularism and Humanism are in retreat. In the United States, in Russia, in India and in the Islamic world, the marriage of politics and religion is again being celebrated, and is again devastating the lives of millions. Faced with the increasing violence inspired by religious certainty, it would be easy to despair. But we should not, for this marriage is nothing new.

 

Two thousand years ago the Roman orator, Seneca, commenting on religions in general, said “The common people find them all equally true, the philosophers find them all equally false, and the magistrates [read ‘politicians’] find them all equally useful”. There never was a time – no long lost golden age – when kings and princes, tyrants and dictators, even duly elected political leaders, did not seek to benefit from the support of the priests. Yet despite the evident synergy of politics and religion, humanity has achieved enormous progress in the past 2,000 years, progress that surely seems irreversible. Certainly, we have entered a period in our history when the pendulum seems to be swinging strongly in the wrong direction. In Iran, people we had thought too bright, too wise, too modern in outlook to be fooled, were plunged back into medieval horror. In America, with George W. Bush as president, the Christian right have had a willing tool ready to implement their deeply regressive social policies – a tragedy not just for the United States but for many of the world’s poorest nations. The fall of communism gave new hope to the oppressed millions of the former Soviet Union, hope that was swiftly dashed by the reality of gangsterism and the new-found influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. In much of the Islamic world the ‘benign Islam of our grandfathers’ has been overwhelmed by the ugly face of political Islam and of jihad. Reports emerge daily of the public hangings and stonings of victims of Sharia law while, even in the west, critics of this pernicious system live in fear for their lives. In India we see Hindu fundamentalists gaining political popularity on the back of inter-communal violence in which thousands of Muslims have been killed – violence condoned, and even in some cases abetted, by Government officials.

 

Why in this age of unprecedented scientific, technological and material progress does religion still retain so much of its power? There are of course many possible answers to this question, but two stand out. First, people will believe what they want to believe. It is far easier to believe than to think, and many hope desperately for something beyond this earthly life; for heavenly compensation for their pain and suffering here on earth. What they actually believe is of course determined more by the religion of their parents, and by where they live, than by any cool consideration of the relative merits of their chosen faith. Secondly, both priests and politicians invest heavily in maintaining their power and influence. But we should not despair. However shrill the clarion calls to patriotism and faith, the pendulum will swing again, because in the end those messages are sterile. In the end, it is the message of Humanism: of human dignity and autonomy, of equality between the sexes, of freedom of thought and of free inquiry – the message of the Enlightenment – that will be heard.

 

In 2000, IHEU General Assembly concluded that separation of religion and state was the greatest challenge facing world Humanism and that campaigning for the separation of religion and state would be central to our strategy. We have now organized meetings, conferences and seminars in France, India, Slovakia, the US, the UK, Nigeria and Norway on this issue. We have long campaigned against references to religion or a deity in national constitutions and have recently been supporting the campaign to keep God out of the European Constitution. We also endorsed the ‘See Change’ campaign aimed at stripping the Holy See of its privileged status at the UN. IHEU will continue to support our member organizations in their struggles to combat the encroachment of religion on public policy and on the rights of non-believers, and we will work with other organizations and NGOs on international campaigns against deeply conservative religiously inspired policies.

 

I am an optimist. There is increasing awareness among politicians and religious leaders alike that if we are ever to escape from the vortex of violence and retribution that has characterized much of human history secularism is the only possible way forward. Rationalism and Humanism will probably never replace religious belief; human nature will see to that. So we must work for a society which permits every shade of personal belief while favouring none, which enables everyone to worship or not as they wish, but without the right to impose their religious beliefs on anyone else; a world in which every nation will have established a level playing field for believers and non-believers alike. I ask every Rationalist and Humanist to join us in this endeavour.

 

Roy Brown