CANADIAN OATH

THERE are moves to abolish the religious oath in the Canadian legal system. A working group on multicultural and race relations in the federal justice system is recommending 'that the religious oath commonly used in legal proceedings be replaced with a simple promise to tell the truth'. Representatives from the government are included in the working group. They will take into account the fact that religious beliefs are neither as widespread in modern society as they once were nor as strongly held. The religious oath means little to most people today.

The federal Justice Department is analysing responses to the paper, which was given to groups representing various religions, aboriginals, women and educators. The Humanist Association of Canada will also respond to this paper. (Humanist in Canada, Summer 1996)

FORGIVING OUR SINS

GORDON STEIN writes in The American Rationalist (November/December 1995):

'I was recently turning the car radio past stations when I came to a so-called Christian station. There was a man talking (exhaulting) about the 'fact' that his sins had been forgiven. I was amazed that he thought that because he had accepted Jesus, all the bad things ('sins') that he had committed in his life were now moot.

'What audacity! What crap! You can't simply remove the effects of your past misdeed in any way except by undoing the deed, apologising to the offended party, and/or making some form of restitution to the injured party. These are the only moral ways of 'absolving' yourself of your sins. Anything else is immoral, and, in fact, is a travesty of morality.'

 

FORMER AUSTRALIAN GOVERNOR-GENERAL SPEAKS OUT

BILL HAYDEN, Governor General of Australia (1989) has been awarded the 1996 Australian Humanist of the Year award. It was presented to him at the 1996 Annual Convention of the Council of Australian Humanist Societies in Brisbane 29-31 March 1996. He proclaimed:

'I regard this honour as a significant experience for me in thirty- five years in public life where my actions have been guided by deeply held humanist values. Certainly, as a young backbencher I believed society should become more compassionate, supportive, fairer and secure for its citizens ....

'Humanism, however, is about more than the fair and just society. To be a humanist, one has to exercise free will, to reason, to be rational, to avoid being the slave of some defunct ideology or the disciple of received wisdom. A true humanist must stand on her or his own two feet, think for him or her self in the pursuit of truth and have the courage to announce truth, even where it will provoke hostile responses from those who cling to popular prejudices'.

 

HUMANISM AND MATERIALISM

From the writings of the Indian radical humanist, M. N. Roy

THE supreme importance of man results from the fact that in him the physical process of becoming has reached the highest pitch so far. Humanism thus ceases to be a mystic and poetic view of life. Harmonised with humanism, materialist philosophy can have an ethics whose values require no other sanction than man's innate rationality. (The Radical Humanist, July 1996)

 

AWARD FOR WORK AMONG OPPRESSED WOMEN

MRS HEMALATE LAVANAM of the Atheist Centre in India has been given an award by the India Development Foundation, Bangalore. The award is for her distinguished work among the oppressed and suppressed poor women of rural areas in Andhra Pradesh. The award will be presented in early 1977. Mrs Hemalate Lavanam, Secretary of Samskar, is a distinguished social change worker who has striven incessantly for criminal reformation and the reform of the jogins, in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh. (The Atheist, India, July 1996)

INTEGRATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND

INTEGRATED Catholic/Protestant schools are growing in number in Northern Ireland. The British government's attitude is to encourage this and in particular for new integrated schools to be formed through 'transformation' of existing schools.

Integration can come about by a secret postal ballot of parents. 'Transformation' can allow a school with enrolments from across the community to take on official integrated status.

Government approval of four integrated schools was expressed by the Education Minister, Michael Ancram, in February 1996. This will bring the total number of integrated schools to 32 by next September. (Church & State: for a Secular Republic, Summer 1996)

 

STAR TREK

THE WORDS of Captain James T. Kirk from the television series, Star Trek, were quoted in the New Zealand Humanist illustrating a humanist outlook:

'Those of you who have served long on this vessel have encountered alien life forms. You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. There is no such thing as the unknown only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood. In most cases we have found that intelligence capable of a civilisation is capable of understanding peaceful gestures. Surely a life form advanced enough for space travel is advanced enough to understand our motives.'

 

HUMANISTS THINK...

ROBERT ASHBY, the Executive Director of the British Humanist Association, spoke at the recent Conference of the Humanist Society of Scotland. He quoted A. J. Ayer:

Humanists think

-

that this world is all we have and can prove all we need

- that we should try to live full and happy lives ourselves and, as part of this, help others to do the same

--

that all situations and people deserve to be judged on their merits, by standards of reason and humanity

-

that individual and social cooperation are equally important

Robert commented: 'The interesting point --it doesn't mention religion! When I arrived at the BHA all the statements of humanism used to start: There is no god, therefore there is no revelation and no afterlife. Therefore we must make the most of our lives and do everything for other people. It doesn't necessarily follow. You've begun your statement with three negative assumptions. None of those can we ever prove or disprove. We can simply say in our lives we can't see any evidence so we're going to get on with it. (Humanism Scotland, Summer 1996)

 

WATCH OUT!

KEN PAULSEN, of Tarpon Springs, Florida, has warned of the dangers of right-wing religion in the US. He writes:

'The Christian Coalition is running the most organised political campaign in its history, as right-wing, ultraconservative reactionary forces seek to direct not only the course of the 1996 presidential campaign but the future of our nation toward its extremist agenda.

'To make matters worse, the Promise Keepers, the rabid evangelical men's movement which has filled football stadiums nationwide with its followers, is formulating a million-man march on Washington DC, this coming August .... There are now over 100 evangelical sports ministries with athletes now being the highest paid people in the country.'

 

Food for Thought

From 'Humanism Today' by Henry Morgentaler

I BELIEVE humanism to be a philosophy of life, or a lifestance, which is meaningful, positive and relevant to our present-day knowledge of ourselves and the world, and a framework of values to live by. It is a philosophy based on the scientific method and all information resulting from it. It permits us to transcend that reality by realising the enormous potential of humankind to be creative, and to use this creativity to build a meaningful life for ourselves and society.

It is clear that humanism is more than the absence of faith in the supernatural. To be an atheist or an agnostic only means that one does not believe in God or one does not know whether God exists. Obviously, in a society where children are still brought up to believe in God and punished or ostracised if they express doubts or use their intelligence to ask probing questions, it is a process of liberation to throw away a system of beliefs not based on anything else but superstition, immaturity and a need to have a powerful father-figure (or mother-figure) in Heaven who will take care of us and protect us against the inevitable vicissitudes and dangers of life.

In fact what I reproach organised religion most for (among many other things) is that children are deprived of the full use of their intelligence when they are indoctrinated into particular beliefs, when they are forbidden to ask probing questions or when they are given answers that do not make sense to them. So, to reiterate, to be an agnostic or an atheist is a tremendous step forward for someone who has been brought up indoctrinated into a particular region, and may be a tremendous step forward in personal development and in self-affirmation. However, it is not enough. I think it is a first step towards becoming a humanist. The fact that I do not believe in God does not provide meaning to my life nor does it give me any ethical guidelines. We therefore need not only a good grounding in the scientific method and the adoption of an attitude of sceptical inquiry - 'prove it' - but also a framework of positive values, which, when practised, should have meaningful consequences in our personal lives and in the community at large. (Humanist in Canada, Winter 1996)

 

THE IHEU has been accepted as a Non Government Organisation represented at UNESCO. This is an important step forward and there will be more about it in the next issue.

 

New Post for IHEU

An Executive Director for IHEU will be needed from January 1997, when the headquarters move to London. This will be a challenging, full-time post, initially for 3 years. The salary will be in the region of £25,000. Full details and a job description will be available after 31 July from:

Jane Wynne Willson, Co-president 96 Wentworth Road, Harborne Birmingham B17 9SY (UK) telephone +44 121 427 8995 fax: +44 121 684 3898

A high profile appointment of this kind is what the IHEU Board has long desired. With the decentralisation of a large part of IHEU's work, the challenge and opportunities are very great.

The new IHEU office will be part of the Conway Hall complex in central London, where the British Humanist Association, the National Secular Society, the Rationalist Press Association and South Place Ethical Society have their offices.

Interviews will be in London in the Autumn.

International Holiday Register

Aim: for people to meet and get to know each other and also to make mutually advantageous holiday arrangements. Possible arrangements: 1) bed and breakfast 2) full board and outings with the host family 3) house exchange. Annual fee for participation in the scheme and payment of host or hostess as agreed.

Please contact: Wendy Sturgess, 'Utter Spannerdom', St Cleer's Way, Somerton, Somerset, TAll 6QZ.

Share Awards

SHARE awards were given at a ceremony in Marina del Rey on 26 September 1995. SHARE is the Self-Help and Recovery Exchange for people to find love and support to deal with their problems of alcoholism. One of the outstanding awards was for James Christopher of whom it was said: 'Through his own journey to sobriety, this individual discovered that a significant number of people were uncomfortable with the approach used by the best-known sobriety programme, Alcoholics Anonymous. While respecting those who took a spiritual approach to sobriety, he developed a different approach - the 'Sobriety priority'. By making sobriety the number one priority in his life, he achieved sobriety. But this wasn't enough for him. He wanted to help others achieve sobriety. In 1985, he founded SOS, Secular Organisation for Sobriety, also known as Save Our Selves... He has written numerous articles and is the author of three books, How to Stay Sober, Unhooked and SOS Sobriety. SOS offers an invaluable alternative to recovering alcoholics, addicts and others