Letters to Newsline

Please send your letters for publication to letters@secularism.org.uk. We want to publish as many letters as possible, so please keep them brief. We reserve the right to edit. Opinions expressed in letters are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the NSS.
16 May 2008

From Paula Kirby:
Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor's comments on the Today programme (Friday 9 May) actually went beyond the, by now, commonplace linking of Hitler and Stalin with atheism. He actually blamed their atrocities on the pursuit of reason, rather than specifically the pursuit of atheism. While both claims are equally dishonest, it is my view that, in so doing, he has scored an own-goal. Active atheism and the pursuit of secularism are minority interests; but there will surely be many more people, people who wouldn’t worry unduly about false accusations levelled at atheism, who will recognise the insanity of blaming reason for such horrors.

From John Sutton:
In the Guardian last Friday, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor is quoted as saying: “The interesting question about atheism is, what is the theism being denied? Have you ever met anyone who believes what Richard Dawkins does not believe in? The God that is being rejected is a God I don’t believe in either.”

I have read several books by atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and for eleven years attended two Church of England schools and a Methodist Sunday School while my son spent three years in a Church of England school and nine years in Catholic faith schools so I am well placed to comment on who believes what.

Over my own eleven years in faith schools I was routinely told that there is a supernatural being watching over us, that if I pray this same entity will be listening, that the resurrection was literally true, that a virgin gave birth, that a disembodied voice from a place they called heaven spoke to people and handed down instructions which we must obey – and much more similar nonsense.

These are just examples of the theology being denied by modern rationalists. But I, and hundreds of my unfortunate schoolmates, were told all of it was true, not just once but daily, over and over again through assemblies, enforced prayer, bible readings and hymns. It was not just one believer who was allowed to pound us with this nonsense but, over the years, thousands of children were subjected to this risible garbage by hundreds of religious believers.

According to the Cardinal, much of this is no longer believed by the major church institutions and that throughout my own and my son's childhood hundreds of Christians have been lying about what they believed. Or perhaps the Cardinal is wrong about the religious teaching going on in his churches and faith schools. What I want to know is, who is lying for Jesus this time?

From Denis Watkins:
Alex Neill, (Newsline last week) wrote that Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor “came across as a bumbling fool, eventually falling back on the worn out scare mongering of likening a godless society to a dictatorship like Hitler's regime.”

O’Connor should read some history about the Nazi sympathies of the Pope at the time of Hitler. The Cardinal, in what seems to be a reckless abandonment of what previously passed for his convictions, seems to want to treat even atheists with respect or even esteem. I suppose this is the result of panic at the recent survey of Church attendance. What is more pertinent is the question of how much longer the BBC, in the face of these findings, will be able to get away with dousing us with licence fee-funded religion, including the egregious Thought for the Day.

From Elizabeth Joan Wade:
My open letter to Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor
I heard you on the Today programme last week when you said “there should be dialogue between believers and non-believers”. Why? What has triggered this sudden change of mind? Is it that the Catholic Church now sees itself under threat of persecution from secularists? Or is it that, for the first time, you are beginning to understand what secularism really means: that secularists are not "aggressive or militant atheists" but individual free thinking people, who have respect for the rights of others to believe in a God/religion but, at the same time, expect believers to respect their non-belief – being tolerant of one another. Catholics have for centuries persecuted and discriminated against anyone who doesn't hold their beliefs or who, in their minds, have 'sinned' (even a non-Catholic) and instantly banish them for life. But no member of any religion has the right to make unreasonable moral judgements about others who don't follow their particular religious code.

Does that mean now that my sister, a convert to Catholicism in the 1960s, (and brother-in-law) will now, for the first time, respect me as an individual who holds different views from theirs? Respect has to be mutual. For over forty years my mother, Emily, and I have been excluded for holding different opinions on Catholic doctrines that affect women's rights. My mother was divorced in the 1960s and they cruelly punished her for that until her death in 2002. Another reason for the freezing out was that my parents got married because 'my sister was on the way' – just laughable today! My sister once told me in a letter that I could have been a member of her family if I respected her husband. But how can I when he doesn't respect the equality of women? I've never been allowed a reasoned discussion on anything with either of them. My brother-in-law made it clear very early on in their marriage that I wasn't welcome in HIS home. My sister has to ask his permission before she can say or do anything — and that is subjugation — a form of abuse. This isn't a religion of compassion and love; it is one based on fear, ignorance, suspicion and hate.

Last Saturday you had a service in Westminster Cathedral to celebrate marriage highlighting the need for cohesion in society encouraging families to stay together. What hypocrisy when two of your followers deliberately exclude me as a family member? I don't know my two nephews and niece who are now grown-up with their own families. They were used as weapons, cutting off all contact to 'punish' us, but also to prevent them from being 'contaminated' with any 'outside' influences.

As leader of your flock (of sheep) this new initiative you have proposed might give me some hope of a reconciliation with my sister one day before it is too late?

Ironically, we are descended from seventeenth century Roundheads/Puritans, Colonel John Wade, and his son Major Nathaniel Wade, a barrister-at-law, who were both in Cromwell's army in the English Civil War. Nathaniel lived at Nailsea Court, near Bristol in Somerset, which I visited only last year, for the first time. Our ancestors later became Methodist dissenters in the 19th century and Elizabeth Wade (my namesake) married a William Wesley, after which most of the Wade family emigrated to Texas. With such a history behind me it seems the religious war/conflict is sadly still going on in the Wade family.

No wonder I rejected religion and turned to neutral secularism! My love of choral music continued, however, for many years singing many of John Rutter's wonderful sacred pieces who, I understand, is a non-believer.

From Diana Brown:
In her letter (Newsline last week), Muriel Fraser says, “maybe humanists should stop talking about their own personal morality and start defending the rights of others. That might be a faster route to leading a decent life than endlessly chatting about it. Maybe they should even join the fight for secularism, which helps protect the rights of all.”

I feel that this is unfair to Humanists and Humanism. Discussing personal morality does not preclude defence of human rights and secularism. Both NSS and BHA are member organisations of the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the European Humanist Federation, both of which are active in these fields. See for example "Representing World Humanism" on this page – have a look at what goes on at the UN and UNESCO, where the Humanists are often almost a lone voice for human rights against the powerful religious lobbies. As for fighting for secularism, please have a look at this page and sign up if you haven't already done so (and get others to sign as well).

From Barbara Smoker:
The letter from Muriel Fraser in last week’s Newsline misquotes me as saying that humanism is a help in trying to lead a decent life: what I wrote was that leading a decent life without religion is actually what humanism means.

She goes on to complain about humanist ‘chaplains’ being publicly funded — which, of course, unlike their religious counterparts, they are not. She must have known this, as she is not a newcomer to secularism. Denis Cobell, the former president of the NSS, has, without a penny of remuneration, actually served in three different kinds of secular humanist chaplaincy: as chaplain to the mayor of Lewisham, as a hospital chaplain, and, in spite of being a pacifist himself, as a military chaplain. The last two roles have been concerned mainly with supporting individuals denied equitable rights – and always, of course, at their request.

Ms Fraser tells us how, if she were in prison, she would berate a humanist prison 'chaplain' who 'walked into’ her cell. She need not worry about that, however: unlike the publicly-funded religious chaplains, our volunteers would never walk in uninvited.

Finally, she says we should ‘join the fight for secularism’. But I have been actively engaged in that very fight for the last 58 of my 85 years, and Denis, though younger, for almost as long. In fact, he was president of the National Secular Society for ten years, and I held the same position for 25 years before that. And no, we were never paid for it.

From G. Tingey:
“The House of Commons voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to support the abolition of the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel. This was the final stage in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, and the amendment was carried by 378 votes to 57.” (Newsline last week)

You mean there are as many as 57 MPs who are still stuck with the idea of offending “god” requires physical HUMAN punishment? Can we please have the names and constituencies of these morons?
Ed writes: The names of MPs and the way they voted are all recorded in the Hansard account of the debate. Find the guilty parties there.

From Simon Perry:
Members may like to know that a new Skeptics in the Pub group has started up in Leicester. The first meeting is on the 20th May at 7:30pm in The Park on Hotel Street. 5-9 Hotel Street, Leicester, LE1 5AT. We've been extremely lucky to have Simon Singh as our first speaker with a talk entitled Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial (based on his book of the same name, which is available from the NSS on-line store).

Prince Charles is a staunch defender and millions of people swear by it; most UK doctors consider it to be little more than superstition and a waste of money. Welcome to the world of alternative medicine. Join Simon Singh, as he brings his considerable scientific knowledge and scrupulous impartiality to this most controversial subject and an honest examination of more than thirty of the most popular treatments, such as Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Aromatherapy, Reflexology, Chiropractic and Herbal medicines.

Contact leicesterskeptics@googlemail.com or visit http://www.skeptic.org.uk/leicester for more information.

From John Bosley:
I do not agree with James Cameron (Newsline last week) on the subject of organ donation. He says, ‘a person does not stop being a person just because they are dead’. Well I think they do and furthermore, I would say that after death we have no rights.

You can request and demand all you like about having, for example, a secular funeral, but if your nearest and dearest wish, you could end up with a full requiem mass perfectly legally.

As for organ donation, we should put all the emphasis on the living. After all, anyone could opt out of donating for whatever reason they wished. I would say that the NSS should be ‘pro-choice’ for the living.

From John Wilson:
I was baffled by James Cameron's objections to the NSS position on organ donation in last week’s Newsline. Perhaps he had overlooked the phrase, “would protect an individual's choice to donate their organs, over and above any objections from relatives that may be based upon the misrepresentation of religious scripture or custom”. This is a perfectly reasonable position for a secular organisation to take.

I’m astonished by his claim that “a person does not stop being a person just because they are dead”. Are they still, then, endowed with equal rights before the law? The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, perhaps? That he claims that, “the right to decide what happens to us after death is the last right we have” appears to overlook that presumed consent, and that non-interference in that consent by religiously motivated relatives, is designed precisely to achieve this goal. Furthermore, his objection that presumed consent is "driven by politicians whose jobs depend on lowering mortality statistics and by a medical establishment who still see death as professional failure" shows, despite his later apparent retraction a shocking lack of empathy for the patients who die — or lead lives tied to medical wards — for want of an organ transplant.

The simple fact is that there are far more people requiring an organ transplant than available organs, and people are dying as a result.

If Mr. Cameron objects — for whatever reasons he chooses — to his own organs being donated upon his death, he is still entitled to officially register that objection and his wishes will be protected by law. The rest of us, however, can carry on safe in the knowledge that our remains do not need to be wasted upon our death because of the objections of religiously — or otherwise — motivated relatives, and without needing to remember to carry a card around with us.

From Alan Gore:
I could hardly believe some of the comments made by James Cameron on the subject of organ donation. He takes the view that “a person does not stop being a person just because they are dead”. On the contrary, like the famous parrot, a dead person has expired, they have ceased to be, they are no more and they do not have ‘rights’.

Mr Cameron seems to think that the ‘rights’ of dead bodies are more important than those of the living, which the following extraordinary comment confirms: “The presumption of consent is arrogant and driven by politicians whose jobs depend on lowering mortality statistics and by a medical establishment who still see death as professional failure.”

From Charles Moore:
I thought you'd be interested to know that BBC Bristol has set up a web cam at Noah's Ark Zoo near Bristol because they have baby zebras there at the moment. This zoo is run by creationists.

As you may know, Bristol is the home of the BBC’s Natural History Unit. I wasn't aware that they also had a Supernatural History Unit too. I wonder if licence payers know their money is being spent on publicity for creationists? You can see the "creationist-cam" here.

From Steve Denton:
This article in Wednesday’s Independent is tragic proof of the resurgent power of the Church in Russia since the collapse of Soviet communism, and a warning to the rest of us of what can happen to freedom of expression when a government bends over backwards to show ‘respect’ for the religious (hyper)sensitivities of believers and protect them from ‘offence’.

From Tim Hudson:
Others too might enjoy this from a character in Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars, set in Dublin in 1915–16 (and well worth a revival): “There's no reason to bring religion into it. I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible”. If only politicians would follow that wise advice!

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