I just came across this excellent video from QualiaSoup on Youtube. I don’t think I’ve ever posted a video here before, hopefully this’ll work.
It tackles an issue that’s been problematic in the past. I like to think of myself as openminded (well, I suppose everyone does), but at the same time I’m sceptical about a lot of things. Not having thought about it much, I saw these two characteristics as fundamentally opposed to one another. This video shows that often, being sceptical (or having an ‘evidence barrier’) is not only not opposed to open-mindedness, but can in fact be conducive to it. A particularly good part is at about 7m 23s.
I think we should remember that openmindedness is not about how easily you’re willing to believe something, but how willing you are to consider other ideas. They’re very different things.
I fully intended to write this as soon as I got back from London, but one thing and another have stacked up and I’m doing this to take a break from essaying. It’s a relief to write my own opinion on something I care about instead of just the opinion that will get me marks on something boring.
So on Thursday, Andre and I travelled down to London to represent the Humanist Society at the official launch of the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies at Conway Hall, home of the Ethical Society. The AHS is the umbrella union we were talking about creating a year ago in order to share ideas and resources with all the other irreligious societies around the UK. We held the inaugural conference in David Hume Tower over the summer, and Stuart and Greg attended the second conference in Leeds. It was a superb venue, and one that the AHS will be able to use again for other big events in the future.
The launch itself was attended by such prominent figures such as Richard Dawkins, AC Grayling, Polly Toynbee and Maryam Namazie. I already had Dawkins sign my copy of Unweaving the Rainbow at the Edinburgh Science Festival last year, but that’s who most of the others were really excited about. Instead I got a nice message in my copy of AC Grayling’s Against All Gods.
Each of the speakers gave really supportive messages of the idea for the AHS and encouraged us to work as an ideas factory for the movement as a whole. Dawkins also spoke about how evangelical religious organisations did not belong on university campuses as they poisoned minds and disrupted education. Perhaps more importantly, he said that the AHS would be well place to apply for funding from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Apparently this was a particularly difficult charity to set up, and at one point he needed to clarify to the government what benefits science and reason bring to society, as opposed to religious groups which have no problem.
In any case it was good to finally meet the people I’ve been corresponding with over the internet for some time. We’re thinking the next conference should be in Warwick, but we’ll see. Keep your eyes peeled for media coverage (although a lot of it has already passed – we got a 2 page spread in the Independent and a fair bit of coverage on BBC Radio). More information at:
This week the Humanist Society of Scotland has launched a new series of the Thought for the World podcasts which were so successful last year. This gives a positive viewpoint from such atheist thinkers as AC Grayling and Polly Toynbee, as well as former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway, as an alternative source of reflection to the BBC’s Thought for the Day, from which atheists are excluded. The podcasts from last time are still up and well worth a listen, and for the first time Thought for the World will be featured daily on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website. I encourage you all to listen here.
I don’t hate animals (from now on by ‘animals’ I mean non-human animals). I’d never describe myself as an animal lover, but I’m not at all unsympathetic to the suffering of other species. Conversely, I’ve never really questioned why I have little problem eating them. The issue only really came to mind during the Edinburgh Science Festival this year, when I heard Richard Holloway remark to Richard Dawkins in a sterile lecture theatre which they’d failed to make homely with a coffee table and a couple of armchairs, that he considered speciesism “the greatest moral crisis of our time”, following insights from humanists and animal rights activists like Peter Singer.
I’ve started to notice there are plenty of vegetarian humanists (I admit that I used to associate it with those I dismissed as hippies). Indeed many object to the label ‘humanist’ because it is exclusive of animals. If humanism is the pursuit of knowledge and morality through reason and rationality however, it seems to me it’s not the name that’s excluding the non-rational animals, it’s humanism itself. Animals can’t be humanists, whether we change the name or not.
The time when Jamie Oliver and others were trying to expose the widespread barbaric practices used in processing non-free range meat was a good time to consider the issue, even if it meant I had to endure a few hours of that horrific combination of accent, speech impediment and gross bastardization of the English language. Let me say from the outset that I don’t have a big problem with animals dying so I can have something to eat. It happens in nature, we are obviously evolved to do so, and our species wouldn’t be where it is now if it we hadn’t (I recall an Edinburgh HSS group talk on neuroscience where Roger Redondo confidently announced that vegetarians are less intelligent than meat-eaters. I’m sure he meant vegetarian species, really). And I know if a bear decided to have me for lunch, no amount of rationality would convince it otherwise. I know that’s speciesist, but for the moment it seems an acceptable position.
So the moral problem I have is not with eating meat in itself, it’s with the unethical farming practices and abhorrent cruelty shown towards some animals on their way to my plate. The moral arguments against eating meat are just as effective in favour of veganism. After all, dairy cows and egg-laying hens are still killed when they’re no longer productive. And arguably vegetarianism alone doesn’t solve the problem, since you can still buy eggs from caged hens or milk from badly treated cows. So I decided, as a compromise between my moral conscience and my lack of enthusiasm for veganism, to only eat free range meat and animal products. This is difficult considering pork, beef, milk and cheese aren’t as well labelled as eggs and chicken, so you can’t tell if they’re free range or not, but the balance of conscience and practicality works well.
Humanists and atheists alike are often accused of being a negative group, in that they don’t really do anything positive, just bouncing off religion in a negative way. This event is one way that I can show humanists being positive in their outlook, in contrast to the intolerance of some religious people towards other social groups.
The student humanist society decided to run a stall at Pride Glasgow mainly for three reasons: 1, to show that we as humanists support LGBT rights. 2, to promote humanism in the community. 3, to have a good time experiencing a less than ordinary event, and get to know better a section of society that perhaps normally we would not. It followed on from our attendance at Pride Scotia in Edinburgh last year, an event which we will likely be attending again next summer. This time Gareth and I went to run the stall as lots of the society were busy with one thing or another.
The parade itself was nothing like I’d ever seen. Aside from the usual revellry which I’d seen on TV, there were groups of people there that I didn’t expect. Generally I was quite surprised at the wide variety of people wandering through the stalls, from people I’d normally call neds or scallies all the way over the spectrum to metalheads covered in piercings, incorporating in between normal looking people who could’ve been strolling through the streets of Milton Keynes. I was happy to see the Buddhists there, but nobody from the University society BLOGS was represented, much to my surprise. That said, the Glasgow student union marched in the parade, and there were plenty of other groups that I knew nothing about. I was also surprised to see a Christian organisation there (the Metropolitan Community Church, I think they deserve a post of their own), and I was very surprised when I saw the Conservative Party with a stall.
All in all I enjoyed the day. There was a lot of variety, people seemed interested in humanism and we even got some people from the University interested in coming to some of our meetings. We were giving out materials from GALHA, the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, but it was a shame that we didn’t have any materials about humanist partnerships from the HSS. Apparently the courier who was supposed to deliver them was involved in a road accident so I hope they’re not too badly hurt. I was particularly impressed when they got the rainbow flag hoisted up above the city chambers, which apparently is the first time that’s happened. Hopefully this reflects a greater degree of acceptance of LGBT people in the community.
Posted by grammarking 
Posted by grammarking 
Posted by grammarking 
