The post Escaping Ideology with Jonathan Church: Freethinker editor Daniel James Sharp in conversation appeared first on The Freethinker.

After three years, every print issue of the Freethinker published between 1881 and 2014 is now available to read, free of charge, in our digital archive. So it seems justified to do a little navel-gazing: our image of the week is the very first page of the very first issue of the Freethinker from 1 May 1881. You can read a stirring introduction to the archive from Bob Forder here and the archive itself can be found here. Enjoy!

The post Image of the week: the first issue of the ‘Freethinker’—to mark the opening of our digital archive appeared first on The Freethinker.

As editor of the Freethinker, I would like to invite you along to Conway Hall’s Freethought History Festival, which is being held from Friday 30th August to Sunday 1st September.

On Saturday 31st August, I will be on a panel discussing the Freethinker alongside my predecessor as editor Emma Park and Professor David Nash. Other speakers will include Freethinker contributors Bob Forder, Eoin Carter, Maddy Goodall, Frances Lynch, Clare Stainthorp, and our resident radical cartoonist Paul Fitzgerald. Graham Smith, head of the campaigning group Republic, will launch the festival on 30 August, while 1 September is a free family fun day. Bob Forder will also be conducting his Books, Bones, and Blasphemy walking tour on the Sunday.

The festival is sponsored by the Freethinker, and it would be lovely to meet some of you there. You can find out more and get tickets here. Use the code FREETHINK!25 for a 25% discount.

Related reading

‘I do not think you are going to get a secular state without getting rid of the monarchy’: interview with Graham Smith, by Daniel James Sharp

Bring on the British republic – Graham Smith’s ‘Abolish the Monarchy’, reviewed, by Daniel James Sharp

Daniel James Sharp’s Freethinker articles

Emma Park’s Freethinker articles

Charles Bradlaugh and George Jacob Holyoake: their contrasting reputations as Secularists and Radicals, by Edward Royle

Is all publicity good publicity? How the first editor of the Freethinker attracted the public’s attention, by Clare Stainthorp

Britain’s blasphemy heritage, by David Nash

The rhythm of Tom Paine’s bones, by Eoin Carter

Morality without religion: the story of humanism, by Madeleine Goodall

Freethinker cartoons and articles by Paul Fitzgerald

Megan Manson’s Freethinker articles

Celebrating Eliza Flower: an unconventional woman, by Frances Lynch

The post Invitation to the Freethought History Festival at Conway Hall, 31 August – 1 September appeared first on The Freethinker.

This article was originally published on the NSS’s website on 23 July 2024.

It’s easy to see how the idea of being saved by an act of ‘divine intervention’ might well appeal to a narcissist like Donald Trump. But his claim that he had ‘God on his side’ during the recent failed assassination attempt is more likely to be the sentiment of a grifter exploiting religion for political gain.

But sincere belief in the supernatural isn’t necessary for Trump and his cronies to dismantle America’s wall of separation between church and state. His nomination of conservative justices to the Supreme Court during his previous term of office paved the way for the overturning of Roe v Wade—a significant win for evangelicals. With a return to the White House looking distinctly possible, more laws to enforce the doctrines of his Christian support base could be on the cards.

The rise of Christian nationalism in the US is another indicator of a backsliding of secular liberal democratic values, the foundation upon which many successful modern societies are built.

Right across the world, wherever religion and political power are entwined, the chips are down for liberalism. Whether it’s Protestant evangelicalism in the US, Hindu nationalism in India, or Islamism in the Middle East, the closer clerics are to governance, the lower the likelihood that individual rights and freedoms can flourish.

Europe, too, is facing testing times.

American Christian Right organisations are pouring millions of dollars into the continent to fuel campaigns aimed at diminishing the rights of women and sexual minorities. Christian identity politics has become intertwined with nationalist ideologies, shaping the political landscape and contributing to the growth of far-right movements across the continent.

Meanwhile, mass migration and a failure to integrate sizeable Muslim populations have contributed to the undermining and challenging of fundamental liberal values like free speech, equality, and state neutrality.

One of secularism’s most important roles in protecting liberal values is in preserving freedom of expression—making sure that individuals are free to voice their ideas, beliefs, criticisms, and scorn of religious ideas without the threat of censorship or punishment.

Here in the UK, an incident at a Batley school starkly illustrated the erosion of this freedom. A teacher who used a cartoon of Muhammad to teach pupils about debates on free expression faced immediate and credible death threats and now must live under a new identity.

The writing has been on the wall ever since the Rushdie affair. But a spate of violent protests and murders across Europe since has sent the clear message to European citizens that, even if blasphemy laws have been abolished (and not all have been), they remain in place for Islam, and will be enforced by intimidation and violence.

Meanwhile, growing numbers of women and young girls on the continent are compelled to obey sexist religious modesty codes and thousands of children from minority backgrounds are attending illegal schools run by religious extremists.

Meaningful debates on these matters have become increasingly challenging due to the pervasive influence of ‘Islamophobia’, a term once noted by Christopher Hitchens as strategically employed to insinuate a ‘foul prejudice lurks behind any misgivings about Islam’s infallible message’. The language of Islamophobia has fostered a fear of being labelled ‘racist’ or bigoted, causing many liberals to refrain from criticising any manifestation of Islam, however worthy of disdain. This has created a void that is exploited by extremists on the far right.

Meanwhile, a crisis in confidence that secular liberalism can counter the ascendancy of radical Islam and ‘wokery’ has led some public intellectuals to be lured by the notion that Christianity is somehow indispensable in safeguarding the Western way of life. Daniel James Sharp and Matt Johnson have presented compelling critiques of this ‘New Theism’ and its defence of Christian privilege. But entrusting the preservation of liberal democracy to a belief one considers untrue yet expedient seems precarious at best.

All this is to say that the current climate for liberal values and human rights is challenging.

Amidst the ongoing threat posed by religious fundamentalism, a renewed embrace of the Enlightenment concept of separation of religion and state is sorely needed to safeguard individual rights and freedoms.

These are the issues we’ll be addressing at Secularism 2024, the National Secular Society’s upcoming conference on October 19th. A diverse range of expert speakers will shed light on some of the contemporary challenges faced by liberal societies and explore the role of secularism in protecting liberal values and social cohesion.

To be part of this important conversation about democracy, freedom of speech, individual rights, and the rule of law, join us at Secularism 2024. Tickets are on sale now.

Related reading

What secularists want from the next UK Government, by Stephen Evans

Secularism and the struggle for free speech, by Stephen Evans

Donald Trump, political violence, and the future of America, by Daniel James Sharp

A reading list against the ‘New Theism’ (and an offer to debate), by Daniel James Sharp

White Christian Nationalism is rising in America. Separation of church and state is the antidote. By Rachel Laser

Reproductive freedom is religious freedom, by Andrew Seidel and Rachel Laser

The rise and fall of god(s) in Indian politics: Modi’s setback, Indic philosophy, and the freethought paradox, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Campaign ‘to unite India and save its secular soul’, by Puja Bhattacharjee

The resurgence of enlightenment in southern India: interview with Bhavan Rajagopalan, by Emma Park

Three years on, the lessons of Batley are yet to be learned, by Jack Rivington

Keir Starmer must bring the UK’s diverse but divided people together, by Megan Manson

Islamic identity politics is a threat to British democracy, by Khadija Khan

The hijab is the wrong symbol to represent women, by Khadija Khan

Britain’s blasphemy heritage, by David Nash

The perils of dropping a book, by Noel Yaxley

Free speech in Britain: a losing battle? by Porcus Sapiens

Cancel culture and religious intolerance: ‘Falsely Accused of Islamophobia’, by Steven Greer, by Daniel James Sharp

British Islam and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in universities: interview with Steven Greer, by Emma Park

Rushdie’s victory, by Daniel James Sharp

The Satanic Verses; free speech in the Freethinker, by Emma Park

The post An upcoming secularist conference on the safeguarding of liberal values in a time of crisis appeared first on The Freethinker.

Lately, there has been much talk of a Christian revival and the rise of a so-called ‘New Theism’, whose chief tenets seem to be that Christianity underpins everything good and fluffy in the world and that we need it to combat ‘wokeism’, China, Russia, and sundry other threats. New Theism is epitomised by the likes of Jordan Peterson and Tom Holland and was most dramatically illustrated by the conversion of former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Christianity last year.

I am, to understate matters, unconvinced by all this, as are many of this magazine’s contributors. I imagine that we shall be hearing a lot more about the New Theism in the future, so I thought it would be worthwhile to compile a list of Freethinker articles which deal with, or are in some way relevant to, the subject. When and if we publish new pieces about New Theism, this list will be updated.

I would also like to take this opportunity to echo G.W. Foote’s offer to debate his opponents. As he wrote in 1881, in the first edition of the Freethinker:

‘Any competent Christian will be allowed reasonable space in which to contest our views; and if fuller opportunity is desired, the editor will always be ready to hold a public debate with any clergyman, minister, or accredited representative of the other side.’

Similarly, I would be happy to discuss or debate New Theism and all related questions with anyone, whether from ‘the other side’ or not. Just get in touch via our contact form. (More generally, I am open to discussion and debate on all matters that I have written about, in the Freethinker and elsewhere, both as the editor of this magazine and as an individual. In the latter capacity, you can contact me through my website.)

For now, and in chronological order, a reading list against the New Theism:

• ‘The Greek mind was something special’: interview with Charles Freeman, by Daniel James Sharp (17 November 2023)

• Consciousness, free will and meaning in a Darwinian universe: interview with Daniel C. Dennett, by Daniel James Sharp (18 December 2023)

• ‘We are at a threshold right now’: Lawrence Krauss on science, atheism, religion, and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in science, by Daniel James Sharp (10 January 2024)

• What has Christianity to do with Western values? by Nick Cohen (12 January 2024)

• Do we need God to defend civilisation? by Adam Wakeling (30 January 2024)

• The Enlightenment and the making of modernity, by Piers Benn (23 February 2024)

• The case of Richard Dawkins: cultural affiliation with a religious community does not contradict atheism, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid (8 April 2024)

• ‘Nature is super enough, thank you very much!’: interview with Frank Turner, by Daniel James Sharp (9 April 2024)

• New Atheism, New Theism, and a defence of cultural Christianity, by Jack Stacey (16 April 2024)

• Against the ‘New Theism’ by Daniel James Sharp (19 April 2024)

• The need for a new Enlightenment, by Christopher Hitchens (26 April 2024)

• Can the ‘New Theists’ save the West? by Matt Johnson (30 April 2024)

• White Christian Nationalism is rising in America. Separation of church and state is the antidote. By Rachel Laser (6 May 2024)

• Donald Trump, political violence, and the future of America, by Daniel James Sharp (15 July 2024)

• Can Religion Save Humanity? Part One, by Brian Victoria (19 July 2024)

• How the Roman Empire became Christian: Catherine Nixey’s ‘The Darkening Age’ and ‘Heresy’ reviewed, by Charles Freeman (22 July 2024)

• The Enlightenment paradox: review of ‘Dark Brilliance’ by Paul Strathern, by Adam Wakeling (30 July 2024)

• Can Religion Save Humanity? Part Two: Killing Commies for Christ, by Brian Victoria (2 August 2024)

• ‘Project 2025 is about accelerating the demise of a functioning democracy’: interview with US Representative Jared Huffman, by Daniel James Sharp (3 August 2024)

• Russian history, Russian myths: review of ‘The Story of Russia’ by Orlando Figes, by Mathew Giagnorio (13 August 2024)

• Why I am a ‘cultural non-Christian’, by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein (18 September 2024)

List last updated 18 September 2024.

The post A reading list against the ‘New Theism’ (and an offer to debate) appeared first on The Freethinker.

Below is reproduced, with permission from the Estate of Christopher Hitchens (to whom I express my gratitude), the final chapter of Hitchens’s classic freethinking text god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.*

Today, as much as when that book was published in 2007, there is a need for a new Enlightenment. Two of this chapter’s themes—the danger and instability of Iranian theocracy and the threat posed to free speech by Islamic fanatics—remain very obviously and very unfortunately relevant. But the real power of the below, I think, is to be found in these words: ‘[I]t is better and healthier for the mind to “choose” the path of skepticism and inquiry in any case, because only by continual exercise of these faculties can we hope to achieve anything.’ Yes, we remain stuck in prehistory, all right. But if anything can help us to transcend our primitivism, it is the work of Christopher Hitchens. And now from his company I shall delay you no longer.

~ Daniel James Sharp, Editor of the Freethinker

“The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectibility is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent, and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand.” – GOTTHOLD LESSING, ANTI-GOEZE (1778)

“The Messiah Is Not Coming—and He’s Not Even Going to Call!” – ISRAELI HIT TUNE IN 2001

The great Lessing put it very mildly in the course of his exchange of polemics with the fundamentalist preacher Goeze. And his becoming modesty made it seem as if he had, or could have, a choice in the matter. In point of fact, we do not have the option of “choosing” absolute truth, or faith. We only have the right to say, of those who do claim to know the truth of revelation, that they are deceiving themselves and attempting to deceive—or to intimidate—others. Of course, it is better and healthier for the mind to “choose” the path of skepticism and inquiry in any case, because only by continual exercise of these faculties can we hope to achieve anything. Whereas religions, wittily defined by Simon Blackburn in his study of Plato’s Republic, are merely “fossilized philosophies,” or philosophy with the questions left out. To “choose” dogma and faith over doubt and experiment is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.

Thomas Aquinas once wrote a document on the Trinity and, modestly regarding it as one of his more finely polished efforts, laid it on the altar at Notre Dame so that god himself could scrutinize the work and perhaps favor “the Angelic doctor” with an opinion. (Aquinas here committed the same mistake as those who made nuns in convents cover their baths with canvas during ablutions: it was felt that god’s gaze would be deflected from the undraped female forms by such a modest device, but forgotten that he could supposedly “see” anything, anywhere, at any time by virtue of his omniscience and omnipresence, and further forgotten that he could undoubtedly “see” through the walls and ceilings of the nunnery before being baffled by the canvas shield. One supposes that the nuns were actually being prevented from peering at their own bodies, or rather at one another’s.)

However that may be, Aquinas later found that god indeed had given his treatise a good review—he being the only author ever to have claimed this distinction—and was discovered by awed monks and novices to be blissfully levitating around the interior of the cathedral. Rest assured that we have eyewitnesses for this event.

On a certain day in the spring of 2006, President Ahmadinejad of Iran, accompanied by his cabinet, made a procession to the site of a well between the capital city of Tehran and the holy city of Qum. This is said to be the cistern where the Twelfth or “occulted” or “hidden” Imam took refuge in the year 873, at the age of five, never to be seen again until his long-awaited and beseeched reappearance will astonish and redeem the world. On arrival, Ahmadinejad took a scroll of paper and thrust it down the aperture, so as to update the occulted one on Iran’s progress in thermonuclear fission and the enrichment of uranium. One might have thought that the imam could keep abreast of these developments wherever he was, but it had in some way to be the well that acted as his dead-letter box. One might add that President Ahmadinejad had recently returned from the United Nations, where he had given a speech that was much covered on both radio and television as well as viewed by a large “live” audience. On his return to Iran, however, he told his supporters that he had been suffused with a clear green light—green being the preferred color of Islam—all throughout his remarks, and that the emanations of this divine light had kept everybody in the General Assembly quite silent and still. Private to him as this phenomenon was—it appears to have been felt by him alone—he took it as a further sign of the imminent return of the Twelfth Imam, not so say a further endorsement of his ambition to see the Islamic Republic of Iran, sunk as it was in beggary and repression and stagnation and corruption, as nonetheless a nuclear power. But like Aquinas, he did not trust the Twelfth or “hidden” Imam to be able to scan a document unless it was put, as it were, right in front of him.

Having often watched Shia ceremonies and processions, I was not surprised to learn that they are partly borrowed, in their form and liturgy, from Catholicism. Twelve imams, one of them now “in occultation” and awaiting reappearance or reawakening. A frenzied cult of martyrdom, especially over the agonizing death of Hussein, who was forsaken and betrayed on the arid and bitter plains of Karbala. Processions of flagellants and self-mortifiers, awash in grief and guilt at the way in which their sacrificed leader had been abandoned. The masochistic Shia holiday of Ashura bears the strongest resemblances to the sort of Semana Santa, or “Holy Week,” in which the cowls and crosses and hoods and torches are borne through the streets of Spain. Yet again it is demonstrated that monotheistic religion is a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents.

Another way of putting this is to say that, as I write, a version of the Inquisition is about to lay hands on a nuclear weapon. Under the stultified rule of religion, the great and inventive and sophisticated civilization of Persia has been steadily losing its pulse. Its writers and artists and intellectuals are mainly in exile or stifled by censorship; its women are chattel and sexual prey; its young people are mostly half-educated and without employment. After a quarter century of theocracy, Iran still exports the very things it exported when the theocrats took over—pistachio nuts and rugs. Modernity and technology have passed it by, save for the one achievement of nuclearization.

This puts the confrontation between faith and civilization on a whole new footing. Until relatively recently, those who adopted the clerical path had to pay a heavy price for it. Their societies would decay, their economies would contract, their best minds would go to waste or take themselves elsewhere, and they would consistently be outdone by societies that had learned to tame and sequester the religious impulse. A country like Afghanistan would simply rot. Bad enough as this was, it became worse on September 11, 2001, when from Afghanistan the holy order was given to annex two famous achievements of modernism—the high-rise building and the jet aircraft—and use them for immolation and human sacrifice. The succeeding stage, very plainly announced in hysterical sermons, was to be the moment when apocalyptic nihilists coincided with Armageddon weaponry. Faith-based fanatics could not design anything as useful or beautiful as a skyscraper or a passenger aircraft. But, continuing their long history of plagiarism, they could borrow and steal these things and use them as a negation.

This book has been about the oldest argument in human history, but almost every week that I was engaged in writing it, I was forced to break off and take part in the argument as it was actually continuing. These arguments tended to take ugly forms: I was not so often leaving my desk to go and debate with some skillful old Jesuit at Georgetown, but rather hurrying out to show solidarity at the embassy of Denmark, a small democratic country in northern Europe whose other embassies were going up in smoke because of the appearance of a few caricatures in a newspaper in Copenhagen. This last confrontation was an especially depressing one. Islamic mobs were violating diplomatic immunity and issuing death threats against civilians, yet the response from His Holiness the Pope and the archbishop of Canterbury was to condemn—the cartoons! In my own profession, there was a rush to see who could capitulate the fastest, by reporting on the disputed images without actually showing them. And this at a time when the mass media has become almost exclusively picture-driven. Euphemistic noises were made about the need to show “respect,” but I know quite a number of the editors concerned and can say for a certainty that the chief motive for “restraint” was simple fear. In other words, a handful of religious bullies and bigmouths could, so to speak, outvote the tradition of free expression in its Western heartland. And in the year 2006, at that! To the ignoble motive of fear one must add the morally lazy practice of relativism: no group of nonreligious people threatening and practicing violence would have been granted such an easy victory, or had their excuses—not that they offered any of their own—made for them.

Then again, on another day, one might open the newspaper to read that the largest study of prayer ever undertaken had discovered yet again that there was no correlation of any kind between “intercessory” prayer and the recovery of patients. (Well, perhaps some correlation: patients who knew that prayers were being said for them had more post-operative complications than those who did not, though I would not argue that this proved anything.) Elsewhere, a group of dedicated and patient scientists had located, in a remote part of the Canadian Arctic, several skeletons of a large fish that, 375 million years ago, exhibited the precursor features of digits, proto-wrists, elbows, and shoulders. The Tiktaalik, named at the suggestion of the local Nunavut people, joins the Archaeopteryx, a transitional form between dinosaurs and birds, as one of the long-sought so-called missing links that are helping us to enlighten ourselves about our true nature. Meanwhile, the hoarse proponents of “intelligent design” would be laying siege to yet another school board, demanding that tripe be taught to children. In my mind, these contrasting events began to take on the characteristics of a race: a tiny step forward by scholarship and reason; a huge menacing lurch forward by the forces of barbarism—the people who know they are right and who wish to instate, as Robert Lowell once phrased it in another context, “a reign of piety and iron.”

Religion even boasts a special branch of itself, devoted to the study of the end. It calls itself “eschatology,” and broods incessantly on the passing away of all earthly things. This death cult refuses to abate, even though we have every reason to think that “earthly things” are all that we have, or are ever going to have. Yet in our hands and within our view is a whole universe of discovery and clarification, which is a pleasure to study in itself, gives the average person access to insights that not even Darwin or Einstein possessed, and offers the promise of near-miraculous advances in healing, in energy, and in peaceful exchange between different cultures. Yet millions of people in all societies still prefer the myths of the cave and the tribe and the blood sacrifice. The late Stephen Jay Gould generously wrote that science and religion belong to “non-overlapping magisteria.” They most certainly do not overlap, but this does not mean that they are not antagonistic.

Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important. Where once it used to be able, by its total command of a world-view, to prevent the emergence of rivals, it can now only impede and retard—or try to turn back—the measurable advances that we have made. Sometimes, true, it will artfully concede them. But this is to offer itself the choice between irrelevance and obstruction, impotence or outright reaction, and, given this choice, it is programmed to select the worse of the two. Meanwhile, confronted with undreamed-of vistas inside our own evolving cortex, in the farthest reaches of the known universe, and in the proteins and acids which constitute our nature, religion offers either annihilation in the name of god, or else the false promise that if we take a knife to our foreskins, or pray in the right direction, or ingest pieces of wafer, we shall be “saved.” It is as if someone, offered a delicious and fragrant out-of-season fruit, matured in a painstakingly and lovingly designed hothouse, should throw away the flesh and the pulp and gnaw moodily on the pit.

Above all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man, and woman. This Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person. The study of literature and poetry, both for its own sake and for the eternal ethical questions with which it deals, can now easily depose the scrutiny of sacred texts that have been found to be corrupt and confected. The pursuit of unfettered scientific inquiry, and the availability of new findings to masses of people by easy electronic means, will revolutionize our concepts of research and development. Very importantly, the divorce between the sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, can now at last be attempted, on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse. And all this and more is, for the first time in our history, within the reach if not the grasp of everyone.

However, only the most naive utopian can believe that this new humane civilization will develop, like some dream of “progress,” in a straight line. We have first to transcend our prehistory, and escape the gnarled hands which reach out to drag us back to the catacombs and the reeking altars and the guilty pleasures of subjection and abjection. “Know yourself,” said the Greeks, gently suggesting the consolations of philosophy. To clear the mind for this project, it has become necessary to know the enemy, and to prepare to fight it.

*Note that, when you use this link to purchase the book, we earn from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate.

Further reading

Christopher Hitchens and the long afterlife of Thomas Paine, by Daniel James Sharp

Christopher Hitchens and the value of heterodoxy, by Matt Johnson

What has Christianity to do with Western values? by Nick Cohen

Against the ‘New Theism’, by Daniel James Sharp

Atheism, secularism, humanism, by Anthony Grayling

The ‘Women’s Revolution’: from two activists in Iran, by Rastine Mortad and Sadaf Sepiddasht

‘Words are the only victors’ – Salman Rushdie’s ‘Victory City’, reviewed, by Daniel James Sharp

The Satanic Verses; free speech in the Freethinker, by Emma Park

The Enlightenment and the making of modernity, by Piers Benn

Secularism and the struggle for free speech, by Stephen Evans

Do we need God to defend civilisation? by Adam Wakeling

The rhythm of Tom Paine’s bones, by Eoin Carter

Books From Bob’s Library #1: Introduction and Thomas Paine’s ‘The Age of Reason’, by Bob Forder

New Atheism, New Theism, and a defence of cultural Christianity, by Jack Stacey

‘An animal is a description of ancient worlds’: interview with Richard Dawkins, by Emma Park

‘We are at a threshold right now’: Lawrence Krauss on science, atheism, religion, and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in science, interview by Daniel James Sharp

Consciousness, free will and meaning in a Darwinian universe: interview with Daniel C. Dennett, by Daniel James Sharp

‘Nature is super enough, thank you very much!’: interview with Frank Turner, by Daniel James Sharp

How three media revolutions transformed the history of atheism, by Nathan Alexander

Quebec’s French-style secularism: history and enduring value, by Mathew Giagnorio

How laïcité can save secularism, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The case of Richard Dawkins: cultural affiliation with a religious community does not contradict atheism, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The need to rekindle irreverence for Islam in Muslim thought, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Britain’s blasphemy heritage, by David Nash

Secularism is a feminist issue, by Megan Manson

The hijab is the wrong symbol to represent women, by Khadija Khan

The post The need for a new Enlightenment appeared first on The Freethinker.

On 6 April 2024, friends of Terry Sanderson assembled at his newly erected grave to celebrate his life. He was the President of the NSS 2006-2017. In 2017 Terry was honoured to be awarded le Prix de la Séparation des Églises et l’État in Paris by the International Association of Freethinkers. This was just one of the many ways in which his many achievements were recognised by the global secularist community.

The grave, at Brookwood near Woking, Surrey, near NSS founder Charles Bradlaugh’s, takes the form of an open book in recognition of Terry’s brilliance as a writer. The inscription on the grave describes him as a ‘gay rights campaigner, writer, journalist, social worker, President of the National Secular Society 2006-2017’ and says that ‘he spent his whole life trying to improve the lives of others’. It also records the last words he wrote: ‘Try to be kind to each other’.

Terry died on 12 June 2022, aged 75, after five years of a cancer-related illness which he bore with characteristic uncomplaining bravery. In 2017, he had a massive operation and had to be revived on the operating table. On 12 June 2022, he died at our home, as he wished, rather than in a hospice.

Leading the ceremony, I chronicled Terry’s life, which started on 17 November 1946 in a South Yorkshire mining village where in the 1940s and 1950s poverty was extreme. His exceptional writing talents emerged in his early years at school and he organised plays in which the local children took part.

Even by the late 1960s homosexuality had been only partly decriminalised in England and Wales and there was great hostility to and ignorance about it, particularly in such macho environments as the one Terry grew up in. Nevertheless, Terry bravely declared his homosexuality, even to his parents, in the local newspaper. To assist the many isolated gay people in the area, Terry set up a telephone helpline and distributed gay books by mail order. He fought the local council’s ban on gay events such as discos on their premises, ostensibly because the staff would not like them. So he booked the venue for a birthday party with a hundred guests, all gay, and asked the staff whether they objected. ‘Not at all,’ they responded, ‘it was a lot more civilised than most such events here.’ Predictably, the council did not back down, but it was forced to do so after Terry appealed to the national ombudsman.

Soon after we met, in 1981, and he moved in with me in London, he started writing gay self-help books. They helped a generation of people come to terms with their sexuality. Readers of these books, some famous, still pay tribute to their transformative effect on their lives.

Terry then embarked on writing a monthly feature column for Gay Times drawing attention to the latest examples of the widespread homophobia in the media which became very popular. This necessitated reading every newspaper, long before they were online, which he did for 25 years. I still wonder how he retained his sanity! Crucially, he used the information he gleaned as the basis for relentless complaints to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). A former member of the PCC said that ‘Terry Sanderson made our lives hell!’ Over the years, these complaints were treated with increasing seriousness and its rulings led to the virtual elimination of homophobia in the press. In turn, this materially reduced the incidence of homophobia in public discourse. Today, even what had been the worst offending newspapers in the 1980s-2000s now write neutral, even supportive, articles about gay people.

Terry and I were always secularists, in part because we considered that the churches were a major obstacle to gay liberation and equality. So, when the leadership of the National Secular Society became vacant in 1996, he encouraged me to abandon my career in commerce and apply for the job, to which I was appointed. He then helped me build up the Society’s membership through his wonderful writing and expertise in broadcasting. He joined the Council and eventually became President. The two achievements of the NSS while he was President of which he was most proud were: (a) the abolition of the blasphemy law, which had been an objective of the Society since its foundation in 1866, and (b) arranging the biggest demonstration against a Pope ever. This was the protest over the state funding of Benedict XVI’s visit to the UK in 2010. The demonstration in central London extended to well over a mile.

His writing also included humorous books and plays, and he was a film director manqué. One of his films was a powerful documentary about his hero Marlene Dietrich, detailing both her ever-evolving artistic career and her bravery in helping the Allied war effort, to the fury of the Third Reich. As long-time friend Malcolm Trahearn said at the commemoration, Terry ‘was no doubt inspired by her fierce beliefs in individualism and freedom. She was openly and “notoriously” bisexual, and an atheist.’ Malcom further recalled that Terry had ‘commissioned a half-life-size mannequin of Marlene, from an American artist, which he displayed in an illuminated glass case in the living room. She presided over so many evenings, glittering in sequins and mink.’ He compiled numerous variety shows screened as benefit performances for London’s Cinema Museum each Christmas. He was also, for three years, an agony aunt on Woman’s Own.

It is remarkable that he achieved all this while holding down a full-time job as a social worker helping adults with learning difficulties, which he did with great empathy and very effectively. Decades later, many of those people still remember him.

My tribute at the graveside was followed by leading academic Professor Paul Johnson, Dean of Social Sciences at Leeds University, praising Terry’s work as a writer and communicator. Paul said that Terry’s book How To Be A Happy Homosexual (1986, followed by several new editions) was a ‘response to enormous levels of state-sanctioned and institutionalised homophobia. Terry delivered a message to gay people: you can be happy and, crucially, your happiness is in your own hands.’ Paul believed that Terry was ‘one of the twentieth century’s greatest contributors to promoting gay rights and establishing equality for gay people.’ Paul quoted this beautiful and ever-relevant passage from the book:

‘There is no convincing reason to deny yourself full expression as a gay person. … It has been proved, over and over again, that gay people can be happy, as long as they give themselves permission. … You will be freed from the control of other people’s opinions and manipulations. Your happiness will be the paramount motivation in your life.’

The NSS’s CEO Stephen Evans added an affectionate and humorous epitaph. This was followed by a delicious meal, as Terry would have thought essential, during which his favourite music was played, including some Frederick Delius.

The event concluded with numerous anecdotes from guests, some amusing and others poignant. They had a common thread: Terry’s brilliance, bravery, humility, kindness, and charm. It is amazing how many people, some of whom had only met him for a few minutes, had been enchanted by him.

See here for more photos of Terry and Keith and for photos and videos from the 6 April 2024 commemoration.

The text on Terry’s gravestone

‘Terry Sanderson, 17 November 1946-12 June 2022.

His whole life was spent improving the lives of others. The last words he wrote: “Try to be kind to each other.” Gay rights campaigner, writer, journalist, social worker, President of the National Secular Society 2006-2017.

Beloved partner of Keith Porteous Wood.’

The post Terry Sanderson, 1946-2022: a celebration of his life appeared first on The Freethinker.

Since their earliest origins, Christian cultures have been preoccupied with the temptations of the Devil, and humanity’s susceptibility to them. ‘Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’ (James 1: 14-15)

The popularity of Satan, the arch-tempter, may be on the wane, but Police Scotland, in preparing to implement the Scottish Hate Crime Act, have found a contemporary devil to replace him: the Hate Monster. ‘When yer feeling insecure, when ye feel angry; he’ll be there, feeding aff they emotions. Getting bigger and bigger, till he’s weighing ye doon [sic].’

Beware, anyone who has ever felt any heated disagreement with someone or something, especially where a ‘protected characteristic’ is involved: you may be possessed by the Hate Monster and anything you say or do, especially on social media, may be used by righteous informers and priests – sorry, police – as evidence of your sinful mind.

As far as the protected characteristic of religion is concerned, the unbeliever may be glad that, under section 9(b) of the Act, expressions of ‘antipathy, dislike, ridicule or insult’ are not, on their own, automatically deemed to constitute ‘threatening or abusive’ behaviour, which is the first element in the section 4(2) offence of ‘stirring up hatred’. (The second element of the offence is the intent to ‘stir up hatred against a group of persons’ on the basis of their protected characteristic.)

Yet to advocates of open debate, this carve-out for free expression about religion offers tepid comfort. Not only is it apparently confined to certain categories of expression, but it does not apply to any of the other protected characteristics, including, most controversially, ‘transgender identity’.

As a criterion of judging whether apparently threatening or abusive behaviour is ‘reasonable’ and therefore defensible, section 4(5) invokes the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, including of ‘ideas that offend, shock or disturb’. However, under section 9, while ‘discussion or criticism’ of protected characteristics is not automatically deemed threatening or abusive, antipathy, ridicule and the like presumably would be in the case of any characteristic except religion.

Altogether, the wording of the Act raises several questions about how it will function in practice, and how sections 4 and 9 will relate to each other.

If someone is gauche enough, for instance, to criticise the claim that a man can change into a woman, how is he or she to know whether doing so will be deemed mere discussion or an act that a ‘reasonable’ person would consider threatening or abusive – and if the latter, whether it will itself still be judged ‘reasonable’ on the basis of the ECHR right to freedom of expression, or will be held an unreasonable, impermissible act of stirring up hatred against trans people? Who should decide what is ‘reasonable’ in such fraught debates? You might as well ask a lay court to adjudicate on the relative merits of con- and transubstantiation.

Moreover, if it is a question of intent, how is the court to determine, as a second and distinct test, what the defendant intended the effect of their words to be, other than by the words themselves?

The overall thrust of the ‘stirring-up’ offences is to imply that the expression of disagreement about characteristics specially defined and sanctioned by the Scottish state is always potentially criminal. This is a short step from criminalising thought itself. And that is what the Hate Monster is all about.

The idea that thought can be sinful goes right back to the Old Testament: ‘But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.’ (Leviticus 18: 28)

From next week in Scotland, therefore, who knows how mild an expression of doubtful or dissenting views, in particular ‘gender critical’ ones, may be sufficient to saddle a person with a criminal record – or whether most dissenters will be too afraid to speak at all, because they do not want to risk it. No wonder the Act has been so heavily criticised by women’s rights campaigners, as well as free speech advocates more generally.

Of course, if you are inclined to express antipathy to women, no need to worry – biological sex, unlike transgender identity, is not on the protected list.

Section 12 does contain a power for the Ministers to add ‘the characteristic of sex’ to the list. So in theory, if supporters of women’s rights ever won a majority at Holyrood, they could implement this section, and then sit back and watch the police and the courts tearing their hair out as trans women denounced women for misgendering, and women denounced trans women for misogyny.

In the long term, though, slapping more restrictions on speech about ever more categories of protected groups will benefit no one, except perhaps those who happen to be in power for the time being. If we want a society which is not a dictatorship, if we believe in intellectual and moral progress rather than stagnation, then we have to be prepared for give and take: to be offended, insulted, made uncomfortable and even upset by the views of people who disagree with us, even on the most sensitive subjects of all.

As Jonathan Rauch put it, ‘To appeal to a country’s conscience, you need an antagonist.’ If you demonise your antagonists, if you label anyone who disagrees with you an agent of Satan or the Hate Monster, then you as a country are depriving yourselves of the opportunity for moral doubt and conflict, which is the essence of a conscience.

Plato once defined thinking as the soul’s dialogue with itself. Take away a country’s opportunity for dialogue and disagreement, and you might as well kill its soul.

The post From Satan to the Hate Monster appeared first on The Freethinker.

2023 has been an eventful year for free thought, humanism and secularism. Below, Emma Park and Daniel James Sharp look back on some of the major issues that have been debated in the Freethinker this year.

I. Free speech, religion and the culture wars

Free thought and intellectual progress are not possible without a shared culture of free speech, open debate and a willingness to engage with different points of view. One of the Freethinker’s concerns this year has been with attempts to repress free speech, especially in the UK and elsewhere in the English-speaking world, and in the context of the ‘culture wars’.

In Ireland, a new bill on hate offences threatens to undermine free speech, not just about religion but on a variety of the most sensitive topics – in other words, topics on which open debate is crucial. In Wakefield, England, in February, a non-Muslim woman, presumably under pressure, donned a veil and made a humiliating public apology in the local mosque, because her autistic son had brought a copy of the Quran into school and it was accidentally scuffed. And Puffin has made attempts to censor Roald Dahl in the name of ‘sensitivity’.

Free speech at universities also remains under pressure, as illustrated by the case of Professor Steven Greer, who was hounded by Bristol University Islamic Society in a smear campaign that was supported by academic colleagues who should have known better. Daniel reviewed Greer’s book about his experiences.

Across the pond, Professor Alex Byrne’s contract for a book critical of gender identity ideology was cancelled by Oxford University Press, but has since been published by Polity. From a different perspective, former vice chancellor Julius Weinberg argued that ‘freedom of speech is not as simple as my right to express my ideas’.

To supporters of democracy in Hong Kong, the culture wars are all but an irrelevance. The suffocating control of the Chinese Communist Party, said Kevin Yam, forced campaigners across the political spectrum to work together.

II. Science, philosophy, and humanism

As well as exploring the issues of the day, the Freethinker has also explored some of their deeper philosophical and historical contexts.

We interviewed the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett about the relationship between philosophy and science, meaning and consciousness in a godless, Darwinian universe, and New Atheism. With historian Charles Freeman, we discussed the richness and variety of the ancient Greek mind and how the coming of Christian orthodoxy put an end to that tradition. And we caught up with the humanist and author Sarah Bakewell to explore different traditions of humanism.

Meanwhile, Matt Johnson and Daniel Sharp both contributed articles about one of the most famous freethinkers of recent years, the late Christopher Hitchens.

III. Islam and free thought

With the rise of Islam in Britain and across the West, it has become urgent to consider how far the religion can be compatible with Western values and approaches. To explore this question, we interviewed Taj Hargey, possibly Britain’s only liberal imam. Other contributors have explored the need to rekindle irreverence for Islam in Muslim thought around the world, why the hijab is not a good symbol for women, and whether it is possible to distinguish between religious and political Islam.

IV. Secularism

Secularism is the principle that religion and state should be separated, and that religion should have no undue influence on public life. In the UK, thanks to a combination of political apathy and entrenched privilege, we still have an established church and unelected clergy in Parliament. Paul Scriven, a Liberal Democrat peer, spoke to the Freethinker about why he introduced a bill to disestablish the Church of England.

With a general election on the cards for 2024, Stephen Evans of the National Secular Society discussed where the political parties stand on faith schools. Two recent events in which the NSS participated revealed some of the challenges involved in secularisation. Daniel also argued in an article for Only Sky that the Church of England’s record on gay marriage is another reason to hasten disestablishment.

Other contributors to the Freethinker have looked at secularism, its history and future, in Québec, Turkey and Wales, and the strengths and weaknesses of French-style laïcité.

Did you know that, while the advancement of any religion, as well as of humanism, is considered a charitable aim under English law, the advancement of free thought, atheism or secularism is not? See Emma’s piece for New Humanist.

V. Israel and Palestine

One of the year’s biggest events—the Hamas attack against Israel on 7 October and the ensuing war—has produced a wide range of often emotional and heated responses. In contrast to all this sound and fury, the Freethinker has published a series of articles dealing with the conflict from different and often disagreeing, but rationally and charitably argued perspectives.

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid wrote about the ‘leftist postcolonial apologia’ for Hamas and argued that the Israel-Palestine conflict is, at root, a religious one, while in Emma’s interview with Taj Hargey, the imam was staunch in his support of the ‘occupied and oppressed’ Palestinians. Hina Husain wrote about her Pakistani upbringing and being inculcated with Islam-based anti-Semitism. Finally, Ralph Leonard responded to all these articles, arguing that the conflict is, in fact, inspired more by competing nationalisms than religious impulses.

VI. Republicanism

Free thought and secularism have been closely intertwined with republicanism in British history. The Freethinker has reinforced this link since its beginnings in 1881.

This year, we have continued in the same spirit of religious and political anti-authoritarianism, publishing a review by Daniel of the republican activist Graham Smith’s anti-monarchy book. Later in the year, Daniel interviewed Graham Smith in person at Conway Hall. Meanwhile, Emma delved into the archives to discover the connection between the Freethinker and Republic, of which Smith is the CEO.

See also Daniel’s article on the republican Thomas Paine’s influence on Christopher Hitchens and Tony Howe’s discussion of an even earlier famous British republican, John Milton.

VII. Free thought history

In June, we were saddened to hear of the death of Jim Herrick (1944-2023), former editor of the Freethinker. Bob Forder, NSS historian, wrote an obituary commemorating Jim’s lifelong dedication to free thought, humanism and secularism.

The composer Frances Lynch wrote a guest post about her rediscovery of Eliza Flower, a radical nineteenth-century composer associated with Conway Hall, who was neglected by the historical record because she was female.

We have also been reflecting on the history of the Freethinker and of the various non-religious movements in the UK. Former editor Nigel Sinnott kindly agreed to let us republish an article he wrote for the magazine in 1970 in which he discussed the complicated historical relationship between humanists and secularists. Historian Charlie Lynch introduced the recent book he co-wrote with two other academics charting the history of organised humanism in Britain, which Emma has also reviewed for New Humanist. And Bob Forder argued that free thought and secularism are inseparable.

VIII. The future of free thought

Artificial intelligence has made great strides in 2023. (We even used Dall-E, a generative AI model, to illustrate this post.) Given the exponential pace of development, it is clear that the implications need to be monitored very carefully. For instance, there are concerns that ChatGPT may be biased in favour of certain interpretations of Islam. And artificial general intelligence (AGI) may be just around the corner, making ethical oversight all the more urgent.

Emma and Daniel spoke about the nature of free thought and the challenges facing it today and in the future on the Humanism Now podcast, on Freethought Hour and to the Reading Humanists. Emma also spoke to the Central London Humanists about Pastafarianism, arguably the world’s fastest growing religion, and a topic about which there is much to say.

This year also saw the publication of two intriguing books about the impact of digital technology on free thought, one by Simon McCarthy-Jones, and another by Laura Dodsworth and Patrick Fagan. Emma interviewed Laura Dodsworth for the Freethinker and reviewed both books for the Literary Review. We will be looking further at the implications of digital technology for free thought in 2024.

Finally, a request for your support…

The Freethinker is an independent, non-profit journal and completely open-access. We are funded by donations and legacies given by generations of readers back to the 19th century – and not by big corporations or billionaires. To keep us going in the future, we depend on the generosity of readers today. If you believe in the importance of fostering a culture of free thought, open enquiry and irreverence, please consider making a donation via this link.

And don’t forget to sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter, to keep abreast of the latest developments in free thought in the UK and around the world.

Postscript: a merry Christmas of sorts from Christopher Hitchens…

The post Year in review: 2023 appeared first on The Freethinker.

A round-up of recent and upcoming talks by the Freethinker editorial team, as well as a couple from the National Secular Society and Conway Hall.

• Editor Emma Park appeared on Episode 5 of the Humanism Now podcast, to discuss free thought, free speech, and the state of humanist, secularist, atheist and free thought movements in Britain today.

• Emma will also be speaking about free thought, humanism and the ‘two cultures’ to the Reading Sunday Alternative on 26 November.

• Assistant editor Daniel Sharp spoke to John Richards, president of Atheism UK, on Freethought Hour. Topics included free speech, Iran, Islam in Britain, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and more.

• ‘Let’s talk to each other’: Bradlaugh Lecture 2023 for the National Secular Society by journalist Nicky Campbell, on the topic of free speech and public debate.

• Don’t miss: ‘Condoms, Sponges and Syringes: The 19th century pioneers of family planning’, by Bob Forder, Freethinker contributor, board member of Secular Society Limited, and historian of the National Secular Society. ‘The ability of individuals to control their fertility is a basic right, with important social and economic consequences ranging from women’s liberation to the relief of poverty,’ said Forder. The lecture will take place in Conway Hall, London, at 11am on Saturday 4th November.

We understand that the UK branch of an American evangelical anti-abortion group will be protesting against Forder’s talk tomorrow. We don’t know why, as a discussion of birth control in the Victorian period hardly seems high on the list of things that such groups should be worrying about. Let’s see whether they turn up…

7/11/23: Update on the anti-abortion protests now available here.

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The post Freethinkers in conversation appeared first on The Freethinker.