tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/humanism-13562/articlesHumanism – The Conversation2023-09-07T12:22:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2086462023-09-07T12:22:46Z2023-09-07T12:22:46ZReligious leaders without religion: How humanist, atheist and spiritual-but-not-religious chaplains tend to patients’ needs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542217/original/file-20230810-28-rzbkx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C3%2C2284%2C1293&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chaplains talk with anyone, regardless of whether or not the patient has a religious affiliation – and some chaplains themselves are not religious.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/woman-holding-hands-and-closeup-for-therapy-royalty-free-image/1511184644?phrase=counselor+hand&adppopup=true">Jacob Wackerhausen/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In times of loss, change or other challenges, chaplains can listen, provide comfort and discuss spiritual needs. These spiritual caregivers can be found working in hospitals, universities, prisons and many other secular settings, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/406838/one-four-americans-served-chaplains.aspx">serving people of all faiths and those with no faith tradition at all</a>.</p>
<p>Yet a common assumption is that chaplains themselves must be grounded in a religious tradition. After all, how can you be a religious leader without religion?</p>
<p>In reality, <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/resources/faith-tradition/humanist-chaplaincy">a growing number of chaplains are nonreligious</a>: people who identify as atheist, agnostic, <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/resources/faith-tradition/humanist-chaplaincy">humanist</a> or “spiritual but not religious.” I am <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/team/amy-lawton-phd">a sociologist and research manager</a> at Brandeis University’s <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/">Chaplaincy Innovation Lab</a>, where our team researches and supports chaplains of all faiths, including those from nonreligious backgrounds. <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/projects/sbnr">Our current research</a> has focused on learning from 21 nonreligious chaplains about their experiences.</p>
<h2>A changing society</h2>
<p>Thirty percent of Americans <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/">are religiously unaffiliated</a>. Research suggests that people who are atheists or otherwise nonreligious sometimes <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2022.2150026">reject a chaplain out of wariness</a>, or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01757-z">shut down a conversation</a> if they feel judged for their beliefs. But this research has not accounted for a new, increasingly likely situation – that the chaplain might also be nonreligious.</p>
<p>No national survey has been done, so the number of nonreligious chaplains is unknown. But there is plenty of reason to think that as more Americans choose not to affiliate with any particular religion, so too do more chaplains.</p>
<p>Nonreligious chaplains have been a part of hospital systems and universities for years, but they came into the national spotlight in August 2021 when Harvard University’s organization of chaplains <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-harvards-humanist-chaplain-shows-about-atheism-in-america-168237">unanimously elected humanist and atheist Greg Epstein as president</a>. <a href="https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/definition-of-humanism/">Humanists believe</a> in the potential and goodness of human beings without reference to the supernatural. </p>
<p>Other <a href="https://religionnews.com/2022/06/17/humanist-chaplains-guide-nonreligious-students-on-quest-for-meaning/">recent reporting</a> on <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/06/28/bringing-light-without-god-humanist-chaplain-anthony-cruz-pantojas/">humanist chaplains</a> has also focused on school campuses, but nonreligious chaplains are not limited to colleges and universities. Eighteen of the <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/projects/sbnr">21 nonreligious chaplains</a> we spoke with in our study work in health care, including hospice. The <a href="https://americanhumanist.org/press-releases/humanist-chaplains-reach-landmark-recognition-by-prison-system/">Federal Bureau of Prisons</a> allows nonreligious chaplains, but we were unable to find any of them to participate in the current study. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542220/original/file-20230810-15-hvf9kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A middle-aged man and woman seated in a row of chairs turn around to talk with a handful of college-age kids." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542220/original/file-20230810-15-hvf9kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542220/original/file-20230810-15-hvf9kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542220/original/file-20230810-15-hvf9kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542220/original/file-20230810-15-hvf9kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542220/original/file-20230810-15-hvf9kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542220/original/file-20230810-15-hvf9kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542220/original/file-20230810-15-hvf9kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humanist chaplain Bart Campolo, center, and his wife, Marty, right, mingle with students at the University of Southern California in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AtheistChaplains/5de6fecc1cb24dbe93954703ac811906/photo?Query=humanist%20chaplain&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=7&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</a></span>
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<p>Not all settings allow nonreligious chaplains, however, <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/atheists-foxholes-military-program">including the U.S. military</a>.</p>
<h2>Authentic calling</h2>
<p>The idea of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15363759.2011.576213">a “call” from God</a> is central to many religious vocations: a strong impulse toward religious leadership, which many people attribute to the divine.</p>
<p>Chaplains who are atheists, agnostics, humanists or who consider themselves spiritual but not religious also can feel called. But they do not believe that their calls come from a deity. </p>
<p>Joe, for example, an atheist and a humanist whom we interviewed, has worked as a chaplain in hospitals and hospices. He says that his “light bulb moment” came after a history professor told him that beliefs are the source of a community’s power. While atheists do not believe in God or gods, many do have strong beliefs about ethics and morality, and American atheists are more likely than American Christians to say they <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/12/06/10-facts-about-atheists/">often feel a sense of wonder about the universe</a>. Joe’s call was not “from a divine source,” but nonetheless, he says this experience “kind of filled me with a sense of control, and confidence, and presence” in his life that grounded his sense of a calling.</p>
<p>Sunil, another chaplain our team interviewed, was inspired by his college chaplain, whom he calls “a really influential presence.” The chaplain helped Sunil answer questions about identity and values without “necessarily having any religious or spiritual leanings to it,” and encouraged him to go to divinity school.</p>
<p>Today, Sunil tries to help others answer those same questions in his work as a health care chaplain – and to offer deeply thoughtful, meaningful spiritual care to people who aren’t religious. </p>
<h2>Education and training</h2>
<p>Most chaplaincy jobs require a <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Cadge-et-al-What-Are-Chaplains-Learning-rev.-April-2023.pdf">theological degree</a>. Along with coursework in sacred scriptures and religious leadership, chaplaincy training usually involves <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1542305019875819">clinical pastoral education</a>, where students learn about hands-on, care-oriented aspects of their profession. This involves learning to provide care to everyone, regardless of their religious background.</p>
<p>Although coursework is broadly the same for all students, religious or nonreligious, the actual experience of earning a degree is very different for nonreligious students. In the United States, Christian students are easily able to enroll in a seminary or divinity school that shares their faith identity and spend their years of study learning about their own tradition. </p>
<p>Chaplaincy programs that focus on non-Christian traditions are available, but scarcer, and our team does not know of an overtly nonreligious chaplaincy program. In recent years, more seminaries have <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/04/29/seminary-draws-nonreligious-students-social-justice">welcomed nonreligious students</a>, but nonetheless, nonreligious students often find themselves focusing their study on traditions to which they have no personal connection. </p>
<p>Yet there is a surprising bright side.</p>
<h2>‘I am here to support you’</h2>
<p>Being deeply immersed in traditions that are not one’s own is one of the reasons that nonreligious chaplains can be so effective. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542222/original/file-20230810-23-tzigib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A poster that says 'We are with you,' with an illustration of someone sitting in scrubs as dozens of ghostly figures hold them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542222/original/file-20230810-23-tzigib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542222/original/file-20230810-23-tzigib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542222/original/file-20230810-23-tzigib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542222/original/file-20230810-23-tzigib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542222/original/file-20230810-23-tzigib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542222/original/file-20230810-23-tzigib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542222/original/file-20230810-23-tzigib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Artwork posted by a chaplain in a break room in the trauma surgery ICU at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/artwork-posted-by-a-chaplain-is-seen-in-a-break-room-in-the-news-photo/1229806458?adppopup=true">David Ryder/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>For example, our team asked Kathy, a health care chaplain, how she approaches prayer with religious and nonreligious patients. “My goal is to try to meet that person where they are and pray in a way that’s helpful and comforting for them, or meets whatever the need is that’s arisen during the conversation that we’ve had,” she said. Like all chaplains, Kathy is there to accompany, not proselytize. While she herself prays to the “great mystery,” she is comfortable facilitating whatever prayer is needed.</p>
<p>Claire, a chaplaincy student, agreed with Kathy and described her own first experience meeting an evangelical Christian patient. It was easy, she said, because “you’re not trying to fix anything. You’re just trying to meet them where they are. So that’s it.”</p>
<p>Nonreligious chaplains are used to thinking outside the box. Having learned about major world religions, many of them can find overlapping values and beliefs with their patients, such as finding beauty and meaning in the natural world or finding strength in their conviction that human beings are inherently good.</p>
<p>Cynthia works in the palliative care department in a hospital and tells her patients, “I am here to support you in whatever is meaningful to you right now and whatever is most important in your life in this moment.” She asks patients: “What are you struggling with right now? What are your goals? What do you hope for? What are you afraid of?” – trying to “unpack that with a spiritual lens rather than a medical lens.”</p>
<p>Cynthia is an example of why spiritual care by nonreligious chaplains may be surprising, but is likely here to stay. Based on our research, nonreligious chaplains are as capable as religious chaplains of meeting a person in their darkest hour and taking them by the hand.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Chaplaincy Innovation Lab received funding from the Fetzer Institute to support this research. </span></em></p>As more Americans step away from organized religion, so do more chaplains – but they are prepared to offer spiritual care regardless of a patient’s beliefs.Amy Lawton, Research Manager, Chaplaincy Innovation Lab, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2027562023-05-22T04:14:32Z2023-05-22T04:14:32ZWhere have all the Luddites gone? Exploring what makes us human – and whether modern technology threatens to destroy it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526362/original/file-20230515-23727-om8jpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=285%2C38%2C3949%2C2781&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The great – if sometimes overlooked – 20th-century philosopher and cultural critic <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-an-obscure-austrian-philosopher-saw-through-our-empty-rhetoric-about-sustainability-77884">Günther Anders</a> once proposed that our modern age is characterised by a dangerous and pervasive “<em>Apocalypse-Blindheit</em>”: a blindness to the apocalypse. </p>
<p>Writing in the midst of the 20th-century nuclear arms race, he suggested an unquestioning faith in science and progress prevents us from seeing the technological catastrophe spreading out all around us.</p>
<p>The reality of human-created climate change has, in recent years, perhaps begun to cure this condition. And there are at least some indications a significant number of people are becoming aware of the mess we’re in.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Here Be Monsters: Is Technology Reducing Our Humanity – Richard King (Monash University Press)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>But, as Richard King notes in his sweeping and ambitious <a href="https://publishing.monash.edu/product/here-be-monsters/">Here Be Monsters</a>, our philosophical or intellectual responses to technology have not really kept pace with events.</p>
<p>Instead, what King calls “the techno-critical tradition”, or a tradition of thinkers who view technological modernity as fundamentally damaging and foreboding, has more or less disappeared.</p>
<p>Thus, once-towering philosophers of technology – figures like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford">Lewis Mumford</a>, who was already warning in the 1950s that unrestricted technological expansion threatened the durability of both the human and the natural worlds, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman">Neil Postman</a>, who in the 1980s described modern society as a “technopoly” in which human behaviour is thoroughly governed and regulated by machines - hardly receive any attention at all.</p>
<p>And the more “techno-critical” elements of those who <em>are</em> studied widely (notably the ubiquitous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt">Hannah Arendt</a>) are quickly glossed over or pushed to the margins.</p>
<p>Why, then, have full-throated critiques of technology become so scarce at the exact moment when they might seem most pertinent? Where have all the Luddites gone?</p>
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<h2>Recovering human nature</h2>
<p>King argues one crucial reason for the decline of the techno-critical tradition is its tendency to rely on the concept of human nature. </p>
<p>We can only maintain our technologies corrupt us if we have some relatively fixed sense of who we would be without them.</p>
<p>But, particularly in the rarefied atmosphere of universities, the concept of human nature has been decidedly unfashionable (indeed all but forbidden) for nearly half a century. It has become commonplace to suggest every definition of the human, no matter how loose or how broad, exists primarily to exclude its opposite. We define the “human”, the argument goes, to mark off forms of life that can be labelled <em>inhuman</em>, and thus justify their elimination.</p>
<p>As King sees it, the widespread abandonment of the concept of human nature might be well-intentioned. But it has inadvertently left us vulnerable to an unthinking veneration of technology - one particularly amendable to the interests of capitalism.</p>
<p>For to strip the human of all natural limits is to present it as nothing more than what King calls a “blank slate” – a programmable machine capable of being engineered for optimal production and consumption, void of any essential needs or desires.</p>
<p>“The danger,” King writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>is not that we create a monster that runs amok, or a plague of zombies, or a rogue AI – or a planet of the apes, for that matter – but that we begin to see ourselves and others as something less than fully human, as machines to be rewired or recalibrated in line with the dominant ideological worldview. </p>
<p>In that case, we would <em>already</em> have arrived at a perilous situation – a situation where our perception of ourselves as bounded by and connected through nature had given way to the “post-humanist” view that humans are fleshy automata, subject to endless modification.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For King, this danger is at a historical tipping point. And we must face it immediately. Doing so, however, will require more than an examination of technology itself.</p>
<p>It will require what King dubs a “radical humanism”, and a fundamental reassessment of what we are – including our relations with ourselves, with one another, and with our common world.</p>
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<h2>Homo Faber, or the tool-making animal</h2>
<p>Here Be Monsters proposes to develop nothing less than a new definition of human nature.</p>
<p>King, of course, is fully aware of the immensity of the task, and he is careful to qualify his approach in important ways. He acknowledges, for example, the basic difficulty of distinguishing between nature and culture. Any consistent understanding of the former would eventually have to envelop the latter.</p>
<p>It’s part of human nature to produce culture, King allows. The human is “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_faber">homo faber</a>”, he proposes, “man the maker”. And “no less than the instinct for self-preservation or sexual desire, technological creativity is fundamental to our being”.</p>
<p>But from King’s perspective, there is a qualitative difference between building tools that harness the power of nature (for example, a windmill) and using technology to alter its very fabric (for example, splitting the atom).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">King sees a qualitative difference between creating tools that harness the power of nature and those that alter its very fabric.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charlie Riedel/AP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The line might be hard to pinpoint. But as King sees it, in the age of nuclear energy, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, machine learning, and much more, it was crossed long ago.</p>
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<p>King similarly acknowledges his tendency to frame the problem in ways that primarily concern the wealthy inhabitants of the <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/global-north-countries">Global North</a> - and that the same issues will look entirely different from the perspective of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South">Global South</a>. It must be infuriating to hear those who have already reaped most of the benefits of technological development now insist that limits be placed on those who have paid most of the costs.</p>
<p>“Nevertheless,” King insists, “the Global North and Global South […] are at very different stages of development”. And precisely because it has advanced further into the belly of the beast, “the North has problems the South doesn’t have, or has to a lesser degree”. The North, in other words, should not be seen as a model, but as a warning. </p>
<h2>Social, embodied, creative</h2>
<p>Following these introductory remarks, King divides his book into three parts. Each addresses a crucial aspect of the human experience, and the way modern technology threatens to destroy it.</p>
<p>The first part describes humans as essentially social creatures, who require both the physical presence of other humans and a robust political community in order to become themselves.</p>
<p>It argues that social media, algorithmic manipulation, and what King calls “technologies of absence” corrupt this aspect of our existence.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526360/original/file-20230515-19748-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526360/original/file-20230515-19748-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526360/original/file-20230515-19748-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526360/original/file-20230515-19748-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526360/original/file-20230515-19748-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526360/original/file-20230515-19748-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526360/original/file-20230515-19748-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526360/original/file-20230515-19748-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A crowd in Tokyo earlier this month. Humans are essentially social creatures, writes King.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kimimasa Mayama/AP</span></span>
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<p>The second part takes up the related question of our embodiment. King proposes neither the mind nor the body can be reduced to mechanistic calculations, and warns against the pernicious effects of attempting to do so.</p>
<p>For King, when we view our mind as nothing more than a large calculator and our body as an object to be constructed and reconstructed at will, we risk losing sight of the very limits that make it possible for us to flourish.</p>
<p>Finally, the third part explores the human capacity for free creation and “the pleasures of practical activity”. Here King seeks to revitalise the familiar Marxist theme of alienation, or the sense in which technological modes of production distance us from the products of our labour. And he begins to sketch out the parameters of what he calls “a new relationship with technology”.</p>
<p>As King sees it, we stand on the verge of a precipice. The technologies we have constructed to make our way in the world are very close to depriving us of any world whatsoever.</p>
<p>“In order to avoid this trap,” King concludes, “we will need to develop a radical humanism that puts the social and creative needs of human beings front and centre” – one that, once again, “is not afraid […] to invoke the concept of human nature”.</p>
<h2>Historicising the human</h2>
<p>Here Be Monsters deals extensively with specific technologies, offering a kind of pessimistic catalogue of their worst potential. But some of its most intriguing arguments concern philosophical and ideological positions that were established long before the advent of either the atomic or the digital age. </p>
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<p>King spends a considerable amount of time dismantling the platitudes of utilitarianism, liberalism, and capitalism. </p>
<p>And he shows how these phenomena, which have their roots in the 17th and 18th centuries, provided the intellectual and material foundations of what we now call “neoliberalism”. This is a way of thinking that King takes to be fundamentally at odds with human wellbeing, and with the project of humanity as such. </p>
<p>The problem is, we cannot really historicise one concept of the human – namely the neoliberal concept, which treats humans as self-interested, profit-maximising machines – without historicising the concept of “humanity” as a whole.</p>
<p>That is to say, while the biological species “human being” has obviously existed for a very long time, the notion that all members of that species share a common world, that we all have some common interests, and even that we all possess common rights, is not that old at all.</p>
<p>In this sense, it might be best to think of our humanity, not as an object we might investigate and describe, like a part of the natural world, but more like a response to a crisis or an event. </p>
<p>As we arguably witnessed for fleeting moments during the COVID pandemic, humanity is called into existence – and we belong to it – when something larger than life grips us all, and we are compelled to act in concert.</p>
<p>The question is whether we will ever be able to do this in the sustained manner required to address the overwhelming existential catastrophes outlined by King.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202756/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Barbour does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new book argues our philosophical and intellectual responses to technology have not kept pace with events.Charles Barbour, Associate Professor, Philosophy, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1918402022-10-31T12:33:17Z2022-10-31T12:33:17ZFrom atheist churches to finding healing in the ‘sacred flower of cannabis,’ spiritual but not religious Americans are finding new ways of pursuing meaning<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491982/original/file-20221026-18679-kx131x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C512%2C341&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The interior of the International Church of Cannabis in Denver, Colorado.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/international-church-of-cannabis">International Church of Cannabis Denver, Colorado</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/#fn-38123-1">recent Pew Center report</a>, American Christianity remains in a nearly <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christianity-us-shrinking-pew-research/">three-decade decline</a>. Responding as “none” or “unaffiliated” on religious surveys, people increasingly identify as humanists, atheists, agnostics, or simply spiritual. If current trends continue, by 2070 Christianity may no longer be the dominant expression of American religion. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://people.cal.msu.edu/shiple18/">scholar who studies alternative spirituality and new religious movements</a> in the United States, I believe the reality of America’s diverse religious and spiritual landscape is more complex than often presented. </p>
<p>The nones – or those claiming no particular religious affiliation – range from atheists to individuals searching for spiritual answers <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/10617">outside traditional religious groups</a>. This last group commonly identifies as spiritual but not religious – or SBNR. Dissatisfied with traditional religion, these individuals think about spirituality in a more secular way, as representing their pursuit of meaning, healing, purpose and belonging.</p>
<h2>The many expressions of spirituality</h2>
<p>In her <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199931002.001.0001">study of multiple SBNR identities</a>, theologian <a href="https://www.healthybeliefs.org/meet-dr-linda-mercadante/">Linda Mercadante</a> found that the turn away from organized religion does not necessarily come at the expense of faith, ritual or practice. For “post-Christianity” seekers, Mercadante stresses how spiritual fulfillment moves from “religious and civic institutions to ‘gathering places.’”</p>
<p>Such “gathering places” range widely. </p>
<p>Many turn to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/peace-love-yoga-9780190888633?cc=us&lang=en&">practices appropriated</a> from different religious contexts. <a href="https://thensrn.org/2020/02/26/is-mindfulness-a-religion-for-unbelievers/">Mindfulness</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190888626.001.0001">yoga</a>, in particular, have emerged as popular alternatives for seeking spiritual, psychological and physical healing. </p>
<p>These practices point to the growing connection between spirituality and health. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3109%2F10826084.2013.808540">Twelve-step meetings</a> for addiction recovery and <a href="https://bioethics.hms.harvard.edu/journal/spirituality-medicine">contemporary medicine</a>, for example, stress the need to balance spirit and body for wellness.</p>
<p>Several <a href="https://crossroadpublishing.com/product/spirituality-and-the-secular-quest/">nonreligious practices</a> create opportunities to explore spirituality beyond religious affiliation. People find a sense of belonging through the internet and social media. Others turn to self-help literature or elements of popular culture. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.149">Sports</a> similarly provide an <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-sport-is-a-spiritual-experience-and-failure-can-help-65871">avenue for spiritual renewal</a>. The rituals of training, competing and camaraderie reflect the spiritual quest for personal growth and locating community. Digital communities and online options likewise afford new modes for spiritual practice and connection. </p>
<p>Accordingly, some scholars, such as religious studies professor <a href="https://www.bradley.edu/academic/departments/phlrs/faculty/profile.dot?id=172384">Robert Fuller</a>, have stressed the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/spiritual-but-not-religious-9780195146806?cc=us&lang=en&">“unchurched” nature of the SBNR</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, the continued desire to find meaning and connection has led to the development of secular, spiritual and atheist churches. Although almost universally understood as physical spaces for religious practice, the rise of nonreligious churches demonstrate the benefits and shared opportunities many nones and SBNR people associate with the experience of “going to church.” </p>
<h2>Secular and atheist churches</h2>
<p>Emerging over the past decade, and although still small in scale, secular and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqFJEzsffnE">atheist churches</a> indicate how changes in religious affiliation do not <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/10/atheist-mega-churches/3489967/">necessarily include a rejection of the communal structures</a> that provide avenues for spiritual rejuvenation.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Atheist churches that include secular rituals have been showing an increase.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The <a href="https://seattleatheist.church/">Seattle Atheist Church</a>, for example, <a href="https://seattleatheist.church/mission/">positions itself</a> as “a place where atheists come together” to address big questions and “celebrate meaningful life events with atheist rituals.” Founded in 2015, the church offers weekly Sunday meetings for a couple dozen participants who share in leading sermons in relation to their commitment to <a href="https://secularhumanism.org/what-is-secular-humanism/">secular humanism</a>, a nonreligious worldview that rejects belief in the supernatural.</p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://www.sundayassemblydetroit.org/">Sunday Assembly Detroit</a> seeks to “help everyone live life as fully as possible.” One of 70 chapters spread across eight different countries, the Sunday Assembly was founded by comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans in 2013. Their motto was “Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More.”</p>
<p>Others find refuge in secularized churches that combine alternative rituals, such as the use of cannabis, with various humanist, ethical and spiritual orientations.</p>
<p>Identifying as Elevationists, <a href="https://elevationists.org/">members of the International Church of Cannabis</a> in Denver, Colorado, for example, come together through the ritual sharing of cannabis, or what they call “the sacred flower.” </p>
<p>This sharing, they say, helps them “reveal the best version of self.” It also aids in discovering “a creative voice” that can can help enrich the community “with the fruits of that creativity.” These “fruits” often manifest as charitable projects, including street cleaning and an outreach initiative to feed and clothe Denver’s homeless population.</p>
<p>Such an approach does not deny members who might still hold religious beliefs, but focuses attention away from the supernatural toward self-improvement. Similarly, members of the nondenominational <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FCCoLaR/">First Church of Logic and Reason</a>, based in Lansing, Michigan, elevate cannabis as a spiritual and therapeutic element. The church’s ritual use of cannabis offers a way to heal and find a sense of belonging for those disenchanted with traditional religion. </p>
<p>Additionally, digital opportunities <a href="https://sacredmattersmagazine.com/from-the-madness-of-reefer-to-the-ecstatic-bliss-of-marijuana-the-rise-of-cannabis-churches/">have emerged as a vital site</a> for cultivating spirituality.</p>
<h2>Digital spirituality</h2>
<p>For those disillusioned with traditional religion, <a href="https://laverne.edu/chaplain/apps-for-spiritual-wellbeing/">digital technologies, apps, and online options</a> offer new avenues to engage with secular and alternative forms of spiritual practice. </p>
<p>Current apps can calculate one’s <a href="https://chart.chaninicholas.com/">astrological chart</a> or provide <a href="https://www.evatarot.net/">online tarot readings</a>. Social media platforms – particularly <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/discover/spirituality?lang=en">TikTok</a> – make a host of New Age practices, including <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/discover/healing-crystal?lang=en">crystal healing</a>, immediately available. <a href="https://www.allure.com/story/does-reiki-therapy-tiktok-work">Reiki</a> finds a <a href="https://paritashahhealing.com/distant-reiki/">robust community</a> of <a href="https://www.nycreikicenter.com/treatments/virtual-reiki-treatments/">virtual practitioners</a>, and <a href="https://www.mindful.org/free-mindfulness-apps-worthy-of-your-attention/">mindfulness</a> can be cultivated across a host of <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/best-meditation-apps-4767322">meditation apps</a>. </p>
<p>Shifts away from traditional religious membership doesn’t simply mean Americans are rejecting religion. Rather, they are exploring an ever-evolving spectrum of spirituality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgan Shipley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>America’s religious landscape is getting more diverse as people find new ways of expressing spirituality.Morgan Shipley, Foglio Endowed Chair of Spirituality & Associate Chair of Religious Studies, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1929972022-10-24T19:47:24Z2022-10-24T19:47:24ZNew Congress has a humanist rep and a religiously unaffiliated senator – but why is it so hard for outright atheists to get voted in?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502981/original/file-20230103-64877-i1f8s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C1%2C1019%2C680&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Congress includes people of many faiths – but not many who profess no faith at all.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-house-of-representatives-votes-on-speaker-of-the-house-news-photo/1245964216?phrase=congress&adppopup=true">Kent Nishimura /Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the 118th session of Congress begins on Jan. 3, 2023, members with a wide range of religious beliefs will enter the Capitol.</p>
<p>But while self-identified <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/01/04/faith-on-the-hill-2021/">Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus</a> rub shoulders in the corridors of power, one group is noticeably absent: atheists. And despite a <a href="https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/nonreligious-candidates-2022/">growing number of openly nonreligious candidates</a> running for office – and the growing number of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – it remains difficult for atheists to get a foothold in Congress.</p>
<p>Of the 534 members to be sworn in (Virginia’s 4th District seat is currently unfilled, because of Rep. Donald McEachin’s recent death), 88% identify as Christian, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/01/03/faith-on-the-hill-2023/">according to Pew Research Center</a>. Those of a Jewish faith make up 6%. Only two people in Congress don’t openly identify with any mainstream religion, according to Pew – Rep. Jared Huffman, a Californian Democrat who identifies as a “humanist”; and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who describes herself as religiously unaffiliated – although the affiliations of another 20 are unknown. But neither Huffman nor Sinema has self-identified as being an “atheist.”</p>
<p>A <a href="http://freethoughtequality.org/2022-endorsements/">list compiled by the Freethought Equality Fund Political Action Committee</a> indicates that atheists are running for a few seats in the U.S. Congress, and many more are doing so at the state level.</p>
<p>But throughout history, only one self-identified atheist in the U.S. Congress comes to mind, the late <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/politics/pete-stark-dead.html">California Democrat Peter Stark</a>.</p>
<h2>‘In atheists, they don’t trust’</h2>
<p>This puts the country at odds with democracies the world over that have elected openly godless – or at least openly skeptical – leaders who went on to become revered national figures, such as <a href="https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/the-humanist-tradition/20th-century-humanism/nehru/">Jawaharlal Nehru in India</a>, <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/09/sweden-social-democracy-olaf-palme-assasination-reforms/">Sweden’s Olof Palme</a>, <a href="https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2012/05/19/theres-an-openly-atheist-president-in-uruguay/">Jose Mujica in Uruguay</a> and <a href="https://www.hpb.com/products/the-portable-atheist-9780306816086">Israel’s Golda Meir</a>. New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, the global leader who has arguably navigated the coronavirus crisis with the most credit, <a href="https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2017/10/19/new-zealands-next-prime-minister-set-to-be-agnostic-woman-who-left-mormonism/">says she is agnostic</a>.</p>
<p>But in the United States, self-identified nonbelievers are at a distinct disadvantage. A <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/254120/less-half-vote-socialist-president.aspx">2019 poll asking Americans who they were willing to vote for</a> in a hypothetical presidential election found that 96% would vote for a candidate who is Black, 94% for a woman, 95% for a Hispanic candidate, 93% for a Jew, 76% for a gay or lesbian candidate and 66% for a Muslim – but atheists fall below all of these, down at 60%. That is a sizable chunk who would not vote for a candidate simply on the basis of their nonreligion.</p>
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<p>In fact, a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/05/19/for-2016-hopefuls-washington-experience-could-do-more-harm-than-good/">2014 survey</a> found Americans would be more willing to vote for a presidential candidate who had never held office before, or who had extramarital affairs, than for an atheist.</p>
<p>In a country that <a href="https://petitions.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/petition/change-motto-united-states-america-e-pluribus-unum/">changed its original national motto in 1956</a> from the secular “e pluribus unum” – “out of many, one” – to the faithful “in God we trust,” it seems people don’t trust someone who doesn’t believe in God.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/phil-zuckerman/">scholar who studies atheism in the U.S.</a>, I have long sought to understand what is behind such antipathy toward nonbelievers seeking office.</p>
<h2>Branding issue?</h2>
<p>There appear to be two primary reasons atheism remains the kiss of death for aspiring politicians in the U.S. – one is rooted in a reaction to historical and political events, while the other is rooted in baseless bigotry. </p>
<p>Let’s start with the first: atheism’s prominence within communist regimes. Some of the most murderous dictatorships of the 20th century – including <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2010/09/23/naimark-stalin-genocide-092310/">Stalin’s Soviet Union</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-10684399">Pol Pot’s Cambodia</a> – were explicitly atheistic. Bulldozing human rights and persecuting religious believers were fundamental to their oppressive agendas. Talk about a branding problem for atheists.</p>
<p>For those who considered themselves lovers of liberty, democracy and the First Amendment guarantee of the free exercise of religion, it made sense to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-spiritual-industrial-complex-9780195393460?cc=us&lang=en&">develop fearful distrust of atheism</a>, given its association with such brutal dictatorships.</p>
<p>And even though such regimes have long since met their demise, the <a href="https://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/spring_2005/aiello.htm?report=reader">association of atheism with a lack of freedom</a> lingered long after.</p>
<p>The second reason atheists find it hard to get elected in America, however, is the result of an irrational linkage in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12035">many people’s minds between atheism and immorality</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/csnp2">Some assume</a> that because atheists don’t believe in a deity watching and judging their every move, they must be more likely to murder, steal, lie and cheat. One recent study, for example, found that Americans even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0092302">intuitively link atheism with necrobestiality and cannibalism</a>. </p>
<p>Such bigoted associations between atheism and immorality do not align with reality. There is simply no empirical evidence that most people who lack a belief in God are immoral. If anything, the evidence points in the other direction. Research has shown that atheists tend to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309352179">less racist</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2018.1522809">less homophobic</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-014-0379-3">less misogynistic</a> than those professing a belief in God.</p>
<p>Most atheists subscribe to <a href="https://thehumanist.com/magazine/september-october-2019/features/living-humanist-values-the-ten-commitments">humanistic ethics</a> <a href="https://www.counterpointpress.com/dd-product/what-it-means-to-be-moral/">based on compassion and a desire to alleviate suffering</a>. This may help explain why atheists have been found to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134868">more supportive of efforts to fight climate change</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/24/republicans-turn-more-negative-toward-refugees-as-number-admitted-to-u-s-plummets/">more supportive of refugees</a> and of <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3712123">the right to die</a>.</p>
<p>This may also explain why, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199644650.013.010">according to my research</a>, those states within the U.S. with the least religious populations – as well as democratic nations with the most secular citizens – tend to be the most humane, safe, peaceful and prosperous.</p>
<h2>Freethought Caucus</h2>
<p>Although the rivers of anti-atheism run deep throughout the American political landscape, they are starting to thin. More and more nonbelievers are <a href="https://www.barna.com/rise-of-atheism/">openly expressing their godlessness</a>, and swelling numbers of Americans are becoming secular: In the past 15 years, the <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/">percentage of Americans claiming no religious affiliation has risen</a> from 16% to 26%. Meanwhile, some find the image of a Bible-wielding Trump troubling, opening up the possibility that suddenly Christianity may be contending with a branding problem of its own, <a href="https://www.prri.org/research/prri-rns-poll-nones-atheist-leaving-religion/">especially in the skeptical eyes of younger Americans</a>.</p>
<p>In 2018, a new group emerged in Washington, D.C.: The Congressional Freethought Caucus. Although it has only 16 members, it portends a significant shift in which some elected members of Congress are no longer afraid of being <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/11/09/this-lawmaker-is-skeptical-that-god-exists-now-hes-finally-decided-to-tell-people/">identified as, at the very least, agnostic</a>. Given this development, as well as the growing number of nonreligious Americans, it shouldn’t be a surprise if one day a self-identified atheist makes it to the White House.</p>
<p>Will that day come sooner rather than later? God only knows. Or rather, only time will tell.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-hard-for-atheists-to-get-voted-in-to-congress-146748">article that was originally published</a> on Oct. 5, 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192997/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phil Zuckerman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite a growing number of non-religious Americans, self-declared atheists are few and far between in the halls of power – putting the US at odds with other global democracies.Phil Zuckerman, Professor of Sociology and Secular Studies, Pitzer CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1682372021-09-24T12:35:18Z2021-09-24T12:35:18ZWhat Harvard’s humanist chaplain shows about atheism in America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422979/original/file-20210923-19-irsite.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C85%2C2959%2C1742&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People in attend a talk at the American Atheists National Convention in 2014. Many Americans remain distrustful of atheists, surveys show.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AtheistConferenceUtah/7b1a427c335b4a6695c09ebfdc631e31/photo?Query=atheist&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=338&currentItemNo=8">AP Photo/Rick Bowmer</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the end of August 2021, Harvard University’s organization of chaplains <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/26/us/harvard-chaplain-greg-epstein.html">unanimously elected</a> Greg Epstein as president. Epstein – the atheist, humanist author of “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/good-without-god-greg-epstein?variant=32205367345186">Good Without God</a>” – will be responsible for coordinating the school’s <a href="https://chaplains.harvard.edu/">more than 40 chaplains</a>, who represent a broad range of religious backgrounds. </p>
<p>His election captured media attention, prompting articles in several outlets such as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/29/1032259870/harvards-new-head-chaplain-young-people-are-looking-for-a-non-religious-alternat">NPR</a>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/harvards-atheist-chaplain-controversy">The New Yorker</a>, the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9929315/New-Harvard-chief-chaplain-atheist-ordained-humanist-rabbi.html">Daily Mail </a> and the <a href="https://www.jewishexponent.com/2021/09/13/the-real-danger-of-that-atheist-harvard-chaplain/">Jewish Exponent </a>. Some portrayed the idea of an atheist chaplain as one more battle in the culture wars. </p>
<p>But the trends that Epstein’s position reflects are not new. Non-religious Americans, sometimes referred to as “nones,” have grown from <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2012/10/NonesOnTheRise-full.pdf">7% of the population in 1970</a> to <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/">more than 25%</a> today. Fully <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/13/a-closer-look-at-americas-rapidly-growing-religious-nones/">35% of millennials say they are not affiliated with any particular religion</a>.</p>
<p>They are part of <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199341221.001.0001/acprof-9780199341221">a diverse group</a> that’s changing ideas about what it means to be nonreligious. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://wendycadge.com/">sociologists of religion</a>, <a href="http://pennyedgell.com/">we have studied</a> these transitions and their implications. A <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5658afe2e4b0f33a7ad1a4d4/t/582ca13503596ed3373ac56e/1479319862512/Atheists+Social+Forces-2016+FINAL+PUBLISHED+%281%29.pdf">recent study</a> with colleagues at the University of Minnesota shows that, while Americans are becoming more comfortable with alternative forms of spirituality, they are less comfortable with those they see as entirely secular.</p>
<p>We argue that Epstein’s election represents a shift that shows the increasing visibility and acceptance of nonreligious Americans. At the same time, the commotion around his position shows many Americans’ lingering <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5658afe2e4b0f33a7ad1a4d4/t/582ca13503596ed3373ac56e/1479319862512/Atheists+Social+Forces-2016+FINAL+PUBLISHED+%281%29.pdf">moral unease</a> about atheism.</p>
<p>Epstein seems to understand this cultural dilemma and emphasizes his commitments to <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22419487/religion-justice-fairness">social justice</a> and humanism, <a href="https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/definition-of-humanism/">a philosophy</a> that rejects supernatural beliefs and seeks to promote the greater good. In doing so, he is becoming a spokesman for something new in the American context: an atheism that explicitly emphasizes its morality.</p>
<h2>Joining ranks</h2>
<p>Atheism has long generated contention in the United States, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168647/village-atheists">going back to colonial times</a>. But the late 19th century’s “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780805077766">Golden Age” of freethought</a> brought the first widespread public expressions of skepticism toward religion. Lawyer and public orator <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-G-Ingersoll">Robert Ingersoll</a> drew religious leaders’ ire as he lectured on agnosticism in sold-out halls across the country.</p>
<p>In the 1920s, the <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/evolut.htm">Scopes “Monkey Trial</a>” over the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution in public schools highlighted struggles over religious authority in America’s laws and institutions. Meanwhile, Black skeptics of religion, often <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814766729/by-these-hands/">overlooked by scholars</a>, influenced artists like <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/agents-of-change-black-freethinkers-then-and-now/">Zora Neal Hurston</a> and, later, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/t-magazine/james-baldwin-pentecostal-church.html">James Baldwin</a>. Many Americans know of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/16/us/bodies-identified-as-those-of-missing-atheist-and-kin.html">Madalyn Murray O’Hair</a>, who successfully challenged mandated Christian prayer and Bible readings in public schools in the 1960s and founded the organization that became <a href="https://www.atheists.org/">American Atheists</a>. </p>
<p>More recently, a <a href="https://secular.org/">growing number of atheist and humanist organizations</a> have promoted the separation of church and state, fought discrimination, supported pro-science policies and encouraged public figures to “<a href="https://richarddawkins.net/2019/08/i-prefer-non-religious-why-so-few-us-politicians-come-out-as-atheists/">come out</a>” as atheist. </p>
<p>Black atheists, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/16/blacks-are-even-discriminated-against-by-atheists/">not always feeling welcome</a> in white-led organizations, have formed their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/fashion/african-american-atheists.html">own</a>, often centered on social justice. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Humanist chaplain Bart Campolo walks past the United University Church at the University of Southern California in 2015." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humanist chaplain Bart Campolo walks past the United University Church at the University of Southern California in 2015. A handful of campuses, including Harvard, now have humanist chaplains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AtheistChaplains/d0f6eb7acc894f35a34d350bb260f844/photo?Query=harvard%20AND%20chaplain&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=9&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>No God, no trust?</h2>
<p>Despite this increasing <a href="https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/0d8b9ed5-a402-42bd-afe6-f08d4fa595a5/650053.pdf">organization and visibility</a>, a large percentage of Americans <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025882">do not trust</a> atheists to be good neighbors and citizens. <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5658afe2e4b0f33a7ad1a4d4/t/582ca13503596ed3373ac56e/1479319862512/Atheists+Social+Forces-2016+FINAL+PUBLISHED+%281%29.pdf">A national survey</a> in 2014 found that 42% of Americans said atheists did not share their “vision of American society,” and 44% would not want their child marrying an atheist. Those percentages were virtually unchanged in a <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5658afe2e4b0f33a7ad1a4d4/t/614c828db0ce99001f60eb04/1632404109942/AMP+Wave+2.5+Report+fall+2020+%281%29.pdf">2019 follow-up</a>. </p>
<p>These attitudes affect young people like those to whom Epstein ministers. A <a href="https://www.secularsurvey.org/executive-summary">third of atheists under age 25</a> report experiencing discrimination at school, and over 40% say they sometimes hide their nonreligious identity for fear of stigma. </p>
<p>As a chaplain, Epstein’s job is to provide <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/why-americans-are-turning-chaplains-during-pandemic/611767/">spiritual guidance</a> and moral council to students, with a special focus on those who do not identify with a religious tradition. He himself identifies as an atheist, but also as a humanist.</p>
<p>In U.S. society, humanism is increasingly accepted as a positive, and moral, belief system, which some react to more favorably than to atheism, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20453183">which is perceived as a rejection of religion</a>. And <a href="http://humanistchaplaincies.org/humanist-chaplaincies/">a handful</a> of America’s college campuses now have <a href="https://www.humanistchaplains.org/">humanist chaplains</a>.</p>
<p>But atheism remains more controversial in the United States, and an atheist chaplain is a harder sell. Efforts to include atheist chaplains in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/us/27atheists.html">military</a>, for example, have <a href="https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/03/26/no-atheistchaplains-lawmakers-tell-navy/">not succeeded</a>.</p>
<h2>Shift in tone</h2>
<p>Epstein, a vocal advocate for humanism, appears to be pushing back against Americans’ persistent <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5658afe2e4b0f33a7ad1a4d4/t/582ca13503596ed3373ac56e/1479319862512/Atheists+Social+Forces-2016+FINAL+PUBLISHED+%281%29.pdf">moral concerns</a> about atheism identified in <a href="https://cla.umn.edu/sociology/research-collaboration/collaboration-opportunities/american-mosaic-project-amp/american">the research from the University of Minnesota</a>. </p>
<p>His book <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121813448">openly challenges</a> those views by arguing that atheism is a morally anchoring identity for people around the world. He talks at length about how humanism can motivate <a href="https://podcasts.la.utexas.edu/raceanddemocracy/podcast/ep-50-race-humanism-and-the-search-for-the-common-faith-a-conversation-with-greg-epstein/">concern for racial justice</a> and has called for political leaders on the left <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/14/opinion/truly-inclusive-vision-america-recognizes-nonreligious-too/">to embrace the nonreligious</a> as an important, values-motivated constituency. </p>
<p>This marks a different approach from <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-arguments-of-the-new-atheists-are-often-just-as-violent-as-religion-95185">more militant</a> high-profile atheists, particularly the <a href="http://www.the-brights.net/">Brights movement</a> and the so-called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2016.99">New Atheist</a> intellectuals like <a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/The-God-Delusion/9780618680009">Richard Dawkins</a> or <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/80738/god-is-not-great-by-christopher-hitchens/9780771041433">Christopher Hitchens</a>. Epstein does not position himself “against religion” but seeks to cooperate with religious leaders on matters of common moral concern.</p>
<p>It’s too soon to say whether Epstein’s strategy of linking atheism to humanism, <a href="https://thehumanist.com/magazine/july-august-2018/features/humanist-interview-greg-epstein/">justice</a> and morality will be successful in changing attitudes toward atheists. It is, however, likely to keep him in the public eye, a symbol of the transition in how Americans relate to organized religion. </p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168237/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penny Edgell receives funding from The National Science Foundation and the Edelstein Family Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy Cadge receives funding from the Henry Luce Foundation and the Templeton Religion Trust.</span></em></p>Americans are getting more comfortable with new forms of spirituality, but their views of atheists are still complicated.Penny Edgell, Professor of Sociology, University of MinnesotaWendy Cadge, Professor of Sociology and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1651272021-09-13T12:13:38Z2021-09-13T12:13:38Z‘Imagine’ at 50: Why John Lennon’s ode to humanism still resonates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420554/original/file-20210910-19-y8luzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C694%2C2220%2C1633&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fifty years ago, did John Lennon tell us not to pray?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photo-of-john-lennon-news-photo/80800975?adppopup=true">Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago, John Lennon released <a href="https://theconversation.com/john-lennons-imagine-at-50-a-deceptively-simple-ballad-a-lasting-emblem-of-hope-167444">one of the most beautiful, inspirational</a> and catchy pop anthems of the 20th century: “Imagine.” </p>
<p>Gentle and yet increasingly stirring as the song progresses, “Imagine” is unabashedly utopian and deeply moral, calling on people to live, as one humanity, in peace. It is also purposely and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-04/imagine-50-years-john-lennon-beatles/100238128">powerfully irreligious</a>. From its opening lyric, “Imagine there’s no heaven,” to the refrain, “And no religion too,” Lennon sets out what is, to many, a clear atheistic message.</p>
<p>While most pop songs are secular by default – in that they are about the things of this world, making no mention of the divine or spiritual – “Imagine” is explicitly secularist. In Lennon’s telling, religion is an impediment to human flourishing – something to be overcome, transcended.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/phil-zuckerman/">scholar of secularism</a> and a devout fan of the Beatles, I have always been fascinated by how “Imagine,” perhaps the first and only atheist anthem to be so enormously successful, has come to be so widely embraced in America. After all, the U.S. is a country that has – at least until <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx">recently</a> – had a much <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/31/americans-are-far-more-religious-than-adults-in-other-wealthy-nations/">more</a> religious population than other Western industrialized democracies.</p>
<p>Since being released as a single on Oct. 11 1971, “Imagine” has sold millions, going No. 1 in the U.S. and U.K. charts. And its popularity has endured. Rolling Stone magazine named “Imagine” as the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-songs-of-all-time-151127/aretha-franklin-respect-36873/">third greatest song of all time</a> in 2003, and it regularly tops national polls in Canada, <a href="https://radioinfo.com.au/news/imagine-voted-best-gold-hit/">Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jan/07/johnarlidge.theobserver">the U.K</a>.</p>
<p>Countless recording artists have covered it, and it remains one of the most performed songs throughout the world – the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZaXRQIjR68">opening ceremony</a> of this year’s Olympics Games in Tokyo featured it being sung by a host of international artists, a testament to its global appeal.</p>
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<p>But not everyone is enamored of its message. Robert Barron, the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/07/25/imagine-blared-at-the-olympics-is-a-totalitarians-anthem/">responded to the recent Tokyo rendition</a> by lambasting “Imagine” as a “totalitarian anthem” and “an invitation to moral and political chaos.” His issue: the atheistic lyrics.</p>
<p>Numerous attempts have been made since “Imagine” was released to reconcile Lennon’s anthem with religion. Scholars, those of faith and fellow musicians have argued that the lyrics <a href="https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/faith-and-reason-imagine-really-atheist">aren’t really atheistic</a>, just <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/imagine-the-anthem-of-2001-83559/">anti-organized religion</a>. Others have taken the sledgehammer approach and just changed the lyrics outright – CeeLo Green sang “And all religion’s true” in <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/cee-lo-green-outrages-john-lennon-fans-by-changing-lyrics-to-imagine-202240/">a televised rendition</a> on New Year’s Eve 2011.</p>
<p>In interviews, Lennon was at times <a href="http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/dbjypb.int3.html">ambiguous about his beliefs</a> on religion and spirituality, but such ambiguity is at odds with the clear message of “Imagine.” The song’s irreligious ethos is frank. The first verse speaks of there being “no heaven,” “no hell” – “Above us, only sky.” In such clear, distilled words, Lennon captures the very marrow of the secular orientation. To me, Lennon is saying that we live in a purely physical universe that operates along strictly natural laws – there is nothing supernatural out there, even beyond the stars.</p>
<p>He also expresses a distinct “here-and-nowness” at odds with many religions. In asking listeners to “Imagine all the people, livin’ for today,” Lennon is, to quote the <a href="https://www.upworthy.com/ever-heard-of-union-hero-joe-hill-hes-missing-from-most-history-books-today">labor activist and atheist Joe Hill</a>, suggesting there will be “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8qoB1XwtHM">no pie in the sky when you die</a>,” nor will a fiery eternal torture await you.</p>
<p>Lennon’s lyrics also give way to an implied existentialism. With no gods and no afterlife, only humankind – within ourselves and among each other – can decide how to live and choose what matters. We can choose to live without violence, greed or hunger and – to quote “Imagine” – exist as a “brotherhood of man … sharing all the world.”</p>
<p>It is here that Lennon’s <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/202002/what-is-secular-humanism">humanism</a> – the belief that humans, without reliance upon anything supernatural, have the capacity to create a better, more humane world – comes to the fore. Nihilism is not the path, nor is despondency, debauchery or destruction. Rather, Lennon’s “Imagine” entails a humanistic desire to see an end to suffering.</p>
<p>The spirit of empathy and compassion throughout the song is in line with what <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1948550612444137">scholarship</a> has <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13674670310001606450?src=recsys">found</a> to be strong traits <a href="https://www.stmarys.ac.uk/research/centres/benedict-xvi/docs/benedict-centre-understanding-unbelief-report.pdf">commonly</a> <a href="https://phys.org/news/2021-02-atheists-believers-moral-compasses-key.html?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Phys.org_TrendMD_1">observable</a> among <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2012/04/30/religionandgenerosity/">secular men and women</a>. Despite attempts to tie Lennon and “Imagine” to blood-lusting atheists <a href="https://sojo.net/articles/why-john-lennons-imagine-actually-not-great-song">like Stalin and Pol Pot</a>, the overwhelming majority of godless people <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311795/living-the-secular-life-by-phil-zuckerman/">seek to live ethical lives</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/08/21/staunch-atheists-show-higher-morals-than-the-proudly-pious-from-the-pandemic-to-climate-change/">studies have shown</a> that when it comes to things like <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/24/the-group-least-likely-to-think-the-u-s-has-a-responsibility-to-accept-refugees-evangelicals/">wanting to</a> <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article/32/3/502/5298199?login=true">help</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/socofthesacred/status/1427973457703211012/photo/1">refugees</a>, seeking to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13644-020-00396-0">establish affordable health care</a>, <a href="https://www.prri.org/research/fractured-nation-widening-partisan-polarization-and-key-issues-in-2020-presidential-elections/">fighting</a> <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/10/22/religion-and-views-on-climate-and-energy-issues/">climate change</a> and being sensitive to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1088868309352179">racism</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/28/religiously-unaffiliated-people-more-likely-than-those-with-a-religion-to-lean-left-accept-homosexuality/">homophobia</a>, the godless stand out as particularly moral.</p>
<p>Indeed, secular people in general <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-10474-001">exhibit an orientation</a> that is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1368430211410996?casa_token=lAvYSk5xzI8AAAAA%3AzyF9nW4T0_p6nuM_v2NIiZLkEuar1rhGQdg2J7Qy2NLmu3c-yiWb4zFoeVnMpOKC3FiIpKXO9y17bfQ">markedly tolerant</a>, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327582ijpr0202_5?src=recsys">democratic</a> and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/201807/religion-secularism-and-xenophobia">universalistic</a> – values Lennon holds up as ideals in “Imagine.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/11/09/the-unbearable-wrongness-of-william-barr/">Other studies reveal</a> that the democratic countries that are the least religious – the ones that have gone furthest down the road of “imagining no religion” – <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479878086/society-without-god-second-edition/">are the most</a> safe, humane, green and ethical. </p>
<p>“Imagine” was not the first time Lennon sang his secular humanism. A year before, in 1970, he released “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MqKXjclNHw">I Found Out</a>,” declaring his lack of belief in either Jesus or Krishna. Also in 1970, he put out the haunting, scorching “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCNkPpq1giU">God</a>.” Beginning with a classic psychological explanation of theism – that humans construct the concept of God as a way to cope with and measure their pain – “God” goes on to list all the things that Lennon most decidedly does not believe in: the Bible, Jesus, Gita, Buddha, I-Ching, magic and so on. In the end, all that he believes in is his own verifiable personal reality. Arriving at such a place was, for the bespectacled walrus from Liverpool, to be truly “reborn.”</p>
<p>But neither “I Found Out” nor “God” achieved anywhere near the massive success that “Imagine” did. No other atheist pop song has.</p>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/3b1N670SLd1liunyZXM3KD" width="100%" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165127/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phil Zuckerman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Regularly topping lists for ‘greatest song of all time,’ the former Beatle’s classic 1971 song is taken by many as an atheistic anthem.Phil Zuckerman, Professor of Sociology and Secular Studies, Pitzer CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1523122021-07-19T12:12:20Z2021-07-19T12:12:20ZCalls to cancel Chaucer ignore his defense of women and the innocent – and assume all his characters’ opinions are his<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411496/original/file-20210715-15-wkdao0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1337%2C2246%2C1508&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Was Chaucer a toxic misogynist, or a staunch women's ally?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/geoffrey-chaucer-english-poet-equestrian-portrait-of-news-photo/113489302">Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Spying is a risky profession. For the 14th-century English undercover agent-turned-poet Geoffrey Chaucer, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kYzgDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA95&dq=Chaucer+military+intelligence&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikmuL34d_xAhWRcc0KHRMHB0kQ6AEwAHoECAkQAg#v=onepage&q=Chaucer%20military%20intelligence&f=false">the dangers</a> – at least to his reputation – continue to surface centuries after his death. </p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/why-is-chaucer-disappearing-from-the-university-curriculum-leicester-essay-a-s-g-edwards">July 2021 essay</a> for the Times Literary Supplement, A.S.G. Edwards, professor of medieval manuscripts at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, laments the removal of Geoffrey Chaucer from university curricula. Edwards says he believes this disappearance may be propelled by a vocal cohort of scholars who see the “father of English poetry” as <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/727754">a rapist, racist and antisemite</a>.</p>
<p>The predicament would have amused Chaucer himself. Jewish and feminist scholars, among others, are shooting down one of their earliest and wisest allies. This is happening when <a href="https://voegelinview.com/feminist-thought-of-geoffrey-chaucer-the-wife-of-bath-and-all-hire-secte">new research reveals</a> a Chaucer altogether different from what many current readers have come to accept. My decades of research show he was no raunchy proponent of bro culture but a daring and ingenious <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-the-birds-hardly-valentines-day-was-reimagined-by-chivalrous-medieval-poets-for-all-to-enjoy-respectfully-155099">defender of women and the innocent</a>.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iDoS8ewAAAAJ&hl=en">medievalist who teaches Chaucer</a>, I believe the movement to cancel Chaucer has been bamboozled by his tradecraft – his consummate skill as a master of disguise.</p>
<h2>Outfoxing the professors</h2>
<p>It’s true that Chaucer’s work contains toxic material. His “<a href="https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/prologue">Wife of Bath’s Prologue</a>” in “The Canterbury Tales,” his celebrated collection of stories, quotes at length from the long tradition of classical and medieval works on the <a href="https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/12914/">evils of women</a>, as mansplained by the Wife’s elderly husbands: “You say, just as worms destroy a tree, so a wife destroys her husband.”</p>
<p>Later, “<a href="https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/%7Echaucer/teachslf/pri-par.htm">The Prioress’s Tale</a>” repeats the anti-Semitic <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/resources/glossary-terms/blood-libel">blood libel</a> story, the false accusation that Jews murdered Christians, at a time when Jews across Europe <a href="https://www.montana.edu/historybug/yersiniaessays/pariera-dinkins.html">were under attack</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An illustration of two women characters from Geoffrey Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Prioress and the Wife of Bath from Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-prioress-and-the-wife-of-bath-from-old-england-a-news-photo/1036139720">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These poems in particular generate accusations that Chaucer propagated sexist and antisemitic material because he agreed with or enjoyed it. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=5rDoDwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=elaine+tuttle+hansen+chaucer+and+the+fictions+of+gender&source=gbs_navlinks_s">Several</a> <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/40555">prominent</a> <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691160092/chaucer">scholars</a> seem convinced that Chaucer’s personal views are the same as those of his characters and that Chaucer is promoting these opinions. And they believe he abducted or raped a young woman named Cecily Chaumpaigne, although the <a href="http://www.umsl.edu/%7Egradyf/chaucer/cecily.htm">legal records</a> are enigmatic. It looks as though Cecily accused Chaucer of some such crime and he paid her to clear his name. It’s unclear what actually happened between them.</p>
<p>Critics cherry-pick quotations to support their claims about Chaucer. But if you examine his writings in detail, as I have, you’ll see themes of concern for women and human rights, the oppressed and the persecuted, reappear time and time again.</p>
<h2>Chaucer the spy</h2>
<p>Readers often assume Chaucer’s characters were a reflection of the writer’s own attitude because he is such a convincing role player. Chaucer’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=E4DXD7Sk7WcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=life+of+Chaucer+Riverside+Chaucer&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiws4jr0uXxAhWnEFkFHXbCAOQQ6AEwAHoECAsQAg#v=onepage&q=life%20of%20Chaucer%20Riverside%20Chaucer&f=false">career in the English secret service</a> trained him as an observer, analyst, diplomat and master at concealing his own views.</p>
<p>In his teens, Chaucer became a confidential envoy for England. From 1359 to 1378, he graced English diplomatic delegations and carried out missions described in expense records only as “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-riverside-chaucer-9780199552092?lang=de&cc=lt">the king’s secret business</a>.”</p>
<p>Documents show him scouting paths through the Pyrenees for English forces poised to invade Spain. He lobbied Italy for money and troops, while also perhaps investigating the suspicious death of Lionel of Antwerp, an English prince who was probably poisoned soon after his wedding. </p>
<p>Chaucer’s job brought him face to face with the darkest figures of his day — the treacherous <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-II-king-of-Navarre">Charles the Bad, King of Navarre</a>, a notorious traitor and assassin, and Bernabò Visconti, lord of Milan, who helped devise a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0YoxAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA179&dq=Bernabo+Visconti+torture&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizxdyM8t_xAhVZGs0KHZgQCn0Q6AEwCHoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=Bernabo%20Visconti%20torture&f=false">40-day torture protocol</a>.</p>
<p>Chaucer’s poetry reflects his experience as an English agent. He enjoyed role-playing and assuming many identities in his writing. And like the couriers he dispatched from Italy in 1378, he brings his readers covert messages split between multiple speakers. Each teller holds just a piece of the puzzle. The whole story can only be understood when all the messages arrive. </p>
<p>He also uses the skills of a secret agent to express dangerous truths not accepted in his own day, when misogyny and antisemitism were both entrenched, especially among the clergy.</p>
<p>Chaucer does not preach or explain. Instead, he lets the formidable Wife of Bath, the character he most enjoyed, tell us about the misogyny of her five husbands and fantasize about how ladies of King Arthur’s court might take revenge on a rapist. Or he makes his deserted <a href="http://mcllibrary.org/Houseoffame/">Queen Dido cry</a>: “Given their bad behavior, it’s a shame any woman ever took pity on any man.”</p>
<h2>Chaucer the chivalrous defender</h2>
<p>While current critiques of Chaucer label him as an <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/40555">exponent of toxic masculinity</a>, he was actually an <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=E5BCs9mylBsC&pg=PA379&dq=Chaucer+human+rights&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjKqeXc1OXxAhV3F1kFHZztDcYQ6AEwAXoECAoQAg#v=onepage&q=Chaucer%20human%20rights&f=false">advocate for human rights</a>. </p>
<p>My own research shows that in the course of his career he supported women’s right to choose their own mates and the human desire for freedom from enslavement, coercion, verbal abuse, political tyranny, judicial corruption and sexual trafficking. In “The Canterbury Tales” and “The Legend of Good Women,” he tells many stories on such themes. There he opposed assassination, infanticide and femicide, the mistreatment of prisoners, sexual harassment and domestic abuse. He valued self-control in action and in speech. He spoke out for women, enslaved people and Jews. </p>
<p>“Women want to be free and not coerced like slaves, and so do men,” the narrator of <a href="https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/%7Echaucer/teachslf/frkt-par.htm">“The Franklin’s Prologue” says</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>As for Jews, Chaucer salutes their ancient heroism in his early poem “<a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/English/Fame.php">The House of Fame</a>.” He depicts them as a people who have done great good in the world, only to be rewarded with slander. In “The Prioress’s Tale” he shows them being libeled by a desperate character to cover up a crime of which they were manifestly innocent, a century after all Jews had been brutally expelled from England.</p>
<p>Chaucer’s own words demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt that when his much underestimated Prioress tells her antisemitic blood libel tale, Chaucer is not endorsing it. Through <a href="https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/%7Echaucer/teachslf/pri-par.htm">her own words and actions</a>, and a cascade of reactions from those who hear her, he is exposing such guilty and dangerous actors as they deploy such lies.</p>
<p>And was he a rapist or an abductor? <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/07/document-casts-new-light-on-chaucer-rape-case">It’s unlikely</a>. The case suggests he might well have been targeted, perhaps even because of his work. Few authors have ever been more <a href="https://scholarship.depauw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1133&context=studentresearch">outspoken about man’s inhumanity to women</a>.</p>
<p>It is bizarre that one of the strongest and earliest writers in English literature to speak out against rape and support women and the downtrodden should be pilloried and threatened with cancellation. </p>
<p>But Chaucer knew the complexity of his art put him at risk. As his character the Squire dryly observed, people all too often “demen gladly to the badder ende” – “They are happy to assume the worst.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Wollock is a member of the New Chaucer Society.</span></em></p>Chaucer’s career as a secret agent helped him assume different disguises in his writing. Some scholars interpret this role-playing as Chaucer being sexist and anti-Semitic.Jennifer Wollock, Professor of English, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1632112021-06-23T16:19:52Z2021-06-23T16:19:52ZCOVID weddings: why some couples got unofficially married during the pandemic<p>Fifteen months after the first lockdown, the government has finally responded to increasing pressure to make it easier for couples to legally marry by allowing outdoor civil weddings <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/outdoor-civil-wedding-and-partnership-registrations-to-be-legalised">from July 1 2021</a>. This will no doubt provide welcome reassurance for couples who have booked ceremonies at approved venues, offering a back-up plan if it’s deemed safer for groups of people to gather outside.</p>
<p>However, for some couples it has come too late. As part of our ongoing research project <a href="https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/project/wedding-not-marriage-exploring-non-legally-binding-ceremonies">funded by the Nuffield Foundation </a> on non-legally binding wedding ceremonies, we’ve spoken to a number of couples who were married unofficially through religious or belief ceremonies because of the pandemic. Our work sheds some light on why people might have decided to have a non-binding ceremony. </p>
<p>Under normal circumstances, many of these couples would have also had a legal ceremony. But due to COVID-19 restrictions, register offices offering legal unions have very long waiting lists. It’s not clear how many people are in this position across England and Wales, but a lack of availability for them to convert their personal contract into a legal marriage could present significant problems for such couples in the future. Without legal recognition, marriages aren’t protected by family law.</p>
<h2>Challenges for lockdown weddings</h2>
<p>When the government drew up its pandemic plans, it doesn’t seem as though much thought was given to couples who consider marriage a prerequisite for living together. There were periods when it wasn’t possible to get married <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52012432">at all</a>. Many such couples simply chose to go through a ceremony that would be recognised by their religion or belief as a legitimate marriage. </p>
<p>In some cases, deciding to live together had been hastened by COVID-19. As one female imam who participated in our study reported: “We’ve had a huge increase in people saying yes, we want to make a home with our partner, and we need to do it right now.”</p>
<p>This wasn’t the only reason for having a non-legally recognised ceremony. Other couples who’d been unable to have their legal wedding still wanted to mark the occasion. One humanist celebrant reported a couple saying: “We would really like to do something on the day that we were due to get married because, in our head, that’s our wedding day.”</p>
<p>That ceremony, like countless others, took place via Zoom, the only option for many couples during periods of lockdown. As the minister of an online Christian wedding conducted on YouTube and Zoom told us, the couple he married was “in the life of the church, and when the first lockdown came they wanted to be able to live together and for us that means they need to get married”.</p>
<p>We also spoke to a number of imams who had conducted <em>nikahs</em> (Muslim wedding ceremonies) by Zoom for similar reasons. As one noted, “it satisfies them spiritually, religiously, even socially to that extent”.</p>
<p>There were also long periods in 2020 when small groups could meet but restrictions on legal weddings remained. Numerous imams reported that they conducted a lot more <em>nikahs</em> in people’s homes during this period. An imam we interviewed told us that while he would’ve preferred <em>nikahs</em> to take place in the mosque, he had no choice but to “flex on that”. Weddings at home were also reported by Hindu priests for similar reasons.</p>
<h2>Waiting lists for register offices</h2>
<p>A large number of the celebrants we interviewed emphasised that while they would normally only conduct a ceremony if a couple was already legally married, they made exceptions. One imam reported how a civil wedding had been scheduled for the same day as the nikah but the local authority had cancelled it at the last minute. His compromise was to go ahead with the nikah but defer giving the couple their certificate until they had married legally.</p>
<p>Even when weddings were able to go ahead, celebrants reported couples having issues with securing slots for civil ceremonies. One imam noted that the couple whose nikah he had conducted were “on a waiting list”, adding: “I know in some places they’ve been told that … for the remainder of 2020 there’s basically no way that they can register their marriage.”</p>
<p>Similarly, a humanist celebrant reported how a couple who had been wed in a humanist ceremony “were going to get legally married at some point when they could get a cheap booking with the registry office, which is not easy”.</p>
<p>As many of these experiences indicate, those who already regard themselves married may not want an elaborate second ceremony. As many of our interviewees put it, they just want the “piece of paper”. </p>
<p>Unless it becomes necessary for weddings to take place outside for safety reasons, it would be far better for local authorities to focus their resources on making more slots available for legal formalities to be completed, by increasing the number (and visibility) of statutory ceremonies. Otherwise, the risk is that the longer the delay, the less urgent legal formalities may seem, and the greater the likelihood that legal ceremonies won’t take place at all.</p>
<p>One way around that issue would be for local authorities to help these couples to marry legally - not in a lavish ceremony on approved premises, but by offering more simple £46 statutory ceremonies in register offices.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice-points/availability-of-two-plus-two-marriage-ceremonies/5103708.article">The £46 ceremony</a> is contained in statute – but, in reality, register offices offer only few of these appointments each week. These usually take place during undesirable times and days, with ceremonies conducted in simple offices and a maximum of two witnesses as guests. </p>
<p>While this might seem unappealing, it’s perfect for couples who have already had non-legally recognised marriage ceremonies that are meaningful to them. To serve couples like these, more such appointments need to be made available as soon as possible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163211/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rajnaara C Akhtar receives funding from the Nuffield Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Probert is co-investigator on the Nuffield-funded project. She is the specialist consultant to the Law Commission on its Weddings Project</span></em></p>Unless there are safety reasons for outdoor weddings, it would be far better for local authorities to focus resources on making more slots availableRajnaara C Akhtar, Assistant Professor in Law, University of WarwickRebecca Probert, Professor of Law, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1464082021-06-17T15:10:07Z2021-06-17T15:10:07ZKenneth Kaunda: the last giant of African nationalism and benign autocrat left a mixed legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358636/original/file-20200917-24-1xzswgv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda at the inauguration of former South African president Thabo Mbeki in 2004.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/dr-kenneth-kaunda-former-president-zambia-born">Kenneth Kaunda</a>, the former president of Zambia, who has <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/former-president-kenneth-kaunda-passes-away-aged-97/">died in hospital in the capital, Lusaka</a>, at the age of 97, was the last of the giants of 20th century African nationalism. He was also one of the few to depart with his reputation still intact. But perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, the standing of the man who ruled over Zambia for 27 years is clouded with ambiguity.</p>
<p>The charismatic president who won accolades for bowing out peacefully after losing an election was also the authoritarian who introduced a one-party state. The pioneer of “African socialism” was the man who cut a supply-side deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The nationalist leader known for personal probity planned to give huge tracts of farmland to an Indian guru. The revolutionary who gave sanctuary to liberation movements was also a friend of US presidents.</p>
<p>I met him in 1989 when I helped organise a delegation of 120 white South African notables for a conference with the then-banned and exiled <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/brief-history-anc">African National Congress</a>, which was fighting for the liberation of black South Africans, in Lusaka. “KK”, as he was known, shed tears as he welcomed guests, who included the <a href="https://hsf.org.za/about/about-the-helen-suzman-foundation">liberal MP Helen Suzman</a>, known for her defiant opposition to the apartheid government.</p>
<p>By then, he’d been president for a quarter of a century and seemed a permanent fixture at the apex of southern African politics. And yet, as it turned out, he was on his final lap.</p>
<p>He exuded an image of the benign monarch, a much-loved father to his people, known for his endearing quirks – safari suits, waving white handkerchiefs, ballroom dancing, singing his own songs while cycling, and crying in public. And yet there was also a hard edge to the politics and persona of the man, whose powerful personality helped make Zambia a major player in Africa and the world for three decades.</p>
<h2>The early years</h2>
<p>Kenneth David Kaunda was born in Chinsali, Northern Zambia, on October 24 1924. Like so many of his generation of African liberation leaders, he came from a family of the mission-educated middle class. He was the baby among eight children. His father was a Presbyterian missionary-teacher and his mother was the first qualified African woman teacher in the country.</p>
<p>He followed his parents’ profession, first in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), where he became a head teacher before his 21st birthday. He also taught in then Tanganyika (Tanzania), where he became a lifelong admirer of future president Julius Nyerere, whose “Ujamaa” brand of African socialism he tried to follow.</p>
<p>After returning home, Kaunda campaigned against the British plan for a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230270916_12">federation</a> of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which would increase the powers of white settlers. He took up politics full-time, learning the ropes through working for the liberal Legislative Council member <a href="https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-33474">Sir Stewart Gore-Browne</a>. Soon after, as secretary general of the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress, he was jailed for two months with hard labour for distributing <a href="https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/zambians-campaign-independence-1944-1964">“subversive literature”</a>.</p>
<p>After his release he clashed with his organisation’s president, Harry Nkumbula, who took a more conciliatory approach to colonial rule. Kaunda led the breakaway Zambian African National Congress, which was promptly banned. He was <a href="https://biography.yourdictionary.com/kenneth-david-kaunda">jailed for nine months</a>, further boosting his status.</p>
<p>A new movement, the United National Independence Party <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172067">(UNIP)</a>), chose Kaunda as its leader after his release. He travelled to America and <a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/kenneth-kaunda-the-united-states-and-southern-africa/introduction-kenneth-kaunda-and-zambia-united-states-relations-before-1975">met Martin Luther King</a>. Inspired by King and Mahatma Gandhi, he launched the <a href="https://cdn.website-editor.net/74225855d7734800bb2b5c38f2c1cf16/files/uploaded/chachacha.pdf">“Cha-cha-cha” civil disobedience campaign</a>.</p>
<p>In 1962, encouraged by Kaunda’s moves to pacify the white settlers, the British acceded to self-rule, followed by full independence two years later. He emerged as the first Zambian president after <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/25/newsid_2658000/2658325.stm">UNIP won the election</a>.</p>
<h2>The challenges of independence</h2>
<p>One challenge for the newly independent Zambia related to the colonial education system. There were no universities and fewer than half a percent of pupils had completed primary school. Kaunda introduced a policy of free books and low fees. In 1966 he became the first chancellor of the new <a href="https://www.unza.zm/international/?p=history">University of Zambia</a>. Several other universities and tertiary education facilities followed.</p>
<p>Long after he was ousted as president, Kaunda continued to be warmly received in African capitals because of his role in allowing liberation movements to have bases in Lusaka. This came at considerable economic cost to his country, which also endured military raids from the South Africans and Rhodesians.</p>
<p>At the same time, he joined apartheid South Africa’s hard-line prime minister <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/balthazar-johannes-vorster">BJ Vorster</a> in mediating a failed bid for an internal settlement in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1975. He attempted the same in South West Africa (Namibia), which was then administered by South Africa. But <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/pieter-willem-botha">President PW Botha</a>, who succeeded Vorster after his death, showed no interest.</p>
<p>Kaunda helped lead the <a href="https://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-and-regimes/non-aligned-movement-nam/">Non-Aligned Movement</a>, which brought together states that did not align with either the Soviets or the Americans during the Cold War. He broke bread with anyone who showed an interest in Zambia, including Romania’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolae-Ceausescu">Nicolai Ceausescu</a> and Iraq’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/saddam-hussein-how-a-deadly-purge-of-opponents-set-up-his-ruthless-dictatorship-120748">Saddam Hussein</a>, while also cultivating successive American presidents (having more success with <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/james-carter/">Jimmy Carter</a> than <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/ronald-reagan/">Ronald Reagan</a>). He invited China to help build the <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0330/033064.html">Tazara Railway</a> and bought 16 MIG-21 fighter jets from the Soviet Union <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0205/020532.html">in 1980</a>.</p>
<h2>African humanism</h2>
<p>Kaunda’s economic policy was framed by his belief in what he called “African humanism” but also by necessity. He inherited an economy under foreign control and moved to remedy this. For example, the mines owned by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/British-South-Africa-Company">British South African Company</a> (founded by <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a>) were acquired as a result of colonial conquest in 1890. Kaunda’s threats to nationalise without compensation prompted major concessions from BSAC.</p>
<p>He promoted a planned economy, leading to “development plans” that involved the state’s Industrial Development Corporation acquiring 51% equity in major foreign-owned companies. The policy was undermined by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/mar/03/1970s-oil-price-shock">1973 spike in the oil price</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/04/archives/as-copper-goes-so-goes-zambia.html">fall in the price of copper</a>, which made up 95% of Zambia’s exports.</p>
<p>The consequent balance of payments crisis led to Zambia having the world’s second highest debt relative to GDP, <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11985187.pdf">prompting IMF intervention</a>. Kaunda at first resisted but by 1989 was forced to bow to its demands. Parastatals were partially privatised, spending was slashed, food subsidies ended, prices rocketed and Kaunda’s support plummeted. </p>
<p>Like many anti-colonial leaders, he’d come to view multi-party democracy as a western concept that fomented conflict and tribalism. This view was encouraged by the 1964 uprising of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/13/archives/rhodesia-holds-leader-of-cult-kaunda-says-alice-lenshina-calls-for.html">Lumpa religious sect</a>. He banned all parties other than UNIP in 1968 and Zambia officially became a one-party state four years later.</p>
<p>His government became increasingly autocratic and intolerant of dissent, centred on his personality cult. But Kaunda will go down in history as a relatively benign autocrat who avoided the levels of repression and corruption of so many other one-party rulers.</p>
<p>Julius Nyerere, who retired in 1985, tried to persuade his friend to follow suit, but Kaunda pressed on. After surviving a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/01/world/failed-zambia-coup-weakens-leader.html">coup attempt in 1990</a> and following food riots, he reluctantly acceded to the demand for a multi-party election in 1991. </p>
<p>His popularity could not survive the chaos prompted by price rises and was not helped by the revelation that he’d planned to grant <a href="http://www.minet.org/TM-EX/Fall-91">more than a quarter of Zambia’s land</a> to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who promised to create a “heaven on earth”). The trade union leader Frederick Chiluba won in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/02/world/zambian-voters-defeat-kaunda-sole-leader-since-independence.html">landslide victory in 1991</a>.</p>
<h2>The last years</h2>
<p>Kaunda <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4283286.stm">won kudos abroad</a> for what was considered to be his gracious response to electoral defeat, but the new government was less magnanimous. It placed him under house arrest after alleging a coup attempt; then <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/01/world/founder-of-zambia-is-declared-stateless-in-high-court-ruling.html">declared him stateless</a> when he planned to run in the 1996 election (on the grounds that his father was born in Malawi), which he successfully challenged in court. He survived an <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/shot-kaunda-claims-attempt-on-life-1.99800">assassination attempt in 1997</a>, getting grazed by a bullet. One of his sons, Wezi, was shot dead outside their home in 1999.</p>
<p>The 1986 AIDS death of another son, Masuzgo, inspired him to campaign around HIV issues far earlier than most, and he stepped this up over the next two decades. After Chiluba’s departure, he returned to favour and became a <a href="https://thenews-chronicle.com/a-life-that-defies-expectations-a-tribute-to-kenneth-kaunda-at-96/">roving ambassador for Zambia</a>. He reduced his public role following the <a href="https://www.lusakatimes.com/2012/09/19/mama-betty-kaunda-dies/">2012 death</a> of his wife of 66 years, Betty.</p>
<p>Kaunda will be remembered as a giant of 20th century African nationalism – a leader who, at great cost, gave refuge to revolutionary movements, a relatively benign autocrat who reluctantly introduced democracy to his country and an international diplomat who punched well above his weight in world affairs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kaunda will be remembered as a giant of 20th century African nationalism – a leader who gave refuge to revolutionary movements, a relatively benign autocrat and an international diplomat.Gavin Evans, Lecturer, Culture and Media department, Birkbeck, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1467482020-10-05T12:12:10Z2020-10-05T12:12:10ZWhy is it so hard for atheists to get voted in to Congress?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361236/original/file-20201001-20-176akrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C14%2C4707%2C3261&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Above it, only skies? In it, only believers? Imagine that!</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/storm-clouds-gather-over-capitol-hill-late-in-the-day-in-news-photo/1000332986?adppopup=true">Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every election cycle has its “firsts.”</p>
<p>This year, the selection of Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate presented the U.S. with its <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/how-sen-kamala-harris-indian-heritage-pioneering-mother-propelled-her-n1237347">first politician of Indian heritage</a> – and the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/19/politics/democratic-convention-harris-obama-clinton/index.html">first Black woman</a> – to be on a major party ticket. It followed Hillary Clinton’s becoming the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/21/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-popular-vote-final-count/index.html">first woman to win the popular vote</a> for president in a 2016 election to replace America’s <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/bios/barack-obama">first Black president</a>, Barack Obama.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Pete Buttigieg became the <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/02/05/pete-buttigieg-first-openly-gay-candidate-earn-presidential-primary-delegates-nomination/4667796002/">first openly gay candidate to win a presidential primary</a> and Ted Cruz became <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/03/ted-cruz-is-the-first-latino-to-win-a-caucus-or-primary-why-isnt-that-a-bigger-deal/">the first Latino to do so</a>. In recent years Americans saw the <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/bernie-sanders-becomes-the-first-jew-to-win-a-presidential-primary">first Jewish American</a> win a primary, Bernie Sanders, and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/06/politics/first-muslim-women-congress/index.html">became the first Muslim women elected to Congress</a>.</p>
<p>But in this era of increasing diversity and the breaking of long-rigid political-demographic barriers, there is no self-identifying atheist in national politics. Indeed, throughout history, only one self-identified atheist in the U.S. Congress comes to mind, the late <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/politics/pete-stark-dead.html">California Democrat Peter Stark</a>.</p>
<h2>‘In atheists, they don’t trust’</h2>
<p>This puts the country at odds with democracies the world over that have elected openly godless – or at least openly skeptical – leaders who went on to become revered national figures, such as <a href="https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/the-humanist-tradition/20th-century-humanism/nehru/">Jawaharlal Nehru in India</a>, <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/09/sweden-social-democracy-olaf-palme-assasination-reforms/">Sweden’s Olof Palme</a>, <a href="https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2012/05/19/theres-an-openly-atheist-president-in-uruguay/">Jose Mujica in Uruguay</a> and <a href="https://www.hpb.com/products/the-portable-atheist-9780306816086">Israel’s Golda Meir</a>. New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, the global leader who has arguably navigated the coronavirus crisis with the most credit, <a href="https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2017/10/19/new-zealands-next-prime-minister-set-to-be-agnostic-woman-who-left-mormonism/">says she is agnostic</a>.</p>
<p>But in the United States, self-identified nonbelievers are at a distinct disadvantage. A <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/254120/less-half-vote-socialist-president.aspx">2019 poll asking Americans who they were willing to vote for</a> in a hypothetical presidential election found that 96% would vote for a candidate who is Black, 94% for a woman, 95% for a Hispanic candidate, 93% for a Jew, 76% for a gay or lesbian candidate and 66% for a Muslim – but atheists fall below all of these, down at 60%. That is a sizable chunk who would not vote for a candidate simply on the basis of their nonreligion.</p>
<p><iframe id="sICq4" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/sICq4/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In fact, a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/05/19/for-2016-hopefuls-washington-experience-could-do-more-harm-than-good/">2014 survey</a> found Americans would be more willing to vote for a presidential candidate who had never held office before, or who had extramarital affairs, than for an atheist.</p>
<p>In a country that <a href="https://petitions.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/petition/change-motto-united-states-america-e-pluribus-unum/">changed its original national motto in 1956</a> from the secular “E pluribus unum” – “out of many, one” – to the faithful “In God We Trust,” it seems people don’t trust someone who doesn’t believe in God.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/phil-zuckerman/">scholar who studies atheism in the U.S.</a>, I have long sought to understand what is behind such antipathy toward nonbelievers seeking office.</p>
<h2>Branding issue?</h2>
<p>There appear to be two primary reasons atheism remains the kiss of death for aspiring politicians in the U.S. – one is rooted in a reaction to historical and political events, while the other is rooted in baseless bigotry. </p>
<p>Let’s start with the first: atheism’s prominence within communist regimes. Some of the most murderous dictatorships of the 20th century – including <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2010/09/23/naimark-stalin-genocide-092310/">Stalin’s Soviet Union</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-10684399">Pol Pot’s Cambodia</a> – were explicitly atheistic. Bulldozing humans right and persecuting religious believers were fundamental to their oppressive agendas. Talk about a branding problem for atheists.</p>
<p>For those who considered themselves lovers of liberty, democracy and the First Amendment guarantee of the free exercise of religion, it made sense to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-spiritual-industrial-complex-9780195393460?cc=us&lang=en&">develop fearful distrust of atheism</a>, given its association with such brutal dictatorships.</p>
<p>And even though such regimes have long since met their demise, the <a href="https://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/spring_2005/aiello.htm?report=reader">association of atheism with a lack of freedom</a> lingered long after.</p>
<p>The second reason atheists find it hard to get elected in America, however, is the result of an irrational linkage in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12035">many people’s minds between atheism and immorality</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/csnp2">Some assume</a> that because atheists don’t believe in a deity watching and judging their every move, they must be more likely to murder, steal, lie and cheat. One recent study, for example, found that Americans even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0092302">intuitively link atheism with necrobestiality and cannibalism</a>. </p>
<p>Such bigoted associations between atheism and immorality do not align with reality. There is simply no empirical evidence that most people who lack a belief in God are immoral. If anything, the evidence points in the other direction. Research has shown that atheists tend to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309352179">less racist</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2018.1522809">less homophobic</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-014-0379-3">less misogynistic</a> than those professing a belief in God.</p>
<p>Most atheists subscribe to <a href="https://thehumanist.com/magazine/september-october-2019/features/living-humanist-values-the-ten-commitments">humanistic ethics</a> <a href="https://www.counterpointpress.com/dd-product/what-it-means-to-be-moral/">based on compassion and a desire to alleviate suffering</a>. This may help explain why atheists have been found to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134868">more supportive of efforts to fight climate change</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/24/republicans-turn-more-negative-toward-refugees-as-number-admitted-to-u-s-plummets/">more supportive of refugees</a> and of <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3712123">the right to die</a>.</p>
<p>This may also explain why, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199644650.013.010">according to my research</a>, those states within the U.S. with the least religious populations – as well as democratic nations with the most secular citizens – tend to be the most humane, safe, peaceful and prosperous.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re too busy to read everything. We get it. That’s why we’ve got a weekly newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybusy">Sign up for good Sunday reading.</a> ]</p>
<h2>Freethought caucus</h2>
<p>Although the rivers of anti-atheism run deep throughout the American political landscape, they are starting to thin. More and more nonbelievers are <a href="https://www.barna.com/rise-of-atheism/">openly expressing their godlessness</a>, and swelling numbers of Americans are becoming secular: In the past 15 years, the <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/">percentage of Americans claiming no religious affiliation has risen</a> from 16% to 26%. Meanwhile, some find the image of a Bible-wielding Trump troubling, opening up the possibility that suddenly Christianity may be contending with a branding problem of its own, <a href="https://www.prri.org/research/prri-rns-poll-nones-atheist-leaving-religion/">especially in the skeptical eyes of younger Americans</a>.</p>
<p>In 2018, a new group emerged in Washington, D.C.: The Congressional Freethought Caucus. Although it only has 13 members, it portends a significant shift in which some elected members of Congress are no longer afraid of being <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/11/09/this-lawmaker-is-skeptical-that-god-exists-now-hes-finally-decided-to-tell-people/">identified as, at the very least, agnostic</a>. Given this new development, as well as the growing number of nonreligious Americans, it shouldn’t be a surprise if one day a self-identified atheist makes it to the White House.</p>
<p>Will that day come sooner rather than later? God only knows. Or rather, only time will tell.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146748/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phil Zuckerman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite growing numbers of non-religious Americans, self-declared atheists are few and far between in the halls of power – putting the US at odds with other global democracies.Phil Zuckerman, Professor of Sociology and Secular Studies, Pitzer CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1386382020-05-21T11:32:52Z2020-05-21T11:32:52ZHow non-religious worldviews provide solace in times of crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336504/original/file-20200520-152288-c6i38n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5693%2C3721&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/depressed-emotions-concept-man-standing-end-325609028">Sander van der Werf/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The saying “There are no atheists in foxholes” suggests that in stressful times people inevitably turn to God (or indeed gods). In fact, non-believers have their own set of secular worldviews which can provide them with solace in difficult times, just as religious beliefs do for the spiritually-minded. </p>
<p>The aim of my <a href="https://research.kent.ac.uk/understandingunbelief/research/early-career-research-projects/3308-2/">research</a> for the <a href="https://research.kent.ac.uk/understandingunbelief/">Understanding Unbelief programme</a> was to investigate the worldviews of non-believers, since <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-conundrum-of-how-to-prove-you-hold-a-nonreligious-worldview-90405">little is known</a> about the diversity of these non-religious beliefs, and what psychological functions they serve. I wanted to explore the idea that while non-believers may not hold religious beliefs, they still hold <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199644650.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199644650-e-023">distinct ontological, epistemological and ethical beliefs</a> about reality, and the idea that these secular beliefs and worldviews provide the non-religious with equivalent sources of meaning, or similar coping mechanisms, as the supernatural beliefs of religious individuals. </p>
<p>The number of non-believers is growing, with at least <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199644650.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199644650-e-011">450-500 million declared atheists</a> worldwide – about 7% of the global adult population. But since non-believers can include not just atheists but also agnostics and so-called “nones” – the religiously unaffiliated, who might tick “no religion” in surveys – this number is likely to be much bigger. Here, we use non-believers to refer to individuals who do not believe in God, and who do not consider themselves religious. </p>
<h2>Rationalising the fear of death</h2>
<p>The idea that beliefs or worldviews support us in difficult times is the foundation of <a href="https://tmt.missouri.edu/index.html">Terror Management Theory</a>. This holds we fear death because we are consciously aware of the future and therefore our own inevitable demise. This fear can be so great that <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-believers-fear-of-atheists-is-fueled-by-fear-of-death-41724">it can paralyse us</a> when we try to live our everyday lives. </p>
<p>But we can manage this fear – through belief in God and the afterlife, for example, but equally through the knowledge that death is natural. Knowing that one day we will die, worldviews reinforce our beliefs and the identities that we build around them, and can provide comfort – by providing us with so-called <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-scared-of-death-are-we-really-and-how-does-that-affect-us-54258">symbolic immortality</a>, for example, or feelings of connectedness to something bigger than ourselves. Here, it is the meaningfulness of the belief rather than its (religious) content that is important: among non-believers, increased stress and reminders of one’s mortality are associated with an <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103113001042">increased belief in science</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336525/original/file-20200520-152349-16qdsgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336525/original/file-20200520-152349-16qdsgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336525/original/file-20200520-152349-16qdsgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336525/original/file-20200520-152349-16qdsgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336525/original/file-20200520-152349-16qdsgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336525/original/file-20200520-152349-16qdsgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336525/original/file-20200520-152349-16qdsgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Atheists can still rely upon their beliefs to provide some comfort when times are hard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/highlighted-english-word-atheism-definition-dictionary-1035753151">Lobroart/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Secular beliefs worldwide</h2>
<p>With a team of international collaborators, I designed an online survey to ask non-believers about the worldviews, beliefs or understandings of the world that are particularly meaningful to them. We gathered 1,000 responses from people from the UK, US, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Turkey, Brazil, Canada and Australia.</p>
<p>We found that across these ten countries, the six most common beliefs and worldviews were those based on science, <a href="https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/">humanism</a> (or belief in humanity and human ability), critical thinking and scepticism (including rationalism), being kind and caring for one another, and beliefs in equality and natural laws (including evolution). </p>
<p>This overlap was striking. Despite huge geographical and cultural differences, we found these categories came up over and over again. Frequently mentioned worldviews included statements like: “I believe in the scientific method and the ethical values of humanism. I reject all beliefs that are not evidence based”, and “We have one life. We have this one opportunity to enjoy our brief moment in the sun, while doing the most good we can to help our fellow creatures and protect the natural environment for future generations.” </p>
<p>But we also found variation. While responses from countries such as the Netherlands and Finland focused particularly on caring for the Earth, responses from countries such as the US and Australia focused on the general improvement of human well-being.</p>
<h2>Supportive worldviews</h2>
<p>We also asked non-believers to think of challenging times in their lives: when someone close to them passed away; when they or someone close to them had a serious injury (an accident) or discovered they had a serious physical illness; when they felt particularly alone or disconnected from others; and when they felt particularly down or depressed. </p>
<p>Asked to recall whether any of their worldviews were helpful at the time, we found that what helped most often were worldviews based on science, detachment and acceptance. These included beliefs in the naturalness of death, the randomness of life, humanism, free will and taking responsibility. For example, people suggested knowing “that family members live on in their descendants, through personality traits and memories” helps when dealing with a bereavement, while enduring an illness “was just randomness. Stuff like that happens.” </p>
<p>Beliefs about the nature of life and death helped many, including the view that “suffering and isolation are universal experiences”, and that these states will pass: “Things change, and this situation isn’t always going to be like this.” Many indicated that a humanistic worldview was highly important to them, valuing “my relationships with those close to me, and understanding that life can be all too short so we must value the one life that we know we have.”</p>
<h2>How atheists cope</h2>
<p>But <em>how</em> do these worldviews help in times of crisis? Most frequently, the respondents said they helped cope with the situation, reduced anxiety, created an increased feeling of control and sense of order, and explained or gave meaning to the situation. </p>
<p>Many participants indicated that understanding a difficult situation proved paramount to accepting it and coping with it. One said that “understanding the process of loss and moving on via understanding psychology helps”. Others stated that “my belief in science explained what was happening and I also trusted in modern medicine that we could overcome it”, or that it helped to consider that “depression [is] a condition that responds to time and care”. </p>
<p>What this research suggests is that worldviews and beliefs, whether religious or secular, can provide comfort and meaning in even the very toughest situations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Valerie van Mulukom has received funding from the Understanding Unbelief programme, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.</span></em></p>With the number of declared ‘non-believers’ growing worldwide, researchers sought to discover what beliefs the irreligious turn to when times are tough.Valerie van Mulukom, Cognitive Scientist, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1219452019-08-26T14:16:07Z2019-08-26T14:16:07ZHow a rural community hopes to retain spiritual life undermined by western ways<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288350/original/file-20190816-192254-13gl0no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C149%2C613%2C261&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lily Heisi/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around the world, the introduction of western ways of life has changed indigenous communities. This has often happened by decreasing or by limiting their access to the resources they need. It’s been deliberate as well as unintentional, often with negative results </p>
<p>AmaBomvane of the Eastern Cape in South Africa provide an example of the impact such disruption can have. The traditional spiritual beliefs of this community underpin their entire way of life, and when “modern” interventions disrupted their spiritual practices, they began to suffer harm.</p>
<p>AmaBomvane aren’t the only community to have been affected in this way. Many indigenous communities around the world experience globalisation as <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1745-5871.2007.00443.x">a loss of spiritual connectedness</a>. They include the Cree of the Whapmagoostui in northeastern Canada, the Anishinaabe (Ojibwa), also in North America, the Mohawk community of Akwesasne, and various indigenous communities in Hawaii, Australia, <a href="http://www.umanitoba.ca/institutes/natural_resources/canadaresearchchair/Gwichin%20berry%20harvesting%20from%20northern%20Canada.pdf">the Pacific islands and New Zealand</a>.</p>
<p>For my PhD, <a href="http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/105990">I studied</a> the understanding and practice of indigenous spirituality and its influence on well-being. I also explored the impact of the imposition of western, individualist values on Bomvanaland, a deeply rural area of Elliotdale, in the former Transkei region of South Africa. And I examined what enables the AmaBomvane to survive despite these challenges. </p>
<h2>AmaBomvane</h2>
<p>AmaBomvane’s beliefs traditionally inform their very existence. During my research I found that they understood spirituality to be about relationships. The main determinant of their community’s well-being was the management of strife in these relationships. </p>
<p>Their belief system is informed by <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/the-meaning-of-ubuntu-43307"><em>ubuntu</em></a> (humaness), a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-archbishop-tutus-ubuntu-credo-teaches-the-world-about-justice-and-harmony-84730">southern African ethic</a> grounded in the belief that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A person is a person through other persons.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To amaBomvane, relationships exist between three dimensions: humans (living and dead), nature and the divine. All three areas are in a complex balance.</p>
<p>As they explained their beliefs to me, it became clear that amaBomvane did not see physical death as an end to life. They believe in the continued presence of family members (ancestors). Their core values are kindness, empathy and support for the collective. A person’s humanity depends on how they treat other people.</p>
<p>This beneficence is extended to the land and animals as well. AmaBomvane believe that humans exist in a reciprocal relationship with all of nature. When people harm the earth and the animals, they harm themselves. There is no separation.</p>
<p>AmaBomvane grew various plants for food and for treating illnesses. They also grew grain for making a local brew, which was used in maintaining their relationship with their ancestors and with God. </p>
<p>Their animals supported them to achieve and maintain their relationship to the divine through sacrifices. They protected and cared for their animals, which in turn nourished them physically and spiritually.</p>
<p>The land, too, was cared for and responded in kind. The land received the bodies of people’s ancestors and carried their cattle enclosures, which remained very spiritual spaces. Land also yielded the crops used for food and for making the beer for ancestral veneration. </p>
<p>The ancestors are spirit beings who are believed to liaise between God and family members, relaying messages to support well-being or admonishment for wrongdoing and disobedience. This is at the centre of amaBomvane belief system. Ancestors are believed to provide protection, guidance, advice, good health, and even punishment. </p>
<p>To enjoy well-being and thrive, people must maintain this relationship with the divine, others and the world around them.</p>
<p>AmaBomvane sustain the relationship through a collective expression of their spirituality. This occurs through songs, dance and various familial and communal rites of passage. They hold ceremonies that strengthen their identity and support their connection to each dimension of the relationship.</p>
<p>All these activities contributed to cultural continuity, supporting their well-being.</p>
<p>But, this cultural continuity has been systematically disrupted – historically by the entrance of colonial powers and contemporarily by globalisation and urbanisation.</p>
<h2>Disrupted way of life</h2>
<p>AmaBomvane identified three distinct ways in which their socio-cultural and spiritual wellbeing was disrupted. These were western spirituality, healthcare and education introduced by the colonial powers into their context. Their indigenous spiritual knowledges were demonised and marginalised. Lands were seized, causing forced migration and disrupting their access to spiritual resources, connection to one another and shared identity. </p>
<p>These disruptions continue. The ongoing socio-cultural, political and globalised approaches to “bringing communities into the 21st century” – like the poor engagement and collaboration between traditional healers and western healthcare practitioners – continue to create problems for amaBomvane. They assert that currently, some developmental agencies and businesses have cordoned off land for private use within their villages. </p>
<p>AmaBomvane made it clear that the global development agenda had contributed to division because it sees people as individuals rather than primarily as members of a collective.</p>
<p>They also believed that although it seeks greater good, the way in which human rights have been introduced into their context without incorporating their own moral belief systems has been more detrimental than beneficial to their community. An example that they cited was that children had become disobedient towards their parents and elders, contributing to broken relationships.</p>
<p>And the disruption of their traditional way of life, coupled with the lack of alternative ways of making a living, had led many amaBomvane, especially young people, to seek opportunities elsewhere.</p>
<p>This had negatively affected the practice of their spirituality. Community members were confused about their spirituality, combining both indigenous and western spiritual practices. Youth migration had also robbed the area of the young people needed to farm the land. Alcohol and drug abuse among the youth had also brought new social problems.</p>
<h2>Shared humanity</h2>
<p>There is no easy answer to amaBomvane’s dilemma. But they have proposed a way forward. They argued that those coming into their spaces must seek collaboration, not domination. </p>
<p>This collaboration must be led and infused by their indigenous value system of <em>ubuntu</em>. The community assert that if people recognise their shared humanity, the outcomes would be beneficial to the well-being of all – human, land, animals, and the divine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121945/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Chioma Ohajunwa is a lecturer at the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Stellenbosch.
Dr Chioma Ohajunwa received funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF) Grant Holder Linked Bursary for this study </span></em></p>The Bomvana say the global development agenda has created division because it sees people as individuals rather than primarily as members of a collective.Chioma Ohajunwa, Lecturer and researcher at the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1029172018-09-10T09:59:50Z2018-09-10T09:59:50ZTeaching worldviews could enhance Religious Education in schools<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235561/original/file-20180910-123134-1xk45j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'No religion' doesn't mean atheism for a start.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-teenage-students-collaborating-on-project-749518390?src=SCivHWkos-M5zgPhS6YTPA-1-23">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What’s the purpose of Religious Education (RE) in a country where <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-is-christianity-dying-in-britain-20734">a majority of people</a> have “no religion”?</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.commissiononre.org.uk/final-report-religion-and-worldviews-the-way-forward-a-national-plan-for-re/">new report</a> of the independent Commission on Religious Education in England and Wales provides a clear answer: the rise of “no religion” doesn’t mean that religion isn’t important. Rather, the report makes a strong case that it is more important than ever that young people in Britain understand and engage effectively with diverse religions and worldviews.</p>
<p>The report proposes a radical overhaul of RE. This is most obvious in the new name it recommends for the subject: “Religion and Worldviews”. Non-religious worldviews like humanism, secularism, atheism and agnosticism would be studied alongside different traditions within Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism.</p>
<p>The authors of the report – Religion and Worldviews: A National Plan for RE – are explicit about their reasoning for the name change: it “removes the ambiguity in the phrase ‘Religious Education’, which is often wrongly assumed to be about making people more religious”. The roots of the subject, in the Christian Religious Instruction of the 1944 Education Act, are being thoroughly overturned.</p>
<p>It also asks for a review of the right of parents to withdraw their children from RE, which seems motivated by <a href="https://theconversation.com/parents-are-pulling-children-from-re-lessons-so-they-dont-learn-about-islam-95235">concerns that some parents</a> are removing their children from classes in order to prevent them from learning about Islam. Further, the report recommends a new statutory “national entitlement” for all pupils in all publicly-funded schools. This is intended to secure and enhance the position of RE across the country. The commission was in part motivated by evidence that the quality of RE provision has been plummeting in recent years, with some schools dropping it altogether.</p>
<p>The national entitlement identifies nine requirements that pupils “must be taught”, including how religions and worldviews “are interpreted in different times, cultures and places”; key concepts such as “religion”, “secularity”, “spirituality” and “worldview”; and the idea “that worldviews are complex, diverse and plural”.</p>
<p>These requirements are very broad and therefore potentially open to misunderstanding. But they are generally in line with the way that religions and worldviews are conceptualised and taught in anthropology, sociology, religious studies and other disciplines in higher education institutions.</p>
<p>Taken together, these changes could result in a significant advance for RE, securing its future as a rigorous academic subject.</p>
<h2>Faith-based schools</h2>
<p>The explicit broadening to include worldviews appears to accommodate the rise of people of no religion in Britain, ensuring that their perspectives are represented in the classroom. British Social Attitudes surveys <a href="http://www.natcen.ac.uk/news-media/press-releases/2018/september/church-of-england-numbers-at-record-low/">have found</a> that around 50% of the population has identified as having no religion since 2009. Young people are most likely to choose this category. In 2017, 70% of people aged 18-24 said they had no religion, an increase from 56% in 2002. </p>
<p>Only a minority of <a href="https://www.britac.ac.uk/sites/default/files/11%20Woodhead%201825.pdf">people of no religion</a> are atheists; most believe in some sort of god or higher power and engage in a range of practices that could be described as religious. So pupils would be invited to explore the complex worldviews and practices of people who do not identify with a religion – including, it seems, most of their peers.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the prioritising of religion as a subject in urgent need of study might be expected to reassure believers who feel that their perspective is increasingly marginalised in the public sphere, ensuring that the growing no-religion majority can understand and sympathise with their devout friends and neighbours.</p>
<p>But while the Church of England’s chief education officer has welcomed the report, the most stinging criticism has come from representatives of schools with a religious character. The Board of Deputies of British Jews <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/sep/09/religious-education-schools-overhaul-reflect-diverse-world">criticised</a> “the dilution of religious education through the inclusion of worldviews”; while the Catholic Education Service said “the quality of religious education is not improved by teaching less religion”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235563/original/file-20180910-123107-nfqixv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235563/original/file-20180910-123107-nfqixv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235563/original/file-20180910-123107-nfqixv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235563/original/file-20180910-123107-nfqixv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235563/original/file-20180910-123107-nfqixv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235563/original/file-20180910-123107-nfqixv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235563/original/file-20180910-123107-nfqixv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Criticism has come from representatives of schools with a religious character.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/christening-golden-cross-on-lace-horizontal-311822783?src=szk-svCY1BtHgkRxNX049g-1-27">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Schools with a religious character exist in part to promote faith formation and ensure that the faith is passed on to the next generation. This was not the commission’s aim. But beyond recognising this divergence in priorities for the commission and for faith schools, it is not clear if or how the National Entitlement would help faith schools maintain their distinctive ethos. For example, would Catholic schools be able to prioritise Catholic teaching and faith formation within the hours allotted to Religion and Worldviews, or would they need to make provision for this to happen after hours?</p>
<p>In this regard, all seems to hinge on the commission’s recommendation for a national body to develop programmes of study and training for the teachers who would deliver the new curriculum. Although some Catholic campaigners have asserted that this <a href="https://schoolsweek.co.uk/lets-not-turn-re-into-a-weapon-in-the-war-against-catholic-schools/">would result in</a> “a state-imposed version of Catholicism”, this is an oversimplification. If the national body adheres to what seems to be the intent of the commission, a variety of perspectives on Catholicism (and Islam, secularism and so on) would be included.</p>
<p>At the same time, those who favour and patronise schools with a religious character may overestimate the importance of these schools in passing on the faith. The passing of religion from one generation to the next is a complex and multi-causal process – of which a child’s attendance at a faith-based school is just one factor.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235560/original/file-20180910-123125-16vus4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235560/original/file-20180910-123125-16vus4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235560/original/file-20180910-123125-16vus4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235560/original/file-20180910-123125-16vus4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235560/original/file-20180910-123125-16vus4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235560/original/file-20180910-123125-16vus4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235560/original/file-20180910-123125-16vus4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parents play a stronger role than schools in promoting faith.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/beautiful-happiness-muslim-girl-writing-notebook-702015937?src=v2M9KUurt_K9upFeuE3Rtw-2-87">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Studies have found that a more important factor for ensuring faith stays alive is <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/the-no-1-reason-teens-kee_b_6067838.html">the role parents play</a> in their children’s lives: if they practice their religion at home and in their local faith community, their children are much more likely to remain religious. </p>
<p>While this may not reassure those who perceive the commission’s recommendations as a threat to faith-based schools, it shouldn’t distract from the opportunity that these proposals represent. If it is properly resourced and phased in over a reasonable period of time, Religion and Worldviews could enhance – not undermine – the teaching of religious education in Britain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102917/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gladys Ganiel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pupils would be able to explore the complex worldviews and practices of people who do not identify with a religion.Gladys Ganiel, Research Fellow, The Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/994012018-07-04T15:57:24Z2018-07-04T15:57:24ZPiers Morgan and Brian Cox debate the existence of God: a philosopher’s take<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226169/original/file-20180704-73329-2lnqfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Piers Morgan started a <a href="https://www.independent.ie/world-news/and-finally/piers-morgan-and-brian-cox-are-intensely-debating-the-big-bang-theory-on-twitter-37071036.html">Twitter debate</a> about God. “Atheists can never say what was there before the Big Bang” starts a recent tweet posted by the journalist-turned-television presenter. Morgan then moves to the existence of a higher power. A quick scan of the replies shows that the mere suggestion is enough to raise hackles. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1013511622541873152"}"></div></p>
<p>Morgan’s tweet is a “<a href="http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/theistic-proofs/the-cosmological-argument/">cosmological argument</a>” – one that argues that there must be an ultimate cause or explanation for the existence of the universe and that it must be God. </p>
<p>When focusing on causes, the idea is to question what caused, say, the Big Bang? If science finds that it’s a physical cause, we’ve gone nowhere, for what brought <em>that</em> about? And if the cause is non-physical, it must be supernatural. When focusing on explanation, the question is what explains the sum total of all facts? If it’s a scientific explanation, such as the fundamental laws of nature explaining everything, then what explains <em>those</em> laws? And the argument goes round again. If the explanation is non-scientific, then God isn’t far behind.</p>
<p>I doubt such arguments <em>prove</em> God’s existence for sensible objections abound. For instance, in response to Morgan, scientist (and television presenter) Brian Cox – who, as any fan of his radio show <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w/episodes/downloads">The Infinite Monkey Cage</a> will know, is not philosophy’s biggest fan – nevertheless turns philosophical and suggests that <a href="https://twitter.com/ProfBrianCox/status/1013666371547394049">perhaps nothing explains these things</a>.</p>
<p>Another objection to this kind of argument is that God isn’t a good explanation because what would explain God? </p>
<p>Or consider one last objection. We might say that a prior universe was responsible for the Big Bang, and before that one, there was another. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model">And so on, forever</a>. Because this chain of universes has been around forever, the suggestion is that they need no explanation.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1013666371547394049"}"></div></p>
<h2>Problems with the objections</h2>
<p>To each objection there are rejoinders – if there weren’t, philosophers like myself would be doing it wrong. </p>
<p>Can scientific phenomena really have <em>no</em> explanation? Isn’t science based on the idea that all things have discoverable explanations? Even particles popping into existence <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam">in the quantum foam</a> have an <em>explanation</em> for their existence (namely, the laws of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quantum-physics-259">quantum physics</a>) even if they have no specific <em>cause</em>. </p>
<p>And maybe it’s OK for God’s creation of reality to be inexplicable. Some people – “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/">libertarians</a>” – suggest that people’s free choices have no explanation. If our choices were wholly explained (for example, by our brain activity) there would be no free will. So even if scientific explanations always need explanations, God’s actions don’t.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-psychology-of-believing-in-free-will-97193">The psychology of believing in free will</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>What about the eternally existing chain of universes? Imagine you stumble across a perfect statue of yourself. Wondering why the hell it’s there, is it really satisfactory if someone says it just happens to have been there for all eternity? I doubt it. </p>
<h2>Good arguments needn’t be proofs</h2>
<p>The literature on the cosmological argument is vast. It’s an open question whether the crucial premises are true or not. So it isn’t <em>proof</em> of God’s existence. But that doesn’t mean the cosmological argument is a bad argument. To be good, an argument doesn’t have to conclusively and undeniably prove its conclusion. Good reasoning needn’t be impervious to doubt. </p>
<p>Intelligent, well-informed adults can be justified in believing different things. Two physicists might disagree over a correct fundamental physical theory. One might say it’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Greene">superstring theory</a>. Another might believe it’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Rovelli">loop quantum gravity</a>. And both can be justified, even though they have the same body of information to hand. Indeed, they can be justified even though at most one of them is right. Being <em>justified</em> in believing something doesn’t mean it has to be <em>true</em>. Sometimes <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_theories">rational trains of thought can lead us astray</a> – such is life.</p>
<p>And it’s not just science. Veteran politicians disagree even though they’re privy to the same information. Politics also shows that non-experts can similarly disagree. People who haven’t waded through all of the available information nevertheless get to have justifiable political views. Liberal democracy is founded on the idea that voters make sensible, justified decisions when they vote. You don’t need to be the West Wing’s fictional Nobel Prize-winning president, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jed-bartlet">Jed Bartlet</a>, in order to justifiably believe that lower business rates could work out well, that railway nationalisation is the way forward, or – in short – justifiably have a political opinion. </p>
<h2>New atheism and Brexit</h2>
<p>The, <a href="https://twitter.com/DonStuarte/status/1013824340981411840">often outrageously rude</a>, debate on Morgan’s Twitter feed shows that people tend to want religious arguments to meet some crazily high standard of proof. This is not unusual – it characterises a lot of <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/">New Atheist</a> debates. But it’s an unfair burden. Churchgoers aren’t simpering morons just because they can’t prove God exists in the same way that we can prove to anyone that <a href="https://primes.utm.edu/notes/proofs/infinite/euclids.html">there are an infinite number of prime numbers</a>. </p>
<p>So Morgan may not be telling atheists why <em>they</em> have to believe in God. Rather, he may be making a claim about why <em>he</em> is justified in believing in God. Those things are different. It’s implausible to believe that 140 characters is going to change the mind of every atheist. But if Morgan is just giving us an insight into his own belief structure – claiming only that his faith is justified – then, since the jury is out when it comes to the cosmological argument’s crucial premises, he’s on solid ground. </p>
<p>In the same way that a scientist may believe superstring theory in lieu of conclusive experimental evidence, or how politician Jeremy Corbyn can think that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/07/jeremy-corbyns-bill-nationalising-energy-sector-185bn">nationalising energy is sensible</a> even though questions remain (for don’t questions always remain?), Morgan can be justified in believing in God. </p>
<p>This lesson isn’t just one for religious debate. The world (and the internet, especially) would be a better place if we worried less about whether <a href="https://xkcd.com/386/">someone was wrong</a> and more about whether they’re justified. As new technologies allow for evermore public clashes of views, such as with the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/toxic-bullying-is-a-threat-to-our-democracy-df0sjnxx6">often vicious</a> Brexit debate, realising that intellectually sophisticated adults can be justified in believing diametrically opposed things has never been more important.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nikk Effingham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The television presenter and the scientist are having an argument about God on Twitter, and Morgan is getting a lot of stick. That’s not fair.Nikk Effingham, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/904052018-01-26T08:43:00Z2018-01-26T08:43:00ZThe conundrum of how to prove you hold a nonreligious worldview<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203256/original/file-20180124-107963-1llh72o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C8%2C974%2C646&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a Pakistani humanist, Hamza bin Walayat, was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/17/pakistani-humanist-denied-uk-asylum-after-failing-to-identify-plato?CMP=share_btn_tw">denied asylum</a> in Britain in mid January after failing to identify Plato and Aristotle as humanist philosophers, it drew <a href="http://time.com/5107298/greek-philosophers-humanist-denied-uk-asylum/">international attention</a>. </p>
<p>The Home Office’s understanding of what it means to be a humanist and of humanism’s history is <a href="https://humanism.org.uk/2018/01/17/home-office-tells-humanist-hell-be-deported-for-not-identifying-plato-or-aristotle/">deeply flawed</a>, and the potential consequences are very serious. Walayat’s application for asylum referred to death threats from members of his family for rejecting Islam, and fear for his life in Pakistan, which has strict <a href="https://theconversation.com/pakistans-outdated-blasphemy-laws-are-not-fit-for-the-21st-century-77515">blasphemy laws</a>. </p>
<p>But it is also just the latest indication that illiteracy about what it means to be nonreligious is widespread – even in <a href="http://www.natcen.ac.uk/news-media/press-releases/2017/september/british-social-attitudes-record-number-of-brits-with-no-religion/">relatively nonreligious societies</a> such as the UK. </p>
<p>At the last count in 2008, 37% of Britons said they <a href="http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/the-2008-british-social-attitudes-survey/">had atheist outlooks</a> of some kind – some 25m people, and likely to grow. Around the world the numbers of <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199644650.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199644650-e-011">atheists rival</a> adherents of major “world religions”. </p>
<p>Alongside concerns about a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bbc-head-of-religion-warns-of-chronic-lack-of-religious-literacy-in-the-uk-a6940041.html">lack of religious literacy</a> in the UK, understanding of the philosophies and values of people who say they have no religion is also very limited – and receives much less attention. </p>
<p>The state plays an important role in this. One issue is that public bodies are struggling to understand how nonreligious people come to their views about the nature of existence and the meaning of life without the help of institutions such churches. </p>
<p>Such nonreligious and secular worldviews come in many forms. There are different kinds of humanism, different kinds of materialism, different kinds of agnosticism. Most nonreligious worldviews are atheistic, but some are not. They are found all around the world, and take different forms in different contexts: atheism in Japan isn’t the same thing <a href="https://research.kent.ac.uk/understandingunbelief/research/adac/">as atheism in Denmark</a>, for example. But one thing that nonreligious worldviews have in common is that they are rarely institutionalised.</p>
<p>Yes, nonreligious worldviews are anchored in and shared through common cultures. Nonreligious people do not, for example, want for poems or songs to use in registry office wedding ceremonies or humanist funerals. <a href="http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191816819.001.0001/acref-9780191816819-e-44?rskey=kmTXbS&result=44">Existential ideas</a> – about what it means to be alive, and what makes life worth living – run through this material. These choices might feel very personal, but there are common themes that communicate and establish different nonreligious norms and values.</p>
<p>But shared themes are not the same as shared texts. In its questions about Plato and Aristotle, the Home Office tried to identify a body of writing that those sharing a humanist worldview might turn to – something similar to religious scripture. For humanism, as for other nonreligious worldviews, this simply doesn’t exist. </p>
<h2>Think outside the institution</h2>
<p>This isn’t necessarily a problem for nonreligious people themselves, but it’s a problem for public bodies, used to identifying worldviews through official institutions such as the Church of England and its representatives. Across public life – media, religious education, parliamentary committees or community forums – the strategy for including nonreligious perspectives <a href="https://corablivingwithdifference.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/living-with-difference-community-diversity-and-the-common-good.pdf">has simply been</a> to extend the old model to include humanist organisations. This is important to do, but it is not enough. </p>
<p>Religious people now increasingly explore and practice their beliefs outside formal institutions. This means that knowledge of religious texts or congregational participation is becoming almost as absurd an indicator of religious commitments as knowledge of Greek philosophy is of nonreligious ones. </p>
<p>The good news is that the will to engage with nonreligious outlooks is there – what is lacking is the way. It was good to see the BBC, for example, including nonreligious worldviews in a <a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/howwework/reports/pdf/religion_and_ethics_review.pdf">recent review of its coverage of religion</a>, but the review did not include any ideas of what this might look like in practice. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203259/original/file-20180124-107946-1no0x1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203259/original/file-20180124-107946-1no0x1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203259/original/file-20180124-107946-1no0x1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203259/original/file-20180124-107946-1no0x1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203259/original/file-20180124-107946-1no0x1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203259/original/file-20180124-107946-1no0x1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203259/original/file-20180124-107946-1no0x1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Other worldviews are available.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Understanding other worldviews</h2>
<p>At the moment, the diversity of nonreligious worldviews is simply unrepresented in most public institutions. A major change is needed, but public bodies have their work cut out in bringing it about. Nonreligious worldviews are slippery fish – and nonreligious people often struggle as much as anyone else <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/social-analysis/59/2/sa590202.xml">to put them into words</a>. </p>
<p>It is only quite recently that researchers have worked to understand nonreligious perspectives in detail. New <a href="https://nsrn.net/">research</a> – including my own work with the international <a href="https://research.kent.ac.uk/understandingunbelief/">Understanding Unbelief</a> programme – is addressing this. For example, people tend to think about atheism in quite simple terms but our research is showing that it can take several very different forms. It’s also helping us develop terms to understand and talk about non-traditional belief systems that are difficult to describe as religions.</p>
<p>In the UK, nonreligious people often hold elite positions, but this doesn’t mean that they are properly represented or protected in public life, nor that they are free from discrimination and persecution – either <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/sticks-and-stones-the-use-of-anti-secular-discourse-in-britain/">at home</a> or abroad. For all these reasons, our historically superficial understanding of atheism and other nonreligious worldviews demands an overhaul.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lois Lee receives funding from the John Templeton Foundation. </span></em></p>A Pakistani humanist has been denied asylum in Britain because he couldn’t identify Plato or Aristole. The state is illiterate when it comes to atheism.Lois Lee, Research Fellow, Department of Religious Studies, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/531082016-01-18T19:26:45Z2016-01-18T19:26:45ZThe Name of God is Mercy: Pope Francis is trying to reset church’s moral agenda<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108233/original/image-20160115-2356-wmdatf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108233/original/image-20160115-2356-wmdatf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108233/original/image-20160115-2356-wmdatf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108233/original/image-20160115-2356-wmdatf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108233/original/image-20160115-2356-wmdatf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108233/original/image-20160115-2356-wmdatf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108233/original/image-20160115-2356-wmdatf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108233/original/image-20160115-2356-wmdatf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Name of God is Mercy (2016) emphasises forgiveness and acceptance of sinners.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Random Penguin House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.biography.com/people/pope-francis-21152349">Pope Francis</a> last week released his first book as pope, <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/540211/the-name-of-god-is-mercy-by-pope-francis/9780399588631/">The Name of God is Mercy</a> (2016). The publication aligns with the beginning of a <a href="http://www.im.va/content/gdm.html">Jubilee of Mercy</a>, which marks most of 2016 as time of prayer and remission of sins. </p>
<p>The book provides an insight into the theology and life experiences of Francis that underpin his unorthodox approach to the papacy, and his push to re-fashion the public face of Catholicism to a more compassionate ethic based on Gospel values.</p>
<p>It comes from a pope who, arguably, has had the most significant impact on Catholic faith and secular-church relations since John XXIII instituted the <a href="http://www.vatican2voice.org/">2nd Vatican Council</a> in the early 1960s. That council was designed to guide the Catholic Church and its one billion adherents into an easier relationship with the modern world and humanistic values. </p>
<p>Under recent popes that relationship took a backward step. John Paul II and Benedict XVI both took <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/st-pope-john-paul-ii-pope-benedict-gay-marriage-clear-and-emphatic">hardline positions</a> on the moral stance of the church towards significant social issues – particularly homosexuality, divorced Catholics, married priests and gay marriage. </p>
<p>While the secular world began including these issues in their human rights agendas, the church resisted this trend. John Paul II famously called homosexuality “<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Gay-marriage-part-of-ideology-of-evil-Pope/2005/02/23/1109046970933.html">part of a new ideology of evil</a>”. </p>
<h2>A new moral agenda</h2>
<p>The election of Francis in March 2013 marked a significant shift in papal attitudes to controversial social issues. Francis has demonstrated both compassion and theological liberalism in his treatment of thousands of marginalised Catholics. </p>
<p>As well, Francis has spoken widely on important economic issues including the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/24/pope-francis-wall-street-attack-idolatry-money-strikes-chord">evils of capitalism</a> and the politics of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/23/pope-francis-climate-change-white-house-speech">climate change</a>. He has humanised the papacy and made it relevant to current world concerns. He has signalled the need for <a href="http://www.religionnews.com/2014/03/05/analysis-pope-francis-secret-plan-reform-convert-church/">reform of church bureaucracy</a>. The days of the papacy as above human concerns are well and truly gone.</p>
<p>In The Name of God is Mercy, Francis recounts his views and thoughts on the role of the church, the importance of confession and forgiveness and the place of mercy and love in faith. The heart of his thinking comes from a deep sense of humility: “Who am I to judge?” he asks over and again. He also <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-23489702">reaffirms</a> his desire to see homosexual Catholics remain within the church:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Francis, mercy is at the heart of Christian practice and can only come from an engagement with one’s own experience of wretchedness and acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Mercy must be the centre of the church’s response in the modern world. Francis says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To follow the way of the Lord, the church is called on to dispense its mercy over all those who recognise themselves as sinners, who assume responsibility for the evil they have committed, and who feel in need of forgiveness. </p>
<p>The Church does not exist to condemn people but to bring about an encounter with the visceral love of God’s mercy. I often say that in order for this to happen, it is necessary to go out: to go out from the churches, and the parishes, to go outside and look for people, where they live, where they suffer and where they hope. I like to use the image of a field hospital to describe this ‘Church that goes forth’…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The image of the church as a sort of humane theological triage unit saving people from danger might be engaging but is this the basis for real change in the church? Or merely a softening of language that will keep intact oppressive doctrines and a bureaucratic culture that is often conceived as medieval and misogynistic?</p>
<h2>The quality of mercy</h2>
<p>There are two central issues here. First, no matter how much Francis wants to reach out to marginalised Catholics, the idea of mercy is premised on the recognition that we are all sinners and that in admitting to our sinfulness, the door to forgiveness and healing is opened. </p>
<p>That means that gay and divorced Catholics must admit to their wrongdoing to receive forgiveness and be included in the Catholic community. This sits against widely accepted humanist values that understand sexuality as an integral part of selfhood, and not a “sinful” lifestyle choice; and likewise, of divorce as a painful but positive process of adult maturation. In short, they are not examples of sin, but of human experience.</p>
<p>Secondly, even if Francis was determined to welcome gay and divorced Catholics into the fold, he is politically stymied. Indeed, it has been widely reported that Francis has <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/pope-francis-fed-poisoned-bait-by-enemy-within-20151015-gk9eh6.html?skin=text-only">made enemies</a> within the Vatican and the broader church: conservatives who want to maintain tradition as inflexible and unchanging hate him. </p>
<p>His liberal stance has exposed church politics as rife with ideological sectarianism. Real doctrinal and social change is a long way off. No matter how much Francis wants church reform, the structure and decision-making bodies of the church remain with a celibate male gerontocracy where real power resides in the hands of the cardinals, most of whom are profoundly conservative.</p>
<p>Pope Francis has shifted the language of Catholicism and a door of hope has opened. Whether he can translate this to meaningful church reform remains to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53108/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen McPhillips does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pope Francis’ new book provides an insight into the theology and life experiences underpinning his unorthodox approach to the papacy. Does his rhetoric conceal Church doctrine as hardline as ever?Kathleen McPhillips, Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/505562015-11-19T05:16:31Z2015-11-19T05:16:31ZTeach children about Humanism – but not as a key part of religious studies GCSE<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102394/original/image-20151118-14207-1yccihf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Should Humanism be a core part of the syllabus?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">aga7ta/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Three parents <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34765202">are suing</a> the government for failing in its “duty of neutrality and impartiality” in relation to religions and beliefs. The case, heard by the High Court on November 10, cites the European Convention on Human Rights, and the judgement is expected in the next few weeks. </p>
<p>The case, supported by the British Humanist Association (BHA), relates to a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/403357/GCSE_RS_final_120215.pdf">document setting out the content</a> of the Religious Studies GCSE published in February 2015, which will be taught in schools for the first time in September 2016. </p>
<p>The parents, and through them the BHA, are challenging the priority given to religious views over non-religious views in the content of course. There is a circularity about their argument which is symptomatic of a wider confusion about the aims and character of religious education. </p>
<h2>Not one of six key religions</h2>
<p>Some <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13617672.2012.732812?journalCode=cjbv20">have argued</a> that religious education has lost much of its religious content and meaning in attempts to tailor itself to a variety of agenda – educational, social and political. In secondary school religious education, there has been a trend towards the displacement of the study of religions by ethical, philosophical and societal questions. </p>
<p>At a time when religion is increasingly prominent in public consciousness and policy, it appears our education system has taken away the structures and networks of religious understanding from religious education, just as we need them to find our way around. Sociologist of religion, Grace Davie, has <a href="http://www.publicspirit.org.uk/Religion-in-Britain-A-Retrospect">repeatedly commented</a> on the fact that just as religion has re-entered the public sphere and demands a response, we are losing the knowledge and language to debate it. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102204/original/image-20151117-22495-j4my4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102204/original/image-20151117-22495-j4my4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102204/original/image-20151117-22495-j4my4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102204/original/image-20151117-22495-j4my4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102204/original/image-20151117-22495-j4my4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102204/original/image-20151117-22495-j4my4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102204/original/image-20151117-22495-j4my4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A more inclusive curriculum?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/58319433@N08/7428617406/">mwfearnley/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>The course document published in February aims to address this with a return to more systematic learning about religion. It requires in-depth study of two faiths with (a minimum) of 25% curriculum time spent on each. Students can choose two out of six faiths, with Humanism excluded. Annexes at the end of the document set out the desired content for <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/403357/GCSE_RS_final_120215.pdf">Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism</a> under the headings: beliefs and teachings, practices, sources of wisdom and authority, forms of expression and ways of life.</p>
<p>The other 50% of curriculum time is to be used either for “textual approaches” or “the approach of religious, philosophical and ethical studies in the modern world”, or a combination of the two. The BHA submitted its own <a href="https://humanism.org.uk/reconsult/">annex</a> in the hope that Humanism would join the “big six” religions as another option. </p>
<h2>Don’t do Humanism an injustice</h2>
<p>The Department of Education’s decision not to include this annex is the basis of the grievance; but is nevertheless a wise one. The annexes are designed to serve the in-depth studies of religion. To give schools the option to choose Christianity and Humanism and no non-Christian religious tradition for in-depth study would leave a serious gap in young people’s learning in this globalised age and religiously plural society. </p>
<p>To try to fit Humanism into the same pattern of study <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/14/guardian-view-on-religious-education-in-schools">as the religions is to do it an injustice</a>. </p>
<p>Reading the proposed annex shows how Humanism is distorted by squeezing it into the framework of the four themes. By the BHA’s own admission, non-religious people are not compelled by their beliefs to engage in any sort of formal practice or observance. </p>
<p>Under the heading “sources of wisdom and authority”, the annex claims that there are no “sacred” texts and calls for the critical examination of all texts and traditions. This suggests a lack of material for the kind of study the religious studies subject content requires. This is to be expected because, as the annex states, Humanism’s method for discovering truth is <a href="https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/the-humanist-tradition/20th-century-humanism/">reason, evidence, and scientific investigation</a>. </p>
<h2>Other, more natural homes</h2>
<p>Those keen to promote religious education and its relevance sometimes forget it is just one part of the whole school curriculum. Taken together, the subjects of the curriculum introduce students to different ways of knowing, different approaches to truth – aesthetic, mathematical, scientific, religious. These are not necessarily contradictory, however humanists reject the religious and rely above all on the scientific. </p>
<p>Religious studies is not a natural home for Humanist ideas of method and meaning, but they are well served by the priority given to science in schools. The BHA have been keen to guard the purity of the scientific method by campaigning against reference to non-scientific ideas such as belief in divine creation or intelligent design within the subject. They have not shown the same concern about the purity of religious method in Religious Studies.</p>
<p>Yet I am not convinced of the need to eliminate from any discipline all reference to that which it is not. In the same way, to have some awareness of non-religious positions and arguments might help to clarify what constitutes “the religious” in the subject religious studies. </p>
<p>I am glad that, although Humanism is not an option for detailed study, the new GCSE subject content does require that students develop “knowledge and understanding of religions and non-religious beliefs, such as atheism and humanism”. It gives some guidance on how this might be included within the approach of religious, philosophical and ethical studies in the modern world. For example, it suggests that students learn: “how those with religious and non-religious beliefs respond to critiques of their beliefs”. I cannot predict what the judgement on the legal challenge will be, but as an educationalist I think this provision is enough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Ipgrave does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To include Humanism as one of six core religions to study, would do it an injustice.Julia Ipgrave, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Education Studies, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/343192014-11-21T15:43:44Z2014-11-21T15:43:44ZIs religion a consolation worth having?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64713/original/7vb5vwzd-1416226365.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">King's College Chapel: beauty, art, profundity – but truth?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tom Thai</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>My idea of bliss is a Sunday walk that takes in first some English countryside, and second a pleasant medieval church, with some glass or woodwork or monuments. I once even wrote a piece, published in the Larkin journal, about his poem “<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/237912#poem">An Arundel Tomb</a>”, having done a little research on early 14th-century alabaster monuments and particularly the rare but lovely examples in which a knight and his lady are shown holding hands.</p>
<p>I have no religious beliefs – but I care about our culture, and its past and the transmission of its past, and those things were intimately bound up with religious language, music, architecture and attitudes to life and death.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64710/original/7tcwvbkb-1416224635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64710/original/7tcwvbkb-1416224635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64710/original/7tcwvbkb-1416224635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64710/original/7tcwvbkb-1416224635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64710/original/7tcwvbkb-1416224635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64710/original/7tcwvbkb-1416224635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64710/original/7tcwvbkb-1416224635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64710/original/7tcwvbkb-1416224635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Resquiat in pace – holding hands for eternity: the Arundel Tomb.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Gillin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>I dare say that even when I indulge these tastes my feelings fall short of being religious. If gratitude is among those feelings, it is because I am grateful to the men and women who created the countryside, or built the churches, or decorated them or wrote about them. If a feeling of consolation comes over me, as it may well do, it is because I find it consoling to think of the rolling centuries during which quiet lives were spent building the landscape and its glories. </p>
<p>My thoughts do not fly up further than that, and to tell the truth I am rather suspicious of those people who claim theirs do. I like the saying that religions are like public swimming pools – most noise comes from the shallow end. If I were to claim affinity with a religious tradition, it would be the <a href="http://orthodoxwiki.org/Apophatic_theology">apophatic tradition</a>, the <em><a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/627178/via-negativa">via negativa</a></em> whereby silence is the best expression of any supposed apprehension of the divine, perhaps along with smiles, or dances or music, or even poetry – but not dressed up with beliefs.</p>
<p>But of course the past is quiet as well. It is not in the business of telling me what to do. The dead do not now want to segregate the schools my children can go to, or play a larger role in public policy than is indicated by the idea of one man one vote, or prevent me from dying, when the time comes, in whatever way might diminish such pain and indignity as nature might otherwise have in store for me. </p>
<p>Churchmen often do want to do these things, and so-called religious leaders in many parts of the world want to do much more, which might well including disenfranchising, locking up, or killing people such as me, as, historically, some of those commemorated by the tombs and windows and effigies would not doubt have been able to do, and have wanted to do.</p>
<p>The great thing about silence, as an expression of the religious spirit, is that one person’s silence is the silence of everyone. Silence generates no sects or schisms, heresies or persecutions. It does not separate those of one creed from those of another. Perhaps for just that reason it cannot by itself serve as a religion. </p>
<p>The anthropologist Emile Durkheim thought the essence of religion, the living nerve, was the <a href="http://theory.routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/sacred-and-profane">separation of the sacred from the profane</a> – and that, by ritualising this division, societies induced in their members respect for the congregation, or collective, or tribe. </p>
<p>In Monty Python and the Holy Grail a band identifies itself as the “Knights who say ‘Ni’”, and thereby cement their identity as a separate group. The thing seems absurd, but the arbitrary designation of a place as holy, or a text as unquestionable, or a date as that on which some ceremony must be done, does the same.</p>
<p>Trouble then arises, since we – who do this – are now separate from them – who do not. Furthermore the status accorded to the otherwise arbitrary symbols, whereby they demand obedience and deserve veneration and worship, requires belief of some kind in some power or some invisible spirit to sustain it, and so spring up unreason and dogma to give the theory behind the symbols, and then a whole caste of priests and magi, licensed to interpret the divine in whatever way commends itself to them.</p>
<p>If I were a religious person, I would suppose that theology, with all these claims to knowledge and authoritative interpretation of divine will, is essentially blasphemous. Anything even approximating to the god of the monotheistic religions cannot be known, or interpreted, or touched or pictured. The idea that such a thing (or non-thing, outside space and time) exists affords no inferences about what to do, how to behave, how to dress or eat or conduct your sex life. The blasphemy is to anthropomorphise it, make it like ourselves, jealous, angry, needy, vengeful, or even loving. </p>
<p>It is, surely, the height of arrogance to claim an ability to interpret its will, even if doing so were more sensible than trying to work out what any other non-spatial, non-temporal, abstract necessary being, such as the number three, wants for humanity.</p>
<p>So we are on our own. I do not find that threatening, or a cause for lamentation. We have problems, but then we have institutions and experience to help us to solve them. We need ethics – and have ways of implementing ethics, by way of language, law, government, stories, examples and – for children, smiles and frowns and carrots, if not sticks. They work, at least until things start to unravel, but then they are also our best hope for stopping things from unravelling. </p>
<p>A humanist is simply someone who constantly bears this in mind – and constantly values the great work of communicating how much it matters.</p>
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<p><em>Simon Blackburn <a href="http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/religion-consolation/">will be debating</a> “Is religion worth having” with Roger Scruton at the Senate House on Friday Novermber 21 as part of the School of Advanced Study’s Festival of Being Human.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34319/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Blackburn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>My idea of bliss is a Sunday walk that takes in first some English countryside, and second a pleasant medieval church, with some glass or woodwork or monuments. I once even wrote a piece, published in…Simon Blackburn, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.