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BBC: Humanism

My Lords, sometimes "Auntie" is hard to love. Recently, the BBC, the venerated home of public service broadcasting, gifted the British National Party a public platform while we humanists are still denied even a walk-on part on "Thought for the Day". Tonight I argue that the BBC has failed the humanist community in Britain both in the spirit and in the letter of the Communications Act 2003, which requires the BBC to schedule programmes on religion and other beliefs, including humanism, as was made clear in the debate by the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. The Human Rights Act and other equality and anti-discrimination law similarly accord humanism the status of a belief, but humanism is ignored by the BBC. We humanists are atheists who do not have a Bible or a Koran, or indeed a Moses bringing tablets down from the mount, to fix our beliefs. We make do with our human nature and our life experiences to establish our moral values. We believe in a naturalistic explanation of life provided by patient scientific inquiry and careful reason. We share a respect for human rights, celebrate individual responsibility and social co-operation, and promote mutual respect. We create, if we can, our own meaning to our one-off lives. The humanist tradition established by the Greco-Roman thinkers predates monotheistic religions although it has, of course, influenced Christians’ own version of humanism. We arrive at our beliefs independently by reason and experience, not by dogma or indoctrination. Humanism in the UK is significant and substantial in number but still single and silent in expression. None of us marches under a humanist banner in anger, arms or hatred. Nevertheless, we are subject to verbal excoriation; witness the gratuitous attacks on the courageous Professor Dawkins by those who should know better. We have been quiet, perhaps for too long. Now that established religion loses heart, congregations and credibility, it searches for a scapegoat and chooses us. I believe that our voice should now be heard in the public square, and especially in the BBC. We do not want just to take part in others’ scheduled religious programmes, although our voice is seldom heard in, for instance, the otherwise excellently chaired "Sunday" programme. When we are called, we perform the obedient role of token members of God’s loyal opposition, but we have a distinctive voice. We want programmes made for us—humanists talking humanism to other humanists on a variety of issues that interest us. These might include how we conduct non-religious funerals or how to educate free from the straitjacket of rigid religion. I would love to debate with humanist colleagues our common admiration for church music, or why we appreciate listening to Bach or Handel in the architectural settings of England’s finest churches. The BBC can and should provide a platform for these searching debates. It should encourage a new set of cultural and intellectual programmes tailored to humanists. Similarly, combined debates of humanists and religionists could examine issues of common interest such as the environment, poverty reduction, your Lordships’ House or what new uses our wonderful churches could be put to in a modern, secular age. We have common humanist concerns that can unite us across the religious divide in the face of crass commercialism. Unfortunately, the BBC treats humanism as the absence of religious belief, ignores its noble and ancient history and underestimates the strength of the humanist community in Britain. According to the Social Trends 2006 survey, 46 per cent of us are non-religious. However, we remain a community disregarded. The BBC quaintly argues that the vast majority of its output is secular; but have you ever watched a humanist "Match of the Day" or an atheist "Strictly Come Dancing"? The truth is that religious public broadcasting is growing while Anglicanism contracts. Mark Thompson confesses that the liturgical or contemplative religious content occupies some three hours each week on Radio 4. Basically, it is Christians talking Christianity to other Christians—and the output is doubled at Easter and Christmas. However, not a single minute is allowed to humanists. Other forms of Christianity are given public space alongside the established Church of England—but not us. This is at a time when the Church of England is dwindling as our constituency grows. We still have no town crier to speak up for us in the public square. Why not? In a pluralising Britain, many non-Christian religions are rightly and readily invited to the public debate. Why not humanists? Even the 5.45 am slot "Prayer for the Day", once the brief intonation of a short prayer, has elongated into a mini "Thought for the Day". It is a form of mission—or should I say missionary?—creep. My concluding thought for the day is that the title "Thought for the Day" does not guarantee an exclusive religious viewpoint—but that is what it is, and it is discriminatory. By excluding us, the BBC implies that humanists are bereft of a moral compass; or worse, that we are amoral or immoral. It implies that we have no way of commenting sensibly on contemporary events. The BBC’s excuses are strange and strained, as well as offending the spirit of the BBC charter. It says that "Thought for the Day" is an oasis of religion in a stream of unremitting news. In the BBC’s taxonomy, items on sport, politics or culture are bizarrely classified as humanist. Does the BBC really believe that only the religious can be spiritual? I respond to sunsets, Shakespeare and song, but I do not find God filtering my emotions. The Reverend Giles Fraser, a contributor to TFTD, said it would be madness to let secularists in—this from a man who recently hosted a rerun of the famous Putney debate in the 17th century when his church rang to the rafters with unorthodox views. The BBC fears that humanists will stridently attack religion, but all we want to do is tell a listening and willing audience what humanism is about and what it has to offer. We leave internecine religious squabbling to those who are best at it—witness the unseemly exchange on last week’s "Sunday" programme provoked by the Pope’s recently proffered pastoral chalice to unhappy Anglicans. I conclude by saying to my colleagues that I understand that the BBC is about to make a decision on this, and I hope that it will be influenced by tonight’s debate. We do not want to oust religious believers from the church pew or the park bench, but we do ask them to budge up a bit and let us be heard in the public square. Finally, I invoke the Church Times which supported our cause in 1994, and I ask our colleagues from the church who will speak later in the debate that, when they wake up tomorrow morning, they might remember the words promoted by the Church Times that: ""Believers have no monopoly on illuminations on dark mornings"."