Norman Ralph

Having spent the last ninety minutes on the coach back from Sheffield due to trains being delayed or cancelled I thought I’d throw a few lines together about the trip.

I was in Sheffield as I had been presenting a talk on the atheist and humanist world view to the Sheffield Atheist Society based at the university. I had been booked via the AHS so had agreed to waive expenses, something I would like to see catch on.

The talk was a relatively short one at about forty minutes but I think it went down relatively well with the exception of a couple of audience members that took the Q&A section a little personal. I will be doing a fuller post on the actual content of the talk so keep an eye out.

It is difficult not to draw comparisons between societies when you see as many as I do and I have to say that Sheffield are up there with the friendliest. It is obvious that the society under its current leadership is still searching for their identity but I have every confidence that they will be successful.

With regards to the city itself, I rather liked some parts of the centre (they have a Ribshack), it felt clean and well organised but felt rather devoid of any character. Having said, the current trend of glass facades and generic branding means it is harder and harder to get a sense of the local heritage.

It hardly seems any time at all since the AHS launched itself into the public eye at it’s press launch and convention in 2009. Next weekend, March 12th -13th, sees the AHS hold its third annual convention at Conway Hall in London.

For those that don’t know, the AHS (or to give it its full name, the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies) is a national umbrella organisation catering for non-religious societies within higher education in the UK.

The AHS has enjoyed high profile support during it’s relatively short history with patrons including author and academic Professor Richard Dawkins and journalist and writer Polly Toynbee. Dawkins said this of the AHS:

Public statements of non-belief are treated as threatening, an affront to the religious, while the reverse is not true. More concerning is the enduring assumption that religious belief does not have to earn respect like any other view, an approach that has caused politicians and public figures across the UK to withdraw from asking the vital question: why is religion given such special status in government, culture and the media? Why is belief in a higher power an indication of greater moral fortitude, character and acumen? The AHS says publicly that it isn’t; on the contrary, beliefs that are unsupported, bigoted or demand special privileges should always be challenged. No opinion should be protected from criticism simply by virtue of being religiously held.

With over thirty members covering the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland, the AHS is one of the fastest growing organisations of its ilk and the 2011 convention will be its biggest event to date.

Speaking about the convention, the British Humanist Association’s Chief Executive, Andrew Copson, who is speaking at the event said:

It is impressive to see how the AHS has grown over the last six months, more than doubling in size. It’ll be very exciting to see this reflected in the numbers that come to the AHS Convention, and I am very excited to be taking part in it.

The line up for the convention is a veritable who’s who with speakers including the philosopher, author and long-term supporter of the AHS Professor AC Grayling. Grayling spoke at the AHS’s first convention in 2009, saying:

As well as making the case for reason and science, it is great to know that the AHS will be standing up against religious privilege and discrimination. All people are entitled to their beliefs but we secularists (whether religious or humanist) are right in arguing that the state must be entirely neutral in these matters. A situation where the religious beliefs of a few may dictate the personal choices of everyone in abortion, for example, or assisted suicide is quite wrong. Yet some religious groups defend and even aim to expand their considerable privileges – public money for their “faith-based” schools, seats in the House of Lords, exemption from laws inconvenient to their prejudices. The AHS shows that increasing numbers of young people are unwilling to put up with it.

Other headliners include journalist and activist Johann Hari, comedian Robin Ince and politician Lord Warner. National Secular Society executive director Kieth Porteous Wood and the BHA Choir round off the set list.

All of the speakers are set to take to stage between 12pm and 6pm on the Saturday of the convention. Fringe events will be taking palce throughout the day, including exhibitions by a variety of local and national organisations. The day is also being broadcast live via the popular science and religion podcast The Pod Delusion.

The Sunday of the convention will be aimed primarily at the AHS’s member societies, with workshops running on sustainability, finances, debating and an awards ceremony.

AHS President, Richy Thompson, summed up the convention:

We’re very excited about this convention, which promises to far and away be the AHS’s biggest gathering yet. The line-up of speakers looks really great, and the events on the committee-centric day should help stimulate a new year of leaders for non-religious societies.

Tickets for the convention are avaialble from the BHA website for the Saturday, or both days. Tickets are priced at £6 (£3 students).

Following on from the success of the Chris Worfolk Foundation’s Enquiry 2010 conference, where I was a speaker, the organisation will be running another weekend conference this year.

The event will be running over the weekend of 16th and 17th April 2011 in the Scottish city of Edinburgh. Enquiry 2011 will feature headline speakers such as Professor Paul Braterman, author of 59 Seconds Professor Richard Wiseman, journalist Jon Ronson, comedian Robin Ince and Dr Gijsbert Stoet. The event will also feature live music from Carmen De Cruz and a magic show presented by Declan Dineen. Further acts and speakers are due to be announced over the next few weeks.

Tickets are available direct from the foundation’s website and will cost £45 (£35 concessions).

Ever since I wrote this article about building an atheist brand back in 2009, and especially following Dan Bye’s comments on the piece, there has been a nagging thought at the back of mind that I have been trying desperately to work out. Namely, what is it that atheist can actually offer under some sort of brand? Is there a service or product that exists that can be commercialised and marketed? These two questions have gone unanswered for the last year and this has obviously weakened my position on this subject. A subject that I still fundamentally see as being central to the progression of a non-religious world view into the popular psyche.

In October of this year, I had the pleasure of being able to attend an audience with the Harvard University humanist chaplain, Greg Epstein, hosted by the British Humanist Association at the Bishopsgate Institute in London. Greg delivered a short lecture on his career to date, focusing primarily on how he became the humanist chaplain at Harvard and then what his ambition was for the humanist brand in the coming years. His views were very similar to mine in that we both feel very strongly that there is a product that non-religious people can market and that product is humanism. Greg felt that there was enough contained within a humanist world view to be able to successfully market its ideas and, ultimately its services, to a very wide audience.

Admittedly, Greg’s idea of humanism is a modern one. It centres around the need to develop a firm and widely accepted philosophy of humanism that can be used to build a formal world view, accepted in general (if not every aspect) by the majority of humanists. Whilst many self-confessed humanists may say that this philosophy exists, it is evident from the relatively wide cross section of humanists I have spoken to about this that actually this is not the case. There is a certain aversion, particularly amongst traditional humanists, to the development of a central philosophy, and what that means practically. This can probably be put down to the route to humanism that many of these traditionalists took, i.e. they chose humanism as an antidote to religion for whatever reason. However, in order to market the idea of humanism and grow its market share, this aversion needs to be overcome.

How do we do this? How do we help make sure that over the next ten years we can really build up the brand of humanism and make sure that those that are not religious say so, and even go as far as unifying the non-religious under one brand umbrella? The current campaign to get non-religious to be made into an answer on the next UK census is one way. The work of young, trendy, rock stars of humanism such as Greg Epstein and Brian Cox is another. A third option is the work and campaigning by organisations such as the BHA in building the profile of humanism. Personally, I would like to see a combination of those factors being used to really market humanism and its world view at young people. This may sound controversial, similar to the practices of some religions in targeting children. However, I mean young people, those in their late teens and early twenties that are naturally looking for world views to subscribe to and who have the tools to be able to rationally choose which one best fits their outlook, ambitions and personality. Work is currently being done in the UK to try and achieve this, organisations such as the AHS are trying to unite and encourage student groups to discuss and debate the very issues I am writing about here. The Chris Worfolk Foundation is another organisation that is trying to engage with young people. The CWF has more practical activities as its main focus, mainly involving volunteering and community work.

The final question is what can we do about this? Personally, I think the answer is a relatively simple one. Contribute. Contribute by calling yourself a humanist. Contribute by acting like a humanist. Contribute by supporting your local and national groups – whichever one best fills your needs. The more people do the following, the more obvious the link between humanists as people and humanism the world view will become. I strongly feel that this organic development will lead to the singularity that will allow a humanist brand to be launched more formally.

At Chris and Tom’s flat-warming party on Friday night I was involved in debating a variety of subjects centred on atheism and my recent post about branding and marketing a national organisation to represent atheists. One of the main criticisms that have arisen from my treatment of the subject is that by defining and then commercialising the atheist position then the outcome will be a form of religious atheism.

On mention of this I railed and started to form an argument against this outcome. It is almost universally accepted that a religious atheism is bad and should be guarded against completely. A view I have long shared. A religious atheism conjures up images of Dawkins/Darwin/Russell/”insert leading atheist figure here” worship, it implies a removal of rational thought and scepticism, and it makes most atheists fly into a long winded and well rehearsed defence of the irreligiousness of the atheist world view.

Why this instant defence though? What is it about combining religion and atheism that worries atheists? The debates I was involved in on Friday got me thinking quite deeply on this subject and I struggle to find a real and rational explanation.

My immediate reaction is to claim that the main features of religion, i.e. worship, ritual and faith, have no place in an atheist’s world view. I agree that the common themes of the Abrahamic religions and many of the Eastern religions are contrary to the scientific, rational approach of many atheists. However, religion is not defined by its practices. In fact, defining religion is an incredibly challenging and possibly fruitless task.

According to Clifford Geertz (pictured left), religion is merely a cultural system whilst a dictionary definition reads “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.” Whilst there are a great many other definitions for religion, the fact that these definitions exist mean that religion is not dependent on faith in superhuman deities, miracles or any of the other elements that atheists abhor about the idea of religion. I would suggest that actually, the parts of religion that are common throughout all definitions, e.g. community, cultural identity, shared goals, common purpose are the exact qualities I alluded to in my article on a way of living as atheists and humanists.

Building on this premise it is logical to suggest that an atheist religion is not the oxymoron you would first assume and actually leads to a better understanding of what people find most attractive about the established religions. It is not a great leap to say that many people do not claim to be religious because they firmly believe in the ideology of their chosen religion but find that the religion offers the community support, cultural identity, shared goals and common purpose they require. Why can an atheist organisation not offer a similar service?

The downside to a religious atheism is that while it would probably attract new people there are a great many current atheists that would find the idea unpalatable. This is clearly a problem in a time when it is hard enough to unite atheists over an issue. The only way to clear this obstacle is to go back to the idea of building a brand. The need to clearly position an atheist religion in such a way as to maximise its impact on the general public whilst maintaining its current supporter base is clear and would require the most delicate handling. This is not an easy task and is likely the stumbling block that would prevent such a movement taking off. However, this should not be a deterrent. An atheist religion is not the bad idea that most atheists make out and perhaps should not be dismissed as readily as it currently is.

Since leaving university and stepping down from my positions with the AHS and Leeds Atheist Society I have had quite a bit of free time on my hands, much of which has been spent looking at new ways of developing a national identity for atheists.

I don’t know how many of you will have ever tried looking at how many different groups exist for atheists and the seemingly endless associated groups, humanists, secularists, brights, freethinkers, rationalists, sceptics etc, but there are a lot. Almost every conceivable name and wordplay related to atheism, humanism, secularism etc has been used and there is a group set up. However, the majority of these groups have relatively low numbers and small areas of influence. In fact with the exception of the British Humanist Association and National Secular Society, these groups receive little to no national attention.

I think this is a problem. I think it is perhaps a greater problem, however, that there is no unified group representing all non-religious people. Whilst it is true that no two atheists (and I will use atheist from now on as an umbrella term for anyone who describes themselves as non-religious) have the same desires, ambitions or even world views, they do tend to exhibit broadly similar political and ethical views. These views should be expressed to decision makers, politicians and commercial leaders. Atheists should have a national voice that should be listened to.

Having spent some time with the BHA I can report that they do sterling work in the name of humanism and the NSS, likewise for secularism but they don’t represent enough people. Their image is not attractive to young atheists, for example, and their membership demographics highlight this. There is a need for a unifying brand to be created and heavily marketed. The most difficult thing for atheists to grasp at the moment seems to be the need to start running an organised, national atheist centred organisation that represents everyone, regardless of the name they call themselves. Moreover, this organisation needs to be run like a business.

The more time I spend delving into local and regional groups, and even some of the larger national groups, is the feeling that they are not meant to be attracting new faces, finding new blood. What is more depressing is the fact that the large organisations do not have the resources or, seemingly, the desire to recruit and retain members.

In order to develop the kind of business, the kind of brand that I have alluded to above, requires a rethink of how atheist organisations should approach marketing, recruitment and ultimately their basic business model. People in today’s world are consumers. We consume everything. We should start appreciating this fact and begin to treat members and potential members like customers and potential customers respectively. If atheist organisations approached recruitment like a service brand approaches their customer base I believe they would be far more successful.

These organisations need to start marketing themselves not as a luxury, discretionary purchase such as a large screen TV or an expensive tailor made holiday, but an essential! Once you have started to change people’s minds about how essential their worldview is to their lives then you can start to turn your customers into fans. Brand loyalty is something that the religious organisations have built up and the strength of this loyalty is stronger than that of household names like Coca-Cola and Sky. Atheists should be aiming for that kind of loyalty.

This kind of loyalty can only be developed if atheists stop thinking of themselves as idealists and start thinking of themselves as offering a service, a product.

I have been involved in the atheist community for a little over four years now and I have often pondered the question on how atheists and humanists can actually convince other people that their worldview is just as fulfilling and worthwhile as any other, particularly the religious world views.

I first dabbled in an organised atheist society when I joined Leeds Atheist Society, the student society for atheists and associated free thinkers at the University of Leeds. Drawn by the prospect of heated debate and intellectual stimulation I quashed the feeling of unease that most atheists have at the back of their minds when considering any form of organisation for atheists. Within a few months I had converted to a believer in the necessity and usefulness of a society for atheists. This conversion enabled me to take on more and more responsibility within the organisation, delivering talks and lectures and after six months I was elected Secretary. This committee position meant that I now had to consider not only what I wanted from the society but how the society should develop and what it should provide for its members. This led me to first really think about the atheist brand and how best to sell the worldview that excludes a supreme being or beings, that excludes absolute morality and embraces rational, sceptical thought as its cornerstones.

The year I served as Secretary saw Leeds Atheist Society develop some tools with which to answer these questions, namely the One Life course aimed at non self-identifying atheists on how a secular world view could offer the same benefits and comfort as a religious one. The society itself also tried to start opening up its appeal to a wider audience by reducing the reliance on anti-religion themes and embracing a more educational feel to its meetings.

Whilst a lot was achieved, I felt more could be done to increase the appeal of the society to religious students as well as our traditional base, the atheists and agnostics. It was on this agenda that I ran for President in April 2008; as ever in a small society, the competition for committee places was low and I was elected unopposed to run the group.

The year I was in presidency saw a lot of changes to the attitudes and direction of the society. We introduced a second and third course, Perspective and Answers respectively. The former gave a soapbox to a different religious speaker each week to give a talk and explain their world view and then accept questions from the audience. The purpose of this course was to promote understanding of the world views that we are trying to compete with. The course was a resounding success and really helped develop our image on campus. Answers was a course designed to develop the debating and speaking skills of our members so that they had the ability to discuss their own world view with a sound understanding of what it was they actually believed.

The whole year had a very education theme to it, with many talks and debates on important moral and ethical issues as well as trying to define exactly what it meant to hold an atheist world view.

Through my work with Leeds Atheist Society, I got involved with setting up the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) and ended up serving as its president for seven unforgettable months. The AHS raised many questions around the idea of selling the atheist world view. One of our main aims was to promote and facilitate the formation of new societies across the UK.

Alongside the formal involvement with the atheist community which fired by interest in the idea of developing the atheist brand, I have had the pleasure of working with a number of other people that have also had a passion for the question. My friend and colleague at Leeds Atheist Society and the AHS, Chris Worfolk, is a keen believer in the idea of spreading the atheist and particularly the humanist world view through charitable work and direct action. Chris, through his foundation, has set up and continues to be heavily involved with the Humanist Action Group, Leeds Skeptics as well as serving as president of the Leeds Atheist Society whilst a student and sitting as a trustee of the AHS since his graduation. His article in the inaugural edition of Secular Future (the AHS’s quarterly newsletter) was the spark that ignited my desire to document my grappling with this topic.

Chris believes that the only way to develop the atheist and humanist brand is to compete directly with the religious brands. That means offering the rewards that can be found by being involved with those ideas. Humanist Action Group offers a range of charitable activities with its current focus being on feeding the homeless of Leeds and offering community services such as graffiti removal. Leeds Skeptics provides an environment for sceptical discussion and a number of social opportunities too.

Richard Parker, medical doctor and co-founder of Humanist Action Group, is another friend and colleague that believes quite strongly in community action to help sell the atheist and humanist world views. Richard considers that one of the best ways to build the brand is to make an impact on both the practical and political fronts. Richard’s has long considered how he can make the difference by being involved with local and national government.

Whilst community action and involvement are clearly practical ways to offer the physical rewards that religious charity offers its followers I am left feeling that there needs to be more effort made to compete with the spiritual and emotional needs of adherents to a secular world view.

Religion offers a number of benefits that atheists cannot compete with; eternal life, salvation, love, forgiveness, security and absolute truth being a few examples. Whilst academically an atheist or humanist can refute the philosophy of the examples, they cannot offer an alternative. It is no good for an atheist to say they eternal life is a fiction and that absolute truth is a myth if they cannot offer a suitable alternative. In many ways, belief in these ideals is like an addiction. The believers are unwilling to cold turkey; they do not want to just give up their warm, fuzzy feelings of comfort and easy answers. They need an alternative, they need something to help wean them off a religious world view that, most surveys say, their adherence to is cursory and towards the atheist or humanist one.

Many atheists will not agree with that conclusion as they feel that an atheist’s role is not to convert people to “atheism” and on the whole I agree with them. The issue here is that I am not advocating conversion but merely the recognition by the majority that their apparent world view does not actually explain how they see the world.

The biggest question of all is what can we use to replace those emotional and spiritual crutches outlined above? My gut instinct is the same now as it was during my time as officer of the Leeds Atheist Society, education. Educating people about what atheists thing and believe, what it means to be a humanist, how a life as a non-believer is richer and more rewarding that the alternative.

I would urge fellow atheists and humanists to accept this challenge and start teaching people what it is you believe, not what you don’t believe!

I am using this site less and less to update the blogosphere of my daily activities, so I think a change of direction is necessary to make sure that this site doesn’t become a ghost town.

I haven’t blogged in a while so i will just bring everyone up to date:

1) I have had to take some time out from my studies to address a few situations, namely my finances. This credit crunch is a real bitch. Sidetracking slightly, why is it a credit crunch exactly? What’s crunching?

2) As a result of my sabbatical from university, I have had to step down from my roles within both the AHS and Leeds Atheist Society. This was a massive disappointment for me as long term readers will be aware I have been involved with both organisation since their inception. I hope to contine playing a role in some sort of capacity, even if just as a regular old member. The main issue being my need to give the leadership room to develop their own style and direction.

3) I have gone full time with my job at O2. I am now a performance adviser and basically I do the same job, with more responsibility for no extra reward. Well I technically get increased job satisfaction and a job i enjoy most of the time, but not exactly going to make a dent in the old finances!

4) I have moved in with Liz, just the two of us, into a nice little cottage in the Seacroft area of Leeds. It is one of the original village buildings from before they added all the council estates that now mean that Seacroft is a suburb of Leeds rather than its own little village.

5) As a result of the above, I have less than I used to to write about on here, hence the need for a wholsesale change in direction.

I would like to start concentrating on developing a few ideas I have for essays and the like on my particular subjects of choice, i.e. management, secularism, atheism and humanism. Some of this blog is going to get dedicated to that and related stuff, like pics, tweets etc. I also think I am going to put some more syndications on here, sharing posts and ideas by other atheist writers, bloggers and speakers.

I have also started thinking recently about whether there is scope to get more involved in actually devleoping the atheist movement into one that makes a real difference. Chris has focussed in on Humanist Action Group and is working towards turning that into a real charity. Whilst I could piggy back on to that, I wonder whether I could ever really make a difference. My areas of interest is with young people, I think it with this group that real difference can be made. I used to do a lot of work with Lancashire County Council and their youth and community section. I was involved in a number of youth participation programmes too. I also wonder whether I could use some of my contacts in parliament to do soemthing with lobbying and maje a difference that way.

Well as you can see, there are a number of directions this blog could take. I don’t know yet which one I fancy, or which one will come to fruition. Maybe inspiration will hit me, or maybe I will try all of them until I get one that works!

Secular Portal has just opened its new blog aggregator to collect all the blogs from its users and constituent societies. If you are a follower of the student free thinking movement or are just interested in things like Humanism, atheism, agnosticism, free thinking or consder yourself a secularist then it is well worht heading over an checkeing out the new site.

Also, check out the latest BHA bulletin as it includes a short piece on the inaugural meeting of the parent group of Secular Portal, the AHS. Hopefully we will have this organisation constituted in November and have us up and running in no time at all.

Believers beware!

I’ve just finished reading a blog post on moderation and anti-fundamentalism and it got me thinking about a number of things. Firstly, is the age old question of fundamentalism. Is it wrong to believe something so strongly that you pursue it with all your might, literally in some cases? I still cannot make up my mind, my fellow A-Soc member Chris Worfolk says that moderation in religion is wrong, a cop out even in his article “The problem With Religious Moderates”. I am not entirely convinced by his arguments, I like to think that there is room even within the most deep set of principles for self censorship and the need to balance your convictions against the freedom of those around you. It is important as a religious commentator that balance is given to all arguments. It is fine blasting non-fundamentalists for failing at their religion as long as you continue that crusade against all non-fundamentalists in every walk of life. Every conviction out there can be followed fundamentally. If fundamentalism was to be applauded then shouldn’t we all be members of the BNP or the Communist Party? Extremism is not the same as fundamentalism, I think it is important that is clarified, but all fundamentalists are extremists in the modern sense.

I like the idea of fundamentalism, I think it allows an easy life. The rules and thought processes are simple. you just follow the guidelines set down by your conviction be it religion, racism, anti-semetism or just that all meals must be eaten at the dinner table! However, there is no flexibility in it, which is the crux of the issue for me. We need flexibility. We need to be able to say “wait a minute?”. There must be room for criticism, for question, for reason.

As an atheist I am often barraged with the question, “But, isn’t Atheism a religion?”. I am often forced to concede that certain aspects of the atheists beliefs can be construed as religious. Especially with idealogies such as Buddhism and Humanism. I, however, an neither of the above. I am an atheist. I have no reason to believe ina god or gods, so I don’t. Is it, therefore, possible for me to be a fundamentalist atheist? I am sure that there are many out there who would say that some of my actions within A-Soc and in public could be cinstrued as fundamental. I am not known for my lack of convictions. However, as a rational thinker I require flexibility. None of my convictions are set in stone. This would pique the author of the initial article as he suggests that weak convictions are a curse on society. it would also cause some concern for my esteemed colleague, Chris, as he maintains his convisitons as the bedrock of his motivation to pursue his goals for A-Soc World Domination!

Anyway, I hope some of you enjoyed this little discussion and I welcome your comments on the issue!