National Secular Society explain why Thought for the Day is discriminatory
The National Secular Society’s recent podcast (28 October) explained very well why TFTD is discriminatory. In a society where religion has been so prevalent, many of us were brought up with the idea that morals come from religion and that society becomes more immoral as religion wanes.
That is clearly not true. Morality comes from human evolution and culture: philosophies, religious and non-religious, are the ideas we have developed to build meaning from our experiences and to help us live good and full lives.
As long as the BBC continues to exclude humanists and other non-religious thinkers from TFTD, and as long as it continues to see philosophy and ethics from a religious platform or position – which it continues to do despite having erased a lot of ‘Religion & Ethics’ material from its website: ‘Religion & Ethics’ is still a programming category or genre – it is endorsing this view.
The NSS also exposes the threadbare excuse that TFTD “is only 3 minutes” when it points out that religious people as well as non-religious people can speak during the rest of the Today programme and the rest of BBC programming. There is no point at which they are excluded. There is a point at which non-religious people are excluded.
The South East London Humanist Group agrees with the NSS that people do not need to subscribe to an organised belief system in order to give meaningful reflection on current affairs. Lots of people either avoid labels or are not aware of the beliefs in the first place. We argue for the inclusion of humanists as well as other non-religious thinkers because we believe humanism is full of great ideas which people can use to live full lives, help others live full lives, solve social problems and save the planet.
We continue to demonstrate outside Broadcasting House on the second Tuesday of the month, alternating between morning and evening. Tuesday 10th December is a morning one – 8am to 10am – to catch staff coming in as well as facing the main road so passing traffic can see our banner. Please join us.
