Helen Warner gives some of her highlight sessions from this year’s Humanist UK convention.
550 Humanists attended this year’s event, held at Cardiff University, and were treated to a varied and interesting programme.
The story of time – Jim Al- Khalili
This engaging presentation by one of our best-known scientists, was one for the physicists!
Jim started by posing the questions philosophers and scientists have been asking since ancient Greek times: Is time real? (Sort of!)
Does time flow? (Nothing in the Laws of Physics suggests time flows although we experience it like that – such as hearing a piece of music. We make sense of a continuous spread).
Is time continuous or made up of discrete units? (Newton – time is absolute (a number) and ticks by inexorably. Einstein – time is relative / a dimension and intrinsically part of space time).
Does time have a direction? (Yes, according to thermodynamics. No, according to the rest of physics. See Loschmidts paradox).
Is time travel possible? Yes, conceivably into the future because can slow time down. If you were in a rocket traveling close to speed of light your time slows down, time dilation. You can age a day, but 100,000 years would have passed on earth for the light to travel there. Jim cited the movie Interstellar as having pretty good science – time dilation near a black hole of one hour equalling 7 Earth years. There are too many paradoxes on actions for going back in time.
There is still too much we don’t understand but science may get there!
Fluke: Chance chaos and why everything we do matters – Brian Klass
Brian, Associate Professor of Global Politics at University College London, is author of a new book of the above name. He started with some examples of the impact of ‘chance’ on life. For example, in 1945, Secretary of War Henry Stimson persuaded President Truman not to drop the atomic bomb on Kyoto owing to its cultural importance because of his lovely holiday there in 1926. The second atomic bomb’s original target was Kokura but was dropped on Nagasaki instead because of cloud cover giving poor visibility. And on a more personal level, in 1905, Clara Jansen killed all four of her children in a farmhouse in Jamestown, Wisconsin. She then tucked them into bed and took her own life. Her husband later remarried and started a new family. He was Brian’s great grandfather.
Many of us love TV and movie murder mysteries because they invariably tie-up loose ends, but life is loose ends and arbitrary elements. For many, religion is the answer to try to understand the chaos and random nature to life. Instead, we need to not only embrace the flukes but also to avoid catastrophe as best we can, looking to long term needs and how to enable longer term resilience. Brian’s key messages are that actions have reactions. Minutiae can change everything. We control nothing but influence everything.
You can find out more about Brian’s book here.
Heresy, Jesus Christ and the other sons of God – Catherine Nixey, journalist and classicist.
This is the title of Catherine’s latest book. Since Roman times there have been critics of and disbelief in Christianity. She cited Celsus and Porphyry. Kelsis writing in the second century reported ‘the nonsense in the bible’. Julian ’incredulous’ about the 10 commandments as they were common across peoples and not just to Christianity. Many critical texts were destroyed so we only know about them from contemporaneous writers. There were many different Jesuses, among them the aggressive Jesus who scorned his parents and crippled those who opposed him, the Jesus who sold his twin into slavery and the Jesus who had someone crucified in his stead. Those were also times with many saviours, who claimed to heal the sick and to perform miracles. Serendipity has led to the evolution of the bible stories we have today. For example, a cave location is still used in many nativity scenes. It comes from a gospel popular in early mediaeval times – the cult of Mary. In this story Mary gives birth in a cave and women checking Mary is a virgin gets her hand burnt off! Many stories became sanitised over time. In the ancient world heresy meant ‘choice’ and was a positive thing but within 150 years of Christianity taking hold in the western world, heresy became a negative.
You can find out more about Catherine’s book here.
Blasphemy apostasy and asylum in the UK
Three speakers spoke in this session.
Lucy Potter, University of Sheffield, is a researcher of non-religious asylum seeker claims. There are 87 countries with blasphemy and apostasy laws. In 13, punishment means death. In 40, imprisonment and in 18, a criminal conviction. See The Freedom of Thought Report 2023 for more information.
Being non-religious is dangerous in many parts of world but there is a lack of understanding about apostasy in the Home Office. Religious persecution tends to be just understood as conversion from Islam to Christianity. Atheists can’t provide ‘evidence’ of their apostasy, such as attending a church etc. Trivial questions, as currently used, can’t assess beliefs and there is a ‘culture of disbelief’ in the Home Office. Asylum hotels can be dangerous place for the non-religious.
Jamie Bell, a lawyer on immigration and asylum matters, has been working with Humanist UK to develop understanding of what Humanists are with the Home Office. There are no safe routes, and the back log is ‘insane’. Situation of crisis created since 2019, owing to government policy changes. Currently, it takes around 2.5 years (at least) just to get an asylum interview. Whilst waiting for the first stage, asylum seekers can’t work and are isolated. He reiterated that apostasy was very hard to prove and publicising the fact, for example on social media is very risky. Not only are there online trolls but the risk to life if returned. He reiterated that the view taken is that the asylum seekers are ‘faking it’ and we need to believe them. Appeals take years.
Lastly, Aseel M, an apostate now working with other apostates, relayed her experiences. Even once have asylum it takes ages to get ‘the right to work’. Without documents (which are taken away) it’s not possible to even undertake volunteer work, if need a DBS. Many risks remain and many underestimate the trauma of leaving ones family behind.
Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales, was the surprise guest.
Mark emphasised that a collective approach / action to solve problems is needed. Good government is good for the country. Banning smoking for example, resulted in a positive cultural change. That Universal services were preferably to means tested, e.g. free museums, free travel over 60, free prescriptions, free school meals. Wales has The Well-being of Future Generations Act. It details the ways in which specified public bodies must work, and work together to improve the well-being of Wales. Policies must be viewed in context of ‘what will the impact be not only on people now but also on future generations’? An example was the decision not to build the M4 relief road owing to the environmental impacts.
He talked about the obligations not just to immediate friends and family but to wider society and ‘strangers’. (Hospitality derives from the Latin hospes meaning stranger). So, the goal for social policy should be to reduce inequality. In fact, it’s enlightened self-interest because more equal societies have less crime / better economic growth/ less fear and greater attachment to a more social approach to policy.
Mark also touched upon how a proportional voting system can be made to work as developed in Wales. Working with other parties leads to better policy and is strong government. Wales has replaced ‘Religious Education’ with Religion, Values and Ethics, and Humanism is part of the curriculum.
Mark is a strong supporter of more devolution to empower regions and referenced the Labour Commission (Gordon Brown chair) 2022 report A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy.
