24th April 2012
Robert Stovold: I have been asked the question should faith play a role in a secular society. There are two very different answers we could give to that question. I think that if people were less reliant on faith it would be a better world. I suspect many people here in the audience today would say that faith is a very important part of what makes me me. It is not some option add on that I could easily leave behind. Since I am a part of society, my religious faith will play a role in shaping the society of which I am a part.
So there are two very different answers to the question. And this raises another question. How could people with such very different answers get along. Are these answers really as different as we might think. Perhaps the differences are due to the fact that we are using the word faith differently in looking at the two answers.
By getting a better understanding of the word faith I hope we can move to a better appreciation of what secularism is and see how secularism can accommodate people who do not like faith very much and those who think that faith in a slightly different sense is a very important part of who they are.
My background is in the biological sciences. What first got me interested in secularism wasn’t fear of Islamic terrorism. It was an encounter with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They liked to back up their faith with evidence and they were nice people but I didn’t like the way they misquoted biologists out of context and misrepresented their ideas. I invited them into my house for a discussion.
What is faith? I don’t want to talk about what we think. A particular article of faith may be peculiar to one religion like the Christian view that Jesus rose from the dead or the Muslim view that the Quran is inspired. I want to talk about how we think, about faith as trust.
One definition of faith which I am taking ironically for a secularist from the bible would be faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we don’t see. There is an element of trust here and going a bit beyond the evidence.
The philosopher David Hume said why does man proportion his belief to the evidence? This is well summarised by Karl Seigin who said the more extraordinary the claim the more evidence you need to back it up. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. My personal view is that when it comes to religions which do make extraordinary claims we do not have sufficient evidence to back it up.
Two quotes illustrate this quite well. The first comes from a Christian philosopher called Joe Lock. He wrote in his essay concerning human understanding: “I find every sect as far as reason will help them will use it gladly. And where it fails them will cry out ‘ it is a matter of faith and therefore above reason.’
The next quote I want to give is from a more recent Christian apologist, somebody who tries to defend the faith rationally. His name is William Lay Craig. I will read a passage from his work: “A person knows Christianity is true because the holy spirit tells him it is true. While argument and evidence can be used to support this conclusion they cannot legitimately overrule it.”
For me that last quote illustrates the dangers of faith because it allows some people to believe anything they want to believe. Imagine you and I were having a discussion. Most of the evidence and the facts are on your side and you are about to win the argument and then I suddenly put my fingers in my ears and say I am not listening. Your arguments and your evidence no matter how good they are don’t count for anything because I have got faith. Would that be a polite way of engaging in a discussion? Would that be a fair way of engaging in a discussion?
There are several problems you may have with my description of faith. You may say it is all very well coming to this as a scientist, someone who tries to maximise reliance on evidence and minimise the reliance on faith. But science can’t address moral questions. It only tells us how things work. It can’t tell us how things ought to work. He may also say there is plenty of evidence for my religious beliefs so my religion isn’t a matter of faith as you have defined it.
Another question arises how can we balance my desire to be free of religion with your desire to practise your religion? I think that secularism offers a way forward. The strapline for the National Secular Society’s website is challenging religious privilege and I want to note especially the use of the word privilege. It is not challenging religion but challenging religious privilege.
What kind of privilege. Well there are 26 unelected Christian bishops who sit as of right in the House of Lords. The National Secular Society is not opposed to this simply because it is religious. The problem here not that they are religious people. They got in simply because they are religious. The National Secular Society has nothing against religious people becoming MPs- it is their right but they should not have an automatic path to the House of Lords simply because they are religious and of a particular religion. So that is one thing that the National Secular Society campaigns on.
It also feels that it is wrong to indoctrinate people in faith schools at the tax payers expense. We would not do this for other forms of thought. The thought of sending a child to Marxist school or a communist school I think would be quite repellent. We would think that the child ought to be able to make up his own mind when he can make an informed choice.
I would like to move on now to discuss a few example of what the NSS does. This involves balancing freedom of religion for those who want it with freedom from religion for those who want it. This can be a tricky balancing act. There are some things that we have to bear in mind. The first is that most religions are wrong. Religions are mutually contradictory. They can’t all be right. If we systematically privilege religion and give all religions privilege one thing we can be sure of is that we are privileging falsehoods.
Another problem with privileging religion is that when you say religion trumps everything else that doesn’t resolve conflicts within or between religions. It only makes the conflict more intractable. It is not a useful way forward.
In a democracy with or without secularism you can’t always get what you want. That is another point. That is not a problem unique to secularism. In a democracy you have to go with what the majority wants.
Another problem with privileging religion is that increasing numbers of people are turning away from it. It is becoming increasingly unfair. There have been many cases of so called militant secularists persecuting Christians in the workplace. This is a myth. I think that a women called Paula Kerby summed it up quite nicely. She said that you have no more right to try and save souls in your employers time than you are have to a family life. You do not have the right to make long phone calls to your spouse during working hours.
The problem here is not that it is religion. It is that you are doing something on work time that your employer would not normally be expected to pay you for. And the employer would not make an exception in other cases so why make an exception in the case of religion.
Moving on from religion in the work place to religion in law. In an employment case the judge outlined the advantages of a secular legal system. He said the precepts of any one religion of belief system cannot by force of their religious origins sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of another. If they did those left out in the cold would be less than citizens and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy which is of necessity autocratic.
Note that he does not say that anything to do with religion should be excluded from the law. The laws of this country are shaped by Christian heritage. I would argue that if you go back further Christianity came from earlier religions and I believe as a biologist that earlier religions made use of existing human sympathies. So it depends where you want to stop this tracing back the heritage. But is we accept that this country today has a Christian heritage secularism does not require you to jettison this but it does say that because it has a religious origin it should not sound any louder than any other religious laws. Again it just comes down to fairness.
What about the role religious people can play when it comes to morality? In response to the charge that you need science to tell you how things work you need religion to tell you how things ought to work. I believe that human behaviour springs from useful human instincts. I would see that those as having evolved naturally without any input from God. I am an atheist. I do not believe in God. If you are an atheist you may believe in a creation narrative. You may believe that God created us through evolution and allowed those instincts to evolve though an evolutionary process.
But what is the link today between religion and morality. If we ask why something is right is because God said so a useful answer. I don’t think it is. In a democracy you need to appeal to shared human values and even among people who believe in God there seems to be a lot of disagreement about what he wants. It can be quite a divisive idea. To get what you want in a democracy you have to appeal to as many people as possible and saying Allah wants this will instantly alienate Christians. You may say it is the same God but it is a different name being used for God and that makes it instantly foreign. And you may find that even if you want the same sort of society as an atheist does bringing in religious language may bring divisions.
Another problem is is because God said so a right answer to the question. Plato first raised what became known as the ufifra dilemma. He asked what is it that makes an action good? He considered the idea that something was good because God said it was and something was bad because God said it was.
Let us see where this idea leads us. Why is murder wrong? Because God said so. Why is stealing a pen wrong? Because God said so. If that really is all there to morality murder and stealing a pen turn out to be wrong for exactly the same reason which implies that one act is no worse than the other. Most philosophers have abandoned the simple idea that something is moral because says it is.
That does not mean that you have to leave God and morality totally unconnected. If you are a theologian you might argue that morality is independent of God but our knowledge of morality is dependent on God because he is smart enough to figure out what the right thing to do is. And there are other relationships that you can draw.
When I first heard this argument it struck me as a very powerful idea. If God said something is true, God said something is good don’t stop there – go a bit further. This leads on to a recipe for religious engagement in politics. If something is good because God said so, does it mean that religious people cannot say anything about morality?
I would like to read a little quote from Barack Obama. He said :”In a secular society the religiously motivated must translate their concerns into universal rather than religion specific values. Their proposals must be subject to argument and reason and should not be accorded any undue automatic respect.”
Notice the language there. He is not saying religion should never be respected. He is saying religion should not be respected by default simply because it is religious. It should earn tis respect like everything else. If I want you to respect me I can’t order you to respect me. I have to do something to make you see something in a new way that makes you respect me. Respect can’t simply be ordered.
That is another problem with religious people demanding respect for their beliefs. It is not a question of will. I can’t respect something if I don’t believe it. If you want me to respect something I think it takes evidence. This ties in with the idea I raised earlier. Perhaps you were thinking when I said faith was belief in the absence of sufficient evidence that that is not my idea of faith. I think there is plenty of evidence for my religious beliefs. If that is so put your religious beliefs in a way that other people can understand and that to me sums up to me one positive role religious people can play in society but it is important for us all to speak the same language or else we can’t understand one another and we can’t overcome differences.
Secularism is about allowing people to speak the same language without privileging the religious over the non religious.
Amina Inloes: Thank you very much for the well thought out presentation. Although I am not an atheist I have a lot of respect for an atheist who has considered his or her viewpoints and argues them with some effort as opposed to an agnostic who does not bother to think about them. Of course there are dedicated agonistics.
I have been tempted to reply to some of these points which may be a dangerous road to go down but I am going to indulge in a bit of informality when I do that. I would like to reflect on my own background and what I am bringing to this discussion. There are two personal characteristics which I am bringing to this discussion which might give me a different point of view on the question of secularism versus religion having a prominent role in the public sphere.
One of these two which may or may not be apparent. I am American, I am from the United States and I can quote from Obama. I only moved to this country a few years ago and the most striking differences between America and the UK which I noticed almost immediately was the attitude towards religion which I felt. It really seems quite ironic to me that in the United States there is no state religion, it is against the law to teach religion in school unless it is a private school. So no religious education, no prayer in school. There is absolute freedom of religion. But as some of you may know religion is discussed quite openly in politics and in the public sphere and people are quite respectful of those who take their faith seriously even if they do not share that faith.
So I was quite surprised when I came here and I realised there is a state religion and there are religious education classes in school. I also noticed that a lot of people have a sort of anti religious attitude and there is a fair amount of negativity towards religion. That may not include you personally in this room. I have been surprised at the hostility towards religion which I have heard from people in general whether it is hostility towards Christianity, Islam or towards other faiths.
I am not sure why that is but I think that is something that is worth discussing in this discussion about what secularism is. So that is one thing I am going to bring to this discussion. In a multi ethnic society religion is still a prominent element in public life.
I am a Muslim too. That means my nuance on this topic is going to be different from that of someone who is part of the majority religion. I find that a lot of discussions about religion and secularism are really about secularism and Christianity. Should Christianity have a more prominent place in society? Is it being side-lined etc.
My point of view as a member of a religious minority may be a bit different because when I talk about religious beliefs being represented in the public sphere it will be on the understanding that most of the religious beliefs being discussed are necessarily ones that I will adhere to. This is also true of other minority religions.
Nonetheless I would disagree would one of the points of view that was put forward here. I do not agree that most religions are falsehoods. If you look at the major world religions you will find that a good number of the teachings are quite similar especially among the monotheistic faiths. There are some differences which we do not need to dwell on. But the main idea that there is a spiritual power larger than ourselves, that there is an ethical and moral code that we should adhere to, that there is a deeper and cosmological meaning to life, there is some divine hand in our lives. This is something that is common among religions. It is the essence of religion. So there are a lot of shared values between religions which we could discuss as universals.
I just want to touch on something briefly because it was brought up in the previous speech and that is one of the main issues of contention in the debate between secularism and religion has been the issue of religion versus science and the idea that the two have to be in opposition to each other. I have met a number of scientists who are Christian and they take science very seriously and they feel they are in harmony.
There is a sort of popular viewpoint in their era that it is either or. Some people believe that if you want to be scientific you have to get rid of religion. I think this assumption underscores a lot of the discussion. I was picking this up from the previous speaker who said that Jehovah’s witnesses misrepresented some things biologists say.
I would like to point out that as Muslims, and this view is not limited to Islam, we do not feel that there is an inherent tension between science and religion or between logic and religion. We believe that these things are harmonious. When it comes to faith we believe that faith should be logically defensible. It is not enough to say this is true because I believe it is true.
Of course there is an aspect of belief in Islam to. I am not trying to take faith out of the equation. But we believe that all these things work together and logic and science are also paths to God and paths to finding greater meaning in life and in the universe.
So with that brief preamble I am now going to give my view about whether religion should have a place in the public sphere. As you may have guessed by now my personal view is ‘yes’ religion should be involved in the public sphere, not only because religion is important to some people personally but also there are certain things that religion can do for society that a non religious ideology can. I am going to mention some of them briefly.
Actually, and this is rather ironic, I am going to be taking a rather secular view of religion, in discussing this. I am going to speaking about religion in general. I am coming from a minority position and I am not expecting everyone in society to share my personal religious beliefs. I am just going to speak about what religion can do for society which I do not think any non religious organisation or ideology can.
One of the things which was mentioned was the issue of morality and ethics. I have argued with enough atheists in my life to concede that you do not need to be religious to be moral. Morality is logical. Having good ethics is logical and you can be a very moral atheist. You can decide that stealing a pen and killing are not on the same calibre and you make good decisions. Muslims believe that ethics and morality are also logical. It is not just an issue of God said this although we do believe in obeying what God has said when it comes to our faith.
However when it comes to inspiring morality and ethics in a society as a whole I have not seen anything more effective in doing that than religion because when people are religious they sit around and think about ethical and moral questions together. I would like to remind you of the importance of being selfless and grappling with ethical questions that can be quite complicated – ethical questions are complex.
Initially I think that atheists do that to – especially committed atheists. But I think when it comes to doing that on a social level and forming a society I have not seen in general any sort of system other than a religious system which has been able to inspire that on a mass level. I think that is one of the major issues we are facing – the breakdown of ethics and morality and a sense of social responsibility.
This leads to the next thing which religion gives to society and that is very critical to the modern world. Religion is one of the very few institutions that really provides a sense of community for society. This is not so much an issue in the rural areas or in some smaller countries but one of the major crisis we are facing as societies entering this century is a breakdown in traditional social bonds: the family structure and a lot of social relationships. And there is a lot of loneliness which leads to people being very disengaged from society.
We just have to look around London. Over 50 percent of the adults are unmarried and they live in shared housing with other unmarried adults who do not have a lot of control over their lives. This leads to a general disengagement.
I was reading a study conducted by the BBC which said that a very large percentage of youths feel no connection with people over the age of 30. So there is a breakdown in a sense of community. And this one thing that religion does provide. It does encourage people to feel a sense of community and to become more engaged in society. To feel a sense of social responsibility.
Someone may argue that just because someone is involved in a church community does not mean they are going to be involved in society as a whole but I disagree. I believe that once you instil some sense of social responsibility and community in people then it does extend to society as a whole. This is a very useful function can provide in society. Again I am looking at religion on a very secular level.
Finally I think one of the most important things that religion has to offer which I think is sorely lacking in the modern era is meaning to life. It offers us inspiration in life. It helps us put the challenges we face and the suffering we see into a broader context and to learn how to grow from it instead of falling into despair. And it does give hope.
I am not advocating an opium of the masses. I am not saying we should have faith in things which are false. We should have faith in things which we believe are true. But nonetheless to illustrate this point I am going to share something which I read recently – an article by a rabbi on sec
