One Step Forward, Ten Steps Back.

The Times Educational Supplement is reporting this morning that the Prime Minister is planning to send a King James Bible to every school in the country, complete with a foreword by Michael Gove, the Education Minister.

Mr Gove is quoted as saying that the King James Bible was the most important book written in the English language. “It’s a thing of beauty, and it’s also an incredibly important historical artefact. It has helped shape and define the English language and is one of the keystones of our shared culture. And it is a work that has had international significance.” (Source NSS)

Freedom OF religion means that we should be free to practice (or not) our own religions (or none) without Gove and Cameron intervening in a bid to surreptitiously inject Christianity into our childrens’ lives. I quite agree they should learn ABOUT world religions, but that should cover them all equally and without expecting the kids to believe them. They should also learn that their religion stops with them. We already have RE lessons: the fact they are biased means our curriculum should be adjusted.

The works of Jane Austen, C.S. Lewis, Dylan Thomas (for whom my son is named), Wilfred Owen, Rudyard Kipling and George Orwell etc are just as valuable (and more relevant) to English literary heritage but you don’t see them handing out (or making an issue of handing out) copies of those books. The fact that it is this one version of ONE holy book is extremely telling of the agenda of Creepy-Cameron and the Tories. I won’t be objecting to religious speakers at my sons’ assemblies and RE lessons either but I shall be insisting that all major religions are represented, as well as the less ‘present’ beliefs including Deism, Pantheism, Humanism and those with a total lack of belief.

There is a difference between religious people and people of faith. People of faith have their religion and are content to follow it without expecting others to do so. It makes them happy, it doesn’t impinge on the lives of others and they respect the rights of others to lead their own lives and follow their own beliefs in peace. People of religion, on the other hand, cannot rest until the rest of the world believe and live by their chosen brand of whichever religion they cling to. They go door knocking and some even go as far as to publicly and viciously lambaste the ideas of secularism (Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury), and members and ‘morals’ of those of others religions and of no belief (the EDL). They try to make laws (or in the case of the EDL, inspire pogroms) and bring in legislation (such as the incredibly dangerous ‘blasphemy’ law) based on their own belief systems as a means to force their own choices on the rest of us by stealth. They are who we need to guard against and the best means of doing that is to keep any form religious worship at home (or churches/mosques/temples/synagogues etc) and out of politics and state funded education.

The BBC Must Acknowledge Us…


Hardeep Singh Kohli


Share your experience. What does your religious faith mean to you? How has it influenced your life and continues to do so? We’d like to hear how important your faith is to you. Email, including pictures and audio, to:

The BBC have done it again.  They have successfully managed to effectively ignore the fact that not everybody in this country has a religious faith.  If it were not bad enough that we are inundated by media reports of damning comments from religious leaders against atheists and secularism and complaints about being marginalised, we are faced with yet another census which asks biased and leading questions, but now a supposedly non-biased and publicly funded (by way of a compulsory license fee) media organisation, is now refraining to acknowledge the humanist, agnostic, and atheistic members of the population AND their contribution to society.

“While atheism is merely the absence of belief, humanism is a positive attitude to the world, centred on human experience, thought, and hopes.”

In their site, atheism is portrayed as being a wholly negative and individualist outlook, citing an example of why people become atheists is that it’s merely a symptom of damaging culture ‘so someone raised in Communist China is likely to have no belief in God because the education system and culture make being an atheist the natural thing to do.‘  It IS a ‘natural thing to do‘.  We are all born atheists with common sense while religious belief is an entirely learned part of any culture.  If anything is arbitrary, it is the imposition of stifling and oppressive ideas on young minds; there is nothing innate about it.  I have already sent my message to the BBC regarding their map:

“You haven’t included Humanism or atheism in your ‘Faith Map’! Please do so! Please stop pretending we are non-existent and not worth listening to. Please stop assuming that because we lack belief in a god, that we lack an interest in the outside world, compassion or morals. Religion does not own morality or decency. It’s time we were acknowledged, rather than dismissed as an eccentric minority.”

The BBC does have an atheism page (even though atheism is NOT a set religion or belief system) hidden deep within their Religion section.   Humanism and secularism do not feature on its list but are instead ‘relegated’ into being merely types of atheism. If they are to include these ism in their religion site then they should have a place on the map.  If they will not be then the BBC should acknowledge that they are NOT religions, and do so publicly, and then move Atheism from out of its Religion pages and into a non-religious one.  The BBC cannot have things both ways.  This is aside from the fact that while many atheists are also both humanists and secularists, so are people of other faiths. More disturbing is that Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been listed even though they strictly count as dangerous cults.  The BBC list of Religions consists of

According to the BBC ‘most’ atheists will concede there are some good things about religion, such as:

  • Religious art and music (Nothing to do with commissioned work then, no?)
  • Religious charities and good works (do NOT and will never atone for or negate more than a millennia of violence, persecution or bloodshed in its name that continues to this day.)
  • Much religious wisdom and scripture (Um, where?)
  • Human fellowship and togetherness (which is exclusive to those of the same faith and beliefs.  Others are to be converted, avoided or (in the case of Islam) eliminated from the earth)

I am not one of them.  I have also found that those who cite these non-arguments more often than not are going out of their way to be nice as they really have not thought about what religious leaders call upon us to believe without question, to ignore the abundant hypocrisy within those positions of self-assumed authority.  It is in the interest of those men who having achieved positions of meaningless command that the rest of us follow their lead without thought or consideration.  Religious freedom luckily does not get privileges over the civil laws which protect us all.  In a culture of political correctness in the name of equality, we have now found ourselves in the unenviable position of being unable to criticise anything, including the intolerance of religious belief, without facing the severe criticism of equal intolerance.  This is not to say that people should be able to say whatever hateful thing is on their mind at the time, but to emphasise the fact that, at least in the case of certain individuals, the idea of political correctness has been used in order to garner an atmosphere in which those of faith may preach almost whatever they please (no matter how oppressive and unpleasant) in the cause of their religion and come up against almost no opposition from the rest of society for fear of being labelled a bigot.

Mean Atheists?

“You know what? God is an imaginary friend. Religion is a virus. Religion is a hoax. Religion doesbrainwash people (even if Brett seems to think that’s a positive thing).

It’s about damn time we get the courage to say so.

And if your feelings get hurt because some atheists are honest about god’s (lack of) existence, that’s just too bad for you.” – Friendly Atheist

Not only is it about time we had the courage to not hide our disbelief and be open about it, but we should be permitted the same platform as those who have a religious belief.  One Mrs Brett, Regina Brett of The Cleveland Plain Dealer is very unhappy with the recent slate of atheists billboards. This is despite millions of religious billboards across the US, claiming an eternity of torture and punishment for the ‘sin’ of not believing in the truth of Christianity. Harmless and inoffensive and legally paid for boards, with non-religious slogans are being vandalised and pulled down due to the complaints of religious adherents.  I say that if they have a problem with the non-religious boards then they must pull down their own and learn to live by their own rules.

Why believe in a God?  Be good for GOODNESS' sake

One of the mean, mocking and offensive adverts for the American Humanist Association. Yes, Mrs Brett thinks they highlight our smug arrogance. I'm detecting a lot of projection here.

“Atheists don’t have to share religious beliefs, but they also don’t have to share ill will, either” Regina Brett

  1. We don’t have RELIGIOUS beliefs TO share.
  2. We have every right to voice our displeasure and reach out to other atheists. (Quit with the divide and rule tactics; it’s getting very boring)

What Mrs Brett, has clearly misunderstood is that real freedom means that sometimes you just have to put up with things that might bruise some overly sensitive feelings.  She has chosen to ignore the fact that freedom of religion was NOT set up so that Christians and other religious groups could run their mouths (and poster campaigns) at other religions and non-religious people without any opposition. THAT is called bullying, people, and I refuse to become a victim.  The posters and billboards are not mean.  They are not mocking.  They are in no way inflammatory.  It’s time Mrs Brett and others like her (the Chrissy Satterfield twit for instance) stopped acting like a bunch of spoiled babies and woke up to the fact that the world does not work for or around Christians and Christianity.    One of the comments on Mrs Brett’s article reflected a startling attitude which is sadly shared and common within the religious community of both the US and the UK;

edwardiii November 21, 2010 at 4:15PM

The problem with any child raised as an atheist is that they believe they are the center of the universe. They have to. The individual as the centre of their own universe is the cornerstone of atheism. What a sad life. What a terrible thing to do to a child.

More projection there, I see.  WE DO NOT have the arrogance to assume a personal relationship with a supreme being which places us in a favoured position over other people and grants us rights over them and their property.  WE DO NOT assume that our world view is the ‘one true‘ anything.  Most of all, WE DO NOT consider those who, don’t share our lifestyles, or disagree with our beliefs in any way inferior to us or deserving of punishment or persecution of any sort.  The same cannot be said for theists because the tenets of their religions demands that they do.  I would say it was far worse to teach a child that they are naturally bad and scare them out of individual thought by telling them that without the belief in their relationship with a magical and invisible being in the sky that they must have complete unquestioning faith in, love unconditionally (but only loves them if they believe) and fear of regardless of the lack of evidence or they will burn in hell forever.  That really is a terrible and despicable thing to do to a child.  Thankfully Mrs Brett did correct him and this is half the battle: Convincing believers that we are not selfish, amoral, megalomaniacs who view ourselves as centres of the universe is not going to be an easy task but it IS possible.


Secularism Is the Way Forward.

Over the years the meaning of the word Secularism has become confused and misunderstood. As well as changing its meaning, and being open to interpretation in different ways, the word has also been deliberately misrepresented by some religious interests who fear the influence of secularism on privileges that they have enjoyed for centuries and taken for granted.  Certain religious organisations (and some humanists) have pleaded for something variously called healthy secularism or state neutrality, that appears to be meant to justify all of them getting handouts from the state for the mere merit of existing at all. They reject as ‘radical secularism’ any attempt to get them to pay their own way.

Richard Gilyead, letter to The Guardian:
“Tony Blair and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor deliberately conflate secularism with atheism. Atheism is lack of belief in gods. Secularism is a belief in equality in politics, education and law, regardless of religious belief. So when they refer to militant secularism and aggressive secularism, respectively, then they are implying that such equality of treatment is a bad thing.

Firstly, to clerics who try to conflate secularism with atheism, the two are not the same thing.  Atheism is the lack of belief in god or gods.  Secularism means quite literally the separation of church and state.  It does not mean to forbid or marginalise religious beliefs, only that it protects people who do not share those beliefs from having those ‘moral’ codes and rules forced upon them.  The concern of secularism is to protect the rights of the individual against the imposition of a religious organisation within society so that they are dealt with on an equal basis.

National Secular Society

  • The National Secular Society affirms that this life is the only one of which we have any knowledge and human effort should be directed wholly towards its improvement. It asserts that supernaturalism is based upon ignorance and assails it as the historic enemy of progress.
  • They affirm that progress is possible only on the basis of equal freedom of speech and publication; that the free criticism of institutions and ideas is essential to a civilised state.
  • Affirming that morality is social in origin and application, the National Secular Society aims to promote the happiness and well-being of humanity.
  • They demand the complete separation of Church and State and the abolition of all privileges granted to religious organisations.
  • It seeks to spread education, to promote the friendship of all people as a means of advancing universal peace to further common cultural interests and to develop the freedom and dignity of humanity.

The word secularism was coined by the British writer George Holyoake in 1846.  George Holyoake (1817-1906) was the last person in England to be imprisoned in 1842 for being an atheist (The law against blasphemy was strict in Victorian Britain.). He was jailed for 6 months for a speech which included the line:

“For myself, I flee the Bible as a viper, and revolt at the touch of a Christian.”

The 19th century saw a serious campaign against the Churches by the secularist movement.  A powerful, but rather unexpected attack on Christianity came from a group of people, including the writer George Eliot, who thought that Christianity was immoral. According to the doctrine of original sin, God was prepared to punish people for a wrong that was not their fault, and the evil that He created in them, just because they were human beings. What sort of God was it, they wondered, who then decided to let us off this unfair punishment because he had punished his son instead of us?

“I would sooner perish for ever than stoop down before a Being who may have power to crush me, but whom my heart forbids me to reverence.” – James Froude, 1849

Their particular target was the state church, the Church of England, which was highly privileged (and still is).  The Church was founded in 1534 by King Henry VIII when England separated from Rome.  The Church of England traces its roots back to the early church, but it’s specifically Anglican identity and its links to the State date back to the Reformation.

  • Until 1828 no-one could hold a public office without signing up to the beliefs of the Church.
  • Until 1836 only Church of England ministers could conduct marriages.
  • Until 1871 only members of the Church of England could teach at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. (Both of which have been bogged down by the intrusion of monarchy with Henry VIII, and church interference for centuries.  It was not until Prince Albert was elected Chancellor of Cambridge, that the University began to focus on more practical subjects.)

The Church of England still has a law-making role in Britain. Twenty-six bishops (including the two Archbishops) sit UNELECTED in the House of Lords and are known as the Lords Spiritual. They are thought (but only by believers and those who believe in belief) to bring a religious ethos to the secular process of law. However, in an increasingly multi-cultural society, questions are being asked as to whether that role needs to be specifically fulfilled by Church of England Bishops. Future reform of the House of Lords could see the Lords Spiritual made up of a variety of Christian denominations and other faiths to reflect the religious make-up of Britain.  What about non-believers and Atheists?  Come on people, this is the 21st CE!!!

Most histories of atheism choose the Greek and Roman philosophers Epicurus, Democritus, and Lucretius as the first atheist writers. While these writers certainly changed the idea of God, they didn’t entirely deny that gods could exist.  In 1877 Bradlaugh and Annie Besant were prosecuted for publishing a book containing birth control information, The Fruits of Philosophy by the American doctor, Charles Knowlton. In the twentieth century the NSS campaigned against the BBC’s excessive use of religion and for disestablishment and the abolition of religious education.


“Secularists oppose religion or the religious being afforded privileges, which – put another way – means others are disadvantaged. [Religious secularists] don’t think that belief is a reason for [their own] special treatment.” BBC Online – Secularism

Charles Bradlaugh

Bradlaugh (1833-1891) was one of the most prominent of the Victorian atheists. He edited the National Reformer, which itself was prosecuted for blasphemy, and in 1866 was one of the founders of the National Secular Society.  He championed unpopular causes like birth control, republicanism, atheism, reform, peace and anti-imperialism. His views placed him in conflict with powerful interests, institutions and people, but most of his arguments have since been vindicated.

Bradlaugh was elected to Parliament in 1880, but was not allowed to take his seat because he would not swear a religious oath but wanted to affirm. He was re-elected several times over five years, but did not take his seat until 1886.  Between 1880 and 1886 Bradlaugh fought for the right of non-believers to sit in the House of Commons. His act of 1888 established the legal right to affirm a Parliamentary oath rather than swear on a Bible. When he eventually took his seat he became Britain’s first openly atheist member of Parliament.


Cambridge University

to the Institute of Continuing Education

Cambridge is one of the world’s oldest universities.  The University has always had strong ties with the church; in 1086 the town was an important trading post with substantial residential property and a successful commercial economy.  Since before 1112, cannons in the church of St Giles and the convent of St Radegund was completed in 1135 but the site later became Jesus College.  Two hospitals existed in Cambridge.  One was specifically for the treatment of lepers and the other was for paupers.  The latter was taken over to become St John’s college.

St John's College. Bridge of Sighs

St John's College. Bridge of Sighs

In 1209 scholars fleeing Oxford took refuge in Cambridge and eventually settled.  Henry III, in 1213, took those students under his protection from the townsfolk who were known to over charge them for food and board but also decreed that only students under the tuition of a recognised master were permitted to stay in the town due to a spate of public disturbances. By 1226 they were numerous enough to have formed an organisation, represented by a Chancellor, and have devised official courses of study. The medieval University was even more established. Ceremonies and faculties were overseen by Bedells (pronounced bee-dell) while the treasures and books were attended by a Chaplain.  By the 16 CE, a registrar was needed to administer matriculations, admissions and the decisions of the Masters, and an Official Orator wrote ceremonial letters and addresses.  Most of these offices are now purely ceremonial and no longer hold any official authority.

King's College Chapel.  View from the Backs

King's College Chapel, Cambridge. View from the Backs

Most of the places held at Cambridge were held by either clerks or clergymen in some form of holy orders and expecting to enter careers in the Church or Civil service.  In order to obtain the support they needed during their years of study, students were required to look to the church but were first subject to the scrutiny of the local ecclesiastic authority. Before the end of the 15th CE they had managed to free themselves from this and were independent of authority with the exception of the pope.   The Chancellor was then elevated to the position of an ecclesiastical judge with jurisdiction over all cases involving discipline and proving the wills of both students and masters alike.  He also provided a secular court which would convene to hear civil and criminal cases with the exception of major crimes.

Oliver Cromwell

The crown aided the independence of the university by granting it the power to prosecute market profiteers; a move which continued to be a source of contention until the 19th century.  In 1381 there was a series of attacks on the university and it’s residents (in a largely ‘Christian’ society no less). Cambridge was given the right to prosecute those caught falsifying weights and measures, endangering public health by tampering with food and drink, interruption the supply of fresh water and those wilfully introducing infection in times of plague. Even now the University retains rights over licensing and policing.

Buildings, Lives and Legacies. A Celebration of Cambridge University

In the 16th CE Henry VIII founded Trinity College by merging the houses, King’s Hall and Michael House. Goville Hall was enlarged; Emmanuel absorbed the Dominican site; Sidney Sussex of the Franciscans and Magdalene absorbed the Benedictine house known as Buckingham College. All of these were concerned with training new ecclesiastic priests and clerics in the new National Church.   In 1536, the King suppressed the faculty of Canon Law and forbade scholastic philosophy.  This laid the path for Mathematics, Latin studies and Biblical Studies, and an education which was out of the reach to most of the population.    The statutes of 1570 ensured the continuation of the university’s concentration on churning out future leaders (The same people who directly benefited from the power and influence of having THEIR religion be the central authority of everyone’s life so they could both rule the people and live off their efforts.) of the Church of England.  Henry VIII endowed the university with five professorships; Divinity, Hebrew, Greek, Physic (purgative medicine; stimulates evacuation of the bowels) & civil law. Royal influence and pressure the Privy (private) Council continued into the 18th CE.

A sunset of King's College

The Church controlled university was given a license to print and publish works of which it IT approved in 1534 but it was 50 years until this right became fully exercised.  In the 1690s allowed the University, in conjunction with Oxford, to exploit their monopoly on Bible printing as well as producing the printed works required for its courses.  Despite the provision for natural sciences and arts, from the late 17th century, mathematics came to dominate studies in Cambridge, and eventually ‘the Tripos’ came to mean the examination in mathematics.  The University Library had expanded with the rest of the University during the later seventeenth century, and after the gift by George I of the manuscripts and books of Bishop John Moore, it outgrew its original quarters in the Old Schools.

Trinity College, main gate

Trinity College, main gate


Sir Isaac Newton


Sidney Sussex College. View from Sidney Street

Sidney Sussex College. View from Sidney Street


St John's College. New library, 1994

St John's College. New library, 1994



Oxford University

From its early days, Oxford was a centre for lively controversy, with scholars involved in religious and political disputes.  The first hand-written English language Bible manuscripts were produced in the 1380’s AD by John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor, scholar, and theologian and against the explicit instructions from Rome, not to.  In the 1490’s another Oxford professor, and the personal physician to King Henry the 7th and 8thThomas Linacre, decided to learn Greek. After reading the Gospels in Greek, and comparing it to the Latin Vulgate, he wrote in his diary, “Either this (the original Greek) is not the Gospel… or we are not Christians.”.  In 1496, John Colet, another Oxford professor and the son of the Mayor of London, started reading the New Testament in Greek and translating it into English for his students at Oxford, and later for the public at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The people were so hungry to hear the Word of God in a language they could actually understand (but still couldn’t read), that within six months there were 20,000 people packed in the church and at least that many outside trying to get in!  The 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament of Erasmus further focused attention on just how corrupt and inaccurate the Latin Vulgate had become, and how important it was to go back and use the original Greek (New Testament) and original Hebrew (Old Testament) languages to maintain accuracy.  No sympathy for this “illegal activity” (Any translation from Latin) was to be found from Rome… even as the words of Pope Leo X‘s declaration that “the fable of Christ was quite profitable to him” continued through the years to infuriate the people of God.



From 1878, academic halls were established for women and they were admitted to full membership of the University in 1920. Five all-male colleges first admitted women in 1974 and, since then, all colleges have changed their statutes to admit both women and men. During the 20th and early 21st centuries, Oxford added to its humanistic core a major new (remind me again when Darwin published Origin of Species? Oh yes, 1861 so hardly a ‘new’ science.) research capacity in the natural and applied sciences, including medicine. In so doing, it has enhanced and strengthened its traditional role as an international focus for learning and a forum for intellectual debate.


The less influence and authority granted to the church over matters of higher education and laws concerning blasphemy and civil rights, the further forward we have managed to progress both in science and society. No longer are ordinary people socially expected to trot along to Sunday services to nod and agree with every word a speaker bellows at them in a language they cannot understand, let alone read for themselves.  The time that the church has had authority over us is long past expired.  It is not surprising that they are unhappy about it, when you consider the grandeur and prominence which their church given (NOT God-given)and self-assumed authority magically entitled them too.  Due to the heavy mental shackles and religious bullying hampering our progress as a species, it has taken us centuries just to get where we are today and we have had to fight every step of the way against walls of superstitions dogma and greedy power grasping.

As education was made available and eventually free and compulsory to the masses, and unhindered scientific research has provided us with solid and testable answers, religion has had to work harder and harder to not only to explain their nonsensical mythology, but to justify their artificially exalted social positions.  The time has come to look the pushy believers and the church squarely in eye and tell them very firmly that we do NOT recognise their authority over us and will no longer tolerate their bullying and public tantrums over their rightfully waning authority.