Just a quick note about what appears to be a landmark decision. The British Humanist Association (BHA) reports that the High Court has ruled that non-religious “philosophical” views such as humanism must be included in the Religious Studies curriculum. As you may already know, religious education is mandatory in government secondary schools in England and Wales (see details here). The BHA report notes this:
In his decision, Mr Justice Warby stated that the Government had made an ‘error of law’ in leaving non-religious worldviews such as humanism out of the GCSE [General Certificate of Secondary Education, awarded to students who successfully complete a specified curriculum] amounting to ‘a breach of the duty to take care that information or knowledge included in the curriculum is conveyed in a pluralistic manner.’ The British Humanist Association (BHA), which was responsible for bringing the case and has supported the three families throughout, has welcomed the landmark decision.
While the Government will not be immediately compelled to change the GSCE, religious education syllabuses around the country will now have to include non-religious worldviews such as humanism on an equal footing, and pupils taking a GCSE will also have to learn about non-religious worldviews alongside the course.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Warby said, ‘In carrying out its educational functions the state owes parents a positive duty to respect their religious and philosophical convictions… the state has a duty to take care that information or knowledge included in the curriculum is conveyed in a pluralistic manner… the state must accord equal respect to different religious convictions, and to non-religious beliefs; it is not entitled to discriminate between religions and beliefs on a qualitative basis; its duties must be performed from a standpoint of neutrality and impartiality as regards the quality and validity of parents’ convictions.’
He found that GCSE specifications drawn up along the lines recommended ‘would give priority to the study of religions (including some with a relatively very small following and no significant role in the tradition of the country) over all non-religious world views (which have a significant following and role in the tradition of the country)’ and would therefore risk being unlawful.
As the BBC reports, the Justice ruled that earlier governmental changes in the curriculum, which left out non-religious views, were unlawful, for they failed to be sufficiently pluralistic.
I wonder if “atheism” will be in there along with “humanism.” Although atheism isn’t, strictly speaking, a “philosophy,” as it’s simply nonbelief in gods, it is an alternative to the religious views described in the curriculum.
You can find the full decision of Justice Warby here, and here’s the most important bit:
h/t: Dom
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Just a self-aggrandizing note related to the British Humanists: I’ll be delivering their annual Darwin Day Lecture on February 12 in London. My title: “Evolution and atheism: best friends forever?” (the answer, of course, is “yes”; they asked me to add the question mark). Richard Dawkins will be chairing the talk, and you can get information and buy tickets at this site.
Great! UK WEIT readers may get to meet PCC(E)!
Oh, I missed that: That’s also excellent news. I’ve already blocked the day out in my calendars.
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Better still, I’ve just bought a ticket.
£15, or £12 to members.
Yeah, I just found the advertisement; the link for the talk is here.
We’re going; we bought our tickets today = )
Excellent news!
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But I’m disappointed with the DoE’s response: “His decision will also not affect the current teaching of the RS GCSE in classrooms.”
My reading of the ruling suggests that schools’ headmasters and governors might be liable if non-religious worldviews/life stances are not taught alongside the RS GCSE.
The DoE should really make that clear to schools.
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Would be nice to be in London for that…no question about it.
Congratulations to the BHA!
Brilliant news all around!
And I’ve already signed up for my ticket to Jerry’s Darwin Day lecture (it WILL be Dawkins doing the chairing) – this event at least will be some consolation for having to brave out the British winter
Details of your talk here PCC(E)
https://humanism.org.uk/darwindayldn/
Although I’m not familiar with this particular issue in Britain, my guess would be that yes, atheism will be in there. Atheism is a conclusion, humanism is a science-and-reason based philosophy which gets you there. Teaching about humanism without getting into atheism would be like teaching about Christianity without bringing in God.
Now, technically and historically speaking, you can in theory believe in God and also consider yourself a “humanist” — but the philosophy has been narrowly applied. These are the religious folk who focus on social justice and life in this world, care nothing about what other people believe, and insist they either have a nebulous, personal, or quirky understanding of God which doesn’t get in anyone’s way. There’s no good argument from the scientific aspect of humanism for holding on to this remnant of theism — but people aren’t always consistent.
A long time ago (circa 1970s) the term “secular humanism” was coined to distinguish it from “religious humanism”.
Humanism is some form has been around since the Italian Renaissance. Most humanists were seriously anti-Catholic (with the notable exception of Erasmus of Rotterdam), but not anti-religious per se.
I suspect the decline of theism in humanistic circles has been accelerated by specific scientific discoveries and better knowledge of the history of religion.
Acknowledging that there is a strong overlap, I would nonetheless maintain that Martin Luther King was a humanist but not an atheist, and it isn’t entirely clear to me that Friedrich Nietzsche was a humanist (although I greatly admire him while identifying as humanist).
I also suspect the decline of theism in humanistic circles has been accelerated by less disinclination towards applying a scientific and rational spirit of inquiry to the existence of God itself. As I understand it, apologetics were originally crafted as reasons which backed up accepted truth by addressing skepticism — particularly when quelling self-doubt. The more seriously you take the necessity of criticism, though, the more problematic this approach is going to get.
I recognize and welcome religious humanism the same way I recognize and welcome theistic evolution. Meaning, mixed. On the one hand, it’s noticeably better than the alternative. “What people do here on earth matters more to God (and me) than what they believe” will, like “Evolution is how God created,” lead to less social and political friction on controversial issues — as long as nobody looks too hard or keeps on asking awkward questions.
But humanists ought to have problems accepting that last part, even for harmony. It’s not humanist.
Where evolution hits Abrahamic religions hard is in the Garden of Eden story and the Noah’s flood story, as well as in creation. You have to allegorize all of them.
(I can see the Eden story as an engaging parable about the fall from innocence as long is it is divorced from the Christian doctrine of original sin, but the Noah story is just a bad one from the beginning.)
Yeah but, when I was a kid (in England), nobody ever took the Garden of Eden or Noah literally. (Or if they did, they kept their mouths shut for fear of being laughed at). I mean, talking snakes? Millions of animals crammed in a wooden boat? You start to doubt that, about the same time you figure out that Santa Claus couldn’t have fitted down the chimney (which your house doesn’t have anyway) and reindeer couldn’t fly without wings and animals don’t talk.
You don’t need evolution to tell you it’s nonsense, just a moments’ commonsense thought will do that.
cr
I don’t think evolution’s major damage to the Abrahamic religions lies in disconfirming or contradicting “historical” claims. As infiniteimprobabilit points out, many mainstream sects of Christianity have long made peace with considering much of the Bible metaphorical. They then go blithely on to cherry pick what parts then aren’t. Evolution makes God even cooler, and so forth.
No, the fatal injury is internal and less obvious. As I said above, the scientific approach is toxic to supernaturalism and the defenses which have grown up around them. Even the symbolical and secularized versions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam make heavy use of skyhooks. You have to think about the bare-bones religious claims in a top-down way, where explanations come out of nowhere and stand on nothing derived from what we’ve learned.
They’re still stuck in sloppy, thoughtless intuitions in a world in which they’ve learned to prioritize reasoned, thoughtful work of discovery which is built from the bottom-up. Evolution is not just elegant and right, it’s cranes all the way down. The bottom crane is not going to end up being something like a mind because that not only doesn’t make sense, it’s inconsistent. Believers expect religion will bring them harmony. Ha.
Daniel Dennett called evolution “universal acid.” It will eat right through all the religious world views which try to contain it. I think he’s correct. The Garden of Eden and the Noahic Flood are small potatoes in comparison. They’re bad bruises, sure — but it’s far worse to bleed out from an internal injury to a major organ.
Nietzsche is precisely the example Mario Bunge gives of why atheism is necessary but not sufficient for (what he and I) would regard as the good form of (secular) humanism. (In my case because I disagree with what he thinks are the “useful” human values, though he’s right in some of his critiques, IMO.)
Very mixed feelings about this. Good that the viewpoint will be acknowledged and included, of course … but at the cost of people then being able to say that non-religious viewpoints are equivalent to religions and all things are equal in a relativistic rabbit hole.
Agree. Atheism or humanism or secularism are not religions, so technically do not belong in a course of religious studies.
What is the proper name of a field or title of a course critically examining the efficacy of various religions/religious claims if not “religious studies”? (Unless by definition no critical examination/questioning is allowed in a religious studies course.)
“religious and non-religious studies”? 😁
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I don’t think that children appreciate the nuances of relativistic thinking – only that what they may be thinking is somehow excluded from being worthy of discussion.
There would be an additional basis for concern were an analogous decision to be made by a US court. Some on the religious right already contend that “Secular Humanism” constitutes a religion that is being unconstitutionally taught in our public schools (employing an analysis patterned after what the courts have used in finding school prayer unconstitutional).
This inquiry is complicated by the inherent tension between the First Amendment’s two religion clauses, “free exercise” and “establishment.” The proper analysis, I believe, is this: “Secular Humanism,” so-called, is the equivalent of a religion, entitling its adherents to the protections of the Free Exercise clause. That does not, however, render the teaching in public schools of generally applicable principles consistent with humanism unconstitutional under the Establishment clause (just as generally applicable laws against murder and theft and perjury do not constitute an invalid establishment of religion merely because they coincide with prohibitions found in the Decalogue).
OTOH, while children go through life hearing about religion, there’s still no particular reason for them to ever stumble across humanism. I like the idea of them not only being exposed to the concept but having it seem to be on a par with (not lesser than) religious beliefs, as this decision would seem to require.
I’ve got my ticket already, yay!
I recall Dan Dennett promoted the idea of religious education in the sense of a comparative or survey of world religions, not indoctrination into faith. He noted that when people are exposed to all the different shapes that religion can take, they are somewhat inoculated against a single strand of the virus. Such a survey, I’m sure, would include non-religion as well.
Now in most liberal seminaries like Harvard Divinity School, a requirement for graduationg is either learning about a second religion (Christian students almost always choose either Buddhism or Judaism) or taking an extensive course in comparative religion.
The obvious question follows.
Since Harvard Divinity School is nonsectarian, I don’t think it technically qualifies as a “seminary.”
It’s degrees are accepted by many Christian denominations as a qualification for ordained ministry. (However, although HDS has many Jewish students, HDS does NOT qualify for ordination as a rabbi!!) You can get either a Master of Theological Studies (just an academic degree) or a Master of Divinity (qualifies you for ordination).
Yeah, I don’t think it will ever be confused for a yeshiva. HDS also awards a PhD, although I think they call it simply a doctor of philosophy degree, rather than slap a “theology” or “divinity” title on it.
“Evolution and atheism: best friends forever”
Sadly evolution isn’t really on our side:
obviously evolution created all religion.
Further, evolution created all the suffering in our world and destroyed 99% of its species; it isn’t really anybodies friend.
But, in its defense, evolution also created things like sports, Britney Spears, the iPhone, Happy Hour, “All You Can Eat”, sex and atheism, to mention the most important ones. Maybe, after all, it isn’t that bad as some might think it is.
Sure, evolution has given us life that’s “red in tooth and claw.”
But Britney Spears? The witch’s brew of mom & pop Spears and K-Fed get credit for that hot mess all on their own. Tag evolution with the blame for Britney and it’ll never achieve anything resembling universal acceptance.
Evolution doesn’t give a shit.
Like gravity in that respect.
cr
And honey badgers.
Also just bought my ticket.
Of course, this is mid-Feb when our worst weather usually occurs.
If it gets called off due to the weather this will of course be conclusive proof that god exists.
I don’t see how it would be possible to include all non-religious worldviews, or all religious worldviews for that matter. It seems like they already must be selective in the ones they cover.
My point being isn’t it possible that the ruling could cause them to drop this instruction from the curriculum entirely?
Well, I think that was reflected in the judges comments — that some of the religions already covered in the syllabus have few adherents in England and Wales, whereas “nones” together number up to half the UK population (depending on which survey you trust; the British Social Attitudes Survey gives the highest number, iirc.)
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Of course the downside of eliminating the “instruction” would be that each student would then be pretty much aware of only of the family religion. Such narrow training is really indoctrination. The more religions taught, the more holding one true and the others false seems problematic, and ‘none of the above’ becomes the best option.
Like it or not, religion is an extremely important influence on history and the world we live in now. So RE could claim to be just as important a facet of the curriculum as geography or history or any foreign language.
If taught as ‘comparative religions’ (which seems to be required by the legislation) then I think it’s probably as good an influence against domination or indoctrination by any one sect, as you could get.
As an aside, I wouldn’t be surprised of humanism or agnosticism gets mentioned in RE classes already, as the obvious counterpart to the religions covered. If it doesn’t, it’s the elephant in the room.
cr
Comparative religions were on topic in many of my high school “MRE” classes in Quebec years ago. The idea of “none” was not talked about too much, though a classmate of mine managed to explain that although he was presenting on secular humanism it was not a religion, etc.
My biggest problem in retrospect was the fact that the courses tended to treat religious texts as if they were history! In grade 7 we read (in abridged, summary/retelling) the story of Abraham and other early patriarchs, as they were common to the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions (and hence students parents). Not a word was raised about whether or not these events as told happened (the implicit message was definitely “these are history”). Similarly in grade 9 we read Luke and Acts the same way (this time from the GNB). Ugh!
I have no idea what the new curriculum does, mind, so it may have gotten better. (I have a feeling it is more relativistic/subjectivist, though.)
Smart and sensible decision by the High Court. And that’s great news about your Lecture in London, I very much hope to attend.
I really liked my RE teacher in the small secondary school that I attended in Bourton on the Water in Gloucestershire UK. She had been a prisoner of the Japanese during WW2 and her face was in a permanent smile as a result of a severe bayonet injury. Whatever horrors she endured were mitigated by her faith and strength of character. We never saw eye to eye on the existence of god but she had and always will have my greatest respect as a kind and thoughtful educator who was always willing to listen to all sides of faith, or in my case no faith. Above all, she taught me to reason and for that I am deeply grateful.
Were you ever able to tell her that?
ALL the faith schools will find ways of avoiding the actual teaching of “alternative” world views probably by briefly comparing them with their own faith and demonstrating at length how much better their own faith is to such inferior views.