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Ethical Record the Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 114 No. 6 21.50 June 2009 TFIE ETHICAL SOCIETY'S EXHIBITION FT—STOTITIC7PI7AZC'E By Saturday 6 June, the exhibition of fossils THI KU. S 0 C I ETY I (some real, soMe copies), selected and arranged, by EVO4Ition'the Finsils Say Yes: Mike l-lowgate, had been set up in the corridor of Conway Hall. Richard Dawkins was i n the building having that morning spoken in the main hall as part of the BHA/SPES day of talks on the theme 'Religion, Humanism and Science'. In Mike's words, 'Richard has graciously Conway Hall foyer Fossil anunonites agreed to open the and drawings by Donald Roonm exhibition'. After cutting a red ribbon, Dawkins agreed the fossils do indeed say 'yes', being tangible, although they were not now the only important evidence for evolution. • In his lecture in the morning, Dawkins had examined in detail the famous dast paragraph of the 1st edition of Darwin's Origin of Species (a copy of which, he said, was his most prized possession — because in its later editions (2nd to 6th) the unscientific phrase `by the Creator' had been inserted after the word 'breathed"into a few forms or into one;'). Dawkins felt, as 1 think we all do, that those three words were added in deference to his wife's belief — [That she would go to Heaven while Charles, if an atheist, would go to Hell {Ed.}]. N. KOREA'S ATOM-BOMB ENRAGES TIIE HYPOCRITES Norman Bacrac RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY AND VIRTUES John Radford 3 IN DEFENCE OF AGNOSTICISM Isaac Ascher 8 Viewpoints: Chris Purnell, John Edmondson, Albert Adler 14 POEM: GUERNICA REVISITED Martin Green 17 THE SCIENCE COLLECTIONS IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY ... Historical and Modern Paul Allchin 18 HUMANIST REFERENCE LIBRARY Some recent acquisitions 23 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC I R 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8031/4 Fax: 020 7242 8036 Website: www.ethiealsoc.org.uk email: [email protected] Chairman: GBes Enders Hon. Rep.: Don Liyersedge Vice-chairman: Terry Mullins Treasurer: John Edwards Registrar: Donald Rooum Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac SPES Staff Chief Executive: Emma J. Stanford Tel: 020 7242 8031/4 Finance Officer: Linda Alia Tel: 020 7242 8031/4 Lettings Officer: Carina Dvorak Tel: 020 7242 8032 Lettings Assistant: Marie Aubrechowa Caretakers: Eva Aubreehtova (i/c); Tel: 020 7242 8033 together with: Shaip Bullaku, Angelo Edrozo, Nikola Ivanovski, Alfredo Ofivio. Rogerio Retuema,Cagatay Ulker, David Wright Maintenance Operative: Zia Hameed NORTH KOREA'S ATOM BOMB ENRAGES THE HYPOCRITES Once again the five nuclear powers, US, Russia, China, UK and France, which consider themselves so morally superior to all others that they alone may continue to maintain weapons of mass destruction, have begun threatening North Korea with sanctions for its effrontery. How dare it produce and test its own bomb and rocket? However, the UK's excuse for renewing our Trident submarines (at a cost of £25 billion) is that 'This is a dangerous world. We do not know what dangers we shall face in the future.' So fbr our security, we need to be able to threaten to nuke any country in the world (within 45 minutes!). Of course this argument is the very one used by the N.Koreans, who must be saying, with more justification, 'We are being threatened. We too need a deterrent.' The five powers have reneged on their treaty obligation to work together for significant nuclear disarmament, contenting themselves with token reductions. They call for non-proliferation by other countries while implying that one can't be great and/or safe without the bomb. Will Obama's fine words get translated into action, as now, in view of the UK's (Blair and Brown's) pathetic failure of statesmanship, only the US can kick-start this urgent process? Otherwise we shall continue to witness steady proliferation (India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, Korea, even Japan? ) until Bertrand Russell's dire calculation of the probability of an eventual nuclear war materialises. NB. See: www.acdn.france.freeldspip/article.php3?id_article=5078dang=en SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Reg. Charity No. 251396 Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aims are: the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, and the advancement of research and education in relevant fields. We invite to membership those who reject supernatural creeds and are in sympathy with our aims. At Conway Hall the programme includes Sunday lectures. discussions, evening courses and the Conway Hall Sunday Concerts of chamber music:The Society maintains a Humanist Reference Library. The Society's journal, Ethical Record, is issued monthly. Memorial meetings may be arranged. The annual subscription is I:18 (£12 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65). 2 Ethical Record, June 2009 RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY AND VIRTUES John Radford Emeritus Professor of Psychology University of East London Lecture to the Ethical Society, 17 May2009 'Religion', 'spirituality' and 'virtues' are often used as if they are inextricably linked, even interchangeable. Vincent Nichols. the new Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, said in The Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2009: 'Britain has increasingly abandoned spiritual and moral principles in favour of Secularism ... social values sudh as compassion, respect and tolerance (will) be lost if disconnected from their roots in Christian teaching'. But many people describe themselves as 'spiritual but not religious', and others would use neither of these but consider themselves 'good', however they express it. There is a danger of thinking that because there is one word, there must be one thing to which it refers. There are various approaches to definition, for example stipulative (stating what one intends the word to mean), lexical (the dictionary version), essential (specifying one distinguishing feature), and operational (what functions or counts as the thing in question). I think the last is the most helpful here. For religion, we need a special kind of operational definition, the polythene, or 'family resemblance'. Religions share some of a family of characteristics, including these: belief in supernatural beings; distinction between sacred and profane; ritual; moral code; religious feelings (awe etc); prayer; a sense of purpose for the individual and the universe; a corresponding organization of life; a social group; doctrine; sacrifice; priesthood; retreat and pilgrimage; myth, legend and history; expression in the arts; spiritual development; mystical experience; iconography; ceremonies and festivals; a formal organization. Some may be necessary conditions for the label 'religious', for example some belief in the supernatural, or religious feelings. l3ut probably no one component would be regarded as sufficient alone. Religions also vary along many dimensions, both between and within themselves. The sacramental orientation emphasizes rituals and procedures. The prophetic stresses faith and personal commitment, the mystical. personal experience. In Christianity. the Roman and Greek churches tend more towards the sacramental. the Protestant ones to the prophetic, and the charismatic ones to the mystical. A fourth dimension is elitism, the extent to which all can participate fully in every aspect of the religion. A fifth is an emphasis on good conduct, rather than procedures, faith or personal experience. What 'Spiritual' Can Mean 'Spiritual', and 'spirituality', are used with several distinguishable meanings. One is 'religious' in a formal sense, as in Lords Spiritual and Temporal. A second is 'not materialistic', but concerned with things of higher value. A third is 'experiential', but in a special sense, in religion 'mystical', but also non-religious as in creating or appreciating great art. Mystics themselves, though, would assert that their experiences are unique in several ways. A fourth sense is belief in, or awareness of, a realm of existence other than that of normal reality. This can also be non-religious. `Spirituality' overlaps with 'virtue'. But this is again different. It refers to one 'thing', a set of desirable human characteristics, such as generosity, courage, devotion, delight, compassion. 'Higher values' surely include aesthetic excellence and supreme Ethical Record, June 2009 3 levels of inspiration. And those who excel at sport report something that is very like a mystical ecstasy. Probably every culture, and every religion, has had an explicit or implicit set of traits considered admirable. They vaty in many ways. One is in stressing benefits either to the individual, or to society. Another is in regarding them as innate qualities of an aristocracy, or attainable in principle by all. Other differences include whether spiritual development can be attained in isolation from society, or within it; whether it occurs only, or better, spontaneously, or through preparation and practice; and of course whether it is or is not divinely inspired. Systems Of Right And Wrong • Many attempts to establish a universal system of what is right and wrong have been religious, in monotheistic systems often handed down by God, as the Ten Commandments were to Moses, and the Qu'ran to Mohammed. A minority of the human race believe each of these particular fairy stories, though probably a majority have some such faith, and each version is defended as the only true one. A second approach is intuitive, as in the American Declaration of Independence: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, etc.' The problem is that it is not self-evident. What the Founding Fathers should have said is that all men ought to be considered equal. (They might also have said 'people'. And the 'truth' did not prevent their owning slaves.) A third approach is the logical, rational one, exemplified by Immanuel Kant's 'categorical imperative'.
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