Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 116 No. 6 £1.50 June 2011 EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE (NASA) This artist’s rendition shows the Cassini spacecraft approaching the planet Saturn and its magnificent rings. The last two items in this issue refer to the origin of the universe, the basics of which we know very little. Is space-time infinite or finite, does it have four or eleven dimensions (string theory)? What is the nature of: ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’? Are there other ‘universes’ out there with which we can have no contact? Religionists will meanwhile employ their ‘God of the gaps’ to plug any gaps in our knowledge of the universe. ANGLO-FRENCH FREETHOUGHT CONFERENCE Catherine Le Fur 3 VIEWPOINTS: David Simmonds, David Ibry, Chris Purnell, Asad Abbas, John Dowdle 10 BOOK REVIEW ‘WHY IS THERE SOMETHING, RATHER THAN NOTHING?’ Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing? by Bede Rundle Christopher Bratcher 15 THE GOD HYPOTHESIS AND RICHARD SWINBURNE Barbara Smoker 17 NEW ACQUISITIONS TO THE HUMANIST LIBRARY Cathy Broad 19 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 20 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8031/4 Fax: 020 7242 8036 www.ethicalsoc.org.uk Chairman: Jim Herrick Vice-chairman: Ed McArthur Registrar: Andrew Copson Treasurer: Chris Bratcher Editor: Norman Bacrac Please email texts and viewpoints for the Editor to: [email protected] Staff Chief Executive Officer: Jim Walsh Tel: 020 7242 8031/4 [email protected] Administrator: Martha Lee Tel: 020 7242 8031/4 [email protected] Finance Officer: Linda Alia Tel: 020 7242 8031/4 [email protected] Librarian: Catherine Broad Tel: 020 7242 8037 [email protected] Programme Co-ordinator: Ben Partridge Tel: 020 7242 8034 [email protected] Lettings Officer: Carina Dvorak Tel: 020 7242 8032 [email protected] Caretakers: Eva Aubrechtova (i/c) Tel: 020 7242 8033 [email protected] together with: Angelo Edrozo, Alfredo Olivo, Rogerio Retuerna, Cagatay Ulker Maintenance Operative: Zia Hameed Obituary We regret to report the death, aged 91, of former Appointed Lecturer at the Ethical Society Professor Richard Scorer. A fuller obituary will appear in the next issue of the Ethical Record. BACK NUMBERS OF THE ETHICAL RECORD Back numbers of the journal are now available to readers. One year’s issues (usually 10 or 11 issues) may be purchased for £10 post free. Contact the Administrator, specifying the years in which you are interested. TH THE 5 EDITION OF HUMANISM (2008) A new, revised and updated 80-page edition of Barbara Smoker’s classic book Humanism (for secondary schools and as a general introduction to this important subject) has been published by the South Place Ethical Society. The cover price is £6.50, but is £5.00 (post free) to members of SPES and to anyone for orders of 10 or more copies. ISBN 978 0 902368 25 5 5th Edition Copies of Barbara Smoker’s previous book, Freethoughts (239 pages) are still available from SPES @ £10, post free. 2 Ethical Record, June 2011 ANGLO-FRENCH FREETHOUGHT CONFERENCE Catherine Le Fur Speech given at Conway Hall, Saturday 14 May 2011 I bring you the warmest greetings of the National Federation of Free Thought and I would like to thank first our friends from the Freethought History Research Group for organizing this conference because as you imagine, even though it’s called an Anglo-French conference, they had to handle the ‘intendance’, as we say in France and we hope it will be soon possible for us to welcome you in Paris for a French-Anglo conference. I would like to say that I’m very moved to speak in this prestigious place, so symbolic and full of history. The prospect of rebuilding a new Freethought International in Oslo in August 2011 will lead me to: I come back to the origins of Freethought and emphasize how total separation between Church and State has been part of every struggle for freedom of conscience; II explain why the French 1905 separation law between Church and State, which is the most complete form of the separation, is not a Gallic oddity, as some try to portray it, but a valuable model; III lastly I will demonstrate that a new and authentic International of Freethought is a urgent and pressing necessity. That’s what we want to start in Oslo this summer: rekindle the heritage of the historical 1904 Congress, that of Charles Bradlaugh and Ferdinand Buisson. The Origins of Freethought Movements The first groups of freethinkers arose around 1860 in Europe (France, Great Britain), putting the question of the struggle for freedom of conscience and for the total emancipation of mankind at the heart of the debate. They rooted this in the Enlightenment. If you look at some texts, written centuries ago, you will be surprised at their modernity and enduring relevance. In his 1689 Letter concerning Toleration, John Locke explains that it’s necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. This is already the question of the separation of church and state, the heart of all the democratic demands in every revolution. This question will be also at the heart of the Bill of Rights, imposed upon the British monarchy by the Glorious Revolution in 1689, in support of the struggle against absolutism and for freedom. In 1713 the words freethought and freethinker appeared for the first time in A discourse of free-thinking by British philosopher Anthony Collins. For him, the freethinker can’t be just an atheist – even if he is one, of course, but it’s too simplistic. “Ignorance is the foundation of atheism and freethought is the remedy”, said Collins, giving the whole dimension of self liberation and self education of Freethought. Nearly one century later, the American revolution put the separation of church and state at the heart of the 1789 Bill of Rights with the first amendment Ethical Record, June 2011 3 of the American constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. A few years before, James Madison, one of the Founding Fathers, a member of the Virginia Revolutionary Convention, had tried to disestablish the Church of England in Virginia and to clear the way for an amendment which guaranteed freedom of religion for everybody. Finally in September 1794, the French Revolution, drawing on the English and American revolutions, abolished by decree the Church’s budget and on 21 February 1795, the Thermidor Convention confirmed this separation by a vote on freedom of worship. A few years later, in 1848, the Printemps des Peuples set all Europe alight. The first organized freethinkers’ gatherings appeared. The first world power at this time, England, was at the forefront of this movement. English freethinkers were to leave a mark in the struggle for secularism and republicanism all around the world. In the 1850s, many groups coming from Chartism turned to Freethought and the perspective of a national association arose across the Channel. After some attempts, in 1866, Charles Bradlaugh founded the National Secular Society. The way was clearly marked out: promote human happiness, fight religion as an obstacle, abolish all barriers, and promote Freethought. Throughout his life, Charles Bradlaugh struggled with all his strength for the separation of church and state and for a Republic in Great Britain. In France, the Democratic Society of Freethinkers arose in 1848 but after the December 2nd 1851 coup d’état, its members were scattered. Many found refuge in Belgium, London, Jersey, Switzerland or America where they carried on with their democratic propaganda. And that’s why many December-2nd exiles are among the founders of the International Workingmen’s Association in London in 1864, with Marx, Bakunin and Engels. The Paris Commune Of 1871 In 1871, during the Commune of Paris, the freethinkers were the most dynamic republicans and the most determined revolutionaries. Remember that the Commune of Paris established the separation of Church and State and abolished the worship budget. You will find again the same ‘forty-eighters’ in the Union Army in the United States during the Secession War. Our common friend Fred Whitehead from Kansas City, USA completed a huge and remarkable work about this period. Those veterans, who had to go into exile after the crushing of those 1848 revolutions in Europe, knew perfectly the price of the division and the fragmentation of a nation. They left for the United States because it was, at the time, one of the few countries which had adopted the republican form of the state. Defending the Union naturally became their main objective. 4 Ethical Record, June 2011 American freethinkers figured prominently at the head of the Union Army. General Ulysses Grant wrote in his memoirs: If a Church established its own laws above the state laws and if both are in conflict, we must fight against this pretentiousness and this must be abolished at any price. Speaking to the veterans of the Tennessee army, he added: “Let us always keep Church and State separated!” How relevant these words remain today! This struggle for the separation of Church and State became the foundation of the freethinkers union in all continents; it became the banner of the gathering at an international scale of all those who work for a total freedom of conscience and for the total emancipation of mankind.