Are the religious more caring or do they just think they are?
http://bhascience.blogspot.com/2007/10/are-religious-more-caring-or-do-they.html
Norden Farm Arts Centre, Maidenhead.
Nine members of the Berkshire Humanists attended this tribute. Perhaps they were trying to search out why, when she had not been allowed much time to fully prove her worth, she was asked to be the President of the British Humanist Association. Perchance an even bigger mystery was why she accepted the post. On entering the BHA office for the first time she remarked that it was just as she might have imagined it “A dark musty office with a bust of Bertrand Russell”. This being of course before the move to brighter, bigger offices in Gower Street….but Bertrand is still there.
The evening was spent in pleasant reminiscence, certainly of deeper feeling for those present who were avid Radio 4 listeners. The show featured carefully selected cuts of Linda’s comedy in audio and visual clips from shows such as ‘News Quiz’; ‘Just A Minute’; ‘I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue’; ‘A Brief History of Time Wasting’; ‘Have I Got News For You’; ‘Room 101’.(Pet hate ….”Adults reading Harry Potter”). TV extracts shown included an interview with Dawn French to get to the roots of her humour. Readings from her scripts and books and anecdotes from her partner Warren Lakin (the show compare) illustrated that she was a worthy winner of “Wittiest person of the Year” but also the more important deep thought and intelligent observation that made her truly brilliant. The best illustration of this being her parody script of the split between the eastern and western blocks of Europe being just like a long married couple in a prolonged slanging match.
Kate Rutter, a long-time friend from Sheffield days, had her voice and mannerisms well mimicked for extracts from her gigs and Mike McCarthy was a most suitable foil for her humour taking on the role of Columbo in the staged analysis of why Linda admired TV programs and particularly detective ones. The pianist and singer which bridged the interval did not please everyone with their choice of Linda’s songs, except to say that the words were very important to Linda. Her fastidious attention to detail in preparation for performance was also documented and showed the way that she approached life seriously enabling her to pick out for others what really matters in life. Above all we were graphically reminded that the roots of her inherited intellect and humour were political, blossoming in her university days and at gigs in support of the miners’ strike.
Her brief time in Humanism was highlighted following her appearance on R4’s “Devout Sceptics” in which she said “God IS human creativity”. This showed members of the BHA executive and trustees how much ‘in tune’ she was with Humanist mode of thinking. One would like to think that IF there WERE a god it was possible that he created her as a ‘balancing gesture’ for his creation of Margaret Thatcher.
“Learning the many faces of humanism” is the title of an article on the Ekklesia website. It discusses from a religious (post christendom) perspective the new syllabus with Humanism as part of a Religious Studies GCSE under new proposals from the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations board (OCR).
The Picture shows the tabletop display that was used on Thurs
8th May in the foyer of Norden Farm Arts centre, Maidenhead. This was the occasion of the ‘Celebrating Linda Smith’ evening which was the BH May meeting (separately reviewed). It’s purpose was to attract visitors to the piles of Humanist leaflets on the table, including BH and BHA flyers. This purpose was adequately met.
The display consists of two glass fronted picture frames hinged together.
If you know of any other suitable site for this display anywhere in Berkshire- library, workplace, school, shop, clubhouse etc and can obtain permission for it to be placed on a table for just a short period, please contact our secretary. Delivery, setting up, leaflets,and collection will be arranged for you. We are not insured but are prepared to take the risks. All that we need is the name and telephone number of a contact , the relevant permission and a medium sized table. Why not print out a copy of the photo from this page if it helps you to obtain permission? You can phone 01189476477 to discuss.
Unless of course you are a Humanist!
The Bracknell news recently reported a surge in young people wanting to join local Scout groups. According to the article the Scout leader Mr Prower, is quoted as saying:
We’re always looking for more people – if I had volunteers I could open another Beaver pack tomorrow.
Leaders get so much out of Scouting, being able to help these youngsters develop and seeing the look on their faces when they are enjoying themselves makes it all worthwhile.
However as members of our group and the BHA are aware the Scout Association in the UK does not accept volunteers who are Humanist. One of the pre-requisites is that all Scouts and Scout Leaders, must take the Scout promise which is:
On My Honour, I promise that I will do my best
To do my duty to God and to the Queen,
To help other people
And to keep the Scout Law
Clearly the requirement to make a promise to God would be unacceptable to most Humanists although a good many would like to support the otherwise positive experience the Scouts offer. Remarkably it doesn’t need to be a specific God, any god will do. Pagans, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, or Hindu’s are all welcomed.
The BHA has long campaigned for Scouts to be a fully inclusive organisation and accept people of all faiths and none. A simple modification to the promise which holds meaning to those of no religion or faith would be a very simple and reasonable accommodation.
According to the BHA:
We have been informed by a member of the Scout Association that atheists are welcome as Associate Members - that is, they can volunteer to help without taking The Promise. However, people wanting to be a Scoutmaster or a Scout still have to promise to serve a god.
- BHA Web Site
We continue to call for the Scout Association to allow a change in their rules in order for Humanists to make a positive contribution to the community.
If you have been affected by the issues raised here we would like to hear from you, or you can post comments in response to this item.
Compared with our previous site, this version opens up the possibility of much more interaction between members of Berkshire Humanists and other site visitors. Turning that possibility into a dynamic and fruitful exchange of ideas on Humanism and current events of interest to both Humanists and our wider audience, depends mostly on the enthusiasm with which site visitors make use of the facilities now offered.
We can show that Humanists can have divergent views on many things while agreeing pretty well on the essentials of a Humanist outlook and we can show that we can discuss our differences in a civilized manner and sometimes even change our minds.
Congratulations to the team that has put this venture together and especially to our new Webmaster. Let’s make their efforts worthwhile by frequently visiting the site.
David J Williams
President, Berkshire Humanists
This ease of interaction is a facility first developed for blogging sites and is made open to us and all free subscribers by WORDPRESS. You can feedback wherever you see a comments symbol. There are separate and prominent links to our own DISCUSSION FORUM and a FACEBOOK group that has been started by Rob Ede our Webmaster He comments:
“Visitors can navigate using the simple side bar menu navigation menus as well as the top menus. Visitors or other humanist groups can also subscribe to our news pages using an Internet technology which allows syndication of what we write. These are called RSS feeds”.
Rob and a few others will use RSS feeds (some of them giving automatic feeds from the local press) and other searches to bring you rolling up-to-date news on a page that will be of interest both locally and nationally to Berkshire Humanist. So we hope that you will soon want to be regular visitors and will gradually start to feed to us articles and items that you have found of interest to us all. It is your site, and will include your beliefs, views, suggestions and a chance to discuss and persuade others. We continue to need copyright free photos of events, people and situations which are relevant locally and to the articles that appear. The existing PDF and doc electronic newsletter will cease to have any separate usefulness after a while and will close, but the paper newsletter which will consist of edited extracts from the website will continue to be posted on the first of each month for our non computer members.
“All news items posted to the site are stored in a database so they can be found easily using the search function as well as in the archives page, which allows you to select news articles by month or by a category classification such as announcements, education, editorial, etc. Other features include a feedback form and the ability to include video clips from YouTube as well as incorporate pictures more easily.”
Podcasts are coming also for those who prefer the spoken word and its added feelings. The website will continue to change and develop after its opening, there WILL BE ERRORS so please be patient with us, but you can help by regular visiting and POSTING. We gratefully acknowledge the donation by our Webmaster to cover hosting costs for the new web-site, now - its success depends largely on YOUR response.
