Atheists and Humanists: Contribution to Society

Baroness Turner of Camden Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend for introducing this debate and for the manner in which he did so. I am myself a secularist and a humanist. I was not always so: my mother was a Roman Catholic and I was baptised in that religion. I gradually grew away from it in my teens, became a supporter of humanism and have remained so.

I respect others who continue to adhere to their religions; that is a matter for them. My objections occur only when religious hierarchies attempt to impose their beliefs on those who do not share them. We saw some evidence of that during our discussions on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. We nevertheless went on to adopt it by a large majority. Humanists supported the Bill, but then most of us have been very concerned about the opposition to and frequent persecution of gay, lesbian and trans-sex people. We are delighted that the passage of the Bill indicates that we have moved on from the days of discrimination, and that era is over—at least, we hope so.

It is characteristic of humanism to believe in equality and good will between people, and therefore to be active in campaigns for human rights. It is gratifying to reflect on the improvements in women’s rights that have been made in this country during the past century. Many of the major religions—although by no means all—have opposed the campaigns that achieved these advances. Certain religions are still extraordinarily bad about women's rights. In this country, we have an equality law. I would oppose any attempts to introduce Sharia law or practice, which is sometimes suggested. Our law is paramount. It is intended to protect women. I do not agree that culture or religion should prevent us from attempting to intervene.

One particular case about which a number of us feel strongly is that of FGM—female genital mutilation. It is against our law but there have been no prosecutions so far, although it is known that it damages thousands of women. Culture and religion should not get in the way of seeing that basic human rights prevail. That is what I hope will happen with FGM.

Unfortunately, despite the commitment of secular, atheistic and humanistic people to human rights, we are often attacked. Attention is sometimes drawn to despotic leaders who have claimed to be atheistic. Many of these depots, of course, were adherents of their particular religions, but their religions are not blamed for their misdeeds. Stalin is often cited as an example of a tyrant who was an atheist. Of course, he was originally trained as a priest and converted only late in his teens when his training had been completed. Many believe, as do I, that his earlier training conditioned his approach to politics, so you had a political line that could not be crossed because otherwise there would be damnation or worse. That was how Stalin conducted his politics.

When I was very young and I loved poetry, the writer I loved was Shelley, a wonderful poet and of course a writer who supported atheism, much to his own disadvantage. My noble friend Lord Morgan has already referred to a number of historically significant people who were also atheist and set examples to us all. However, there of course continue to be attacks upon secularists and atheists from time to time. Typical of these are some of the criticisms of Richard Dawkins, someone whom I personally admire. He has written successful books attacking religious beliefs, but not people. He has also written movingly about the Bible, the King James version, acknowledging its cultural significance and also praising the beauty of its language. Nevertheless, he is often attacked as some kind of atheistic extremist, which I think is very unfair.

As I have indicated, secularists and atheists continue to play a major role in social affairs, in opposition to discrimination and in favour of human rights. There have been some successes. We should continue with this good work.