Greenwich waterfront

Humanistic reforms of the British Army and Royal Navy: the 1800’s & 1900’s
Up until the late 1800’s, it was still commonplace to house soldiers in public houses and taverns rather than purpose-built barracks. When barracks were built, no washing facilities were provided. Toilets were in the form of a bucket at the end of each room. This bucket would be emptied out at the start of the morning and used to carry rations back to the barrack rooms.

Food was poor. Meat was often of poor quality, if not rotten. Vegetables were rarely provided, as was fruit. Bread, cheese and stale water were the most common items on daily menus.

Officer commissions in the army were purchased, most typically by the landed gentry, the money going to provide pensions to said gentry in later life. Service length for members of the army, navy and marines was typically life or until “worn out”. Punishments for even petty and minor offences were severe, in most cases flogging and in some cases hanging.

From the late 1850’s army reforms grew apace. The Crimean war and Indian mutinies had forced the Army to rethink some of its policies regarding its troops. Sickness and disease had caused the army to alter its medical services completely.

The quality of leadership in the British Army came under increased scrutiny. Commission by purchase ended in 1871 and more men were commissioned from the ranks. Proper messes were established to allow for better food to be provided to soldiers and officers alike.

Naval reforms started after the mutinies of the Napoleonic wars. Such mutinies developed due to poor pay (which had not changed since Cromwellian times), appalling food (which led to long-term bouts of scurvy and beriberi on many occasions) and overly severe discipline. Most demands were met due to the very restrained behaviour of the mutineers and the general legitimacy of their demands.

Humanist faith (for loss of a better word) within the Armed Forces of today
UK forces still have a heavy Christian bias. Its members are still required to attend church services on a semi-regular basis. There are at present no Humanist Officiants in UK forces. A Humanist who objects to compulsory attendance of religious services has to write a letter to his or her commanding officer requesting an exemption from said services. There is no guarantee that such an exemption will be given, especially if the commanding officer is himself or herself a practising Christian.

This is the general state of Humanism in UK forces. Until more Humanists enter the Armed Forces and Humanism is more understood by UK forces, this is how it will remain.

The revelation that our military personnel are made to attend religious services was thought utterly distasteful. But perhaps humanists should remember that warfare and religion are really bedfellows. The language of war slips easily into the pulpit where much is made of phrases like, ‘Christian soldiers’, ‘war against evil’, ‘fighting the devil’, ‘the sword or righteousness’.

To those readers who have assigned God to the trash bin of childhood fantasy An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Atheism makes reassuring reading. To the less fortunate who still cling to God and his entourage of angels, the book will certainly make them think and it may nudge some along the road to atheistic enlightenment. The difficulty will be to get them to read it!

Daniel Harbour studied mathematics and philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford. He wrote this book while studying for his Ph.D. in linguistics at MIT which perhaps explains his refreshingly youthful approach to the subject. He deals with atheism in a wholly positive way, arguing so strongly for atheism that theism does not need the usual polemic of attack, it simply fades away as a completely inferior way of thought.

The author reminds us that all past attempts to prove God’s existence from the Arguments of First Cause or Design and attempts to disprove it from the Argument of Suffering have missed the point. Such arguments are boring and futile and nobody believes them anyway. He tells us he will neither try to prove that atheism is true nor that theism is wrong. He will rather try to show that atheism is superior to theism. And this he does with tremendous vigour. Atheists need no longer be accommodating; they should wear their colours with pride for they have obviously chosen the superior road to truth. The desire to explain is a deeply rooted quality of the human condition. We are ignorant and we deplore ignorance. To become less ignorant is a strong human desire and much of the history of human intellectual development has been in creating models to explain everything we encounter. The explanations we come up with will depend on our worldview, our basic assumptions about ourselves and our world, the starting points from which explanation grows. From our worldview we generate all those familiar explanations, ranging from the simple laws of physics to the complex creation myths. Our ‘explanations’ ultimately depend on and are subservient to our underlying worldview. Daniel Harbour proposes that two fundamental worldviews, Spartan meritocracy and Baroque monarchy, have driven people into adopting completely opposing attitudes to the idea of God. The first requires few basic concepts, selecting and modifying them on the basis of merit, thus allowing a full flowering of scientific ideas and no room whatsoever for God. The second is full of ornate ideas governed with dogmatic monarchical intransigence allowing little scope for freedom of thought, a fertile ground for God and a host of religious practices. This is a clever way of exposing the polarities of thought which prompt people in their search for truth and goes some way to clarify why some people (Baroque monarchists) can easily adhere to those ancient white bearded father myths, so easily dismissed by Spartan meritocracy, the clearly superior worldview. Daniel Harbour applies his worldview ideas not only to the more philosophical questions of atheism but also to practical ethical and moral questions and shows how superior atheism is in these matters. On this subject he says, “The question is not 'How can you be moral without God?', it is 'How can you be moral with him?'”. He takes the discussion still further into the practical affairs of man; politics is scrutinised. Democratic governments must be atheistic if they are to be fair, just and moral – (Tony Blair and George Bush note!).

Scientific ideas which can flourish so easily in a climate of Spartan meritocracy could only emerge as distortions in Baroque monarchy. Totalitarian communism under Stalin, for all its supposed atheism, was a Baroque monarchy; it was fundamentally dogmatic and showed its intolerance of non-compliance through a programme of mass murder and the promotion of Lysenkoism, a travesty of science. Similarly, in Islamic science, insistence on dogma generates merely an alternative science which is not science at all.

Daniel Harbour proceeds to explore all aspects of human behaviour in a systematic step by relentless step approach, not to prove atheism but to show how it is simply a far superior way of thinking than theism. On probabilistic grounds I think he is right!

People are so addicted to the idea of certainty that they sometimes forget that every explanation or truth must be tentative and assigned a probability. When told we are going to die in six months from a terminal cancer we need hardly be reminded that the doctor’s assertion is a statement of probability. When the priest tells the suicide bomber that he will soon be with God in paradise readers of An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Atheism will have no difficulty in concluding that the probability of such a likelihood is infinitesimal. They probably already knew that before they read the book, but Daniel Harbour tells his story so well. I strongly recommend his book to you.

"I don't believe in Santa Claus. It's your dad." With this somewhat ungrammatical statement many of us take our first steps in overcoming fiction-as-science. Much further on in life many of us have progressed from belief in God to belief in mankind. The difference is stark. It is reflected in our EHA use of words such as religion, science, humanism which, though grammatical, may offend those who are conservative in matters of definition. Historically religion and humanism were considered as being far from incompatible - the renaissance humanists were Christian. In an important sense though theism is now outdated in our scientific era: and religion is outdated for present day humanists. For me personally the primary stark difference, learnt only recently, is between subjectivity and objectivity. At its simplest we can represent relations (that require special communication) as existing between us as individuals or between us and the human world in which we live:

Consequently a further stark difference is found to exist between theism and humanism. This finds an echo in the review by Anthony Constable of Daniel Harbour's book "An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism" where atheism, a term with overtones which are too negative for some, is I am sure used in an unmistakably positive manner.

There are no present prospects of expert advice, it seems, on the subjective aspects of humanism. We can be grateful that objective humanist advice at least is forthcoming from several quarters. Being expert on one aspect only is the most likely position for us all and contributions of either kind are of course welcome at Coffee Mornings or on paper to the Bulletin. Subjective ones are especially needed, though, to reverse a reputation for being unwelcoming to enquirers.

All of us have unsorted thoughts - some subjective, some objective - in messages to others. Being expert on one aspect only is rare enough: but on both ... that would seem to be impossible.

A picture of the Greenwich waterfront can be seen near the top of the web page and a picture of the Cutty Sark at Greenwich to your right here >>>

Raymond knew the way to our immediate destination - the TrafalgarTavern - which is literally on the water's edge. The building, impressive and in good condition, was built in 1837 and would have been a very desirable residence in that location. There were later vicissitudes in store for it however.

Although it was now getting on for mid-afternoon we were able to find a lunch table next to a large window overlooking the southern bend of the Thames. The food was of the best - and the talking too, naturally. A background paper for tabling for the next EHA committee and the first welcoming card for special groups of EHA newcomers were approved by all present. (The suggested card though was blackballed subsequently by our lost companion, as was possibly only to be expected.)

Postponing a visit to The Queen's House, at some distance back from the river, we wandered back to the village along the water's edge and then had a good look at the "Cutty Sark", built as a tea-clipper in 1869 and looking in great shape. She used to ply between London and Ceylon during a long life in the intended capacity.

Before regaining the station we spent some time variously taking afternoon tea or browsing in a bookshop as our respective culminations to a - mostly - pleasant summery afternoon. John Bennett

For the Ealing Humanist, science (objectivity) is not enough
In introducing the topic, Raymond Carlisle first addressed the promise he had made at the previous meeting, concerning the gist of some ideas described piecemeal in the past. Alex Hill had implied, with general agreement, that only a small fraction of them were understood within the Association. However the ideas were now summarised in a brief appendix to the booklet "Combined Humanism in Ealing" which was soon to appear. This appendix, in two parts, was read in draft and comments recorded.

"Part (1) Total Personal Awareness" was contrasted, by Arthur Atkinson, to a report on recent personality research¹. The emphasis he favoured was expressed: "Poor Tony Blair has put his trust in God and God has let him down. Let us live without religion and let us persuade people of that". Specifically Arthur disagreed with the inclusion of material from dreams in any meaningful consideration of personal awareness. John Bennett saw nothing in the first part he would object to and Tony Constable made suggestions on choice of words, here and later, which were incorporated in a new draft.

On "(2) Subjective versus Objective Awareness" Tony remarked that both aspects were needed and rationality was needed for both. John added that nothing one communicates can be purely objective. The data is objective, opined Tony, and the interpretation is subjective. Arthur said one can go from one outlook to another.

Humanism and philosophy
Maggie Adams, and most others present, in a proposal showed interest from John for a Thursday meeting devoted to this subject. Several possible topics were considered for inclusion.

Appendix B
From a draft of "Appendix B. Ealing-speak" some quotations were made, including "Theism - A confusion of subjective and objective that sees a supra-human source of revelation in the universe."