Raymond Carlisle has edited the EHA Bulletin for about six years and has now decided to step down from this important office. We want to thank him for a remarkable record of reliability and hard editorial work. It is not at all easy to put a Bulletin like this together every month without failure but he has done so through a grand total of 77 Bulletins.

We have no immediate volunteers to replace him and will try to keep the Bulletin going until such time as we do. Committee and other members will cooperate to provide material and we will endeavour to maintain what has become the recognised format for this publication.

The Bulletin provides the means for our small organisation to declare many things to the outside world: It tells people we exist, we meet regularly, we discuss numerous matters, we have executive officers, we have a website and we have a brief programme of future events. It also provides summaries of our regular meetings and publishes extracts and comments on items drawn from the world at large.

Until such time as a new editor comes forward, I want to thank Raymond Carlisle for his past efforts and the whole Committee for their continued work on behalf of The Ealing Humanist Association.

Katrina has left a trail of broken homes and broken lives just as her namesake, the original 4th century Catherine wheel, aimed to break every bone in Catherine’s body. We are aware that natural disasters of this sort are often claimed to be the punishment of God for the sins of the wicked. I suspect this disaster was altogether too close to home for America’s born-again Christians to make such claims.

The enormity of the New Orleans tragedy and the political farce of blame and counter blame occurred at a time when over a thousand lives were lost in Baghdad as panic broke out during a pilgrimage which started with joyful ceremonials and ended in tears of mourning. In both cases, humanists unreservedly sympathise with the victims and with the survivors who have lost their friends, homes, belongings, health and dignity. As the next hurricane, Rita, gathers momentum it is worth reflecting that catastrophe is no new experience for the human race.

In order to survive, stranded people must, on occasion, resort to pilfering food, water and clothing and no system of morality should condemn their actions. However, the total breakdown of law and order in New Orleans was an opportunity for some of humanity’s worst impulses to rise rapidly to the surface as the gun-toting thugs quickly turned the pilfering of necessity into the looting of opportunistic greed.

The topic of terrorism has been with us for a very long time but it has a special significance now with the current tendency for terrorists to declare their adherence to the Moslem faith and their belief that their murderous acts provide them with a guaranteed route to paradise. Some Islamic scholars have condoned their outrageous acts and encouraged their communities to treat these young men as heroes and, more importantly, as martyrs. Thus theology plays a most important part in modern Islamic terrorism.

Martyrdom is a traditional response from religious people when, under the threat of persecution, they yearn to die for their faith. Theologians have praised the actions of martyrs and, by declaring their sanctity, have tacitly condoned their actions. The storybook martyrs do not kill themselves but, by refusing to deny their faith, they put themselves into the hands of their persecutors who carry out the deed of dispatching them to paradise. This type of martyrdom is compatible with religious indoctrination, though it is strongly driven by an acquired fanaticism.

Modern (Islamic) terrorism also is driven by religious fanaticism and also draws on the ancient religious tradition of martyrdom. However, it moves into a wholly new direction when the ‘martyrs’ go to their deaths while carrying out horrendous acts of murder and suicide.

Thus, these terrorists are martyrs to their own supporters but they are simply suicide bombers to the world at large.

Before looking further into the current wave of terrorism, it may be instructive to recall the extraordinary events that occurred between about 1880 and 1910 when anarchists assassinated King Humbert I of Italy, King Alphonso XIII of Spain, the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, Tsar Alexander II of Russia, President Carnot of France, President McKinley of the USA and dozens of civilians, all with the intention to overthrow government. They claimed the law was simply designed to protect big property owners and wealthy businessmen and the world would be a better place without the law and the governments that upheld it. Making and exploding bombs became an active underground occupation and police forces faced similar problems then as they do today when trying to track down the terrorists and the origins of their sources of chemical supplies. In 1907 Joseph Conrad wrote a highly readable novel entitled "The Secret Agent" inspired by the failed attempt to blow up Greenwich Observatory in 1894. Reading this book today one can’t help noticing the parallels between the anarchists’ acts of terrorism and those of modern Islamic suicide bombers. However, there is a notable difference; the anarchists were against any form of government while the Islamic terrorists want only governments supporting the divine law of Allah. Young radical Moslems may well be outraged at the behaviour of corrupt world leaders who interfere in their countries and who have cruelly destroyed the infrastructure of Iraq. Millions of westerners are equally outraged. But, by carrying out such gruesome murders on city streets, the Islamic terrorists are in danger of demonstrating that their own belief system is even more corrupt.

Strong religious education of the young sows the seed for absolute belief systems (The “I am right, you are wrong” approach) which develops into religious self-righteousness. It is then only a short step for fanatical teachers to persuade vulnerable young minds into the flawed thinking of the suicide bomber. In simple communities where people are steeped in their religion, youngsters who are unknown and unsung become heroes, saints and martyrs after their deaths.

Whatever the ultimate aim of Islamic terrorism, it certainly achieves the objective of striking fear into the minds of people and of government leaders. We can only hope that, like the anarchists before them, the current trend will fall out of fashion. Its eventual disappearance will probably not be significantly influenced by the 200 odd bits of new government legislation now appearing on the statute books - just as was the case 100 years ago.

Anthony Constable

The discussion was introduced by Tony Constable who thought it would be easy to condemn the whole of Islam for the attacks in London in July: the ‘blame culture’ when a minority of fanatics are responsible. However, the actions of those few are due to Islam and the way it is taught. A hundred years ago anarchists assassinated several royal personages such as Tsar Alexander II, but whereas they aimed at abolishing the state, the Islamist fanatics aim at establishing an Islamic state. The glorious route to Paradise via suicide and martyrdom, not sanctioned by the Quran but found in ancillary texts, first appeared in recent times in 1963 in Palestine. The seeds are sown in the classroom: the coercive methods used there must be abandoned if progress is to be made. At present opponents are branded as “devils”, while waverers are intimidated and cannot voice their doubts. Salman Rushdie has called for a Reformation.

Subsequent discussion covered the utopian element in terrorism; the political element, always difficult to disentangle from religion, as in Northern Ireland. Is the current wave of suicide-bombings a fashion which will soon pass away? Where and when will it end? The next stage may be chemical/biological weapons, say the police: we have been warned. A dirty nuclear bomb, i.e. a conventional bomb which could release radiation, can easily be made: it would devastate a square mile of central London, making it uninhabitable for a year or so. What happened to the concept of the “Just War”?

It was suggested by one of our visitors that the word "terrorist" is in need of revision to include the perpetrators of the devastating bombing of civilians, their homes and their institutions, with highly sophisticated weapons. Such wanton destruction deserves to be called terrorism. Some satisfaction was felt with this revised definition but it was not considered an adequate reason for terrorist acts or for the widespread practice of fanatical religious teachers to train young Muslims into the acts of violence we have so recently witnessed.

Charles Rudd

Humanists are often asked how they can possibly be moral while having no place in their lives for God. Humanists confidently assert that morality has nothing to do with the concept of God and wonder why religious people ignore the crimes committed on behalf of religion and fail to take into account the guilt and misery imposed upon human beings when deviating from their religious norms. To the humanist, the lack of religion is a surer path to morality. The author, Richard Holloway, once Bishop of Edinburgh and former Gresham Professor of Divinity, also suggests that we should view morality, like civil law, as an essentially human affair.

The book covers a wide range of topics and the author endeavours to show that religion itself is in many ways a hindrance to morality. He acknowledges that religious people often make great efforts to lead moral lives. But he also points out that religion continues to use ‘punishment in the after-life’ as a stick to drive home the moral message. ‘Take away the punishment and morality vanishes’, or so goes the religious view.

Non-believers sincerely decide not to accept the so-called truths of religion - the multiplicity of curious stories, miracles and revelations on which religions are based and the complex theological arguments which are invented by way of explanation. It is profoundly difficult to find truth in any of this. And, for some people, the quest for truth is itself an essential ingredient of the pursuit of morality. Richard Holloway’s book makes provocative reading but is easy to understand for the committed humanist.

Reviewed by Anthony Constable

After the committee meeting our small group proceeded to South Kensington where we had a very pleasant lunch at the Polish restaurant. As always, it was a leisurely affair with much interesting discussion - so interesting that we had to hurry to the Natural History Museum for our timed slot at the Darwin Centre. The Darwin Centre is one of the leading natural history research establishments in the world - it is new, purpose-built and has a strict security regime. Our small group was augmented by four other people and we were greeted by a charming Chinese young lady who introduced herself as a scientist employed in the centre. We all donned our white coats and our guide proceeded to take us to various areas on four floors for what had to be only a fleeting glimpse of selected specimens (there are over 200,000 specimens in the building with around 200 scientists doing research there). It was particularly interesting to see some of Darwin's own specimens from the Beagle voyage, in their original glass containers together with his written labels. As Darwin was on very bad terms with the then Director of the Natural History Museum, these specimens came into the collection from a third party. It was very cool in some of the rooms, the temperatures had to be at specific levels for the specimens, and all rooms had two automatic entrance and exit doors with a space in between. The most interesting exhibits were in the water vertebrate section on the ground floor. Apart from specimen glass containers of all sizes, there were also large tanks for specimens of considerable bulk (such as the shark family and other large aquatics). They even had a full size Coelacanth in very good condition (these fish live at enormous depths: we were informed that it probably came near the surface because of illness).

This wasn't the biggest surprise. In the centre of this very large room was an enormous tank covered completely by dark plastic sheets. Our scientist guide explained rather proudly that the tank contained a Giant Squid. We were flabbergasted - these creatures also live at enormous depths and are rarely seen, never mind caught! As it is still rather 'hush hush' our guide had no other information about the creature. However, in a few months time after the scientists have done all their investigations, the giant squid will be on show to the public. This will no doubt be a major attraction and well worth a visit in its own right.

That was the culmination of our little conducted tour of this marvellous research establishment and we then retired to one of our favourite tea-rooms nearby in West Kensington to discuss the most interesting visit we have had for some time.

John Bennett

Which are the biggest problems facing mankind today? Most experts would mention environmental problems (such as climate change, dwindling resources, water shortage, deforestation, disappearing plant and animal species, pollution) as well as political/ religious/ ideological ones (such as wars, acts of terrorism, suppression of basic freedoms, inequality, poverty). One equally serious problem however is rarely mentioned by politicians and industrialists and even by many environmental campaigners: the dangers of unchecked population growth. Yet this is a problem which directly or indirectly affects many of the other problems mentioned above: scarce resources will disappear faster if more people are using them; more people will release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which will have an unpredictable but potentially very dangerous effect on temperature and climate; shortage of water, food and energy will affect a greater proportion of mankind; and disputes about resources may increase the risk of war.

So why do so many people who ought to know better ignore the problems of unrestrained population increase? No doubt they are afraid to offend so many different shades of opinion; controlling population growth is not a popular idea with most religious and political groups. Greedy capitalists see population control as an obstacle to profitable economic growth; imperialists and militarists see it as an undesirable limit to the size of their armed forces; many theists see it as contradictory to god's command to propagate as well as promoting the evils of contraception and abortion; followers of various cults and ideologies (including some anarchists and some feminists) see it as undermining their absolute right to produce as much offspring as they like; trendy lefties see it as something opposing their sacred concept of multiculturalism, where any questioning of immigration (which nowadays in the UK and in many other European countries is responsible for more than half of the population growth) or large families is tantamount to racism.

There aren't many people left after deducting all those categories mentioned above. Yet it is so obvious that more people require more resources, and that in our finite world the supply of resources is not infinite. It is high time that this problem is taken more seriously, not just by a few enlightened individuals but by politicians and the masses who vote for them.

Alex Hill

This gathering was, quite unexpectedly, held at the home of John Bennett. Only four members turned up but the discussion and debate were as lively as ever. One member thought Darwin was merely a figment of the imagination but others, quite wisely, thought differently. The question of creationism arose once again and discussion centred around an article from a recent issue of the Times Higher Educational Supplement. This referred to a recent claim by a Bobby Henderson that, if the Intelligent Design (ID) argument was an acceptable account of creation, then so was his own less well known theory of Flying Spagetti Monsterism (FSM) where carbon dating is said to have been manipulated by the monster to delude us into thinking the world is much older than it really is. Henderson was convinced his theory had as much right as ID to be included in the Kansas State school curriculum. We wish him luck in this bizarre endeavour.

ARC

In the last EHA Bulletin Raymond Carlisle brought our attention to our untidy habits of writing the date. For example, that fairly famous date, 11th September 2001, is abbreviated in this country to 11/09/01. But, as Raymond pointed out, in the USA the month always comes first so they write it as 9/11/01 (or now made famous as simply 9/11). The origins of this curious difference between us and them in which we start with the day (seems logical) and they start with the month (seems odd) are probably lost in the mists of recent time. Many’s the time when a dated transatlantic message has been wrongly interpreted.

Once you have selected a default option, computer programs have no difficulty calculating (say) the number of days between any two dates - usually by first assigning to each date the number of days since an arbitrary starting date - say 01/01/2000. In the International Standard system (ISO 8601) that famous date is written as 2001/09/11, a simple inversion of our own European standard format.

However, astronomers have another trick up their sleeves: they abandon all reference to any standard calendrical device and refer to 9/11 as: JD 2452163.0 This is its Julian Day number and is a simple day count since ‘day-zero’ which was chosen to be 12.00 noon on 1st Jan 4713 B.C.E. For astronomers it makes sense to start the day at noon because they work through the night! So 11/09/01 started at midnight with JD 2452162.5 - by mid-day on that fateful day it became exactly 2452163.0 and at 6.00 p.m. it was 2452163.25. .. if you see what I mean! Our next Thursday meeting (7.30 pm on 29/09/2005) starts at exactly JD 2453642.8125.

ARC

P.S. Incidentally, the JD system originated in 1583 with the work of the renaissance scholar, Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) and was adapted to become the standard astronomical day counting system by John Herschel in 1858. Scaliger is thought to have named the system after his father - Julius Caesar Scaliger!!

The good news: Church attendance is diminishing rapidly. By 2040 churches will be well on the road to extinction with just 2% of the population attending Sunday services. The total membership of all denominations is expected to fall from the current 9.8% to under 5% according to Christian Research’s new report, "The Future of the Church".

The bad news: The number of people attending mosques on Friday is expected to mushroom. By 2040 mosque attendance at Friday prayers is expected to be twice the number attending church services on Sunday.

The most recent meeting of the Ealing Standing Advisory Committee on Religious Education (SACRE) took place on 12th September. Our chairman, Dr Constable, now attends these meeting to represent the voice of humanism as "The new Framework for Religious Education" unfolds. He gave a short presentation on “Why Disbelief Matters”, a brief version of his talk to EHA scheduled for 29/09/05. Dr Constable claims that he represents the 65% of teenagers shown by a recent statistical survey to be, like him, disbelievers. He expressed the view that teenage disbelief should never be stifled. On the contrary, young people should be encouraged to disbelieve as this is a powerful way of searching for truth. Disbelief contributes to the acquisition of intellectual independence and better equips teenagers to adopt sound principles of morality and ethics without the traditional compulsion based on a notion of divine punishment.

Anthony Constable

An acquaintance with history does not necessarily make it easier to judge between right and wrong in contemporary politics. But at least it reminds us that arguments used in support of public policy are seldom, if ever, original and exclusive to one case. How about these words. “All great and extraordinary wrongs done to particular persons ought to be considered as in the manner done to all the rest of the human race.” Fine sentiments expressive of concern for fellow men. Who wrote them? John Milton, in a letter to Cromwell justifying war against Spain on account of Spanish cruelty towards native Indians in South America. A case of 17th Century regime change. More eloquent than Dubya could ever manage, but in substance any different? This from Milton, whom we revere not only as a poet but as a champion of liberty of the press, scourge of episcopy, and enemy of royal absolutism. His anti-Catholic fervour led him into some strange reaches. If it had been English Protestants doing the persecuting, would we have had so eloquent and noble a quotation to treasure?

Harry Chambers

Derek Hill, who died suddenly on 18th September 2005 at the age of 82, will be long remembered by Ealing Humanists. As a stalwart of their Association he was one of the main protagonists in the numerous debates that forged their humanist ideas. He was a polite, thoughtful man who endeavoured, with a Socratic skill, to bring philosophical ideas to the surface which might otherwise have sunk deep into the morass of words generated at our Thursday evening meetings.

In recent times he became very worried that humanists were spending far too much effort on such matters as how to replace religious education with sound humanist thinking. He thought that a far greater threat to education came from the widespread infiltration of postmodernist teachings into our universities. Derek considered this trend to be a real threat to the core values of enlightenment humanism and urged us to apply our thinking and actions to the eradication of what he described as ‘anti-humanism’ from our universities.

His ideas were sound and came from considerable reading and the direct experience of the degenerate behaviour of university postmodernists which had, in recent years, crept into all branches of the humanities.

It is probably true that this deep concern distracted him somewhat from the main thrust of humanist thinking. But it cannot be doubted that his cautionary advice on the postmodernist threat was prompted by a strong sense of humanist values, far beyond the commonplace view of what humanism really means.

It is worth noting that there are now strong signs that the age of postmodernism and deconstruction is coming to an end and finally disappearing from (American) universities to be replaced by an upsurge of interest in traditional scholarship and a renewed acceptance that the scientific outlook can inform research in the humanities. As this new school of thought develops academics have yet to give it a name. It would probably have appealed to Derek’s sense of humour to learn that one author has recently suggested it be called the 'age of reconstruction'.

Derek’s concerns were real and I for one was hugely impressed by his sincerity in this and all other matters to which he applied his sound common sense and philosophical wisdom. On behalf of the Ealing Humanist Association I express our deep sympathy and heart-felt condolences to his wife Valerie.

Anthony Constable