Faith to Faithless

On 12 October Imtiaz Shams, the founder of Faith to Faithless

(FTF), provided Greater Manchester Humanists with an outline of the organisation's work.  FTF was set up in 2015 and continued the work that Imtiaz had being doing to support ex-Muslims since 2012.  FTF provides services to people who leave, or are thinking of leaving their faith group.  As an organisation, FTF is in its infancy and because it has such a small budget, its activities are limited.

He grew up in Saudi Arabia in a practising Muslim family but now lives in England and considers himself to be a Humanist.  Despite this, he described in fond terms his continued engagement and involvement with his family and with the Muslim community.  This approach underpins FTF’s work because Imtiaz is of the view that after a potential initial estrangement very few families disassociate with the apostate.  He considers it important to maintain existing family and community relationships.

Imtiaz has supported people who have left their religion and talked about some of the problems that they encounter; some people face physical abuse, many face financial difficulties, and people often feel isolated.   FTF offers a counselling and support network to these people.  FTF also engages with faith leaders to encourage understanding of people who leave their faiths.  Imtiaz thinks that faith leaders generally ignore the issue because they do not know how to deal with it.

He hopes that FTF will secure funding to expand its research capability to establish the extent of apostasy, to expand its counselling service, to build links with schools and organisations such as the Ex-Muslim Forum and the Samaritans, and to enter into dialogue with faith groups to discuss apostasy

A question and answer session followed Imtiaz’s talk.  There was a discussion around the dislike of the term apostasy mainly because this is a religious term.  Other terms to explain this were suggested; ex-religious, post-religious, enlightened and free-thinking. There was a general consensus that Humanists can assist FTF in its growth phase by advising its members, and the schools that it works with, about FTF’s work. At the end of the meeting a general collection raised £200 for FTF.

Humanist Heroines

The Stockport October meeting was an AGM followed by Robin

Grinter speaking on ‘Three Humanist Heroines: Mary Wollstonecraft, Annie Besant and Marie Stopes’. Whilst we hear a lot about Humanist men, but not
 enough about Humanist women. These three were selected because they were outspoken and combatant campaigners for radical changes to promote human rights, especially for women.

Mary Wollstonecraft had a short life, dying in 1797 after childbirth at the age of 38. She had a hard upbringing, leaving home at 19, founding a Dissenting school to promote justice and equality which collapsed, then becoming a governess in Ireland ill-treated by a dominating aristocratic employer.  
Her achievements included a brief history of the French Revolution and an open letter to Edmund Burke, entitled ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Men’.  She condemned both aristocratic and monarchical government, supported the French Revolutionaries and advocated a republic. She argued for an equal society based on reason, justice and the idea of progress, not tradition and custom, a year before Thomas Paine wrote ‘The Rights of Man’ . 
In 1792, Mary published her second revolutionary public letter ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’, which went far beyond Paine in demanding full human rights for all, not just for men. Her book attacked the assumption prevalent at the time that women were inferior to men: she said they only appeared inferior because they were denied education.  Her revolutionary thinking was set in a reasonably conventional social context. While she argued strongly for the right for women to have careers, she saw their role primarily as loyal wives and good mothers and accepted the social and class structure of her day.

Annie Besant, born in 1847, was brought up in the Church of England, and married a clergyman. However she lost her faith and became increasingly atheist. When she refused to take Holy Communion her husband divorced her. She joined the National Secular Society (set up by Charles Bradlaugh in 1866) and edited its journal ‘the National Reformer’. She lived with Bradlaugh and they worked closely together. Annie became a powerful orator, speaking on freedom of thought, secularism, workers’ rights, birth control and women’s rights. 
 In 1877 she and Bradlaugh published an American book advocating birth control by contraception. This enraged the Church and Annie and Bradlaugh were taken to court. Though the case was dropped she lost custody of her daughter.  In her Autobiography she said ‘I exposed the history of the Catholic Church with unsparing hatred, its persecutions, its religious wars, its cruelties and its oppressions….no philosophy, no religion has brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism.’
With radical views she joined the Fabian Movement and later on the Marxist Social Democratic Federation, leading to a break with the more right wing Bradlaugh. Annie became a union organiser, speaking at the Bloody Sunday protest meeting of the unemployed in 1887 and organising the union of the London Dockers. But her main achievement was her work in 1888 for the welfare of women working in the Bryant and May match factory in London leading to Union recognition, raised wages and improved conditions.
Annie also fought successfully for improvements in the education of poor children in London pledging to work for ‘No more hungry children’. She devoted her formidable energies to organising free meals and free medical examinations to bring this about. 
Annie also spoke on behalf of women’s right to vote at meetings of the Suffragette Movement.

Marie Stopes, a paleobiologist lecturing at University College, London and Manchester University, was a brave campaigner for women’s rights and a pioneer in Britain of birth control. She set up a network of clinics, and various societies to organise and campaign for birth control. These societies became the Family Planning Association in 1931. The Marie Stopes International Global Partnership is now active in 38 countries.
Her two books, ‘Married Love ’and ‘Wise Parenthood’, both published in 1918,  gave women sexually explicit advice about methods of birth control. She also edited a magazine ‘Birth Control News’. When the Protestant and Catholic Churches called for her prosecution she held protest meetings outside Churches!
Marie believed birth control should only be practised within marriage, but she campaigned for the rights of married women teachers and for separate taxation of husbands and wives. However, she also believed in ‘Eugenics’ and argued for the ‘sterilisation of those totally unfit for parenthood – the insane, the feeble-minded and half-castes. 

Robin concluded by considering the credentials as Humanists of Annie Besant and Marie Stopes. Annie Besant lost her faith while married to a clergyman, gained a divorce and campaigned as an atheist. Towards the end of her life she developed an interest in theosophy, not a theistic stance, but certainly a spiritualist one with supernatural overtones.  Marie Stopes never dabbled in the divine, but she did become a proponent of eugenics at odds with the fundamental Humanist belief in the equal potential value of every human being.
Other influential women include Harriet Taylor, the wife and co-worker of John Stuart Mill; the novelist, Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot); Simone de Beauvoir; and Germaine Greer.
Isaac Newton remarked and Stephen Hawking has observed ‘we stand on the shoulders of giants’ who have made these changes possible. Let us add ‘and giantesses’, or ‘Humanist Heroines’.

Srebrenica

September's Manchester meeting was lead by Ms Heather Fletcher, the Co-Chair of The Muslim Jewish Forum.  She provided the group with an outline of what she learned about Srebrenica during her trip to former Yugoslavia in 2015.  She made the trip with a group called Women of Faith.

Bosnia was part of the Ottoman Empire between c.1459 CE and 1878 CE.  The Ottomans encouraged local people to nominally convert to Islam.  In 1908 Bosnia was formally incorporated into the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  This caused widespread resentment in neighbouring Serbia which had designs on incorporating it into a Greater Serbia. This led to the assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand in the summer of 1914 in Sarajevo.  After the First World War Bosnia (and Serbia) were incorporated into the new state of Yugoslavia. During the Second World War the only effective resistance to German occupation was provided by Marshall Tito's communists.  After the War Tito became the ruler of Yugoslavia. Ms Fletcher was of the view that Tito formed one of the most successful Socialist states ever and it was not uncommon to have a Church, a Mosque and a Synagogue existing peacefully on the same street in Sarajevo.  In Tito's Yugoslavia coexistence, inter-marriage and toleration were normal. After the death of Tito the state began to break up into the smaller national entities and a new wave of nationalism and religious bigotry swept the Balkans. The Serbian idea of Greater Serbia re-emerged.  Ms Fletcher's party visited a medical centre which treated women who had been raped during the conflict.  It is said that between 50,000 and 100,000 rapes were carried out during the conflict and many of the attackers were former neighbours, school friends and/or work colleagues. The purpose of rape was to change their ethnic identity or to spoil these women for future husbands.

Ms Fletcher explained that Srebrenica was once a thriving town which has now largely been abandoned. Over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by the Bosnian Serb army there during the massacre in 1995.  Around 6,000 have known graves and the process of identifying the remains is still ongoing.  On 11 July every year a mass funeral takes place for the remains identified in the past year.  Ms Fletcher’s group met with a woman who had lost both of her sons and her husband.  She attended a war crimes tribunal where she met a former Serbian fighter who apologised to her for his part in the massacre.  This woman was not bitter and resentful and gave the fighter her forgiveness as she believed life was too short and it was evil to bear grudges.  Ms Fletcher ended her presentation by saying that their guide during their trip, Rashid, had friends from all the different identities in Bosnia and for this reason he was hopeful for the country’s future. Suggested Further Reading on the Topic: Little, A: Silber, L & Ciric, A: The Death of Yugoslavia.  A book to accompany the TV series and a very good introduction to the disintegration of Yugoslavia.  Clark, C: The Sleepwalkers.  A book about the origins of World War One. It gives a good account of the Serbian angle.  Goldhagen, D : Hitler's Willing Executioners. Along with Browning, C: Ordinary Men. This is a book which shows that normal people do horrific things and relates to events in Poland and Germany.

Writing "The Einstein Code"

At the September Stockport meeting Joanne Welch, author of The Einstein Code, talked about how she came to write the book. She began with the influences on her early life including the schoolteacher who suggested to her parents that she should go to a private Grammar school. This was achieved with the aid of a bursary and a second-hand uniform.

Ever questioning, the Evangelical Christians with whom she worshipped said she was not a proper Christian, so she went to St Paul’s where she became the first girl to become a server.

It was at Wadham College Oxford when she really began to question the existence of God. She was introduced to Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene and Hawking's A Brief History of Time. 
She had a career for a time but then found herself caring for her children and a parent with dementia. Needing something to use her brain, she wrote The Einstein code. When an early version was not published she went on a writing course. Malory Blackman taught her to write to please herself, to read and to rewrite. A novel must have a passionate theme and a good plot structure. Normality should first be established then there must be a trigger point after which the hero/heroine embarks on a perilous journey. There must be a Quest with a few surprises and, of course, a climax. Barry Cunningham’s advice was to start with something dramatic, a “car going over a cliff” moment. Val McDermid said that to write better books one should first read bad books. A recipe for a successful character is a little bit of yourself and a little bit of those you love.  Armed with all this advice she did rewrite and received two offers in 9 weeks.

The book is aimed at children and includes messages in code. Joanne talked about the Caesar code used in the book which is a kind of substitution cipher in which each letter is “shifted” a certain number of places up or down the alphabet. Joanne provided a number of messages in code for the audience to decipher.

She also discussed book codes where both sender and recipient have to use the same page of the same book to encrypt and decrypt the messages.

Other books planned are: The Darwin Code and The Quantum Code

What Is The Meaning of Life

Derek McComiskey spoke to the August Stockport meeting.  He used numerous quotes as a backbone to his talk.  Many people seem happy to opine on The Meaning of Life (or, more realistically, How to Create Meaning in Life) and these opinions are sometimes sensible, sometimes amusing.  After initially stating that the answer is 42, he then suggested that Meaning can be analysed in two ways:
Comprehension (making sense of your life, of the world, and how you fit into it) and 
Purpose (long term goals that motivate you).

He then used quotes to illustrate four “Meaning Landscapes” 
1) where God-given meaning rains down from above
2) a desert devoid of meaning 
3) a rabbit-farm where the only (evolutionary) purpose is to procreate, and 
4) a mature tree of meaning growing out of our lives.

We owe a debt of gratitude to thinkers of the past who have forged our contemporary attitude to meaning: notably Nietzche and the Existentialists.

The idea of being in touch with Something Bigger Than Ourselves is common in this area of thought.  People often cite Relationships to be most important.  Also Roles (including jobs), Ideas (including politics, science and art) and Nature.  One role these things might serve is as a distraction that stops us becoming self-absorbed.  He then introduced the idea that “meaning is already in the culture and community” (Jennifer Michael Hecht).

Viktor Frankl was a neurologist and psychiatrist who had established a new form of psychotherapy (“Logotherapy”) founded on the idea that Meaning In Life is the most powerful human motivating force.  He then spent three years in concentration camps where his parents, brother and wife died.  This gave him an insight into whether Meaning can survive in these tragic circumstances.

Derek then mentioned studies that had been carried out by psychologists.   Roy Baumeister led a team studying the differences between a happy life and a meaningful life.   Martin Binder found that people working for non-profit organisations were happier with their life in general than for-profit workers.

The Philosopher Susan Wolf writes extensively about Meaning In Life.  She particularly explores what makes some things meaningful and some things not and relies on “communal intuitions about what's valuable and what isn't”.

To reflect upon how meaningful your life is - imagine you have half an hour of lucid calm before you die.  You can think back on your life and realistically assess the difference you have made.  Wouldn't it be fantastic to be able to look back and be sure that you had made a positive impact?  Things were better, rather than worse, because you had been.

Preventing Extremism

The July Stockport meeting was addressed by Yousef Dar a Muslim ex-Police Inspector who spoke to us on the theme of preventing terrorism.  He began by talking about where the threat of terrorism in this country come from, including: Daesh (ISIS), the Real IRA, the far right, the left wing, and some single stranded entities.

He tried to minimise the threat from Muslim extremists by giving some figures comparing the relatively small number of people killed By Muslim extremists with the total number of murders and rapes, and also with the huge numbers of Muslims killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by western forces.  In 2014, 50% of all shootings in Europe took place in Northern Ireland.

Some of the issues relating to causes of terrorism include: foreign policy; isolation (e.g. ghettoization of Muslims and the small numbers of the Far Right); a ‘them and us’ mentality, ideology, and disenfranchisement. Terrorism is the highest level of criminality.  There is an issue over hate preachers but they are not all Muslims. There is no basis in fact that most terrorists are nurtured through the community until they kill. Many are not particularly well briefed in the Islamic religion they purport to believe in.

The government’s PREVENT strategy is costly with questionable outcomes. There was no consultation with Muslims. Because of some of the problems David Cameron put it back on the shelf. Dar believes solutions must be community based.  The extremist organisations in this country include: the EDL, Britain First, BNP, and Daesh. There have been four times recently when attacks have been very close. Weapons and Ricin have been recovered from the Far Right.

Dar believes there are racial issues at work. Muslims tend to be charged with terrorist offences whereas the equivalent whites are charged with criminal behaviour. Something like 0.032% of the population are terrorists and MI5 know who they are.  Dar himself will not wear an England shirt because he has been challenged in the past on his right to wear it, in spite of the fact he was born here, plays squash for his county and indulges in Fly Fishing.

He believes in the right to criticise, the right to challenge ideas and the right to demonstrate outside parliament. These are the good British values of Free Speech. If these avenues are closed the situation could blow up in our faces.

There are a number of Hate sights on the internet which are dangerous –witness Jo Cox’s murder.

We need mentors from the community to speak to some of these people and bring them back on board.

The Intelligence services are concerned about Islamists from Syria arriving with the refugees. There is also the possibility of people being radicalised in prison.

The perpetrators of 9/11 knew little about Islam and indulged in drugs, prostitution and crime (Not very Islamic). 90% of people joining Daesh in Syria were not radicalised by mosques but by Friends and family. The murderer of Lee Rigby was new to Islam and the words he shouted were out of the bible rather than the Koran. Dar did not understand why Jo Cox’s murder was not also considered a terrorist act.

Much work needs to be done in the community, and we need to build a society with British values.

After the break we started on the usual Q and A session but it was far from normal. Instead of the good natured sessions we have come to expect, there was a list of rather nasty comments about Islam with very few remarks addressing the subject of the evening. This is unacceptable in a Humanist group who are supposed to believe in freedom of religion as well as freedom from religion. We are supposed to tolerate other peoples’ sincerely held beliefs even though we don’t agree with them. Robust questioning is one thing, abuse is another. 

An official apology has been sent to the speaker on behalf of the group.

Helping Refugees on Lesvos

Rebecca Harman came to the Stockport June meeting to talk about helping refugees in Lesvos. She chatted to us informally while letting pictures of her time on Lesvos play on the screen.  She and a group of friends were moved by the picture of the dead toddler washed up on the beach that was widely reported in late 2015.  They started to collect clothes and equipment and to raise money.  They held a ceilidh and an art auction among other things.

Rebecca got the chance to actually go out to help when she found herself between jobs, with a supportive husband who could provide childcare.  She encountered understanding staff at the airport who found a way to not charge for excess luggage - despite the huge bags of goods she had.

There was a well-organised United Nations camp based in an old barracks.  It was run very strictly (and unsympathetically) by local police, and would only admit Syrians.  Surrounding the perimeter of the barracks was an informal camp for everyone else - sometimes called Afghan Hill.  This wasn't being organised and run by anyone!  This is where Rebecca was helping.

Boats arrived at night, and bedraggled people would arrive at the camp where the volunteers would do their best to provide food and clothing.  Much of the clothing was too big.  Those of us in the affluent West obviously measure our affluence by our waistline.  In general people would only stay a few days; they underwent some rudimentary processing and were then given permission to travel on when they would get the ferry.

Since she was there the situation has changed.  Migrants are now being shipped back to Turkey in a rather controversial EU/Turkey deal.  If we want to help now we need to look at camps in Turkey.  Her advice was that it is generally better to send money than goods as many things are much cheaper locally - for example nappies and socks.  It doesn't make sense to buy these in the UK and ship them out.  Sleeping bags is one of the main exceptions.

We had a long question and answer session and explored the range of motivations for people arriving in Europe, and whether the perceived open German border was acting as a pull-factor for people.