aassubu

Reason Week 2012 – After thoughts

Atheist Agnostic and Secular Society - University of Bristol — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:40:02 +0000

Well, this week has probably been my busiest since I’ve been at University. As President, I knew this year would be difficult: juggling the demands of my final year literature project and the society’s needs. The damn thing is like a beast that hungers for more of your time and attention. Needless to say, I would never have made it through without my excellent committee and for that I thank them. With hindsight, taking the literature over a lab project was the best thing I could have done, I’d have hated having to balance being in the lab and keeping a small email turnaround time. The library’s open all night, labs aren’t!

This week showed me how much we have here at Bristol. I didn’t truly realise it until Tuesday evening but the Interfaith atmosphere that we have here is exemplary and I would like to thank everyone, especially Ed Davies and the other full time staff at the Chaplaincy for their hard work in getting this working. It’s a massive asset and one the things to be really very proud of here at Bristol. The week also showed that the Union can be incredibly useful, despite their reputation. Without them, we could not have hired lecture theatres or PA equipment nor would we have had the infrastructure to manage our own finances. They might get moaned at but if they weren’t there then we couldn’t have had Lyz Liddell chatting to us from the US or Dr Lempert addressing an audience in a student led event. The current team of Sabbatical Officers have been great – I’d like to thank them (particularly Chris Ruff and Gus Baker) for always being on the end of an email to answer my queries and to support the society in its work.

I hope people enjoyed the events we put on this week. When the committee came together to plan this, we tried to get some of the old and some new stuff in there. Perhaps we could have rounded off with a social tonight or worked harder for the Regional Convention that we’ve had to postpone but in all it was successful and we still have a little bit of money (not much, mind) in the Alumni Foundation (one them in a moment) to add to our reserves to make us stronger for coming years.

Then at the end of the week we had amazing news that I announced to the people who attended Lyz’s talk on Thursday. That’s coming in May and we’re very much looking forward to it.

Finally, if I could stand to hug people then I’d probably go find the person who’s responsible for setting up the Alumni Foundation. Without them, this week truly wouldn’t have been possible so thank you to all Alumni who donated to the Fund – it allows so much amazing stuff to be done here at Bristol and we’d be at a real loss as a student community.

Thank you again to everyone who attended anything this week,
Michael Harratt
AASS President 2011-12

RE: Denying the existence of Atheism – Atheism & Movements

Atheist Agnostic and Secular Society - University of Bristol — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:36:32 +0000

A response to a response: http://kylemulholland.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/denying-the-existence-of-atheism/

First up, the usual arse covering. This is written in a personal capacity drawing on my experiences as President of the University of Bristol Student’s Union Atheist, Agnostic and Secular Society (AASS) and National Federation of Atheist Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) AGM delegate. It is a reflection of my own thoughts and understandings of the world and does not represent the policy of the AASS or any of its affiliates, including the National Secular Society (NSS) or British Humanist Association (BHA). I’m publishing this here temporarily and will remove it in due course if I feel it’s appropriate, I should probably get my own blog at some point in the future, anyway.

Kyle, thank you for your response – your blogs are providing me with food for thought over the festive period (it makes a nice difference from Christmas pudding and mince pies!) I’d like to point out a few elements I’m a little uncomfortable with before I begin. First up, the only person that’s called me ‘Mr Harratt’ in recent years was the doctor who X-rayed my, thankfully unbroken, arm that time after I fell over in the snow – Mike will do. Second, contrary to my predecessor’s self awarded title of “Queen of the Athiests” (we’re still not sure if she was joking but there wasn’t a coronation…), I don’t consider AASS to be ‘my’ society in any respect. I’m lucky enough to have a fantastic committee who are assertive enough to ensure ideas and such beyond my own are represented. Then there are the the members that regularly berate me and, the committee and ensure that we’re held to account. It’s their society more than anyone’s.

I accept that my use of the word movement was probably the wrong one in the context of your blog post. According to the Briish Social Attitude 2010 survey, 51% of people describe themselves as having no religion but you don’t see the BHA, NSS or other non-religious groups as having a membership of 30 million-odd. Even if you take the 2001 census figure (a much lower 15.5%) you still don’t get anywhere near parity between membership and actual belief if you look at the statistics. Evidently, this is because non-believers who don’t want to be political steer clear of these groups and I think if that’s what you want, then that’s fine with me. In the broader context, however, I stand by the use of movement in that wider context because I think that by joining up, you’re joining a group with a set of aims and goals. I feel that it needs to exist and there does need to be a seperation of church and state. I believe it needs to exist to protect basic freedom of choice in matters ranging from sexuality to social cohesion to a woman’s reproductive rights. As a medical science student (Virology & Immunology in the interests of full disclosure), I often come across religious arguements and I am often expected to treat them with a degree of respect that I would not normally accord to other arguements – that doesn’t mean I will, I’ll deconstruct them just as much as I’ll deconstruct anything else that’s thrown at me. I don’t think it’s acceptable at the individual level and I don’t think it should hold in political circles, either. Secular groups like the NSS (and to an extent, AASS) see themselves as providing this dissenting voice when presented with arguements that are supposed to be treated as sacred because they’re a religious belief.

I do agree, however, this does pose a risk to the average non-believer you describe. I suppose there’s the problem of finding yourself between a rock and a hard place: keep your head down and hope to be left in peace or join them and dissent within their ranks to ensure the agenda meets your needs. The latter’s difficult because your membership is seen as tacit support for the agenda while the former is impossible because it erodes your right to declare your non-belief. I can imagine there’s a Christian somewhere in the world writing this same piece from the opposite side…

Now to answer your charges that these groups claim to speak for all non-believers. I accept that AASS often do. The main reason for this, in my opinion, is because we’re the only specifically non-religious group here at Bristol and our constitution mandates us to represent non-religious aspects of the student body and campaign in that direction. The committee are elected and our constitution is written by our membership which is open to all (including the Faithful – indeed, we do have one or two in our ranks) and we derive our ability to function from that . If you choose to be non-religious but not to join the society then that’s fine with us. Please understand, however, that in our work we might have to use population stastics because it’s one of the few effective means we can use to get our point across when it matters and that won’t stop Faith lobby groups from using them. I accept that it doesn’t resolve the issue and still suffers from the rock and hard place problem I described above but it’s the best we have in an imperfect world.

Ultimately, it’s a hard conflict to resolve and I suppose one of the ways to go about it would be not to do what I did above and use population statistics of attitudes to inform decisions as a movement. “I have 300,000 paying Secular Movement members behind me” rather than “54.4% of the population are not athiests” (note: these are all illustrative and fictional for this point). That of course comes with its own problems since a goodly number of times I’ve been told the non-religious are under-represented and accepting that has implications for the value of statistics. Either way, I’m sure there are other solutions but none come to mind at the moment.

The local differs vastly from the national and I agree the two do not easily translate. I can’t comment on numbers since I don’t have access to the figures from our affiliates so I can’t say whether the movement is growing or not but I will from where I’m standing, both sides are getting more and more vocal. In a practical sense, I’m not able to offer too many solutions on this one since I’m only President here in Bristol, I’d have to refer you up to the chain to someone who has a clue how things work out there in the big wide world.

Finally, if you’re uncomfortable with the NSS then you’ll be pleased to hear that we only affiliated with them back in October and as such it hasn’t yet reached ratification. There will be a debate in March as part of our AGM when we discuss whether we will extend our current temporary affiliation to include it in the constitution thus making it permenant. As a member, you are welcome to attend, discuss and vote on it with the rest of the society. In the mean time, you’re welcome to attend events and you should start getting our emails now you’ve signed up – welcome to the fold. I’ll answer some of the questions you pose about the practicalities of secular advancement in a seperate post since those are very much my own opinion and may require further explaination.

I hope that answeres a few questions, I’m off for New Year’s Eve and will probably put up another post after tomorrow’s dinner time.

A response to Kyle Mulholland’s questions regarding modern atheism and secularism

Atheist Agnostic and Secular Society - University of Bristol — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:26:20 +0000

This is a response written to Kyle Mulholland’s blog post (available at: http://kylemulholland.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/has-atheism-become-a-political-movement/) written in a personal capacity drawing on my experiences as President of the University of Bristol Student’s Union Atheist, Agnostic and Secular Society (AASS) and National Federation of Atheist Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) AGM delegate. It is a reflection of my own thoughts and understandings of the world and does not represent the policy of the AASS or any of its affiliates, including the National Secular Society (NSS) or British Humanist Association (BHA). I’m publishing this here temporarily and will remove it in due course if I feel it’s appropriate, I should probably get my own blog at some point in the future, anyway.

I was elected President back in March 2010 and took over from Jenny, my predecessor. In her year as President, she had expanded AASS’ presence on the national stage by joining with the AHS and laying a great deal of groundwork for our later affiliation with the NSS and the BHA. I saw these events upon my election as an opportunity for the society to assert itself and part of my manifesto at the AASS AGM was to initiate a number of campaigns as a way of reinvigorating the society and opening it beyond the science and computer science students that formed such a tight core in previous years. We led a small sally in the BHA’s Census Campaign to test our feet and got a fantastic response from both religious and non-religious students and there is more working coming in the next few months as we work with the AHS and BHA. We’ve had our successes but I must admit, I suppose I was a little anti-theistic at the time but things do change.

Now, in response to your question: Is Atheism becoming too political? I feel that being non-religious has always had a political aspect. I am personally a secular humanist but I represent soft atheists, hard atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, secularists (both non-religious and religious should they choose to engage with us and turn up) and goodness knows what else. The non-religious movement is a vast and multi-faceted beast and it’s impossible to represent everyone so I have made an effort to include elements to appeal to all aspects of the movement and to allow our members to cherry pick those that suit them and those that do not. To do otherwise would be a failure of leadership on my part since I represent so many differing attitudes that to please everyone would render my own position impossible. I am fortunate that the committee this year has been composed of a representative sample of the society and each holds views very different to my own and that has seriously influenced my decisions in taking the society forward.

I’d also like to answer your charge that the current form of atheism and religion are incompatible. Granted, we are affiliated with the NSS but that doesn’t mean we necessarily approve of everything they do and, personally, some of their anti-theist attitudes worry me. I mentioned earlier that when I got into this job, I was probably a little bit anti-theist myself. I’ve been performing this role for nearly 9 months now and it’s shifted my attitudes a fair bit. As President of AASS, I have to engage with the Faith Societies on a regular basis and I often personally make an effort to go one step further and give up parts of my scarce free time to do this. Sunday evenings are sacred to me as a medical science student since its often the only spare time I get but I give them up anyway if needs be. I do this for one very, very simple reason: exposure begets tolerance and it is tolerance that we need to build a society that works. By spending an evening with a group of people with very different ideas to my own, I’ve found I am able to attain an understanding why they believe what they do and often will come to respect that. I would encourage everyone to do this and go into the scenario with an open mind.

So why spend a paragraph telling you that? Well, it’s because when you sit down with 99% of people, you find that they’re decent enough, up for a discussion if you approach it correctly and the 1% that are idiots are often the fringe extremists. I often come up against this myself as an atheist. Often, the first thing I have to do when I walk into a bar full of Methodists (or any other faith group, I choose them because they’re the first Christians I engaged with as a President) is reassure them that I’m about as far from Dawkins as Harold McMillan was from Mussolini. The Dawkins and Hitchens (Hitchkins as one of our members so wonderfully put it) militancy is not something that represents us all (indeed, what does?) but we shouldn’t be ashamed of it because we allow these ideas to exist as part of a vibrant and varied movement. Further, it’s something that binds non-believers together because you can look at them and say “OK, fellas, I agree with you but please turn the noise down” or just go right out and debate them. Indeed, myself and successive committees have issued repeated invites for Professor Dawkins to come and give a talk here at the University because it is always important to engage with those you disagree with and at least attempt to understand how they have come to the beliefs they have even if you cannot hope to convert them to your way of thinking.

It is that engagement and understanding that you probably are not going to change someone’s beliefs overnight (or indeed at all) that makes the work of groups like ours and the NSS so important. By ensuring that it is impossible to impose a belief system on someone without their consent, political non-religious groups are able to protect the second most important of human rights: the right to hold a belief free from persecution. The first most important being the right to life because, let’s be honest, without that one everything else that follows is somewhat redundant. In light of that, I’d like to point out that at no point would we like to neither see the destruction of Christianity nor have it pushed to the fringes unless people do not take up the banner of their own free will. I use the plural of the first person yet because in my experience as an active non-believer at both the local and national level, the majority of non-religious people are very happy to exist alongside religion and not to destroy it. Indeed, there’s a strong current of belief that challenging religious privilege as it stands would be simply restoring a dynamic equilibrium to something of a centre point that would allow other ideas, beliefs and religions to flourish in its place.

On a personal level, I believe that religious influence in public life should be diminished. I’d like an end to automatic seats for Bishops in the House of Lords and, yes, I’d like an end to the segregation that faith schools bring to our communities. Above all, I’d like to see the removal of “Hey, that’s my religion you’re talking about, you can’t criticise my faith” argument. However, if people choose to wake up in a morning and say “Hello God! Thank you for putting me on this earth” then that is fine by me and I have no right to judge them for that. I think the same goes for 99% of other non-religious people in the world who realise, like me, that the key to a harmonious society is to ensure that no one particular belief or idea system should be favoured over others in the public arena and that the only means of legitimately handing down any form of imperative to someone is through democratically written laws. This why we should allow a political aspect to our non-belief but always on the proviso that non-religious people are able to cherry pick the bits they want and avoid the politics should they so wish.

Michael Harratt

AASS President 2011-12

Reason Week 2012 Announced!

Atheist Agnostic and Secular Society - University of Bristol — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:24:05 +0000

Reason Week 2012 will be this year from Monday 6th February to Saturday 11th February. This is the second time we’ve run our big, yearly celebration of non-religiousness. More details will be published on the dedicated website and Facebook group. See reasonweek2012.co.uk for more details.