AGM - Convenor's Report | Print |  Email
The Edinburgh Group has had a busy year, with meetings almost every month over the last year apart from August when the society sponsored the Festival of Spirituality and Peace. Thanks to vice convenor Jack Gold for taking the chair on many occasions when I wasn’t able to attend and to Cathy Crawford and Roger Redondo for chairing events at The Filmhouse.

Our talks were as follows

May - Dr Josh Brickman, on the Ethics of Stem Cell Research
June - John Wiltshire on Evolution
July - John Blair Fish about the World Development Movement
(our summer picnic was rained off)
August      The Festival of Spirituality and Peace ( http://www.festivalofspirituality.org.uk/)
September   MEP David Martin on the proposed European Constitution
October         Donald Reid on his work with the Interfaith Movement and FoSP
November    Jack Gold on “The Problem with Science”
December    Rabbi David Rose on Judaism
January     Joan Gibson on Confucius
February    Nicholas Phillipson on Adam Smith
March       HSS Education Officer, Bob Mckay on our new Education Policy

During November, members of the Edinburgh Group also supported a stall at the Scottish Green Party conference and took part in the Bio-Ethics film festival.

In addition to our monthly meetings, we have a very popular philosophy group, led by Ray Newton & Nigel Bruce. Among other books they discussed Bertrand Russell's "Problems of Philosophy" and “Man for Himself”, by Eric Fromm.

The film evenings at The Filmhouse on Lothian Road which Cathy Crawford initiated some years ago have continued and are now almost a monthly event, mostly thanks to Juliet Wilson who has taken over the liason with the Filmhouse programmers. These have generally been very well attended, as have the discussions for which about 1/3 to a 1/2 the audience have generally stayed behind. The Filmhouse now prints the HSS signature & logo in their brochure whenever we sponsor a film and they tell us this always leads to increased attendances.

Among other films, we saw The Bridge, about suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco; Shut up and Sing about The Dixie Chicks and ‘patriotism’ in the USA; Black Gold about the ethics of the coffee trade; Darrat a film from Chad about revenge & redemption; The Counterfeiters, about morality within a concentration camp; 4 months 3 weeks 2 days a Romanian film about abortion, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly about Jean Dominique Bauby and Jesus Camp, a documentary about Fundamentalist Christian summer camps in the USA. At Christmas, we saw the Frank Capra classic It’s a Wonderful Life, after which we had a small but well-attended party in the Filmhouse Bar.


Over the last year we have developed links with The University of Edinburgh Humanist Society . At last year’s AGM, we gave them a small grant and we have since ensured that they now have a diary page on the HSS site and links to their own web site. The EUSHA proposed that I become their chaplain, a request that the University Chaplaincy Centre declined; instead I am to be the University’s humanist contact. I’m pleased to note, however, that other Scottish Universities are more open to the idea and that three Universities in Glasgow (Glasgow, Strathclyde and Glasgow Caledonian) now either have or shortly will have humanist chaplains.

In April 2007, the Edinburgh group had 188 memberships. It now has 339. Of these, 134 are individuals and 205 are family, giving a total of 544 members – an impressive growth in so short a time.  The web site lists all of our events and as you can see, we now have this Blog where reports of them are posted.

In 2007, celebrants in the Edinburgh area conducted 477 ceremonies including 175 weddings – a slight decrease from 2006, when the total was 507. In February, celebrants held a reception for Funeral Directors at the Royal Scots Club on Abercrombie Place to present our new identity and leaflets and get feedback on their services that was unanimously positive.

My predecessor, the much-loved Ivan Middleton, managed fifteen years in the chair, but as I believe democracy is best served by frequent changes of administration, I’m stepping down after only two years as convenor. It’s been great fun and I think we’ve achieved a lot, but it’s time for somebody new to step up to the plate and take us forward.

My sincere thanks go to the other members of the committee - Secretary Cathy Crawford, Treasurer Peter Macdonald and Vice-Convenor Jack Gold, EUSHA representative Roger Redondo, Joan Pisanek, Jean Llewellyn and Juliet Wilson, for their kind hospitality support and tolerance. I hope their new convenor is better organised - and less impatient!

With best wishes

Tim Maguire
Convenor 2006 - 2008
 
2008 Edinburgh Group AGM | Print |  Email

Last night's Edinburgh group AGM was lively affair with many inspiring and helpful contributions from the floor!

Outgoing convenor Tim Maguire talked us through last year's activities and I'm sure that everyone agrees it has been an interesting and productive year for our group. His full report is posted separately.

The new committee was voted in:

Convenor: Juliet Wilson
Vice Convenor: Jack Gold
Secretary: Cathy Crawford
Treasurer: Peter MacDonald
Committee members: Jean Llewellyn and Roger Redondo

As the new Convenor, I would like to take this opportunity to remind our members that although they may not want to sit on the committee they are always welcome to come up with suggestions and be actively involved in the running of the group's activities.

There were some suggestions from the floor that along with our monthly meetings at the Quaker Meeting House, other types of meetings would be welcome. Having discussions in pubs was a very popular idea! The committee will be discussing this and other ideas in its first meeting at the end of this month and hopes to have some new events in our calendar.

If you couldn't make it to the AGM but would like to be on the committee, please let us know.

It only remains for me to extend a warm thank you to Tim Maguire who has put in considerable effort over the last two years to organising and chairing events for the group. He has been dedicated and considerate and has played an integral role in many of the new developments in the Society such as our new leaflets and website.

Tim is standing for the post of Media Officer in the Board of Trustees at the HSS AGM on the 20th of April.

Any questions and suggestions regarding the Edinburgh group should be directed to me:

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I hope to see you at the next meeting on Monday, 05 May 2008, 19:30 - 21:30 at the Quaker Meeting House, Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh, EH1 2JL. (just off the Royal Mile), where Professor Dabir Tehrani will talk about religious attitudes to sexuality.

Warmest regards,

Juliet Wilson
 
Nicholas Phillipson on 'Adam Smith in Edinburgh’ | Print |  Email

Edinburgh Group Meeting 4 February

If the Edinburgh Group decided to claim Adam Smith and his ideas for themselves and the Humanists we would be in very varied company, according to our very well-informed and entertaining speaker, Nicholas Phillipson.  Adam Smith may currently be best known as Margaret Thatcher’s favourite economist, but it is interesting to learn that Putin is preparing his version of ‘The Wealth of Nations’, that Castro is also a fan and while biographers can be partial, it does seem that there is a great deal of the philosophy of Adam Smith which can appeal to us.

Adam Smith was not so much a son of Edinburgh and our members from Fife would feel affronted if his roots in Kirkcaldy were overlooked, but it appears that between 1748 and 1750 Adam Smith delivered two courses of highly significant public lectures on Rhetoric and Jurisprudence, thereby establishing his credentials within the Edinburgh Enlightenment and influencing a formidable group of intellectuals of the age.  While many of his audience were clergy, Smith never felt the need to appeal to a deity to provide the answers to his questions about where ideas of justice come from.  

To explore all the ideas which our lecturer introduced, about the ideas of society being an exchange of sentiments, and the political economy an exchange of commerce simply a part of that study of sentiments, is probably better left for our Philosophy Group to debate in greater depth.  It is easier to say here that the questions Smith raised about such things as whether our idea of fairness is always shifting and shaped by our material situation were certainly enough to keep our group fascinated and ready to rush out to buy Prof Phillipson’s book as soon as it hits the bookshops.

 

Cathy Crawford. 
 
Was Confucius a Humanist? | Print |  Email

Image
Joan Gibson holds forth

 

What I now know after this enlightening evening is that Confucianism is a set of disparate ideas considered and written down by a man called Kung Fu Tze, interpreted and corrupted to fit certain ideologies over the centuries, and yet surviving in a recognisably humanist form today.  Joan took us on a quick, lucid and comprehensive sweep through two and a half thousand years of Confucian philosophy and came to the conclusion that when one goes back to the original teachings, then as a secularist, who supported rational enquiry, looking for human oriented solutions his forward-looking ideas were indeed a life stance not dissimilar to those of modern day Humanists. The question that exercised some of the discussion time was to what extent Humanists wished to claim his philosophy and his legacy in China.
 
Some of the ideas of Confucius which I particularly appreciated were that reciprocity was fundamental, that wealth was shameful while poverty existed, and that the principle aim of government was happiness, since order and productivity could be forced but happiness and harmony were the ultimate goals of a successful society.  His secular, peace-loving view that education was the way for things to improve appeals and the fact that he supported the social cohesion provided by family responsibilities and traditions did not detract from this.
 
It is impossible to do justice to the excellent talk in a few words, and hopefully other groups may have the opportunity to hear this talk or explore the ideas of Confucius and debate them for themselves.  Then they too can decide whether Confucianism is a force for good and whether we need to recognise Confucius’s birthday and celebrate it.  
 
Cathy Crawford
Secretary, Edinburgh Group
 
Roger Redondo visits the Center for Inquiry, NY | Print |  Email

Roger and Richard
Roger (left) meets Richard Dawkins (right)

 

Edinburgh Group committee member and President of the Edinburgh University Humanist Society Roger Redondo recently attended the conference “The Secular Society and its Enemies” at the Center for Inquiry in New York at the invitation of the student branch of CfI. A highlight of the trip was an exclusive dinner for 35 students with Professor Richard Dawkins, and guess who ended up sitting directly opposite him?

A full report of the Conference will appear in the next edition of ‘Humanitie’ magazine.
 
Rabbi Rose: Judaism | Print |  Email
Rabbi Rose talks about Judaism
Rabbi Rose (on left) talks about Judaism
 
Monday 3 December, 2007. In a wide ranging talk, Rabbi Rose took our audience through Orthodox Jewish attitudes to a variety of topics, from stem cell research to abortion via homosexuality and kosher methods of killing animals. We learned among other things that Israel is a secular country where the law of the state takes precedence over the law of god; that Rabbis aren't infallible but can be divinely inspired; that there is no concept of 'natural law' in Judaism and that while contraception and abortion are discouraged or prohibited except in special circumstances, the status of women and homosexuals is improving. In the 19th century there had been a drift away from the religion but now more young people are affiliating themselves to Judaism as it reorients itself towards an increasingly secular society.

Judaism has been ingenious in adjusting itself to some recent changes in society. Stem Cell research poses no great problems as until a foetus is 40 days old, it is not regarded as a human being; while homosexual acts are forbidden in the Torah, a person with a homosexual inclination can be an entirely observant Jew as long as he or she does not act out that inclination. Lesbianism, interestingly, is unmentioned – the prohibition refers solely to men.

On the question of evolution, Rabbi Rose said that Rashi, the greatest of all Jewish scholars of the Torah, described the first line of the book of Genesis as ‘crying out for interpretation’ and that in general Jews accept Darwin's theory, although they consider it dogmatic and believe that creation is divinely ordered.

On the question of life after death, he told us that Judaism believes in this life, and that what happens after death is God’s problem. On the other hand, we will be judged on our conduct in this life and the soul is cleansed as part of the redemptive process after death. Contrary to received wisdom, the Bible is not meant to be taken literally and the concept of ‘an eye for an eye’ is one of a series of metaphors that teach lessons about how we should live our lives. Having said that, the Bible is still regarded as the history of the Jewish people, although he conceded that it is open to interpretation and leaves many questions unanswered.
 
After the talk, there was a spirited discussion on the question of whether or not, as the Rabbi said, "all children are indoctrinated" and one of our members who is a Veterinary Surgeon took him to task over the unnecessary cruelty involved in the Kosher methods of animal slaughter. The Rabbi replied that Jews are not convinced that the other methods of slaughter used are any less cruel. It was clear that neither side of the debate was inclined to move from its position and we concluded the evening on a rare note of compromise as the Rabbi stated “he had never claimed that you have to be religious to be moral”.

TM
 
The Trouble With Science… | Print |  Email
The trouble with science
The trouble with science
 
 
Monday 5 November 2007. It was appropriate that the meeting was held on Bonfire Night, as Jack Gold was sending up a few rockets of his own when he launched his review of the history of science since the beginning of time.

It would be impossible to condense into a few words the ideas of science to which we were introduced, but it may mean something to those with a science background to say that we met, among others, scientists Alan Turing, Jim Lovelock , Einstein and John Wheeler in our very personalised tour through science discovery.  Jack had produced an attractive, colourful set of slides to go with his presentation.  Not to mention a cartoon character, Doctor Quantum, who explained to us in a short DVD the difficulties of quantum physics and the possibility that consciousness through observation actively builds or alters the universe.  It was this dilemma which had led Jack to question whether science could be the support we could rest upon as Humanists.
 
Edinburgh Group
 
In the discussion which followed, there seemed to be a consensus that while we had to accept that science did not have all the answers, it is, to quote Humanist member John Wiltshire, ‘the best model of reality we have’.   There is still much more to be learned, and in the meantime, the philosophy which underlies Humanist ideals was not too drastically undermined by this fact.  In fact there is not such a lot of trouble with science and we can look forward to all manner of new, useful scientific discovery.

Cathy Crawford
 
 
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