Ramnani: Hi, I am Dr Sapna Ramnani, and you're listening to share it with me and the journalist living with a speech impairment, and that means my voice is a little more difficult to understand. But I didn't want that to stop me from asking the questions that matter in this podcast, I use an AI voice to help me bring those questions to life. The voice is synthetic with the thoughts, the emotions and the intent behind every question and comment are completely my own. You'll hear that AI voice throughout the interview, but know that I'm here guiding every moment of the conversation. My guest is Andrew Copson, the chief executive of humanists UK, one of the leading voices for secularism and humanism in Britain. In our conversation, Andrew helps us untangle what humanism really means, how it differs from atheism, and why he prefers to call himself a humanist, rather than just an atheist. We explore the state of humanism in the UK today, the cultural legacy of religion and the challenges faced by those who want to step away from high control religious environments. Andrew also shares insights into the work of Faith to Faithless humanists UK support program for people leaving restricted religious groups and his vision of a more inclusive and free society. It's a thought provoking discussion about belief freedom and what it means to live a meaningful life without religion. Hi, how are you?

Copson: I am very well. Thank you.

Ramnani: Thank you for talking to me today. For people who don't know, can you define humanism in atheism?

Copson: Yes, absolutely. I mean the word humanist has come to mean it's been used to mean lots of different things in the past, but it's come to mean today, someone who is not religious and who has a view of life that puts human beings and increasingly, other sentient creatures at the center of our moral calculations and our thinking about what matters and what is ethical. So whilst having a naturalistic view of the universe, without any gods or goddesses thinking about human beings our moral obligations to each other in order to make a better world in which they and we ourselves can live in. So it's a non religious approach to life that prioritizes human welfare, human potential, human freedom. And atheism, well, I don't think about that quite so much because I've never really believed in any god. So it comes quite naturally to me. I almost don't, you know, use the word for it. But of course, atheism is the belief that there are no gods. Or some people might say they were atheists because they had not yet seen proof of any gods. They might say their atheism was a bit more provisional. For me, the word atheism, the word atheist, is not one I use about myself, unless anyone asks me specifically about whether I believe in gods or not, because I find the question of God's just quite irrelevant to my life. I prefer humanist, which is a more positive way of describing what I do believe in.

Ramnani: According to the census of 2020 then, less than half of the UK population describe themselves as religious. However, UK considers itself to be a mainly Christian country. Why do you think that is?

Copson: That's a really good question. I think that for many people, of course, they had a Christian upbringing, and many people are still alive, although they're very in the older demographics now, if you had that sort of upbringing, and maybe they remember hymns or church or Christianity at school, and they sort of, if they not quite liked it necessarily, but it was the background conditions for their culture, and it's what they understand. And I think that's true in many countries where people aren't so religious, the background culture and its religious character is something that influences them. And so I think they think of Britain. Many people think of Britain as still being Christian in some sense. In fact, I think, you know, the country has always been a very diverse one. The government at the elite level, for, you know, a few 100 years, obviously, has been very Christian, but they've always been non Christians in Britain too. And our culture benefits from, especially from a humanist influence in the past, but more recently, of course, all sorts of other influences, even in the 19th century. In the 18th and 19th century, you know, influences from China, influences from Asia, influences from the Arab world. And so I think we're really one of the more diverse countries, not just in individual terms. Now, with the people we have living in Britain, a very diverse bunch, also in our culture, in our background, culture, you know, the the ideas that inform a lot of our institutions and ways of living and habits are actually quite diverse, and have been for some, some time. But I think that the fact that there are, you know, churches all around us, the fact that a lot of people went to school in like I say, What the. Probably the height of Christian Britain in the sort of 40s and 50s, and probably still has that long, that long shadow. But I do think that it's slowly changing. I mean, we've seen opinion polls recently where, in fact, YouGov had one just this week, I think, or last week, saying that a majority of people now do say that Britain isn't a Christian country, although it was in the past, but there is still a strong feeling, like you say, even with not non Christians, that we are somehow a Christian country. I think that will fade over time. And the question, of course, is, is what we replace it with? And you know, I would like to think that we go, we can go from being a Christian state, to being a state and a nation that is inclusive, that values diversity, but has a has a common culture and citizenship that we can all share. But that's harder, because it's a more active thing that you have to build, rather than just inherit from the past. But I think that it's a good aspiration to aim for.

Ramnani: Why do you think society doesn't have a holiday for Darwin Day, in honor of Charles Darwin, because Christmas is a national holiday, even though only less than half of the population define themselves as a Christian.

Copson: Of course. Sapna, that's an excellent question. I think that we should all be asking our MPs that, because we need a new bank holiday in this country, especially in February, when it's depressing and the weather is really dark. And thankfully, Charles Darwin was born in February, so I think Darwin Day should certainly be a holiday. And there's so many wonderful British scientists to celebrate, actually, that the day could be a national holiday. You know, thinking about that, which is much better, as you say, than the holiday one particular religion.

Ramnani: Can you tell me about the support program Faith to Faithless, run by humanist UK?

Copson: Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's really interesting, isn't it? I think it's one of our, yeah, yeah, exactly one of our more important programs these days, it's, it's a new service. I mean, lots of services that we have are quite long standing, like the celebrants that do ceremonies or the pastoral care we might provide in hospitals or prisons. But faith to faith is something that we started realizing the need for, really just a few years ago, and we worked with people who'd left high control religions. That's what the program is about, people who've left high control left high control religions or in the process of leaving them. And we don't define what a high control religion is, by the way, because that really depends on the person who's leaving it, whether how they've experienced it. But it's typically Ultra, very ultra orthodox types of Judaism and very strict types of Islam or very closed types of Christianity, like Jehovah's Witnesses or exclusive brethren, but other other groups too, and we realized that people who were leaving those high control religions, who were because of the secularization of society, leaving in much greater numbers than in the past, faced lots of problems, as they did so because that religion that they'd been part of, not only was often their complete family was part of it too, it was maybe everyone they knew, you know, everyone they went to school with, their whole community. And so people were losing not just the connection of being part of a religious community, but friends, family, sometimes, jobs, their homes, really losing everything. The service that we designed with those people does a number of different things. So there is peer support for people who to offer support to people who are going through that, to have support from people who had gone through it themselves, which I think was very important. Then there's lots of signposting to mainstream services that people could use, but they might not have the experience to access because maybe, I mean, some people leaving the ultra orthodox Judaism, for example, might not even be able to speak English, in spite of the fact that they might be in their 20s and having lived all their life in London, let's say so there was this help for people there, and then there's also safeguarding training that we provide to public authorities and to other charities who are working with, maybe young people, but who aren't aware of the issues around apostasy, leaving high control religions. And now I'm very happy to say we've also launched, or about to launch, but I don't know when this podcast goes out. It might be launched by the time this goes out, a new national helpline for people who are leaving high control religions. So face to face, this program is really growing, and I think it's such important work.

Ramnani: Do you think that there will be a time where it will not be needed anymore?

Copson: That the program Faith to Faithless?

Ramnani: Yeah.

Copson: I mean, that's the that's the day to hope for, isn't it? I think that the unfortunate truth is that the world is full of people, parents and others, who want to confine and constrain their children and bring them up in this way that although I'm sure they think they're doing it for the best, perhaps cuts them off from the modern world life as they might like to live it, and however constrained and conformist children's lives are when they're growing up, some of them will always. Want to break free. They'll always want to make different choices. They'll always want to exercise their freedom of thought and do things as a result of their different thoughts that they have from from their family. So I think the unfortunate truth is that us that this service will probably be needed, certainly for as long as you and I are around.

Ramnani: So can I ask you your thoughts on how this will affect same sex marriages, your thoughts on how laws might favor people who are religious?

Copson: You mean, in the in the UK today, what the laws?

Ramnani: Yeah.

Copson: I do a lot of international work, as well as work for humanist UK. And the UK is very interesting in having such a long standing laws, you know, very oftenly so laws that have been in place for a very, very long time, and as a result, they're often very slow to change. You know, humanists in the mid 20th century were campaigning when they were campaigning for things like the decriminalization of homosexuality or the decriminalization of abortion or to end censorship, you know, which we still had in this country until the 60s. Of the theater, for example, they were campaigning against laws that were, you know, very, very long standing, very settled and and they reflected the Society of many decades, or sometimes hundreds of years ago. And I think that's one of the things you have to deal with. Anyone wanting to change the law in England, especially in the UK, more generally, has to deal with the fact that a lot of laws are cheated with the sort of all of the norms that are encoded by laws are treated with all the strength of tradition, and it's a very conservative sort of mindset very often. So this was obviously true of the law on marriage, which was when it was expanded to include same sex couples. 10 years ago now, was an incredibly tough debate, actually. I mean, it seems so simple, you know, so sensible me, that it should just be equal, right? But, but but it was such a big debate, and I think that a lot of the laws that we have are like that now. And so, you know, the fact that religion has such a big place in our schools, the fact that there are still sorts of weird grounds for divorce or annulment of marriage, like non consummation, or all the sort of weird the ways in which children don't have, in many instances, separate rights to the rights of that parent. These things all sort of encode, often very religious assumptions about what human beings are, how they should behave, what the state can justify doing to them, and how it can control them. And so I always think that in the business of campaigning for change. And of course, that's one of the things humanists UK is. It's an advocate for local for legal and social and political change. Advocating for changes is very tough in that environment. But I also think that given that a large number of our causes, like same sex marriage, for example, or humanist marriage as well, which we still haven't got in England and Wales, when you can argue them, you know, with a willing participant. And sometimes government is willing. Our case is usually based on reason, on evidence, on principles that are, you know, favor equality and freedom for all people. And so I think that when you get a fair hearing, I think our position, thankfully, often, often prevails. The tricky bit is getting a fair hearing, because not only is the weight of tradition behind some of the bad laws that we have, they're very powerful groups often in favor of keeping the status quo. I mean, laws on religion in the education system, for example, in England, are supported by, you know, big institutions like the Church of England and the Catholic Church that are incredibly powerful in wanting to keep things as they are, you know, with no change, and so that's something that we always have to deal with.

Ramnani: Do you think the government has too much power over what people can do?

Copson: Yeah, I think so. I think that. I mean, I'm one of those people who, and this is something on which humanists might disagree. Everyone, everyone thinks that government is for something, you know, and some people think the government is, you know, to keep us safe. Some people think that government is to, like, defend people's security and so on. I think that the purpose of government should be to protect our freedom. And I think that the role of government should be to make sure that everyone within the territory that the government has responsibility for has freedom to pursue their own goals and ambitions, to develop as fully as they can as human beings, and to be as free and happy as possible without harming the rights of others. Of course, that's the limit on all of our freedom. Hopefully, I think that's the role of government, and I think that government should do that in some cases by keeping out of the way and not controlling us in other cases, of course, government has to do that by stepping in, because there are some people who would not educate their children. There are some people who need assistance, whether financial or otherwise, to reach their potential. So government has to do things in order to create the conditions in which we can flourish, and often it needs to, you know, butt out of it all. But you know, if I was designing a constitution or a government, that would be the way I would design it, the government should be there to guarantee our freedom and our, you know, create the possibility for our freedom and our happiness. But of course, in practice. That's often not what government sees itself as doing. And we still have in we have inherited a lot of laws which arrest rest on the assumption that government is there either for security, which, of course, it is, to some extent, because we can't be free if we're constantly in fear of, you know, violence from outside of ourselves, or that government is there to impose certain behaviors on people enforce certain codes of morality that in areas where no one is harmed, you know, government also seems to be there to sort of serve the interests of a particular class of people or a particular sector industry or society. But yeah, I think that, to go back to your question, I think yes, because it's based on a wrong headed assumption about what government should be for, then government does often have too much control on us today.

Ramnani: Why do people normally want to break away from their religion?

Copson: It's always interesting to hear the people, the stories of people who've done this, because the reasons are so diverse. I tell you, one of the reasons that it's normally something emotional or something they've experienced, maybe, if they're a young woman, they just feel it's unfair the restrictions that have been imposed on them that they wanted to be free in some way they weren't being permitted to be. Many gay people in Minneapolis states are questioning their sexuality and so on, and so they've got, you know, obvious reasons for not finding acceptable or comfortable the religious assumptions that they've been brought up with. They want more. They want something they want something more. They want something different. Increasingly, of course, it's difficult for even the most closeted, sort of sequestered type religious groups to keep the outside world out completely. So young people within even very close religious groups will know a lot more about what's out there and available than in previous years. So it's usually, I think, because people want something different sometimes, but very rarely, it's a sort of logical or rational thing. Sometimes people do, obviously, just come to a moment when they think, hold on a minute. I can't believe any of this. This doesn't make any sense, but that that seems to form much less of a part of people's stories of leaving than than you might otherwise think. It's usually something more emotional, something more moral, you know, that pushes them out the door. I've found, I think that's why it's very difficult actually, to you can't argue someone out of a religious belief. I always think, you know, very rare instances, some people will be, you know, engaged with it on that basis, and they'll change their minds in that sort of rational way. But I think quite often people leave religions for emotional or moral or esthetic reasons.

Ramnani: Thank you so much for your time.

Copson: Thank you.

Ramnani: It was good to get your thoughts today.

Copson: Thank you, Sapna. I'll see you soon.

Ramnani: Yes. you've been listening to share it with me. If this episode offers clarity or connection, consider sharing it the right story at the right time to change everything. Music you hear is A Perfect Day by Iros Young courtesy of Upbeat. This is Dr Sapna Ramnani, signing off. Stay curious. Stay connected.