Philosopher A.C. Grayling spoke about the shift in the role of religion over the ages, and how humanism can replace it.

In earlier times, says Grayling, science and religion were viewed as competitors. They both made truth claims regarding the origin and destiny of the universe, and they were both covering the same turf.

Now, as science has been taking over the job of explaining the material world, religion has moved to attending to the emotional needs of adherents.

He discussed the claim that religion was a kind of proto-science — a ‘first try’ at explaining the world. He rejects the claim thus: People often ask if humans came from monkeys, and the answer is, no, actually monkeys and humans came from a common ancestor. In like fashion, science and religion also had a common ancestor, which was ignorance. Science has had more success.

How could science have evolved from religion? Science uses trial and error, effort, observation, and reason. Religion uses prayer. Try lighting your house by prayer and see if it works. How different they are. It’s like the difference between a ham sandwich and a bicycle.

Science doesn’t solve our moral problems. It would be like asking a botanist how best to love your wife. But we do have arts, music, and literature. We also have a responsibility to help the less fortunate, and one thing we can do is reduce the opprsession of religious groups upon them.

Humanism is capable of speaking to the enjoyment or refreshment or transcendence of our deep emotions. There’s no spirituality required. And it does this in a much more honest way than religons do.

Grayling: “People ask me ‘Why do you speak against religion when it gives someone comfort when they’re old and alone?’ But how much better would it be if friends and neighbours were there to give that person love?”

It was amazing to hear Taslima Nasrin‘s story. She’s a writer and a former Muslim. One article she wrote denounced the burqa as restrictive and unequal, and that women shouldn’t wear it. Because of her writings about how religion oppresses women, she has attracted demonstrations and violence from her detractors. She has five fatwas against her from Muslim clerics. Says Nasrin, “Don’t you think the believers commit blasphemy by trying to protect their god?”

I first became aware of Nasrin around 2005, when she was exiled from her native Bangladesh, but I had no idea her struggles were ongoing. The Indian government has forced her to leave her home in India, and she now lives in the West.

She told how as a child, her mother told her if she ever said anything bad about Allah, her tongue would fall out. A natural empiricist, she immediately ran to the bathroom, closed the door, and said “Allah is a son of a bitch. Allah is the son of a dog.” Miraculously, her tongue stayed in place, and she knew that her mother was wrong.

In her talk, Nasrin was critical of attempts on the part of Muslims to influence international laws curtailing free speech so as not to upset religious feelings, saying “Without the right to offend, freedom does not exist.”

She sees conflict between not Christianity and Islam, or between East and West. The conflict is between rationalism and irrational religious belief.

She told of how she longs to return to her home in Bangladesh, and how the West doesn’t feel like home to her. Nevertheless, to her, the international community of rationalists, secularists, and atheists are her home.

None of us who has left a religion has any idea what it’s like to have to worry about our safety like she does. And yet she continues to speak out against religion and governmental attempts to appease it. What an inspirational person.

Philip Adams (author, columnist): “Atheist Fundamentalism: The Dangers of Missionary Zeal, Why We Mustn’t Be Like Them”

This was a strange talk. Phillip Adams is arguing that atheists haven’t had much influence on religion at all. He argues we’re not killing religions; they’re committing suicide. Further, the decrease in some religions is not leading to an increase in atheism, but rather an increase in pseudo-science and cults. Certainly atheism is the beneficiary of a lot of that religious mobility. But we can’t take credit for the decrease in conventional religion. These wounds are self-inflicted. We’re winning, but not because of what we’re doing.

We should attack religion when it moves into our area of secularism. But we shouldn’t be disagreeable on areas where we could be making allies. We must use the opportunities to make friends with people who are not our enemies. “Let us not cast them into the outer darkness into which they cast us. Let us be better than them.”

My view: Adams seems to feel that the pace of change is glacial. And yet here we are. The number of atheism and ‘nones’ is growing fast. Are we supposed to just quiet down now? Hell, no.

It’s not about being better. It’s about telling the truth. I say shake the tree. They won’t like it, but they wouldn’t like any amount of push-back. Their idea of a ‘good atheist’ is one that shuts up. What has that gotten us in the last 50 years? Yes, I will pick battles, and in person I’m actually polite. But I didn’t like having an atheist dampening the momentum.

Entertaining, but a bit of a downer. I wonder how I’ll feel about the atheist movement when I’ve been in it for as long as he has (if that’s possible).

I am not stalking PZ, but I bumped into him when no one else was around. I said, “Phillip’s talk was certainly a different view. Not so much ‘in your face’.”

He said, “That’s okay. We need that.”

“You’re more forward about it,” I suggested.

“We need that too,” he said.