Andrew Copson explains Humanism at the Ancestor's Trail 2014

many long books of weighty words and many volumes in them have been dedicated to talking about humanism so obviously I can't do full Justice to explaining this view of the world this way of living this philosophy of life this approach uh to values and meaning uh in just 5 minutes so I want to say three things very briefly just to give you some of the typical attitudes that are associated with a humanist worldview which is the view of the world that the BHA the British Association promotes and supports people who have I'm going to say something about reality something about morality and something about meaning start uh with something about reality I think it's pretty fair to say that broadly speaking across the whole history of human thought as long as men and women have looked around and said you know what is this sort of place that we're inhabiting what is going on here what is this stuff all around us what is it made of how does it work um and questions like that that there have been two sorts of answer to those questions there have been people people in almost every time in every place who have looked around them and said this is not all there is this crude material reality that we perceive is just the screen in front of some greater reality Beyond it that we can approach and touch through dreams or gods or demons or Angels uh or some other means and then there's been another way of looking at the universe people who have said this that we see and we perceive with our senses is reality there is no second layer to the universe and we can understand Reality by our observation by our intellect and two things really arise out of that conviction uh to to to convey sort of briefly now one is the idea in consequence of that view of reality that human beings can understand the universe that we inhabit that it is possible to approach uh some meaningful knowledge um about the world in which we find ourselves that the universe is comprehensible and the other attitude that arises from this idea about reality um is that far from being some separate creation that is not connected with the rest um of the universe but is somehow apart and aside from it people who take this view of reality acknowledge that human beings are very interconnected with the world in which we find ourselves and which nourishes US and the Universe um that we were born into now it's obviously this latter view of reality which is the one that typifies a humanist approach so that's what I want to say about a humanist attitude towards reality and making sense of the universe something about morality again there have been two broad ways in the history of human thought of thinking about morality what it is where it comes from and what it consists of one view has it that morality is something that came to us from outside that at some point struggling and suffering and brutal and bestial human beings suddenly had gifted to them principles for living that until this point um they were read in tooth and Claw and after this event this historical event when these Commandments were issued on tablets of stone or in some other form miraculously they were redeemed from themselves and able at last um to live in some sort of Cooperative uh way and obviously those sorts of views of what morality is go handin hand usually with the idea that morals equals rules rules for living to be followed that the test of whether something is right or wrong is whether or not it approximates to this pre-existing rule or commandment another way of looking at morality which is the way that typifies a humanist approach to these things is to say morality is not something that came from outside of human beings when we look at our close relatives in the animal world we can see all the sorts of behaviors and instincts that lie at the foundation of what we as conscious animals today call morality morality is something that comes from inside Human Experience and on this view you can see very quickly that the consequence is that far from being embodied in rules and Commandments that we have to obey from the outside morality is a sort of sympathy with other human beings it's generated by our interactions it's about seeing yourself in the face of the other person and respecting them for the same reasons that you respect yourself reason and empathy and thinking about the best way to live are the consequences of this View of morality it's at this point that you realize that 5 minutes was far too optimistic a limit to put on an explanation of humanism when you're only two-thirds of the way through the third circle in our ven diagram the third thing I want to say something about is meaning there's a view of the meaning of life that has it that purpose is out there waiting to be discovered that you search around the universe you study hard the trajectory of reality the patterns that you find around you and in there you can discern meaning purpose intention reality is going somewhere out there is some sort of cosmic knitting pattern around which everything um coheres and by which everything uh is mandated and if you search really hard uh and try all your days you might eventually Indiana Jones like Discover at the end of your quest in a in a locked chest deep in a cave the meaning that you have been uh searching for and it was there all the time if only you'd known it that's not the view we associate with the humanist attitude The View that we associate with a humanist attitude is that meaning is not something out there waiting to be discovered but something that we create that we create meaning and a sense of purpose in our own lives that we're the ones who ascribe meaning to the experiences that we're having these ideas found in combination have uh can be discerned pretty much everywhere uh that there have been human communities writing down their thoughts you can find them over two and a half thousand years ago in India or over 2 and a half thousand years ago in China over 2 and a half thousand years ago in Europe and of course they're all over the world today um and today we call this approach to life humanism almost five minutes five minutes give or take so the next part of my talk is the part where I talk about an aspect of humanism related to the theme of the ancestors Trail last year this was extremely easy I talked about Evolution and the way in which the discovery of the theory of evolution plugged an intellectual hole in a humanist approach to uh understanding life which had hitherto um seemed uh unplugg this year as you've heard the theme of the ancestors Trail is the year of the amphibian plastic and comprehensive as a humanist worldview is and of course all encompassing it is very hard to find something relevant to say um about the year of the amphibian uh from a humanist point of view so instead I'm addressing a slightly smaller question I'm going to talk about the meaning of life humanism and the meaning of life so let's think about this topic instead together for a little while and as we drift through it in a slightly rambling way maybe we'll find uh points of intersection uh with if not the specific theme of ancestors Trail then the more General themes of diversity and community and belonging and the interconnectedness of living things and other useful abstract terms that I can anchor myself to in the next 20 minutes this weekend is all about our kinship with the rest of Nature and with the animal world in particular um and of course we know that many of the things that we used to think were uniquely human um we've now uh discovered are really just sorts aspects of experience along the spectrum of which we are at the far end you know we no longer delude ourselves that we are the only only animals capable of forward planning and the use of tools and moral sentiment and and so on and so forth we see ourselves instead quite properly as being on on one far edge of a spectrum um uh of those sorts of behaviors but the conscious attribution of meaning to experience and the spending of time in trying to explore the question of why we're here where we're going what we're doing um and how we should live um is a very human endeavor for a humanist though from a humanist point of view as my short uh definition of humanism hopefully made clear there isn't actually any meaning of life in the way that this phrase is conventionally used there's no indication in our in our universe of some higher external purpose for our existence of which human beings are part so instead what humanists have tried to do um have is is to sort of try and Salvage the phrase by redefining it and here's a here's a good example of a sort of redefinition don't worry I'll read it out to you you can keep drinking um by Carl poer uh humanist philosopher and philosopher of science he makes a pretty good attempt at redefining into relevancy this this phrase the meaning of life he says the phrase is sometimes used in the sense of a deeper hidden meaning something like the hidden meaning of an epigram or of a poem but the wisdom of poets and philosophers has taught us that the phrase can be understood in a different way that the meaning of life may not be something hidden and perhaps discoverable but rather something with which we ourselves can endow Our Lives now I think that's a pretty good attempt you know in in theory to redefine this this phrase so that is Meaningful and use useful but in practice rather than speak usually of the meaning of life or even of meaning in life humanists have tended to talk of how we should should live of living well in the one life that we have and those sort that sort of talk is guided obviously by a few humanist convictions acceptance of the finite nature of the human person in time has consequences for the question of how we live and what meaning we might give our lives this life is not just an episode in our existence it is our entire existence we're never going to develop further um as persons than we will develop in this life there's no future time in which our completion uh can occur and so the development of the whole person and the search for uh the the answer to the question of how best to live has an added urgency uh for humanists and in consequence it tends to shift our thinking away from the meaning of life to talk instead of the good life what is the good life how should we live in this life not looking for purpose Beyond and out outside but within our experience of the existence that we have now a phrase like the good life immediately uh meets objections um people will tend to say critical and just uh not necessarily hostile critics but friendly critics at this point will tend uh to say well it's all very well talking about the good life uh but you know for most people this sort of thing isn't available uh human life is not just good it's not just a case of the pursuit um of you know nice ways of being interesting personal development and fulfillment actually a huge amount of human life is full of tragedy um there are people uh today uh who have Painful incomplete and worthless lives and always will have um and that is how they were born and how they uh will die and the most graphic embodiment of that truth for us today is probably I think for all of us we would accept um the sort of global inequality that we live with it's clearly the case that there are those of us who are going to live out our lifespan of a 100 years um in comfortable Western and affluence using our Leisure Time to probe the interesting uh questions um of uh reality and life perhaps pushing back the boundaries of of Science in ways that never before have been uh dreamt of countless opportunities for personal growth and feelings of uh completeness and there are those of us born just a few days ago who won't live out the week through famine or disease um or whatever and it's a legitimate challenge which I'm not going to answer or explore to any great uh depth now because I haven't got time and partly because I don't know the answer but I I leave it with you it's an interesting challenge um in light of that um whether the humanist talk um in a universal sense of human flourishing um and uh the good life is really possible many humanists say it is and they go further and say that actually acknowledgement of the tragedy that we find in our life is is sort of the functional basis for compassion um in human beings Richard Norman who's a humanist philosopher makes a sort of virtue of this in a way he says The Human Condition is one of vulnerability Our Fate may be terrible and there may be no consolation to recognize fragility is to accept that we are vulnerable to circumstances but these are grounds for sober realism but not for despair the ideal to which we can Aspire is not a remote non-human ideal it is one which is formed from our experience of what human beings are capable of at their best it is an ideal that comes from within our own Humanity so acknowledgement in a sense of our Universal human tragedy for humanists does provide that functional basis for compassion and the humanist answer to the question of whether we can speak of of human experience in a universal way faced with this inequality is is is in Someone Like Richard Norman's um uh mind at least that we not only we can but that we must like I say that's a question I leave with you if then we're talking about the good life the way to live why how should we uh live now what should our lives before in this sense again and again of course in the last 2 and a half thousand years the idea that has uh persisted and risen repeatedly is that the aim of life therefore should be the pursuit of happiness this is the overarching aim in an individual human being's existence now this idea can be made to seem crass selfish base sterile um and it's always needed defending this is a defense from over two Millennia ago um from epicurus of this idea when I say that pleasure is the goal of living I do not mean the pleasures of Libertines I mean the pleasure that consists of freedom from bodily pain and mental agitation not the product of one drinking party after another or sex with women and men or seafood it's a great here historical context this is a rare and great uh Gourmet pleasure at the time so where were we sex with women and men or seafood the eating of seafood and other Delicacies on the contrary uh the pleasure that is the result of clear thinking now these words of epicurus really illustrate how Timeless the critiques of the pursuit of happiness as libertinism are and they also provide a defense um of this idea of the pursuit of happiness as being a key ingredient of the good life and humanists today typically are echoing epicurus's attitude even if they're not doing so knowingly pleasures of of the Flesh and seafood are obviously an important part of a good life and pointless self-denial is is obviously going to be avoid ided by anyone who doesn't think it's sinful physical sensation is a pleasure in itself and a stimulus to other pleasures and the enjoyment of of all these things fit into this category equally however the point that Epicurious is making pleasure comes from creativity from relationships with others from intellectual Endeavor and a plethora of other sources so you know when I talk about the pursuit of happiness when anyone talks about the pursuit of happiness as as as as the aim of a of a good life of a good way of living um don't be misled into thinking it's just uh the pursuit of pure s sensation it's also the pursuit of personal development once life is well underway and two or three decades have uh Gone by or more two or three decades in my case um the the introspective human being of which we are all examples is conscious of his or herself as a complex personality as someone who has developed as someone who has an existence um that uh has you know changed with time and become more complex over time as a result of of their experiences tissues of experience and and of meaning self ascribed a humanist view of of of of the qu on the question of how we should live calls attention to this truth um about the human person um and proceeds from this really to encourage more conscious self-development and this is a good example of this from John uh John Stewart Mill and it's interesting to think that he is of the as it were the darwinian generation John Stewart Mill's great book on Liberty was produced in 1859 the same year as On the Origin of Species so we're sort of swimming in the same intellectual currence is my attempt to link these uh uh two topics together to the uh theme of the weekend John stri Mill in proportion to the development of his individuality apologies his a Victorian his or her individuality each person becomes more valuable to himself and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others there is a greater fullness of Life about his own existence and when there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is composed of them so this idea of personal development has been uh very important in humanist responses to the question of how we should live and there's a recognition that this approach to how the questions of how we should live is one that of necessity produces is diversity this is another theme that recurs in humanist discussions of how we should live well what a good life would be human nature is not a machine to be built after a model and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it but a tree which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing it is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves but by cultivating it and calling it for forth that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation that view of personal development the development of the whole person as being an almost organic process is a very powerful image I think um and one uh that certainly um though it's dominant from the 19th century onwards when there's the borrowing of this imagery becomes uh more widespread because of wider public education about science and scientific metaphor um it certainly persists in in in pre-scientific cultures and literature too so the pursuit of happiness which not only in terms of is to be explained in terms of pleasure but also is to be explained in terms of personal development the sort of diversity of personal development um that uh that implies both very important uh humanist contributions to the question of how to live a second General category um of responses to the question of what makes a good life is the idea of connections these are three examples of the idea of connections to other human beings of all the ingredients of a happy life says epicurus friendship is the greatest only connect says em Foster 2,000 years later uh talking uh in his novel of of the connections between people across boundaries of All Sorts remember your humanity and forget the rest uh says bur and Russell at about the same time all these are examples um of of the humanist view that connections with other people relationships with other human beings are part of the thing uh that gives color and warmth to life an essential ingredient when we're trying to consider what the best way to live is a human person doesn't exist in isolation uh but in community with others it's not just connections with individual human beings in front of you right now um that have been seen as important on this view all sorts of uh other connections as well beyond our connections with the others who are our uh companions on the Journey of Life humanists of various sorts have urged us to realize and develop connections with the broader human story Nigel werton one humanist philosopher points out that we can even make use of inanimate objects in our uh fulfillment of this desire think of how we value objects he says that have been in touch with people now dead over indistinguishable tokens of the same type a pen that belonged to a favored uncle or a grandmother's wedding ring the objects particular histories do not usually leave their traces on the objects yet we treat them as if they had done so not just personal connections with the real people we find ourselves in contact with but imaginative connections with other human beings who were not uh directly there in front of us this is one of uh the ways in which fulfillment can be reached developing that sense of connectedness uh with people even in that category and this can go further other people would push this further and say not just um with uh men and women women who through these objects we might have some sort of even notional relationship but even through a sense of try trying even trying to develop a sense of the generations of people who have gone before us and the generations that hopefully uh will stretch in front of us through more of a knowledge about their ways through an imaginative positioning of ourselves um in that great chain or that tree um of Life another way to feel connectedness and give life um a sense of meaning not just with other human beings in person or imaginatively but also with the rest of the natural world we can feel that connectedness that sense of connection um with other parts of reality not just with the human parts here's a nice bit of Richard Dawkins why when you go to the Grand Canyon and you see the strata of geological time laid out before you why is there a feeling that brings you close to tears or looking at images from the Hubble telescope the human mind is big enough and imaginative enough to be poetically moved by the whole sweep of geological ages represented by the rocks that you are standing among that's why you feel in awe and in the chapter that this is is taken from from a book called is nothing sacred which is a collection of um essays by members of the of the British imist Association on this theme he also talks about giant redwoods and the first human fossils and other sorts of aspects um of the natural world that give you that feeling of connectedness that take you outside of yourself in profound experiences um that that give a certain richness to life many other dimensions of human life and experience give similar scope for fulfillment and personal development and there are as many such occupations as there are human beings more than there are time to discuss this evening quite reasonably Scholars of humanism Janine Janine Fowler is one such is a uh not a humanist writer herself but as it were a analyst of humanism she wrote a textbook about humanism uh for higher education um quite reasonably Scholars of humanism have characterized humanist views about meaning in life and the good life and a meaningful life as optimistic sort of views you are what you make of yourselves says Janine aim high aim for the stars and you may yet clear the rooftops you will need courage tenacity motivation and a good sense of humor on the root quality of character happiness fulfillment of potential and of human needs can be improved through changed values through redirection of individual Life by process of personal change and personal Evolution and this sort of optimistic attitude the optimistic Dimension to humanist answers to the question of what the meaning in our life can be um give rise sometimes to charges of a certain naivity which sometimes and sometimes isn't connected to the uh the the tragic view that I laid out at the beginning of my talk but I don't think this is a naive approach um I think it is actually a good way to live no journey is ever successful if you begin it you know expecting the worst and in fact you make success much more likely if you set out with a certain determination can't really see what's wrong with optimism in that sense there was a an international humanist Congress actually Once In This Very Room in 2009 um bringing uh humanists and all sorts of organizations across the world and I was particularly struck by a group of Ugandan humanists um obviously operating in an extreme extremely hostile uh environment um to promote their views and the sort of work that they do and they talked about the sort of social action projects that they were involved in um they help uh set up girls football teams they help to um set up schools secular schools humanist schools where children can receive a a balanced education children who wouldn't receive any education at all they set up refuges for women who've been forced into various sorts of sex work to teach them a trade and to uh improve their lives and their chances and I was particularly struck by what they described as their motivation for all that work what was it that had set them on the path um of doing all those amazing things in such challenging environments and it simply was the sort of optimism that their humanist view engendered the idea that with the absence of any sort of help from without human beings it was ordinary men and women who had the power to take into their own hands their Destinies perhaps to a limited extent constrained by unfortunate circumstances though they might be nonetheless they had an optimism that forced them to make a change so I think it's uh a good thing to resist uh critics of of optimism uh quite often I think optimism can uh make the world a better place in fact it's probably the only thing that does nonetheless some people say this is a delusion ultimately on the humanist view they say we will come to nothing everyone we ever knew will come to nothing everyone yet to be uh will come to nothing and so will everything that we do and create while humanists in fact know this more so than others uh if anything not believing in any uh sort of future State we know that from this ultimate perspective everything we do is the the rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic um in the in in the proverbial sense from the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we go to bed at night but I think what the humanist does further is to ask if it really makes sense to talk of ultimately in our in our lives and in those terms I forer speaks about this the great humanist novelist of the early 20th century when he talks about humanism covering his main belief his belief in the individual and in his duty to create and to understand and to contact other individuals a duty that may be and ought to be a delight the human race to which he belongs may not survive but that should not deter him wherever our race comes from wherever it is going to whatever his own fissures and weaknesses he himself is here is now he must understand create contact humanism and a humanist approach to the question of what a good life is is a call to take our real existence in the here and now seriously to focus on it to really make the most of it and to help others to do the same it's a dynamic call to living the good life as an alternative to antique Notions of a capital M meaning in life I think it's all the better for that and here's a picture of a frog thank you very much and if you have any questions we do have time for a few questions Andrew so um when you're dead what do you hope your legacy will be in a million years time a billion did you say just one million one mill oh just a million oh [Music] well well I I think that that's exactly the sort of question that is almost not worth asking or answering as as I was trying to as I was trying to say at the at the very end um I mean I think uh the compound discount on on the value of something that is going to happen a million years from now to me renders it pretty nugatory in the sense of part of the greater organism yes well I just don't uh I I do you feel that way I mean it's an interesting point of view which I I I don't I don't it doesn't resonate personally with me I mean I'd like to think of course that you know a million years from now human beings will be living in a Star Trek or post Babylon 5 sort of existence where spread out across the known uh universe and living the secular humanist utopian dream like in all of that sort of Science Fiction um but I doubt it uh very much and I also I think struggle to find uh relevance and a sense of purpose in things that will happen so long from now and from my own uh life um even sentimentally I mean I can't even feel an imaginative Affinity uh with that sort of future um I can you I think I can lose myself in stories of that sort and entertain sort of with science fiction and so on I feel a much stronger Affinity with the past and with the future personally um uh but that's just one of those things that people have different views on um if the meaning of human life is to lead a good life what's the meaning of animal life including frogs of course no I don't think the meaning of human life is to live a good life I mean I think there is no meaning to human life in that sense I think I think the whole question of any question that says what is the meaning of human life I think is is a non- question that's why I would prefer to change the question to how can we uh feel a sense of meaning in our lives or even better question as as as I said you know what is a good way to live what is the or a good way uh to live um so meaning in the sense that uh that phrase has has been used in the past really implies purpose it implies plan and design it implies that there is a you know an intention uh behind not just our own uh appearance as as as a species but in other other aspects of the universe as well and I just don't think there's any discernable trace of that um in in in the reality that we find ourselves in um so I think that the right question to ask in the absence of an answer to that question is instead how shall we live what shall I you know do with my time here um given all these I find even carry get quite upset you say there is no meaning to well if people get upset when you say there is no meaning to life I mean that's their problem I think that I think it is it it who you might be married to oh that's your problem but I think it is a problem that you can solve together well I think so let's say that then talk talking to a talking to someone who says something like that says how can you say it's all for nothing you know how can you say there is no meaning say well you know um I think that when the average person thinks about meaning in life um what they're really saying is you know what is my existence for what is the existence of other people that I find myself on this journey with for now if you don't believe that there is some ultimate and eventual purpose for the whole of humanity you have to ground questions like that questions of what my time here is for what the time of other people is for in what we know and what we definitely know is that we have one life that we share our lives with other human beings and with other animals and with other uh parts of of the natural world and so let's spend some time thinking about what the right thing to do in that life is and what the best way of living in that life is so I'd still try and Repose the question but hopefully in a in a gentle way that didn't provoke um Agony because some some people I mean it's an honest aversion isn't it people do have it and if if you've got a sense that life has meaning and purpose and you know the structure that you've given it in your mind is that this is so um and that everything is for something well of course it's terrible uh bereavement uh to have that sense taken away and so I think it's a fair question as to whether or not one should seek to take it away from people I mean there are degrees if my great great grandmother U well not she's obviously dead um I trying to think of someone living if my grand mother uh were to say to me you know 3 hours from Death look up into my eyes and say oh you do believe that this it was all for something isn't it I am going to heaven or something there is a purpose then I would obviously say yes Grandma absolutely like you would have to well don't shake your head I mean is would you say no well I think they that would be inhumane I think you have to my mother I'm afraid I said no you said no well she three hours from Death no three weeks three hours three weeks well that's where you have to have this conversation about questions of degree I mean if if if someone is 6 years old I think I would probably take the time and take the trouble and take the risk um to have a serious conversation uh with them thankfully my grandmother is a humanist so it's unlike it's unlikely to arise in in practice but I think you have to just deal with these uh with these situations uh in the contexts that you approach them there's no single rule I think for how you how you deal with these situations ask yourself question what the right thing to do is what will be gained uh by uh by this discussion or by changing this person's mind is the truth itself and someone's acceptance of the truth so valuable a thing to me that it it allows me to tyrannize over other people's feelings in the sort of extreme circumstances of deathbeds um or if not what other circumstances should I you know try and argue my point or whatever but these are questions of courtesy as much as they're questions of uh deep thought time do you want to hear something now about actual amphibians and things or no sorry it wasn't about amphibians but it struck me with what you were saying was lots of the things were simply sort of assertions from a position of Authority or some famous person or your own personal view um and without necessarily any sort of concrete proof that this would be the right way to lead a good life it just seems like it's the right sort of thing to you and that strikes me as quite a sort of religious attitude um just saying well I think we think this is a good way of doing things it seems right to us is without actually seeking any any proof that that's the case seems to me equivalent to chanity or Islam or in what way um I mean in those obviously in those uh examples a religion like Islam doesn't say this just seems to us to be the best way it says this is the way because it is mandated by a God that definitely exists and there is a single meaning of life it's not quite analogous but maybe there is a way which is but I don't understand your question well I guess I guess the reason it's analogist is that people um take the religion start to believe in a particular religion because it makes sense to them in some way um and then they can go ahead believing what they are told because it fits within that framework and it feels right and and in the absence of any proof that's the case and it struck me that quite a lot of your statements came under that same umbrella which I find slightly disconcerting I'm quite happy for there to be no meaning of life look for one um I think there is no meaning of life I mean I agree with that absolutely but lots of the ways in which you uh said this seems like a good way to lead the good life to connect to people for example well that's just a feature of the way that human personality Works um and there might be some way of of proving that that might make you happier but but instead it seemed like you were sort of asserting this from a a position of authority rather than from a position of any proof fine I think I think I mean that's an artifact of the uh the way in which I presented it which was to use illustrative quotes from people that other people would have heard of in order to make the general point I mean I'm not saying John St Miller has said this and therefore it is true I'm saying here is an example um of uh this view that is discernable in the humanist tradition of thinking about these things it's a nicely worded example that I happen to like and so I'm sharing it with you um these things obviously are not authorities in the sense that what they say uh is the case I mean I I agree with the with the premise behind a question uh that these are that this is not uh uh the basis for a prescriptive uh recipe of how to live um these are examples from a certain way a certain human tradition of thinking about questions of how we ought to live what we ought to do what it what it um what is conducive to the common good to do what is conducive to individual sense of fulfillment to do um these are examples from one particular intellectual tradition of answers to those questions okay ladies and gentlemen we do have to move on I mean Earnest attempts are made obviously scientifically and social scientifically in to try and establish perhaps those sorts of requirements I mean famous hierarchies of human needs psychological and otherwise um and certainly I don't think there's anything in which I said be incompatible uh with those it's just a different type of approach oh well thank you very much

Channel: Humanists UK

Views: 9,294

Keywords: BHA, Humanism, Secularism, Atheism, Agnosticism, Education, Talks, Lectures, BritishHumanistAssociation, Non-religious, Science, Philosophy, Darwin, Andrew Copson (Person)

Id: dXNLI6XT3LA

Length: 38min 33sec (2313 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 16 2015