Atheists and Humanists: Contribution to Society

Lord Layard Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Layard]

My Lords, I, too, greatly welcome this debate. I have to admit that I was a founder member of the Cambridge Humanists in the 1950s when I had great hopes for humanism, but which I think have been only partly fulfilled. Humanism has done very well on the negative side in rebutting unreasonable beliefs and unreasonable laws but much less well on the positive side in providing a thriving and flourishing secular morality, which is what many of us had hoped it would do. I believe that that failure has had quite serious effects on our society because more and more people have abandoned a morality based on religion. It has not been replaced with anything as powerful or with the same emotional force as that provided through the churches, so the way has been left open for the increasing growth of a “me first” philosophy of life.

How can we reverse that? Two things are needed. First, there has to be a much clearer, more powerful expression of what humanists positively believe in—not what they do not believe in. Secondly, there have to be institutions which embody those beliefs. As the right reverend Prelate said, the churches provide the social support for religious belief. It is not easy to lead a good life on your own without social support. You are much more likely to do so if part of your identity is that you are a member of an institution committed to ethical living. We desperately need more such institutions of a secular kind that can support the majority of our citizens who are not practising members of a religion.

It is unclear to me exactly how these new institutions will develop and what they will look like. I am involved in an attempt to create one such institution, Action for Happiness, and I shall tell the House a little about it. We now have 30,000 members. The first thing a member has to do is pledge to live so as to create as much happiness and as little misery in the world as they can. The movement provides them with materials that can help in that endeavour. Increasingly, it aims to create real face-to-face communities that are more like the churches in their physical expression, or perhaps the early Christian cells, in order to help people to live in this way.

Action for Happiness’s ethical stance is very simple. It is really important that humanism develops a very simple ethical creed which can generate people’s energy, loyalty and commitment. It says, first, that everyone matters equally and, secondly, what matters about them is their quality of life as they experience it—in other words, their happiness. If you put the two together, you arrive at an obligation on each of us to try to produce as much happiness and as little misery as we can in the world. This is the most obvious foundation for a humanist secular morality which could carry our society forward.

Of course, it has much in common with the golden rule that we should do unto others as we would like them to do unto us. When it comes to what we should not do, both principles are very much in line. We certainly should not do what we would not like others to do to us. However, there is a difference in relation to what we should do; that is, how we should conduct our lives in a positive way to make the world a better place, as was just said. There are some problems about the golden rule and whether we should do to others what we want them to do to us. We may want them to give us a job but that does not mean we should give them jobs: it might not be practical. We need a more practical expression of how you can live positively. I cannot think of a better or more inspiring expression than that we should live to increase the happiness of those around us and reduce their misery.

Secular morality is not anti-religious, it is areligious. Of course, the areligious increasingly are the majority of adults in our country. When I have spoken to educators who have insisted that the view I put forward is contrary to two millennia of Christian education, I find myself saying something like, “If you want to teach morality on the basis that it is conformity to the will of God and you know that three-quarters of the people you are teaching will lose their faith in God by the time they are 20, how are you expecting them to lead moral lives? What support do they have for leading moral lives in their adult life?”.

As humanists, we need a firm view of what we believe and we absolutely need institutions. We need to see that our views are taught in schools and featured in “Thought for the Day”. However, much the most important remaining task is to build institutions which inspire and uplift people, and enhance their commitment to ethical living. I urge all humanists to turn their minds to building institutions for the promotion of secular morality. Obviously, they should be modelled to an extent on the experience of the churches and people should meet regularly. Through that they would uplift their spirits and strengthen their resolve to live well.