Holocaust Memorial Day – rescuers

“Only a few Evangelicals, a few Catholics a few Orthodox, a few agnostics, and a few atheists (and not necessarily in that order) helped the Jewish people during their persecution.

Varian Fry, a bespectacled, frail, moody intellectual; a man who would seem to be a most unlikely candidate to stand against the Gestapo, succeeded in organising the escape of approximately fifteen hundred men and women from Nazi occupied France in 1940-41. A man who appeared to have no religious motivation, Fry explained to his mother that he stayed because it took courage and ‘courage us a quality I hadn’t previous been sure I possessed’. To his wife he wrote: ‘Now I think I can say that I possess an ordinary amount of courage’

Source: Rausch, David A. (2000) ‘Hard Questions Asked by the Holocaust’ in Rittner, Carol, Smith, Stephen D., Steinfeldt, Irena (eds) The Holocaust and the Christian World Continuum: New York

Holocaust Memorial Day – Primo Levi the unbeliever

Primo Levi (1919-1987) was one of the most famous Survivors of the Holocaust. Levi, born in Turin, Italy and trained as a chemist, was arrested during the as a member of the anti-Fascist resistance and deported to Auschwitz in 1944. His experience in the death camp and his subsequent travels through Eastern Europe were the subject of powerful memoirs, fiction and poetry.

Although he came from families who had been observant Jews up to a generation or so before, they were no longer so and Levi was a life-long atheist. His only recollection of ever having any religious feelings was a brief period when he studied for his bar mitzvah, and tried to seek contact with God, “but when he sought that contact, he’d found nothing.

Holocaust Memorial Day – The exploitation of religion

Armaments Minster Albert Speer describes how Hitler considered the church as something “that could be useful to him” and “indispensable to political life”. (Speer 1970: p148 ) It appears he did not want the church replaced by any “party religion” and he was opposed to the alternative mysticism (that was popular amongst some Nazis) that might take its place. However the Christianity that Hitler wanted to preserve, was one that leant to adapt to the political goals of National Socialism” (p149).

Instead the Church tried to oppose his plans and the Nazi party and SS instructed his followers to leave the Church. But even then Hitler appeared to want to maintain some ties by ordering Goering and Goebels to remain, as he did himself until his death.

Holocaust Memorial Day – the assualt on atheism

The assault on atheism

From early on in the Nazi Party’s history atheism was clearly marked for elimination given its relationship to socialism and communism – the ideological competitors of National Socialism.

“And now Staatspräsident Bolz says that Christianity and the Catholic faith are threatened by us. And to that charge I can answer: In the first place it is Christians and not international atheists who now stand at the head of Germany. I do not merely talk of Christianity, no, I also profess that I will never ally myself with the parties which destroy Christianity. If many wish today to take threatened Christianity under their protection, where, I would ask, was Christianity for them in these fourteen years when they went arm in arm with atheism? No, never and at no time was greater internal damage done to Christianity than in these fourteen years when a party, theoretically Christian, sat with those who denied God in one and the same Government.”

(Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered at Stuttgart, February 15, 1933)

Holocaust Memorial Day – the religious context

In 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, the Jewish population of Europe stood over nine million. The Nazi campaign to exclude and persecute Jews, and others, as “life unworthy of life” began. By war’s end, close to two out of every three Jews in Europe had been murdered in the Holocaust.

Although Jews were the primary victims of Nazi racism, others targeted for death included tens of thousands of Roma (Gypsies) and at least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled people (source:www.ushmm.org). As Nazi tyranny spread across Europe, millions of people were persecuted and murdered. More than three million Soviet prisoners of war were murdered or died of starvation, disease or maltreatment. The Nazis killed tens of thousands of Polish intellectual and religious leaders; deported millions of Polish and persecuted and incarcerated homosexuals.

It is also important to acknowledge the experience of atheism and atheists under the Nazis, although we should be careful not to let this become our primary motive for remembering the Holocaust -  the terrible events were a travesty for humanity in its entirety.

Hope for non-believers – many American Christians believe atheists will get into heaven

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life carried out a survey of 3,000 Americans in 2008 about whether people thought beliefs other than their own can lead to ‘eternal life’.

The survey was designed as a follow-up to their 2007 Religious Landscape Survey which reported that 70 per cent Americans who claim a religious affiliation saying that many religions can lead to eternal life. (This earlier survey by the BBC found that 51 per cent of Americans agreed that ‘My God (Beliefs) is the only true God (Beliefs)’ compared with 31 per cent of people in the UK who agreed with the same statement)

The 2008 survey asked those who say many religions can lead to eternal life whether or not they think a series of specific religions (including Judaism, Islam and Hinduism) can lead to eternal life, as well as whether they thought atheists or people who have no religious faith can achieve eternal life.

The survey found that most American Christians are not thinking only of other Christian denominations when they say many religions can lead to eternal life – strong majorities believe that both Christian and non-Christian faiths can.

Although a majority who say that many religions can lead to eternal life believe that people with no religious faith also can achieve eternal salvation (56 per cent), far fewer (42 per cent) say this about atheists.

White evangelical Protestants are least likely to believe various non-Christian religions can lead to eternal life although the numbers are still significant – nearly three-quarters (72%) of evangelicals who say many religions can lead to salvation name at least one non-Christian faith that can do so.

Actions or beliefs?

Respondents expressed a variety of views on how people can achieve eternal life. When asked to describe in their own words what determines whether a person will attain eternal life, nearly 30 per cent said that a person’s actions are most important. 30 per cent said that belief is the key factor in achieving everlasting life. 10 per cent referred to a combination of belief and actions as necessary for eternal life, and almost as many (8 per cent) cite some other factor as most important. In addition, 14 per cent indicated they are unsure of what leads to eternal life, and another 7 per cent volunteer they do not believe in eternal life.

White evangelicals looked mainly to faith as the key to salvation, while white Catholics tend to look to actions.

Unsurprisingly those people who believed there were many ways to salvation were more likely to say actions are more important than beliefs.

The survey doesn’t appear to control for factors like ethnicity, age or religous practice though – it could for example be that White evangelicals are more narrowminded in their outlook because they are more devout rather than any core doctrinal reasons.

What do these results tells us? That there are huge numbers of people open to the idea that other beliefs (including non religious ones) are legitimate and valuable and that co-operation between different belief groups can be built on far more than a grudging pragmatism but on some form of real respect.

Also that the opportunities for co-operation are not equal and some religious groups will be more ammenable than others. But amenable there are and across all traditions offering hope that none of us are as feared, despised or condemned for our beliefs quite as much as louder voices might have us believe.

Holocaust Memorial Day – the relevance to atheists

Nazi Germany murdered six million Jews in a systematic, state-sponsored campaign of persecution and extermination now known as the Holocaust. It persecuted, incarcerated and murdered millions of its own citizens, and those of the countries it invaded, on the basis of skin colour; disability; sexual orientation; ethnicity; religious belief or political affiliation.

The Holocaust was a defining event of the twentieth century and is part of both our history and our contemporary life:

• Refugees fled here from Nazi persecution.

• Britain was engaged in a war to defeat Nazi occupation and oppression.

• UK soldiers liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

• Survivors and refugees who rebuilt their lives here have made major contributions to present day UK society. [Including Sigmund Freud]

• Britain played a lead role in developing the international conventions protecting universal human rights after WW2.

Atheists fought in the allied forces, were rescuers and were among the survivors and refugees that rebuilt their lives in the UK, for example Sigmund Freud:

“In March 1938, the Nazis invaded Austria and put Freud and his family in mortal danger. Freud managed to escape from Vienna with the help of the wealthy Princess Marie Bonaparte, whom he adored, and of the government of the United States of America, which he relentlessly disliked. President Roosevelt even took a measure of interest in Freud’s case, but that did not change Freud’s mind about the rogue republic at all. America is enormous, he liked to say, but it is an enormous mistake.

Before leaving Vienna, Freud gave the Nazis a parting gift. They had made it clear to him that his emigration was contingent on signing a statement saying that he had not been molested in any way and that he had been able to continue with his scientific work. Freud signed, but then added a coda of his own devising: “I can most highly recommend the Gestapo to everyone.”

Edmundson Mark (2007) ‘Defender of the Faith?’ in the New York Times, 9 September 2007

Holocaust Memorial Day

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD), marking the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. HMD aims to commemorate, to educate and to prompt action in the UK. HMD commemorates the lives of those lost in the Holocaust; as a result of Nazi persecution and in more recent genocides. It educates about the Holocaust and it lessons for the present day. It prompts action in the UK highlighting the continuing dangers of racism, anti-semitism and all forms of discrimination.

The tragedies of Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur show that the international community, and each of us as citizens, has not truly understood the lessons of the Holocaust.

Ultimately the aim of HMD is to motivate people individually and collectively, to ensure that the horrendous crimes, racism and victimisation committed during the Holocaust and more recent genocides are neither forgotten nor repeated, whether in Europe or elsewhere in the world.

I will blogging about the Holocaust and humanism in the coming week.

Religious leaders published by think tank

In December 2008 the Institute for Public policy Research published Faith in the Nation: Religion, identity andthe public realm in Britain today A collection of essays by the Archbishop of Westminster, the Chief Rabbi and other senior faith leaders ‘to express their views on Britishness, multiculturalism and the role of religion in the public realm. ‘

The executive summary describes the document as ‘timely’

A growing sense of antagonism between some religious voices and a chorus of liberal secularists in the media and elsewhere is spilling over into political debate on such topics as faith schools and human embryology, and has arguably had a stunting impact upon our understanding of the place of faith in democratic society….

Obama, religion and civil society

Madeline Bunting discusses Obama’s religious faith in today’s Guardian in particular his understanding of religiously-motivated civic activism:

Obama’s faith cannot be explained away as political opportunism to meet the conventions of American politics. The conversion was well before a political career seemed possible; besides, his faith has dragged him into plenty of controversy during his campaign. Recently, liberal secular allies have been shocked by his decision not to dismantle, but to take over and expand, Bush’s controversial flagship policy of funding faith-based organisations to provide social services. Even worse, he has chosen the evangelical preacher Rick Warren (opposes gay marriage, anti-abortion but passionate on social justice and climate change) to deliver the prayer at the inauguration. The point is that Obama has not wavered in his passionate faith in the progressive potential of religious belief since he first encountered it in south Chicago in community organising. He was in his 20s, and for three years he was trained in a politics based on a set of principles developed by a Jewish criminologist and an ex-Jesuit with borrowings from German Protestant theologians.

Obama described these three years of community organising as the “best education I ever had”. Michelle says of her husband that “he is not first and foremost a politician. He’s a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.”

World Blood Donor Day

14 June is World Blood Donor Day: a special day dedicated to celebrating and thanking voluntary non-remunerated blood donors. The O Project supports blood donation as part of its Life after Death initiative.

 

 

 

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on 21 March. On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid “pass laws”. Proclaiming the Day in 1966, the General Assembly called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.

International Human Solidarity Day

International Human Solidarity Day was established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2005 as an initiative in the fight against poverty. It is:

• A day to celebrate our unity in diversity
• A day to remind governments to respect their commitments to international agreements
• A day to raise public awareness of the importance of solidarity
• A day to encourage debate on the ways to promote solidarity for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals including poverty eradication
• A day of action to encourage new initiatives for poverty eradication

Human Rights Day

10 December marks the date over fifty years ago when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed, with its vision of a world in which all might enjoy rights and freedoms without discrimination.

This historic document outlines the human rights standards the UN believes should be enforced by all nations – among them “the right to life, liberty and nationality, to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, to work, to be educated, and to take part in government.”

That day in 1948 could arguably be called the birth of the modern human rights movement. With widely agreed-upon universal standards in place, “atrocities” could be more concretely labeled “violations” and could be more readily acted against. States that have embraced these standards have, for more than half a century, observed December 10 as Human Rights Day.

“Human rights are our common heritage and their realisation depends on the contributions that each and every one of us is willing to make, individually and collectively, now and in the future.”

Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Scottish government determined to tackle shortage of organs for transplant

Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon has said she wants to see Scotland move up the European organ donor league, in which it is performing badly, and is sympathetic to calls for a “presumed consent” system on the part of donors.

To see how you can become an organ donor see the O Project’s Life After Death campaign.

Research suggests generosity is in the genes

The BBC reports that an Israeli study involving 203 people revealed those who had certain variants of a gene called AVPR1a were on average nearly 50% more likely to give money away in an online task.

Lead researcher Dr Ariel Knafo said: “The experiment provided the first evidence, to my knowledge, for a relationship between DNA variability and real human altruism.”

The gene AVPR1a plays a key role in allowing a hormone called arginine vasopressin to act on brain cells. Vasopressin, in turn, has been implicated in social bonding.

Humanism included in online RE resources

The Guardian has a revieew of ICT resouces to support religious education classes.

It refers to REonline, “perhaps the best UK’s subject-centred site…run by the Christian foundation, Culham Institute”

“We’ve analysed the national framework and identified the key concepts,” says Tony Parfitt, who runs the site. “The framework now mentions 10 major faiths rather six, including Bahai, Humanism, Jainism and Zoroastrianism. We have 10 people from the faith traditions writing about them, and we give links to websites and supplementary reading. That’ll all be free with REonline.”

The inclusion of Humanism is welcomed especially in light of  calls from Ofsted for religious education to include non-religious beliefs. Although in reality it is pretty uneven and not particularly favourable, with humanism lumped in with ethical egoismfor example (but not say rights or utilitarianism) in one section. At least it’s a start though and hopefully more, better resources will grow in time. (I am involved in developing some myself so watch this space!)

International World Volunteer Day

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme is the focal point for International Volunteer Day (IVD), and provides many resources on its World Volunteer Web to help both volunteers and voluntary organisations make the most of the Day.

Included is an IVD Tool-kit with resources organisations can use to customise their own IVD publications and media relations. Organisations are invited to report their IVD activities to the UNV via the World Volunteer Web, so that these activities can be promoted on the web to UNV’s global audience.

In its 2001 resolution, the United Nations General Assembly called on “governments, with the active support of the media, civil society and the private sector, to observe 5 December, IVD, and to include activities focused on following-up on the achievements of IYV”.

For more information visit the International Volunteer Day website.

Today is the International Day for Tolerance

Following the United Nations Year for Tolerance in 1995, the International Day for Tolerance was first observed on 16 November 1996.

Activities on the Day seek to promote recognition of the need for tolerance and understanding of the practise of tolerance. Building tolerance and trust in diverse communities is not done overnight, but takes time and commitment. Building tolerance requires access to education. Intolerance is often rooted in ignorance and fear: fear of the unknown, of the “other”, other cultures, religions and nations. Intolerance is also closely linked to an exaggerated sense of self-worth and pride: notions taught and learned at an early age. Therefore in coming years, we need to place greater emphasis on educating children about tolerance, human rights and fundamental freedoms.

But we should not forget that education does not end in school, that adults – firstly as individuals capable of committing acts of intolerance but more importantly in their capacity as parents, law-makers and law-enforcement officials – also need to be considered a priority target of our educational efforts.

An International Day for Tolerance can serve as an annual occasion for tolerance education as well as for wider social and political reflection and debate on local and global problems of intolerance. It is a moment to take stock of the progress made during the year and to propose fresh policies to close remaining gaps.

While the problem of intolerance is global, in the sense that it is on the increase in many parts of the world, the manifestations of intolerance usually take on local or national forms. Thus, in order to be effective, global norms against intolerance need to be combined with local, national and not least individual measures.

For more information visit the International Day for Tolerance website.

The complex picture of belief

Measuring the number of people who are religious is a bit of a tricky job. We can be pretty sure that there are people who don’t believe in God or myths or any supernatural business. We can also be sure that there also people who, say, believe in the literal truth of the Bible, that God has stuck around after the creation business and intervenes in our lives now and then. But what about the rest – the majority of people?