Does antitheism exist?

[ProfessorDavey]

No religion doesn't equal Humanism

Indeed - it doesn't.

And Vlad wants to give those automatic seats to a group or organisation to distribute - so who should distribute these - HumanistsUK? Well they can only be said to represent their members which would be a tiny proportion of that 16million people represented by 25% off the population. How are you goes to distribute the rest via a group or organisation Vlad.

[ProfessorDavey]

Christian's 26
Humanists 13
Muslims 2
Hindu 1
Sikh1
Jewish1

Also the vast majority of the 59% christians are effectively census christians - have no active involvement in any denomination and certainly not a member of one. So they can't be represented by active christians, but by people like them, in other words non practicing christians. So they can't be represented by the CofE bishops, who can only really represent their active CofE membership. Given that CofE membership is about 1 million people that would equate to probably 1 seat for a CofE bishop out of your 44.

What organisation are you going to give the approx 22 seats that relate to non-practicing christians - as far as I'm aware there is no Society for Non-practicing christians.

[ProfessorDavey]

Jewish1

Good luck with finding a single organisation that for the 0.5% jewish population who would be suitable to represent all that jewish population with an automatic seat in the HoLs.

[ProfessorDavey]

The CofE's official figures on membership (their so-called electoral roll) is a fraction over 1 million, this represents 1.5% of the population of the UK, so as there are 780 seats in the HoLs, 12 seats should be for active practicing CofE members using Vlad's 'demographics' method - the Lords spiritual have over twice that number alone and there are many, many more practicing CofE members in the Lords temporal.

Without doubt the CofE is massively over-represented in the HoLs.

[Outrider]

Interesting that you equate Humanists with no religion.


..and why 44 seats?

Why are we discussing how to implement something which hasn't been justified in the first instance?

How would you like to be executed?
I'm sorry, why am I being executed?
Hanging or electrocution?
Sorry, you need to explain why I'm being executed...
I might be able to see if we can get hold of lethal injections?
No, you don't understand, why am I being executed at all?
Firing squad?

Before we start allotting privileged seats to anyone based on any demographic assessments, someone needs to explain why spirituality needs a privileged place at all.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Why are we discussing how to implement something which hasn't been justified in the first instance?

How would you like to be executed?
I'm sorry, why am I being executed?
Hanging or electrocution?
Sorry, you need to explain why I'm being executed...
I might be able to see if we can get hold of lethal injections?
No, you don't understand, why am I being executed at all?
Firing squad?

Before we start allotting privileged seats to anyone based on any demographic assessments, someone needs to explain why spirituality needs a privileged place at all.

O.

Because life has a spiritual and reflective aspect to it and because the house of Lords should reflect expertise and experience in secular areas expecting spirituality to be marginalised as to not needing expertise is a removal of representing humanity as rounded. Treating humans more as socio economic units.

Also spirituality is organised across religious lines. They reflect how people are.

Treating spirituality as marginal is an ought held by a few seeking to impose on a whole.
With hundreds of MPs  elected on a political basis and hundreds of lords selected for the Lords temporal to say that a handful of spiritual Lords makes spirituality privileged is almost ridiculous.
Translated into human terms a house of lords is like a person with unconscious organs and a consciousness and conscience.
Scrapping the Lords spiritual is like scrapping the conscience.

[ProfessorDavey]

Because life has a spiritual and reflective aspect to it and because the house of Lords should reflect expertise and experience in secular areas expecting spirituality to be marginalised as to not needing expertise is a removal of representing humanity as rounded.

Complete non-sense.

Provided the HoLs is rounded in terms of its membership it will include members who consider the spiritual to be important, and will therefore bring that to the fore, and also people who think the spiritual isn't important and will likely not bring it to the fore.

There is no justification for special privilege for the spiritual to have automatic places, unless you can demonstrate that religious (or spiritual people) are somehow absent from or underrepresented in the pool of peers appointed by the normal route - they aren't. I think there is little doubt that actively religious people (who represent perhaps just 10% of the population) are massively over represented in the Lords.

[ProfessorDavey]

Scrapping the Lords spiritual is like scrapping the conscience.

Arrogant and patronising in the extreme.

You do realise that the inference here is that the conscience of the nation is imbued in CofE bishops alone. I think members of other religions and those who are non religious but have well developed ethical principles will find that notion deeply insulting.

Frankly I'm not taking many lessons from the CofE in terms of ethical issues and conscience - they seem to be behind the curve time and time again.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Complete non-sense.

Provided the HoLs is rounded in terms of its membership it will include members who consider the spiritual to be important, and will therefore bring that to the fore, and also people who think the spiritual isn't important and will likely not bring it to the fore.

There is no justification for special privilege for the spiritual to have automatic places, unless you can demonstrate that religious (or spiritual people) are somehow absent from or underrepresented in the pool of peers appointed by the normal route - they aren't. I think there is little doubt that actively religious people (who represent perhaps just 10% of the population) are massively over represented in the Lords.

That there arent specific places for Lords public service or Lords former military or Lords economic etc has nothing to do with whether there are Lords spiritual and is something that can be easily rectified by administrative change.
As would the creation of lords spiritual from a broader pool of world views along census lines.

The claim that religious membership among the Lords temporal represents and would substitute the depth of experience and expertise of clergy, priests,imams,secretaries of secular and humanist societies is plainly wrong and  represents marginalising spirituality.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Arrogant and patronising in the extreme.

You do realise that the inference here is that the conscience of the nation is imbued in CofE bishops alone. I think members of other religions and those who are non religious but have well developed ethical principles will find that notion deeply insulting.

Frankly I'm not taking many lessons from the CofE in terms of ethical issues and conscience - they seem to be behind the curve time and time again.

That the Lords spiritual represent a reflective and moral lynchpin which can put a break on temporal political ambitions if and when required is an historical understanding.

What would be incorrect and patronising is if it continues only to be Cof E bishops which is why I propose broadening the field.

[ProfessorDavey]

The claim that religious membership among the Lords temporal represents and would substitute the depth of experience and expertise of clergy, priests,imams,secretaries of secular and humanist societies is plainly wrong and  represents marginalising spirituality.

You mean unlike the clergy, priests, imams, rabbis etc who are already members of the Lords temporal.

But all the people you mention are officers (etc) in organised religion or societies. That in no way reflects the beliefs, conscience, ethics, spirituality of the country as I suspect 90% of the people in the Uk are not members of any religious organisation nor non religious humanist/secular society. What you are doing is institutionalising belief, when in fact the direction of travel in the UK over the past decades has been exactly the opposite, with dwindling numbers seeing themselves as members of religious organisation etc.

And rather than abolishing the Lords spiritual (which remember is a mode of appointment rather than a difference in member role) marginalising spirituality, their presence specially privileges it. And currently it provides a glaring and overt special privilege to a single organisation whose membership is runs to just 1.5% of the population.

[ProfessorDavey]

That the Lords spiritual represent a reflective and moral lynchpin which can put a break on temporal political ambitions if and when required is an historical understanding.

No they don't - they reflect a hugely narrow demographic in society with an incredible narrow world view and from an organisation institutionally privileged in our society.

If the Lords spiritual send any message to the wider population it is one of elite privilege, of establishment and, when you look at their involvement as members, a group who do not commit fully to their role (turning up just 18% of the time compared to a House average of 58%), and limit themselves to saying a few prayers and only pitching in on subjects that interest them in a classic special interest group/lobbying manner.

Not really the right 'moral' message for the country - we can do better than that, a random selection of people from the populace would do better than that, and the Uk people know this, which why overwhelmingly they want the Lords spiritual abolished and do not want any religious leaders to be automatically given a place in the HoL.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

My proposals broaden representation.
Yours and Outrider amount to a form of anti theistic gerrymandering.
Imho

[ProfessorDavey]

My proposals broaden representation.

No it doesn't it just adds further layers of unfairness and special privilege - don't forget that the vast majority of the people in the UK are not members of any of the organisations that you think should be representing them.

The current system is privileged, unrepresentative and wrong, but does have a sense of logical if you accept the notion of an established church - your proposal gets rid of that vague element of logic but does nothing meaningful to address the issue of privilege, representation and fairness. And it is frankly unworkable as you'd need some grand committee to decide (for example) which jewish group gets the seat, whether the seat for non-meat eaters goes to the vegetarian society or the vegan society - it is non-sense on stilts.
 

Yours and Outrider amount to a form of anti theistic gerrymandering.

No it isn't as I have never said that the Lords should have less religious members than reflects the general population. The system is already gerrymandered - rolling back gerrymandering is not gerrymandering itself.

Imho

You opinion is rarely humble, and rarely correct Vlad.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No it doesn't it just adds further layers of unfairness and special privilege - don't forget that the vast majority of the people in the UK are not members of any of the organisations that you think should be representing them.

The current system is privileged, unrepresentative and wrong, but does have a sense of logical if you accept the notion of an established church - your proposal gets rid of that vague element of logic but does nothing meaningful to address the issue of privilege, representation and fairness. And it is frankly unworkable as you'd need some grand committee to decide (for example) which jewish group gets the seat, whether the seat for non-meat eaters goes to the vegetarian society or the vegan society - it is non-sense on stilts.
 No it isn't as I have never said that the Lords should have less religious members than reflects the general population. The system is already gerrymandered - rolling back gerrymandering is not gerrymandering itself.
You opinion is rarely humble, and rarely correct Vlad.

Vegans, vegetarians?How did they get there.

Meat or two veg is single issue politics and hardly a spirituality.

There could be 13 lords spiritual who are non religious though so  meat or two veg could be slotted in.

[Outrider]

Because life has a spiritual and reflective aspect to it and because the house of Lords should reflect expertise and experience in secular areas expecting spirituality to be marginalised as to not needing expertise is a removal of representing humanity as rounded. Treating humans more as socio economic units.

Life has economic, scientific, sporting, military and healthcare aspects to it, as well, why shouldn't they be treated the same way?  If the House of Lords should reflect expertise and experience in secular areas without needing to set specific requirements why can it not do the same for spirituality?  Spirituality is not 'marginalised' by equal treatment with other aspects.

Also spirituality is organised across religious lines.

Science is organised into disciplines. Sport is organised into various groupings, large and small. Healthcare is organised into disciplines, public and private, palliative and surgical and pharmacological and who knows how many others. The military is divided into three major branches, and many subdivisions.  Spirituality is, allegedly, also found outside of formalised religions.

They reflect how people are.

So do science, and sport, and healthcare, and industry... again, why is spirituality something special here?

Treating spirituality as marginal is an ought held by a few seeking to impose on a whole.

Again with that lie - the current set up marginalises EVERY OTHER ASPECT OF THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE. Putting them on an even playing field with spirituality does not 'marginalise' spirituality, it removes the current privilege it has.

With hundreds of MPs  elected on a political basis and hundreds of lords selected for the Lords temporal to say that a handful of spiritual Lords makes spirituality privileged is almost ridiculous.

But not actually ridiculous - what's ridiculous is to claim that taking away the special status of the Church of England is 'marginalising spirituality'.

So, again... Why should spirituality be treated differently to the rest of the human experience in the upper house?

O.

[ProfessorDavey]

Vegans, vegetarians?How did they get there.

These are clearly philosophical 'world-views' that it is wrong to eat meat. So if world views must be reflected then these must necessarily be in - and there are as many practicing vegetarians in the UK (i.e. don't ever eat meat) as there are practicing christians - so their representative body (or bodies) must have as many automatic seats as those for all the practicing christians combined.

[Outrider]

That there arent specific places for Lords public service or Lords former military or Lords economic etc has nothing to do with whether there are Lords spiritual and is something that can be easily rectified by administrative change.

Actually, it does - it's about the Lords spiritual representing a different treatment for the Church of England to the rest of the nation - in your rather generous interpretation that's a privilege for 'spirituality' in general, but that's still a privileged position.  How many sections of reserved seating do we need before everyone's covered? Why do we need reserved seats and not just have a broad representation?

The claim that religious membership among the Lords temporal represents and would substitute the depth of experience and expertise of clergy, priests,imams,secretaries of secular and humanist societies is plainly wrong and  represents marginalising spirituality.

No-one is banning the people who are currently Lords Spiritual from being nominated, if it's considered that they have a place.  To suggest, though, that you need to have reserved seating to ensure sufficient expertise from 'the spiritual' whilst suggesting that the rank and file can have sufficient understanding of law, war, medicine, science, sport, entertainment etc. is ludicrous.  It begs, again, the question: what is it that you think is so special about spirituality that it needs special treatment?

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Actually, it does - it's about the Lords spiritual representing a different treatment for the Church of England to the rest of the nation - in your rather generous interpretation that's a privilege for 'spirituality' in general, but that's still a privileged position.  How many sections of reserved seating do we need before everyone's covered? Why do we need reserved seats and not just have a broad representation?

No-one is banning the people who are currently Lords Spiritual from being nominated, if it's considered that they have a place.  To suggest, though, that you need to have reserved seating to ensure sufficient expertise from 'the spiritual' whilst suggesting that the rank and file can have sufficient understanding of law, war, medicine, science, sport, entertainment etc. is ludicrous.  It begs, again, the question: what is it that you think is so special about spirituality that it needs special treatment?

O.

Once again I am saying that there could be more specialised groups in the house of Lords than there are now.
There are three now.
Political appointments
Hereditary peers
Lords spiritual
And until recently Law lords.

Getting rid of Lords spiritual given the small numbers is neurotic antitheism given the already paltry numbers representing a major facet of human life.

That getting rid of lords spiritual reflects a view that spirituality can adequately represented by people with little experience or expertise when the HoL is about expertise and experience is effectively saying it isn't a matter that needs to be represented at all.
This suits antitheists but looks properly like paranoid neurosis on the part of them.

[ProfessorDavey]

Once again I am saying that there could be more specialised groups in the house of Lords than there are now.
There are three now.
Political appointments
Hereditary peers
Lords spiritual
And until recently Law lords.

No there aren't there are only two groups - Lords temporal and Lords spiritual. There are no other groups.

All the Lord temporal are appointed via the same process.

[ProfessorDavey]

This suits antitheists but looks properly like paranoid neurosis on the part of them.

Sadly there is only one person here coming across as being paranoid and neurotic.

To paraphrase Violet Elizabeth 'I'll squeam and squeam and squeam until I'm sick if you dare to suggest wemoving my special prwivileges'

[Outrider]

Once again I am saying that there could be more specialised groups in the house of Lords than there are now.

Where does that stop?  How many special interest groups get their representation before you stop?  It's an attempt to even the balance a little, but it fails on a pragmatic basis because it's expanding the privilege rather than eliminating it.

There are three now.
Political appointments
Hereditary peers
Lords spiritual
And until recently Law lords.

We got rid of the law lords, why can't we get rid of the hereditary and spiritual peers?  As to political appointments, that's a mechanism - if you want to replace that (and I'm not averse to, say, an elected upper chamber) then that's something that could be reviewed.

Getting rid of Lords spiritual given the small numbers is neurotic antitheism given the already paltry numbers representing a major facet of human life.

Whether or not spirituality is a major face of human life is a matter of opinion; regardless, it's not the numbers that are the issue, it's the principle.

That getting rid of lords spiritual reflects a view that spirituality can adequately represented by people with little experience or expertise when the HoL is about expertise and experience is effectively saying it isn't a matter that needs to be represented at all.

No, it's saying if we currently consider that the lords has the capacity, without reserving special seats for it, to represent the variety of outlooks of the nation with respect to science, sport, healthcare, the military and all the other facets of life, why can't they do the same with spirituality? Why is spirituality somehow something different that requires special treatment?

This suits antitheists but looks properly like paranoid neurosis on the part of them.

That sounds like an ad hominem in the absence of an actual argument on your part, to me.

O.

[ProfessorDavey]

why can't we get rid of the hereditary and spiritual peers?

The automatic right for hereditary peers to sit in the HoLs was abolished in 1999. Some of these longstanding members were reappointed as life peers using largely the same appointment process as for all other lords temporal.

So of the three weird anomalies that were traditionally in the HoL

automatic seats for law lords - abolished
automatic seats for hereditary peers - abolished
automatic seats for CofE bishops - ... hmm

[Nearly Sane]

The automatic right for hereditary peers to sit in the HoLs was abolished in 1999. Some of these longstanding members were reappointed as life peers using largely the same appointment process as for all other lords temporal.

So of the three weird anomalies that were traditionally in the HoL

automatic seats for law lords - abolished
automatic seats for hereditary peers - abolished
automatic seats for CofE bishops - ... hmm

While I don't disagree with the general point, the appt of hereditary peers doesn't follow the same  process of non - hereditary peers with elections for 90 of the positions, and 2 positions that are guaranteed because of hereditary offices.

[Nearly Sane]

That was merely a one off process to deal with a proportion of the hereditary peers being highly committed and active members of the HoL - since then no hereditary peer has been automatically appointed to the HoLs - they can be nominated and appointed just as anyone else can under exactly the same process as everyone else (except the bishops).

Nope - there are by elections

https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/offices/lords/house-of-lords-external-communications/by-elections/


And the 2 hereditary offices continue to be hereditary