The Faith Column

“Are all rocks alive?” That was the question that Irving Hallowell, an American anthropologist, asked an old Anishinaabe man he was visiting in southern central Canada in the 1940s.

It’s unfortunate that Hallowell doesn’t tell us the man’s name, because this story has been repeated so often that the old man deserves to be better known. (I reprinted Hallowell’s article in a book called Readings in Indigenous Religions, published by ... read more

What religion do hedgehogs practice? Like questions about life after death, it is impossible to be absolutely certain. As far as I know, hedgehogs don’t say grace before or after eating slugs. They don’t appear to offer prayers or sacrifices in the hope of receiving aid in crossing roads. Nor do they seem to erect memorials to kin lost on those roads. Perhaps the whole question seems ridiculous. I ask ... read more

I’m a really big Star Trek fan. Not to the extent that I go to bed in Spock ears and never miss a convention (these days) but still a really big fan. It wasn’t until I started working for the British Humanist Association, however, that I realised that Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was also a committed humanist.

Perhaps there is something about the genres ... read more

Humanists only seem to hit the headlines when we’re campaigning against something – faith schools, bishops in the House of Lords, faith-based welfare. In fact, these are not negative campaigns – they all stem from a positive position that humanists hold on what sort of society we should live in.

Almost all humanists are believers in the model of an open society and are secularists – people who ... read more

‘Someone going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts’ – that’s a traditional saying from the religious tradition of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. I know this because each day I see it written out on a poster, designed for classrooms, which I have on the wall of my office. I’m looking at it right now. ... read more

For as long as there have been humans, there have probably been ideas that we would today call humanist.

These ideas have become so widely held, in the UK and the rest of Western Europe at least, that the Oxford Companion to the Mind even goes so far as to say that it is a predominant, though unacknowledged, world view in the Western World today: "a ... read more

Perhaps unsurprisingly in a Church founded by a woman who boldly taught that divine Spirit, God, is rightly viewed as Mother as well as Father, men and women are regarded as equals in spiritual terms and in eligibility for the highest roles.

This has been the case since the beginning of the denomination in the late 19th century when, in the wider world of politics, women still didn’t have ... read more

Two strands of my life – my inherited background and my adopted faith – recently came together when I stumbled across a manuscript written by a Polish Christian Scientist who described how her family managed to save a young Jewish couple by hiding them in their family circle for the duration of the Nazi occupation.

I am the son of Jewish parents who lived in pre-war Berlin. They thankfully managed ... read more

Now, there’s an interesting question! To a Christian Scientist like myself that is a little like asking “what is the history of gravity?”

That is, Christian Science is not a church or a denomination. It describes the presence and power of God’s self-revealing love which no individual and no group could ever have a monopoly on. Like gravity it is always there for everyone, regardless of race, gender, age, ... read more

Have you heard the one about the Jewish mathematician who became a Christian Scientist?

No, it’s not a Christmas cracker joke. It’s my history in a nutshell. Like Rabbi Janet Burden in an earlier “Faith Column” blog – who went in the reverse direction to me – I don’t feel I “converted” from one faith to another. I still worship one almighty God. And I still love chicken soup with ... read more

Part of the Buddhist tradition in the East is to support the monastic community. In Thailand, Sri Lanka, Burma and Southeast Asia, for instance, people will line the sides of the roads every morning where monks are likely to pass in order to place food into their bowls, and this in itself is regarded as a holy act. The monk does not openly ask, but merely passes silently with his ... read more

The word `Buddha’ means `awakened’. Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha (awakened) by opening his mind to the reality of the present, the here-and-now, and he advised others to do the same. Buddhism therefore is about awakening, waking up for oneself from daydreams, fantasies and the sleep of delusion.

Buddhism is an investigation of oneself, this life, this very moment. To seriously practise Buddhism, therefore, is to become mindful and aware ... read more

The Buddha was a man, not a god. His name was Siddhartha Gautama and he was born approximately 480 BCE in Kapilavatthu on the borders of present-day Nepal and India. His father was a nobleman, the ruler of a minor kingdom, and so Siddhartha was well provided for. Worldly pleasures, however, didn’t have much meaning for him. Right from his early years, he was intrigued by the mysteries of existence ... read more

On my twelfth birthday I saw my grandmother’s body not long after she had died. I was puzzled: what had happened to her? She was alive and kicking yesterday, she could hear the ticking of that ancient grandfather clock in the living room yesterday, she was talking to people and eating her meals yesterday, but today . . . what? Now her body was just an empty shell. But where ... read more

Watching a game of football is a national pastime in the UK and one that I partake of as regularly as possible. The atmosphere, camaraderie, competitive-nature is as good an indication of modern English culture as you would care to find.

In football, there are certain footballers, not just at the highest stage but also in amateur leagues, who gain a much greater exposure than their team-mates and have ... read more