On British talk show fundamentalist offers a rather frightening view of humanists, only to be quickly corrected by an actual humanist.

The topic of this episode of The Big Question is a discussion concerning how the UK recently passed a ruling saying that humanist marriages are not to considered a legal form of matrimony in the country, while in Scotland, which embraced humanist marriages since 2005, they now outnumber Catholic weddings.

But things quickly go off the rails with the introduction of Taiwo Adewuyi, founder of the group Discuss Jesus. (Though to be honest it does not sound like he wants to rationally discuss ANYTHING.)

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Host Nicky Campbell presented Adewuyi, who said humanist weddings are “entirely demonic.” 

“It all goes back to the origins of humanism,” Adewuyi said. “Humanism is the cancer on thanks-giving. It is the Devil’s PR. It is a first-class ticket to the sea of wantonness and debauchery.” 

Humanism, he said, tries to “knock God off the throne” and put mankind at the top instead, which Adewuyi claims is wrong. 

Andrew Copson of the British Humanist Association responded, “Well, if you’re going to wantonness and debauchery, you might as well travel first class.” 

“Humanism,” he explained, “is a nonreligious world view that — instead of looking to revelation or authority, we look to reason and evidence to understand the universe. Instead of looking to moral rules that come from outside human beings, we look to other human beings to generate values in the here and now and also to generate meaning in our life.” 

“Instead of looking externally for some meaning to give value and sanction to the existence we’re having, the humanist view is that men and women in the course of our lives create the sustained meaning together,” Copson said.

Okay I am not terribly familiar with this Andrew Copson fellow but I found his explanation of humanism to be very satisfying.

And this in a nutshell is how many people in the religious right characterize those of us who are living our lives free of religion or oppressive dogma.

Everything to them is black or white, right or wrong, good or evil. And if you are not one of them, believing exactly as they do, then you are an agent of Satan and you, and your dangerous ideas, must be rejected out of hand.

And the struggle continues. 

Rather enlightening discussion about the existence of Satan.

I am struck by the fact that many on the panel did not want to come right out and say that they believed in demons or that the Devil takes a corporeal from and yet, they simply cannot bring themselves to reject the concept of demonic possession or the existence of Satan outright.

Remember kids this is a conversation taking place in 2014.

By the way I love this show and have watched numerous episodes of it, and posted a few videos as well. It is my belief that if we had more open conversations about religion, God, and the Devil, that it would do much to increase the number of non-believers.

P.S. For those who are interested here is part two.