Alice Roberts and the problem with ‘humanism’

Public atheism has a new face. Your uncle Richard has been replaced by your cool cousin Alice. She’s bursting with fun facts about nature and history, but is also a well-rounded human, happy meeting other humans and smiling a lot. (Uncle Richard sometimes smiles, but it’s usually a by-product of sneering at the flawed footnote of an enemy.)

But don’t call it atheism, Alice Roberts’ creed. Far too negative! In keeping with her human-ness, it’s called ‘humanism’. ‘Atheism is defining yourself by an absence of something,’ she told an interviewer. ‘Humanism is a positive choice to base your morals on your own human capacity’. To explain this further, she has just co-authored The Little Book of Humanism with Andrew Copson.

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Whereas atheism attacks religion as false, humanism declares it unnecessary (and quietly adds that it is also false and largely harmful). You don’t need religion to be moral.