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Fifty Years
Ago
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Atheism
on the air
It would appear that in over 30 years of its existence the B.B.C. has
never once permitted anybody to voice an opinion in favour of Atheism
in any shape or form, until one evening in January when Mrs. Margaret
Knight (lecturer in psychology at Aberdeen University), was permitted
to state in her broadcast on “Morality without Religion” that we should
tell our children that we no longer believed in God although some
people still do. She compared God with Santa Claus and referred to the
Christian myths as useless for moral instruction. In her opinion if we
taught children these biblical myths, when they grew up and learnt that
they were at variance with the facts, they would be easy bait for
Communism. The problem of evil was one point which she dealt with by
declaring that an infinitely wise and all powerful God would not create
evil. “If God cannot prevent evil then he is not all powerful, and if
he will not, then he is not all Good.” The answer that many Christians
give is that evil is man-made and nothing to do with God, or that its
existence proves that man has departed from God. But here she said that
there are a lot of evil things among the animals for which mankind
certainly is not responsible. “The cat,” she said, “takes delight in
playing with a mouse and inflicting torture on it until the mouse dies
after a long and drawn out and painful death.” The rest of the talk was
about what she called “scientific humanism” and the education of
children without the traditional religious beliefs.
The next day the Press was shocked and upset. The New Chronicle’s
leading article was headed “Atheism on the Air” in which it declared
“Should she have been allowed to put and press her points without a
balancing exposition of Christian beliefs? That is where we think the
B.B.C. went wrong.” (14/1/55.)
Why this wonderful tolerant idea of a balancing exposition? Has not the
B.B.C. been broadcasting religious beliefs for 30 years every day and
often several times a day on all programmes and by thousands of
exponents? Have they not a committee that on religious broadcasts see
that we are all well soaked in traditional religious ideology?
Letters to the Press poured in by the thousand: such an hysterical
outburst of injured religious pride has not been seen for a long time.
(From an article by H. Jarvis, Socialist Standard, March, 1955)
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Meetings
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LANCASTER
BRANCH
Public Meeting. Monday March
14th Gregson Centre, Moor Lane,
Lancaster, 8pm. |
Subject: How will a socialist society
deal with natural disasters?
Speaker: P. Shannon
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Glasgow
Discussion Group
Community Central Hall
304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow
Wednesday 16 March 8pm
WHAT NEXT FOR THE REFORMERS?
On how recent ideas such as the
environmentalists and the anti-globalisation
movement are likely to fare in the future. |
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MANCHESTER
DAY SCHOOL
Saturday 23 April, 1-5 pm
Friends Meeting House,
Mount Street,
Manchester (off Albert Square)
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Theme: 'World
Poverty'
More details next month |
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ADVANCE
NOTICE
LONDON DAY SCHOOL
Saturday 9 April, 11am - 5pm
HUMAN NATURE AND HUMAN
SOCIETY
(full details next month)
Room 11, Friends House, 173 Euston Rd
(side entrance), NW1 |
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SWANSEA
BRANCH
Monday March 14. 7.30 pm.
Unitarian Church, High St, Swansea |
Talk: 'GM Crops. Should they be used?'
Speaker: Brian Johnson
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SWANSEA
BRANCH
Monday April 11 7.30 pm.
Unitarian Church, High St,
Swansea (next to Argos). |
Talk:
Election activity. Is it
worth it?
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| Party
News |
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Election
News
By the time you read this the general election campaign might be
officially under way. As announced, the Socialist Party is standing a
candidate in the Vauxhall constituency in South London.
Our Head Office, which is in the constituency, is serving as the
campaign
rooms. If you want to help get the socialist message across against the
Gang of Three
(Labour, Liberal, Tory: Same Old Futile Story) and their apprentices in
the Green Party (and other would-be managers of capitalism such as
RESPECT and VANITAS),
phone 0207 622 3811 or call in at 52 Clapham High St, SW4
(nearest tube: Clapham North).
If you are connected to the internet you can also follow the campaign
on a daily basis by
visiting the site of our campaign blog "Vaux Populi"
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EDINBURGH
BRANCH
West Lothian Socialist Discussion Group
The Lanthorn,Kennilworth Rise Dedridge,
Livingston 7.45 till 9.30
2nd and 4th Wednesdays each month
Wednesday 9th March
The Economic Calculation Argument
Speaker Matt Culbert
Wednesday 23rd March
to be arranged
Admission free All welcome |
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Declaration
of Principles
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This
declaration is the basis of our
organisation
and, because it is
also an
important historical
document
dating from the
formation
of the party in 1904, its
original
language has been
retained.
Object
The establishment of a system
of society based upon the
common ownership and
democratic control of the
means and instruments for
producing and distributing
wealth by and in the interest of
the whole community.
Declaration of Principles
The Socialist Party of Great
Britain holds
1.That society as at present
constituted is based upon the
ownership of the means of living
(i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) |
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by the capitalist or master class,and the consequent enslavement of the
working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.
2.That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests,
manifesting itself as a class struggle between those who possess but do
not produce and those who produce but do notpossess.
3.That this antagonism can be
abolished only by the
emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master
class, by the conversion into the
common property of society of the means of production and
distribution, and their democratic
control by the whole people.
4.That as in the order of social
evolution the working class is the
last class to achieve its freedom, |
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the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of
all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.
5.That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.
6.That as the machinery of
government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to
conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken
from the workers,
the working class must organize consciously and politically for
the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order
that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an
instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the
overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic. |
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7.That as all political parties are but the expression of class
interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically
opposed to the interests of all sections of all sections of the the
master class, the party seeking
working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.
8.The Socialist Party of Great
Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to
wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged
labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the
working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end
that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system
which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may
give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom. |
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To Contents Here
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To Socialist Party Here |
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(est
1904)