The BBC does not allow secular thinkers on ‘Thought For The Day’ and is committed to keeping the slot religious. IHEU member organization The Humanist Society of Scotland affirms that morality and ethics are not the sole preserve of faith groups and so has decided to create and podcast its own Humanist TFTDs on www.thinkhumanist.org This will be available to every Humanist organisation throughout the world. The aim is both to offer an alternative to religious morality and to show the BBC and the public that Humanists can be equally, if not more, thought provoking than religious thinkers, when tackling moral and ethical issues.
The new service launches on Darwin Day (12 February 2007) with Humanist philosopher A.C. Grayling and Stewart Lee, creator of “Jerry Springer the Opera” podcasting that week.
According to A.C Grayling, “It is wrong that ‘Thought for the Day’ refuses to have any but religious voices on it. The far richer and longer-standing humanist tradition, stemming from Socrates to our own day, is a treasure-house of insights and perspectives that our world is tragically lacking, oppressed as it is by mainly religion-fuelled divisions and atrocities. The Humanist Society of Scotland has done us a service in offering a real alternative to predictable pieties that now speak to minorities only in our society.”
Gillian Stewart, a Humanist celebrant who conducts Wedding, Baby Naming and Funeral ceremonies will also be podcasting.
Following the launch week at www.thinkhumanist.org, the Humanist Society of Scotland invites humanists from throughout the world to podcast on the site so that there is always an alternative for secular humanist and other free-thinkers.