The British Humanist Association (BHA) has welcomed the author, comedian, presenter, and director Stephen Fry to its membership and as a Distinguished Supporter of Humanism. The news comes during a busy membership drive month in which the BHA has announced that it has doubled in size in the last five years, to 10,000 members, and wants to double again–in just half the time.
Stephen told the BHA, “At a time when the achievements of the Enlightenment are questioned, ridiculed, misunderstood and traduced by those who would reverse the progress of mankind, it is essential to nail one’s colours to the mast as a Humanist.
“For me, that is not a turning away from mystery or a cold rational dispute with the numinous and spiritual in life, it is an acceptance of the awesome and splendid responsibility we each have for our own destinies, ethics and morals. I repudiate the authority of churches, revealed texts and vain unsubstantiated assertions and embrace the shared glories of humanity’s intellectual and spiritual struggle to understand the universe into which we are born with honesty, openness and faith in our own natures.”
Stephen Fry has long stated his support for Humanism and his personal non-religious beliefs. He was interviewed in New Humanist magazine in 2003 and also discusses his views on God and religion in his autobiography Moab is my Washpot. More recently, he won the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association’s award for services to Humanism and LGBT rights in 2009.