Memorandum by N Day
The question, "Do different faiths (including
no faith beliefs) figure sufficiently in BBC programmes and services?"
is posed.
As a regular listener to the Today programme
on Radio 4, I am continually outraged that the Thought for
the Day, slot is reserved for religious submissions. With
many polls showing that a very significant number of people in
this country don't count themselves as religious, why are non-religious
thoughts for the day not included.
The British Humanist Society has applied many
times, unsuccessfully, to get a chance to fill one of these slots.
Why has this not been allowed? I suspect that most of the representatives
of the various faiths that do broadcast in this slot have not
been directly elected by their faith groups to speak for them,
so why would it need to be any different for those from outside
these groups? I'm absolutely certain that the sort of speaker
and topics that the BHA could provide would be well received by
any open-minded person that listens to the slot—and for
any other faith, ethics and moral issue programmes.
Please press the BBC to allow non-religious,
and especially BHA, representatives onto programmes such as this.
With the decline in organised religion in this country, it's even
more important that inclusive, responsible non-theistic moral
and ethic-based thoughts and views be aired.
2 September 2005
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