I have to say that there is a necessary negative element in our 'message' and, without that negative element, we are in danger of missing one of the major points of our position.

The world is vastly over-stocked with Belief (The capital B is intentional). Much of this Belief is either falsehood, fantasy or froth and the fact that millions of people are moved, or at least mesmerised, by it is a major trigger for man's inhumanity to man and a major obstacle in the way of commonsense identification of problems that actually exist and can be solved - or at least contained - in a reasonable way. In short, we have to proclaim that we do not believe in Belief; on the contrary we regard Belief as a destructive addictive vice particularly when its addicts actually feel so good about their addiction. The average alcoholic does at least have the humility to recognise, when he is sober, that he has a problem; the Believer has no such self-insight; 'sobriety' is not on his agenda.

I like Frank Holmes's dictum "A humanist is a person without invisible means of support". I like H.J. Blackham's remark: "Humanism is the plain view."

So we do have a continuing demolition job on our hands; the positive aspect is that, by doing it, we free people to be able to use their natural talents (including their natural talent for co-operation). I also offer my own one-liner: "The ultimate object of humanism is to erase the ism".

If we attempt to set up a Humanist Belief System (again the capitals are intended) and many such systems can be postulated, we are in danger of setting up all the worst aspects of religion (conformity, heresy, sectarian quarrels over interpretation, tyranny of the dominant faction over the others and all the grisly rest of it) without the one saving grace of religion at its best - namely reverence for something/someone supposedly bigger than ourselves. Is this where the Belief System called Marxism went wrong? To imagine there is a god is hazardous enough but to practise a cult of 'Joe is God' is even worse.