Talk:National Secular Society

NSS anti-supernaturalism

 * A recent amendment removed reference to the NSS's position on the supernatural, apparently on the basis that the NSS promotes no particular view on such matters. This is false. Here are the NSS's general principles: . The first point reads: "Secularism affirms that this life is the only one of which we have any knowledge and human effort should be directed wholly towards its improvement." And the fourth point reads: "It asserts that supernaturalism is based upon ignorance and assails it as the historic enemy of progress."  See also the NSS shop for various books etc which do in fact promote a particular view on religion: . --Dannyno 14:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Freemasons and the NSS
Does anyone know what the Society's position is on Freemasonry ? Does is support the Separation of Lodge and State ? Are there many masons part of the group ?

In Continental Europe, many of the so-called Secular groups were founded by masons, including the Famous Libre Pensée League in France and the Presse rationaliste. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ADM (talk) 19:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * But freemasonry in the rest of Europe isn't quite the same thing as British freemasonry. In answer to your question, why not contact the NSS and ask? This is not a general discussion board. --Dannyno (talk) 21:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't think they have a position, any more than they'd have one on, say, water-polo. Autarch (talk) 18:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The NSS would not be in favour of Free Masonary as Free Masonary requires its members to assert their belief in a "Supreme being". The NSS would also therefore frown on any attempt at interference or influence in the affairs of the state that Free Masons may be involved in, just as it is with all other groups with a religious element.--Hontogaichiban (talk) 01:32, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Should you wish to add such a link between the two institutions, then find some evidence of one, write it on the article and then we can have this debate, at the moment it is just hypothesis. Mtaylor848 (talk) 13:49, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Opposition to Religious Broadcasting
Other campaigns involve ....(opposition to) religious propaganda being broadcast by the BBC at licence-payers’ expense (such as Thought for the Day) What is the organisations response to the practice of inviting astrologers to broadcast on the BBC (particularly on Radio Two). The legal requirement for ITV and Channels 4 and five to include a minimum amount of religious programme in their schedules. Or the awarding of terrestrial broadcasting licences to religious (mainly Christian) radio stations in some cities (presumably to the exclusion of other types of radio stations given the shortage of available frequency space) ? 213.40.103.77 (talk) 11:22, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not aware of specific comment on astrologers, but the NSS has opposed the legal requirements on religious broadcasting. Take that away, and religious representatives will appear on TV on a more equal basis with others. If this section needs beefing up, we need to find examples of such comment. --Dannyno (talk) 10:36, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Membership and Others
The comment below is nearly three years old, and any numbers which may have been added seem to have been removed. In the absence of any other information, I've added a calculated figure based on the Company's financial information. If there's any more authoritative source of data, please feel free to supply it, but references elsewhere indicates that the NSS doesn't answer questions about its membership numbers; if the estimate is correct it may be because this would be an embarrassingly low statistic to have in the public domain. David Aldred (talk) 18:03, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Or it might be because they prefer to campaign on the issues. Not our job to speculate. --Dannyno (talk) 21:51, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Some might consider it an issue that such a tiny group gets so much airtime! Anyway, since the original blog post I linked to has been removed by its author (who has deleted all his blog articles due to a change of job), I've amended the text and linked to another article David Aldred (talk) 22:24, 7 January 2012 (UTC).

I'm planning to add NSS membership figures to this article. Just to let anyone watching know that I am here. I'll also make a few other changes. Comment welcome of course. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattwardman (talk • contribs) 19:33, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Brief details added. This article needs far more extensive citations for a campaigning body so prominent in public life, and I'll try to keep chipping away at it. Mattwardman (talk) 10:19, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Article not NPOV?
I've noticed that this article seems to be biased in some areas towards the NSS's viewpoint; the most outstanding examples being:

The National Secular Society is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism, the separation of church and state, to make society fair for everyone, whatever their belief or lack of one. -- this implies that secularism and separation of Church and State are prerequisites of making society fair for everyone, which I would agrue violates the principle of NPOV.

The NSS also campaigns actively in Europe against the undue influence of religion in political, law-making and Human Rights issues. -- saying that the influence religion has in this issues is "undue" once again violates NPOV.

demands of religious groups -- "demands" is a pretty loaded word with some negative connotations, so perhaps this word should be changed to something more neutral.

The NSS is also tackling the rise of intolerant religion in universities, growing threats to freedom of expression and the cruelty of religious slaughter methods. -- saying that religious slaughter methods are "cruel" sounds like a personal opinion to me.

Attempts to force the Scouts to stop discriminating against non-believers have - so far – proved unsuccessful. -- saying that the Scouts discriminate against non-believers sounds POV to me.

Bradlaugh’s struggle to enter Parliament became a key moment in the development of nineteenth century secularism. -- of course, whether or not something is "key" is a personal opinion.

He was a very active MP on behalf of the poor, the Irish and Indian independence. -- "active", in this case, being rather subjective.

He claimed that the heroic age of freethought had passed, -- is this a quote he used? If so, it should be in quotation marks; if not, then who defines what is "heroic" or not?

the twentieth century the NSS campaigned against the BBC’s excessive use of religion -- what is excessive and what isn't is a matter of personal opinion.

the privileged influence of religion on public life -- similar to the use of the term excessive, privilege is a rather subjective and POV term.

Of course, most of these statements could easily be made more neutral; thus for example, "the BBC's excessive use of religion" could be changed to "the BBC's use of religion, which the NSS claims is excessive", and perhaps a citation could be added. I'll change this, if no-one objects... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.64.25.38 (talk) 19:56, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

It is several days now since your post, and nobody has disputed the NPOV issue. You should go ahead and make the changes. I think it's obvious you're right to point out those parts of the article that need changing, in fact it hardly needs the NPOV tag on the main page. --Dannyno (talk) 22:17, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I made a start myself. Some of it still needs rewriting because it's oddly phrased, but I don't have time now. --Dannyno (talk) 22:49, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The article seems more neutral now. I've changed a few things to make the article read better, and also deleted the point about Cohen opposing Fascism, which didn't seem that relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.64.25.38 (talk) 18:33, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Added criticism section?
I added a criticism section which I believe to be small and fair, I also edited a few sections to make it more NPOV and read better. (Ryanhoare01 (talk) 02:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC))


 * Criticism sections are discouraged on wikipedia these days, but that aside Warsi didn't actually mention the National Secular Society in her speech. So the quote seems misplaced. Please justify, or it will be reasonable to remove it. --Dannyno (talk) 22:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

It was aimed a the MP Evan Harris. Who is an Honorary Associates of the NSS. In light of that I feel it is a justified comment it could however be made more clear in the article. (Ryanhoare01 (talk) 14:35, 28 December 2009 (UTC))


 * Warsi's comments are indeed aimed at Evan Harris. She does not mention the NSS.  Therefore as it stands the article misrepresents Warsi's remarks.  If they belong anywhere, they belong in the wiki article about Evan Harris.  I'm therefore going to remove that section unless and until it can be properly supported. --Dannyno (talk) 13:43, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion their web site makes them look like an atheist Taliban; enforcing non-religion in the name of free thought is a paradox in itself. Dainamo 20:34, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * No one asked for your opinion. Wikipedia is not a soapbox: don't use talk pages to vent opinions which aren't relevent to a debate. --Oldak Quill 9 July 2005 00:53 (UTC)

Isn't it interesting that when the religious attack the non religious, as Dainamo does above, they always try to expose their targets religiosity? What they are trying to say is: "You are just as irrational and bigoted as we are!" They are on this subject, as much else, utterly wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.194.4.65 (talk • contribs)
 * I have to defer to Quill that it is not a soap box but this charge is presumptive. I have made no opinion on religion itself and I am ready to attack religious bigotory as much as the secular type, especially the unsigned variety. End of. Dainamo (talk) 22:45, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Quill when ihe says a Wikipedia talk page is not for topical debate, only article accuracy. There are plenty of message boards on the Internet for this sort of thing.Kurzon 13:58, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * That's not to say that this page provides a neutral perspective on matters...by virtue of the fact that it associates "fairness" with NOT being religious.. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.150.188.100 (talk) 14:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources
WP:RS states ''Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable. and Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control. Posts left by readers may never be used as sources.''

This edit restored material based on a couple of blogs:
 * 1) George Pitchers' blog on The Daily Telegraph site - this may fulfil the conditions.
 * 2) Matt Wardmans' blog, which looks like it doesn't.

Given that Pitcher is an editor for the Telegraph, the former part probably should remain, but not the second, as per WP:RS.Autarch (talk) 13:43, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

This appears tot be a fair view, perhaps i was to quick to rever allRyanhoare01 (talk) 15:59, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Citecheck?
I've removed the citecheck template from the top of this article. I've been able to quickly read through 6 of the 7 referenced statements and can confirm that the referenced statements are confirmed by the citations. I don't have access to the book listed in citation number 5 so cannot check that. In removing the template, I'm not saying anything about the quality of the article or the adequacy of the sourcing, just noting that the citations that do exist are not "inappropriate or misinterpreted" to the extent that they "do not verify the text". Andreww (talk) 18:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
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 * NSS Poster.JPG