It was the first formally “humanist” gathering I had ever attended. And it was interesting to note the tension and difficulty that many humanists feel around the word “atheist”. I get it, to a degree… it seems an empty, vacuous term, negative, failing to promote the great positivity of the humanist values that most atheists share, and which might prove a more comforting and somehow familiar draw for those considering jacking-in their religion. Still, I can’t help but feel that the word has too bad a rap in humanist circles, and that many are far too keen to hide it under the table cloth, for the sake of politeness and a lets-not-rock-the-boat attitude. Yet, every humanist I met said they were an atheist and, really, the primary reason they were gathered in Oxford was to better form an effective counterbalance to religion, and to protest the oppression and suffocation of civil liberties that organised religion is responsible for. It feels to me that atheism - the simple statement that one lives happily and meaningfully without gods - remains the first and most important message of humanism… and so it seems strange to be reluctant to call a spade a spade, although the broader, political objectives of humanism are of course valuable and important (general freedom of speech, the woman’s right to choose, LGBT rights, etc). 

The hosts of the World Congress, the British Humanist Association, pulled off the most extraordinary of organisational feats over the four days of the congress. But they left us with something far more valuable than a neatly organised event. In the final plenary session of the Congress, Andrew Copson and Isabel Russo (of the BHA) shared with us “The Oxford Declaration on Freedom of Thought and Expression” - which you can read here and which was the following day adopted by the International Humanist and Ethical Union as official IHEU policy. For a humanism novice like me, it neatly summed up the broad scope of humanism’s ambitions, and just how very fortunate we are to have such a well-organised and passionate body of people doing far more than guffawing at religion on Facebook, or making shoes with ICH BIN ATHEIST on the soles. 

Nonetheless, we sold a heap of shoes at the Congress… and we’ve formally been requested to develop a humanist shoe! God knows what that will look like… any ideas, please share! 

On a personal note, BIG thanks to the BHA and, in particular Catriona McClennan, for helping to make our time at the WHC2014 so comfortable.  See you in Brazil in 2017!