Lesson video

Hello everyone, and welcome to our next RE lesson together.

I'm Miss Harrison and we're going to continue our learning about humanism today.

And today we are going to be looking in particular at some famous humanists throughout history that we can learn from.

Now they're from various different worlds and various different time periods.

So we're going to get stuck into learning about some of them and their humanist ideas.

So in our lesson today, we are going to recap what humanist beliefs do we know so far, so what we've been looking at in our previous lessons.

Then we're going to have a look at some famous humanist scientists, so from the world of science.

And we're going to look at some famous humanists from the world of philosophy as well.

And then finally, we're going to think about how did their humanist worldview influence their work in their various different fields.

So before we get stuck into our lesson today, you are going to need in front of you a piece of paper and a pen or pen to write with.

And of course you're going to need your fantastic creative and inquisitive human brain.

If you're missing one of those things or if you just want to find a nice quiet space where you can complete our lesson today without any distractions, then you can pause the video now and make sure you're ready.

Okay, now that we're ready and you've got everything you need, let's get started.

So we're going to start off by thinking about what humanist beliefs do we know so far.

So what have we learned so far in this unit? So we know that humanists believe that humans were not created by a god but evolved.

And they know that because they look for science and evidence to back up their beliefs.

We also know that humanists believe that we should look to science and evidence to find the truth rather than just having faith in a supernatural power like a god or gods.

Humanists also believe that people should use reason and empathy to decide what is right or wrong.

So rather than looking to a religious text to find out what's the right thing to do or what's the wrong thing to do, they look at each individual situation and think carefully using reason and empathy to decide what's the right thing and what's the wrong thing to do.

Then we also know that humanists believe that there is no life after death.

So they think that we should make the most of the life that we have.

And finally, we've also looked at humanist ceremony celebrating different life events like nonreligious marriages or naming ceremonies when a new child comes into a family, and also how humanists have funerals and commemorate those who have died.

So there's a little recap of what we have learned so far.

And today we are going to look at some famous humanists.

So we're going to start off with some famous humanists from the world of science.

So let's have a look at those famous humanists from the world of science.

So we're going to start off with Marie Curie.

Now Marie Curie is a very famous scientist who lived between 1867 and 1934.

So sadly she's not alive anymore.

However, she's a really, really important figure in the history of science.

So she was born in Poland and she was originally brought up in the Catholic faith.

But after the death of her mother, she became agnostic.

I wonder if you can remember the meaning of that word, agnostic.

Can you think about it? Agnostic means that you think that there's not enough proof that God exists.

So we can never really know whether God exists or doesn't exist.

So that's what Marie Curie believed after the death of her mother.

Now she moved to France to study science and to conduct research, working alongside a man called Pierre Curie.

And her and Pierre eventually got married and they were married in a nonreligious ceremony because neither of them followed a particular religion.

And they researched together.

They worked together on the research on radioactive materials and that earned them the Nobel Prize in 1903.

Now the Nobel Prize is a very prestigious, a very important and well-known award in the world of science.

And they won it together, both Marie and her husband Pierre in 1903.

So in 1911, which after the sad death of her husband Pierre, Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize again.

And she became the first person ever to win the Nobel Prize twice.

Now that was a really big honour for her, especially because she was a woman.

And at the time women did not have all of the rights and privileges that women have now.

And they weren't as respected, particularly in jobs like being a scientist as they are today.

So Marie Curie was an amazing person because of that as well.

Now, her and Pierre studied radioactive materials.

And now radiotherapy is widely used in modern medicine and it's used to detect and to treat illnesses.

Now, Marie never based her beliefs on a supernatural power like a God, but she relied on scientific evidence and research to find out more about the world.

So within that little summary of Marie Curie's life, I wonder if you can think about how can we relate her belief and her worldview to what we know about humanism.

So think about the things that Marie did during her life and the way that she found out the truth, the way that she found out more about the world.

And I want you to write me a sentence.

Marie Curie's beliefs relate to humanism because.

And I want you to tell me why.

So think about all that we've learned about humanism so far and where humanists find the truth and relate that to Marie Curie.

Where did she find out more about the world? Pause the video now to write your sentence.

Okay fantastic, hopefully you've got a sentence written down.

So you might have written something like Marie Curie's beliefs relate to humanism because she didn't rely on believing things like a supernatural power or believing things on faith without evidence.

She based all of her beliefs and all of her work on science and evidence.

So that's a really key thing that we know about humanists as well.

They also base their beliefs on scientific research and evidence.

So if you wrote something like that, you can give yourself a big tick, awesome work.

Now we're going to have a look at another scientist who also had lots of beliefs in common with humanism.

So this is Albert Einstein.

And Albert Einstein was alive between 19, sorry, 1879 and 1955.

Now he was born in Germany in 1879, but he later moved to Switzerland.

And he studied theoretical physics and dedicated his life to scientific research.

Now, one of the things he's most known for is he developed the theory of relativity which is one of the most important pillars in modern physics.

So it's something that all physicians use now in modern science.

And Einstein developed that theory through his research and through finding evidence to prove that theory.

He also won the Nobel Prize, so that prestigious award in the world of science, and Einstein won it in 1921 for his research in theoretical physics.

And he always referred to himself as an agnostic.

So similar to Marie Curie, he was also agnostic which means that he believed that there wasn't enough evidence to prove that there was a God.

So he chose not to believe in a God because there wasn't enough evidence for us to ever know.

So he referred to himself as agnostic and he stated that he did not believe in life after death.

Here's a picture of Einstein when he was a little bit older and he was later a secular humanist.

So remember that secularism is one of those key bits of vocabulary that we learned in a previous lesson.

And secularism means when the state, so the people in charge of a country, and religion are separate so that there shouldn't be one religion that everybody in a certain place is supposed to follow, that people should be free to choose their own religion.

So that's a view that Einstein held because he was a secular humanist.

And he was part of the First Humanist Society of New York in the USA in the 1930s.

So he promoted humanism because it aligned with his beliefs.

And here's a quotation from Einstein, and we're going to have another look at this quotation little bit later in our lesson.

But he said, "A man's ethical behaviour." Ethical means what's right and what's wrong.

"A man's ethical behaviour should be based on sympathy, education, and social ties.

No religious basis is necessary.

Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." So this quotation shows us that Einstein believed everybody should decide what's right or wrong based on sympathy, so imagining how another person is feeling, education, so thinking about things carefully, and social ties, so doing things that are best for the majority of people.

He doesn't believe that people, he didn't believe that people should look to religion and he didn't believe in a life after death.

So bearing that in mind, how can we relate Albert Einstein's beliefs and worldview to what we know about humanism? So think about the way that he conducted his life, the way that he lived his life, what he spent his life doing, and how he believed other people should behave.

Pause the video now and write down your sentence.

Okay, well done, team.

So your sentence might sound something like this.

Albert Einstein's beliefs relate to humanism because he didn't believe in an afterlife and humanists don't believe in life after death.

He was an agnostic.

So he didn't believe there was enough evidence that there was a God.

So he doesn't believe it, he didn't believe in one.

And he wanted all people to consider sympathy and their education, think carefully about how they treat one another and what the right or wrong thing to do was.

If you got some of those points written down, then well done to you.

Now, we can have a look at another scientist who's also a humanist.

So this is Helen Caldicott.

And Helen Caldicott was born in 1938 in Australia.

She later moved to the USA and she spent her life between those two countries.

And Helen Caldicott is still alive today.

And she's a doctor and she's also an activist.

So she campaigns for peace and particularly against nuclear weapons.

Now she throughout her career has conducted lots of scientific research into the dangers of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.

And in 1982, she was awarded the Humanist of the Year award by the American Humanist Association.

So she didn't believe that people should be using nuclear weapons.

She campaigned for peace, and she wanted a kind of free and peaceful society where people had the choice to believe what they wanted to believe.

And as she's also a doctor.

So she based all of her campaigns and all of her activism on research and on science and on evidence as well.

And she was very well known by the Humanist Association of America and was awarded that Humanist of the Year award.

So how can we relate Helen Caldicott's beliefs and worldview to what we know about humanism? So pause the video now and write your sentence.

Okay fantastic, hopefully you've got a great sentence written down.

You might have written something like Helen Caldicott's beliefs relate to humanism because she did lots of scientific research throughout her life and based her beliefs and her opinions on that research rather than basing it on a religious text or a belief in a supernatural being like God.

If you got that right or if you've written points about her scientific research, you can give yourself a big tick, awesome work.

So moving on from the world of science, we're now going to look at a figure in the world of.

Philosophers think really carefully about the big questions in life.

And so having a worldview like humanism would probably impact greatly on different philosophers.

And we're going to look at one philosopher who had that view today.

So this is Bertrand Russell, and he was alive from 1872 to 1970.

Now he was a British philosopher.

He was also a mathematician and an author.

He thought that our beliefs should be based on evidence and logic.

So again, rather than believing in a religious text or following a certain religion or believing in God, he thought that beliefs should be based on evidence and on logic.

He was an atheist and he called himself an atheist, and that means that he did not believe in God.

And he was always campaigning for peace.

He was very much against war.

So he was very much against war and campaigned against the First and Second World Wars in Europe.

And he thought that all humans should practise kindness in order to achieve happiness, so similar to that worldview or that goal for society that we looked at in our previous lesson about humanism.

He also thought that all humans should practise kindness, should think about one another before making their decisions.

And that's what he wanted for his society.

So bearing that in mind, how can we relate Bertrand Russell's beliefs and worldview to what we know about humanism? Pause the video now and write your sentence.

Okay, awesome work, well done.

So you might have written something like Bertrand Russell's beliefs relate to humanism because he wanted a peaceful society.

He wanted people to show kindness and consideration for other people in society.

And he was an atheist, so he didn't believe that there was a God.

If you've written that down, then you can give us up a big tick, well done.

Okay, so now we have a look at some examples of different humanists in different areas and different industries.

Let's now think about how their humanist worldview influenced their work.

And to explain this, I'm going to show you some quotations from some of the humanists that we have looked at in our lesson today.

The first one is from Marie Curie, the scientist.

And she said, "You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.

To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful." So this shows us Marie Curie's really core humanist belief of it is our responsibility as humans to create and improve our society.

So in our previous lessons, we looked at the importance of the idea of freedom and responsibility that humanists hold.

And humanists believe that everybody is responsible for living their life the best they can and helping others to do the same.

And that's also what Marie Curie believed in as well.

So that shows a really core humanist belief from her.

Next up we have a quotation from Albert Einstein.

And this is the one that we looked at before.

We're going to analyse it a little bit more now.

So he said, "A man's ethical behaviour should be based on sympathy, education, and social ties.

No religious basis is necessary.

Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." And we can see that Einstein really thought that rather than looking to a religious text and rather than kind of working or being good to try and get rewards in the next life or to try and avoid punishment in the next life, Albert Einstein didn't believe in an afterlife and humanists don't believe in an afterlife either.

So instead, we base our ethical behaviour on sympathy, thinking about how other people feel, education, thinking carefully about each situation, and social ties, so thinking about what's best for society in general.

So that's another way that Albert Einstein showed his humanist beliefs.

And then finally, here's a quotation from Bertrand Russell, the philosopher.

He said, "The secret of happiness is this: Let your interest be as wide as possible and let your reactions to things and persons who interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile." And this shows that really core humanist belief of having a kind society where we work to try and make everybody happy and to try and be as kind as possible.

So Bertrand Russell really supported that view and he supported the view of being curious.

"Let your interest be wide as possible." And humanists are definitely very curious people and they look to find out more about our world through doing research and scientific evidence.

So that shows how Bertrand Russell showed his humanist ideas as well.

So our final activity is I want you to think about what beliefs do all four of these figures have in common? So we've discussed the different elements of humanism that we've seen throughout their work.

I want you to now link them together and tell me what beliefs do they all have in common.

So you can write your sentence.

You can use the sentence starters to help you.

Beliefs that they all have in common are.

And these link to humanist ideas and beliefs because.

Pause the video now and write your sentences.

Okay, fantastic work, everybody.

And that leads us to the end of our lesson today.

I've really enjoyed discussing those different humanists throughout history with you guys today and I hope you found it interesting and enjoyable as well.

So well done for all of your hard work.

Now, if you're super proud of the work that you've done and you'd like to share it with the Oak National team, you could ask a parent or carer to take a photo of your work and upload it to social media tagging @OakNational or with the hashtag #LearnwithOak.

That way, some of your teachers might be able to see the wonderful work that you have been doing.

So well done for your hard work today.

And I will be back next lesson where we're going to learn more about humanism.

I see you then.