Plymouth Humanists Profile

[kdenby]

The article below was published in the Plymouth Herald on April 10th 2010 -


SID REMMER could almost be a Renaissance man: you know, one of those high-achieving all-rounders who were scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs and architects in the cultural movement of the late Middle Ages.

Except that this is the 21st century, not the 15th, so the building design he does is for websites rather than the cathedrals which were put up in the great age of learning.

Nor would you be likely ever to see Sid in a church.

The martial arts expert is the chairman of the newly-formed Plymouth Humanists, and dedicated to giving a knock-out blow to the influence that religion holds over society.

The British Humanist Association was founded more than a century ago and there has been a Devon group for many years. So why does Plymouth need one now?

"There's the Scientology Centre in Plymouth and all the problems (with child abuse) in the Catholic Church," says Sid. "Islam, an aggressive religion, worries me and Christianity has just as many drawbacks, telling people that unless you live a good life you will go to Hell. That message doesn't engage young people today, so what reason would they have to be good?

"Humanists believe in 'good without God'. We need more organisations in society that do good without religious dogma."

So the vision for Plymouth Humanists isn't to meet and talk about not believing in God.

"What would be the point of that?" Sid says. "I'm an atheist, but not all humanists are. We had 45 for an initial meeting and there's a wide variety; one of them is a retired pastor from the Unitarian Church.

"At the moment we're trying to build up numbers and awareness.

"I'd like to raise money for a poster campaign in Plymouth, like the bus signs campaign."

The adverts on the sides of buses, partly paid for by the British Humanist Association, attracted a huge amount of publicity with their bold message: 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.'

Sid adds: "Within a year or so in Plymouth I'd like us to have a youth club or centre where there would be sports and adult education; enlightenment is central to humanism. In five or 10 years I'd like there to be a network of centres. We want to be a force for good.

There's something fundamentally wrong with the 'Be good with God or you will be bad' message put out by so many churches, he says.

"It isn't working, for a start. Attendances at church are falling and the messages don't register with hoodies."

As Christian churches decline, there is a moral vacuum developing which leaves the next generation without direction, he says.

"We need to show people that ethics and morals can be cool," he says. "They aren't tied to religion. They existed long before religion.

"We wouldn't have been able to survive as a society or a culture without ethics and morals.

"We don't need to do good because we'll go to heaven; we do good because it makes us feel good.

"We work together and co-operate as a species; that's what we do. That probably came about through evolution."

Sid's own origins are in Yorkshire. He was born in Bradford 45 years ago, without any religion in his background. He was attracted to spiritual healing in his youth before he became interested in philosophy and the works of some of the greatest thinkers of the 20th, 19th and 18th centuries, including Britain's Bertrand Russell, the German Immanuel Kant and France's René Descartes.

"I left home when I was 16 and to travel the world," he says. "I went all over Europe, mainly. I ended up teaching diving in Turkey which was excellent: lots of sunshine and ladies!

"I came back because I needed to start earning a living. I ended up in Cornwall because I don't like the cold and it's the farthest south you can get."

He did a course in environmental monitoring and then went on to do a degree in ocean science and astronomy followed by a PhD, both at the University of Plymouth.

His research, funded by the Ministry of Defence, was into mine counter-measures and involved a laser device to 'read' partly-hidden shapes.

"As far as I know the device is still being used by the military, but I never handed in my thesis," he says, looking a little sheepish, "and I'd like to go back and finish it off: but I'd achieved what I wanted to do. I'd learned more about science and got into research."

That spirit of being a 'doer' is highlighted by what he did outside the classroom and the laboratory.

When he wasn't improving his mind Sid was improving his body and his finances. A keen Thai boxer, he started a club which grew explosively into what later became his livelihood, the Saints Thai boxing gym in Mutley, eight years ago.

"I got into it when I was 21," he explains. "A friend had a gym and I went along to get fit.

"I saw some Thai boxing and had a go and just enjoyed it."

In his time Sid has been a competitor, winning the vast majority of his bouts, but for him kickboxing was always about the fun and the fitness.

His fellow-students were equally taken by Thai boxing.

"I was in the gym (at the university) doing a few exercises and there were a few people watching me," says Sid.

"They wanted to try the training, so I started a university club – and 100 turned up for the first session.

"It was the ideal place; there were thousands of active and fit 18- to 22-year-olds looking for something to do.

"It developed into the Saints club."

The club was probably the first British group to go to Thailand to see fights and training and take part.

"I must have been doing something right because we had a good few champions," he says.

Sid sold the business last year, although he still trains a few fighters by invitation only.

Meanwhile, he has a new project. He and a partner set up a social network betting site, BeLuckyTote.com.

The website's registered over-18s create their own bet, get others to join the pool and wait for the result.

The amount to be won depends on the number of bets placed and the amount of money in the pool.

Bet creators – whether they place a bet themselves – are winners, as they earn a percentage. BeLuckyTote.com wins by taking a commission to pay for costs, betting duty and a charitable donation. This month the site is benefiting Plymouth community charity the Drake Foundation.

The betting pools can be small, such as pub friends or workmates, although the possibilities (and the stakes) are endless; there's a whole wide world out there on which you can market your bet. BeLuckyTote.com's uses include those who want an alternative to the office sweepstake, or to help a favourite charity or club.

Sid says that so far take-up on the site, which he built himself and in which he has invested £40,000, has not been as quick as he had hoped, 'but I believe "If you build it, they will come,'" he says.

"When I had the idea, I just had to do it. We were the first to do this.

"It could take off very quickly with viral marketing. It would only take a big name to mention it on Twitter or their Facebook page."

As he waits for his new venture to grow, Sid is concentrating on a couple of other projects involving his wife, Sam. She runs Art of Dance, the Plymouth pole-dancing company.

The emphasis is on fitness – the pole is a focus for a gymnastic work-out – although Art of Dance also teaches burlesque.

Sid helps with Pole Dance Community, a national self-regulatory body for the fitness pole-dancing industry, and he's Sam's agent as she swaps poles for polls; she's standing as an independent for election to the city council in the Drake ward.

"We're having some fun designing her campaign," says Sid, with a grin, although he adds: "She's totally serious about this. She wants to 'spring-clean' the council."

But much of his energy is devoted to helping Plymouth Humanists grow.

He wears his views on his sleeve, or rather his lapel which sports a red letter A (for atheist) badge. I wonder, though, how he connects the unlikely mix of interests, achievements and associations in his life, as a scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, kick-boxer and pole-dancing and pole-dancer supporter.

"It's about self-belief, improving your mind, asking questions, taking a bit of flak, but keeping an open mind," he says, neatly making that link.

As well as the push for a higher profile and the goal of having some kind of community centre, Sid would like to see the city's humanists having a greater influence within schools, too.

"We want to get humanists on the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education in Plymouth," he says. "It's a committee of Christian churches and other religious groups, the local education authority and teachers, which meets to decide what subjects should be in religious education."

Isn't that simply being a bit mischievous? No, Sid insists: "We just want to have a level playing-field for free-thinking, not the group mentality."

How about the argument that science, in which so many humanists put their faith, is just another system of beliefs with a doctrine that observation, experimentation and mathematics can explain all that is around us?

Aren't religious explanations for the origin of life no more outlandish than some of the ideas put forward in cosmology, such as parallel universes?

"Science is about asking questions," says Sid. "It's about keeping an open mind and using empirical evidence, following the path of logic.

"You can't prove that there isn't a God and you can't prove that there isn't spaghetti monster flying between Mars and Jupiter.

"Nobody knows what happens after death: but I take my lead from hundreds of years of progress since the Enlightenment, rather than somebody who lived in a desert 2,000 years ago."

Plymouth Humanists meet on the fourth Thursday of each month, 7pm-9pm, at the Swarthmore Centre, Mutley: info@plymouthhumanists.org.uk