Word: knights
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Although the English generally do not consider it quite polite to talk about God in public, all Britain seemed to look forward to this particular debate. In one corner, wearing a thin-lipped smile and a keen twinkle, was Mrs. Margaret Knight, 51, the atheist psychologist who had stirred up press and public the week before by urging parents in a radio talk not to tell their children a lot of fairytales about religion and God (TIME, Jan. 24). Opposing her before a BBC microphone was motherly Mrs. Jenny Morton, 52, onetime Church of Scotland missionary in India...
Said Psychologist Knight: "To the humanist, moral behavior is primarily kind, disinterested, self-transcending . . . whereas to the Christian, moral behavior is behavior in accordance with God's will. Of course, in nine cases out of ten, it comes to the same thing in practice, but the sanctions are different. And I must say the humanist sanctions seem to me much better, much more reasonable, and much easier to put across to children. If we tell a child that he mustn't knock smaller children about, that he wouldn't like it if others...
Humanist Barrenness. As the debate wound up, the British press continued to argue about the BBC's propriety in airing Psychologist Knight's anti-religious opinions. "The attacks on Mrs. Knight do Christians little credit," editorialized the conservative weekly Spectator. "It is not Christians, but her fellow scientific humanists, assuming that there are any, who have reason to be distressed by her broadcasts. They can hardly relish having the utter barrenness of their beliefs formulated and widely publicized . . . The BBC deserves congratulations for these broadcasts. The churches must press for as many more of them as possible...
...Church of England's Archbishop of York dismissed Mrs. Knight's views as "the stock in trade of atheists and agnostics for at least two centuries," and the Bishop of Coventry rounded on both BBC ("irresponsible") and Mrs. Knight (a "pernicious performance" by a "brusque, so-competent, bossy female"). The Rev. Dr. Donald Soper, fire-eating Methodist leader, went to her defense. "The alternative to such discussion is to mollycoddle religion . . . As Christians we should welcome the opportunity for examination of the fundamentals of our faith...
With all the clipped detachment it could muster, the BBC announced that Mrs. Knight's third talk this week would be a debate with a partisan of religion, Mrs. Jenny Morton-ex-missionary, clergyman's wife and mother of four. "I'm not angry," said Mrs. Morton. "Mrs. Knight's attitude is rather out-of-date...