Objectives
The Society campaigns for "Challenging Religious Privilege" the disestablishment of the Church of England; the withdrawal of state subsidies to religious schools; the end of tax exemption for churches and an end to the public funding of chaplains in prisons, hospitals and the armed services, as well as keeping religious influence out of health care, legislation, Human Rights and equality issues. It was recently highly involved in the abolition of the blasphemy laws. Another issue it campaigns about is the conscientious objections by doctors and pharmacists to administer certain procedures or treatments and their refusal to treat certain patients.
Although the organisation was explicitly created for those who reject the supernatural, the NSS does not campaign to eradicate or prohibit religion, arguing that freedom of religion, as well as freedom from religion, is a human right and that state sponsorship of selected religions encroaches upon that right. It holds that belief should be a private matter for the home or place of worship and does not belong in the public sphere. In seeking to represent the interests and viewpoints of atheists, the NSS is often critical of what it sees as the damaging effects of religion.
The NSS also campaigns actively in Europe against what it regards as the privileged influence of religion in political, law-making and Human Rights issues.
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“Along the journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every vocation is chosen and entered upon as a means to a purpose but is ultimately continued as a final purpose in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent stupidity in which we indulge ourselves.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)