Joseph L. Lewis, was an American freethinker and atheist activist, publisher, and litigator, he later credited, The Age of Reason, a work with helping him leave theism, by which English and American political activist, arguing for the philosophical position of Deism?
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Joseph L. Lewis Joseph Lewis (June 11, 1889 – November 4, 1968) was an American freethinker and atheist activist, publisher, and litigator. During the mid-twentieth century, he was one of America’s most conspicuous public atheists, the other being Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. Born in Montgomery, Alabama to a Jewish family, he was forced by poverty to leave school at the age of nine to find employment. He read avidly, becoming self-educated. Lewis developed his ideas from reading, among others, Robert G. Ingersoll, whose published works made him aware of Thomas Paine. He later credited Paine's "The Age of Reason" with helping him leave theism.
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The Age of Reason The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine, arguing for the philosophical position of Deism. It follows in the tradition of eighteenth-century British deism, and challenges institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible. It was published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807. It was a best-seller in the United States, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. British audiences, however, fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French Revolution, received it with more hostility. "The Age of Reason" presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights what Paine saw as corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as "an ordinary piece of literature rather than as a divinely inspired text". It promotes natural religion and argues for the existence of a creator-God.
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James Martineau James Martineau ( ; 21 April 1805 – 11 January 1900) was an English religious philosopher influential in the history of Unitarianism.
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Intelligent design movement The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the pseudoscientific idea of intelligent design (ID), which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." Its chief activities are a campaign to promote public awareness of this concept, the lobbying of policymakers to include its teaching in high school science classes, and legal action, either to defend such teaching or to remove barriers otherwise preventing it. The movement arose out of the previous Christian fundamentalist and evangelistic creation science movement in the United States, and is driven by a small group of proponents. The overall goal of the intelligent design movement is to overthrow materialism and atheism. Its proponents believe that society has suffered "devastating" cultural consequences from adopting materialism and that science is the cause of the decay into materialism because it seeks only natural explanations, and is therefore atheistic. They believe that the scientific theory of evolution implies that humans have no spiritual nature, no moral purpose, and no intrinsic meaning. They seek to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview" represented by the theory of evolution in favor of "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan", as well as the major prose work "Biographia Literaria". His critical work, especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including suspension of disbelief. He was a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and American transcendentalism.
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Secularity Secularity (adjective form secular, from Latin "saeculum" meaning "worldly", "of a generation", "temporal", or a span of about 100 years) is the state of being separate from religion, or of not being exclusively allied with or against any particular religion. Historically, the word "secular" was not related or linked to religion, but was a freestanding term in Latin which would relate to any mundane endeavor. The idea of a dichotomy between religion and the secular originated in the 18th century European Enlightenment. Furthermore, since "religion" and "secular" are both Western concepts that were formed under the influence of Christian theology, other cultures do not necessarily have words or concepts that resemble or are equivalent to them. In many cultures, little conceptual or practical distinction is made between "natural" and "supernatural" phenomena and the very notions of "religious" and "nonreligious" dissolve into unimportance or nonexistence, especially since people have beliefs in other supernatural or spiritual things irrespective of belief in gods.
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Progressivism Progressivism is the support for or advocacy of social reform. As a philosophy, it is based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advancements in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition. Progressivism became highly significant during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, out of the belief that Europe was demonstrating that societies could progress in civility from uncivilized conditions to civilization through strengthening the basis of empirical knowledge as the foundation of society. Figures of the Enlightenment believed that progress had universal application to all societies and that these ideas would spread across the world from Europe. The meanings of progressivism have varied over time and from different perspectives. The contemporary common political conception of progressivism in the culture of the Western world emerged from the vast social changes brought about by industrialization in the Western world in the late 19th century, particularly out of the view that progress was being stifled by vast economic inequality between the rich and the poor; minimally regulated "laissez-faire" capitalism with monopolistic corporations; and intense and often violent conflict between workers and capitalists, thus claiming that measures were needed to address these problems.
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Timothy Madigan Timothy J. Madigan (born 1962) is an American philosopher, author and editor, and a noted humanist. He is particularly notable for having been the Editor of Free Inquiry, a leading journal of secular humanist discussion and commentary.
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Michael Palmer (philosopher) Michael Palmer (born 1945) is an English philosopher, whose work has been translated into many languages. His primary field of interest is The Philosophy of Religion. More recently, however, his work has concentrated on the philosophy of atheism, culminating in his authorship of "The Atheist's Creed" (2010), "The Atheist's Primer" (2012) and the projected "Atheism for Beginners" (due 2013).
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Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford, KBE (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer. Mumford was influenced by the work of Scottish theorist Sir Patrick Geddes and worked closely with his associate the British sociologist Victor Branford.
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Thomas Woolston Thomas Woolston (baptised November 1668 – 27 January 1733) was an English theologian. Although he was often classed as a deist, his biographer William H. Trapnell regards him as an Anglican who held unorthodox theological views.
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Theomachist Theomachist is a term used to refer to an individual who resists God or the divine will. The term comes from the Greek words "theos", meaning God and "machē", meaning battle. Karl Marx was considered by many to be a theomachist. The atheists who established the Cult of Reason in Revolutionary France have also been described with this term.
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Secular morality Secular morality is the aspect of philosophy that deals with morality outside of religious traditions. Modern examples include humanism, freethinking, and most versions of consequentialism. Additional philosophies with ancient roots include those such as skepticism and virtue ethics. Greg M. Epstein also states that, "much of ancient Far Eastern thought is deeply concerned with human goodness without placing much if any stock in the importance of gods or spirits." An example is the non-denominational Kural text of Valluvar, an ancient Indian theistic poet-philosopher whose work remains secular. Other philosophers have proposed various ideas about how to determine right and wrong actions. An example is Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative.
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Roderick Chisholm Roderick Milton Chisholm ( ; November 27, 1916 – January 19, 1999) was an American philosopher known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, free will, value theory, and the philosophy of perception. He was often called "the philosopher's philosopher."
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Marian Hillar Marian Hillar M.D., Ph.D., is an American philosopher, theologian, linguist, and scientist. He is a recognized authority on Michael Servetus and together with classicist and political theorist, C. A. Hoffman, translated the major works of Michael Servetus from Latin into English for the first time. He identified the radical search for truth and the right for freedom of conscience as Servetus' main legacies, rather than his theology and scientific discovery. He studied the influence of Servetus in the world and the development and ideas of the Socinian movement in the 16th and 17th centuries, precursors of the Enlightenment and modern era. He does research in the history of ideas and is author of numerous studies in the history of philosophy, ethics, theological doctrines, and Radical Reformation.
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Politics (essay) "Politics" is an essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is part of his "Essays: Second Series", published in 1844. A premier philosopher, poet and leader of American transcendentalism, he used this essay to belie his feelings on government, specifically American government. His impact on New England thought and his views on pragmatism influenced the likes of Henry David Thoreau, Orestes Brownson, and Frederich Nietzsche, among others.
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Rights of Man Rights of Man (1791), a book by Thomas Paine, including 31 articles, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard the natural rights of its people. Using these points as a base it defends the French Revolution against Edmund Burke's attack in "Reflections on the Revolution in France" (1790).
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Margaret Downey Margaret Downey (born August 16, 1950) is a non-theist activist who is the former President of Atheist Alliance International and founder and president of the Freethought Society (formerly Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia). She also founded the Anti-Discrimination Support Network, which reports and helps deal with discrimination against atheists.
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Atheism in Christianity Atheism in Christianity (German: "Atheismus im Christentum" ) is a 1968 book by Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch. The book offers a third way to the Christian/atheist either/or debate. Gareth Jenkins from Socialist Review says that Bloch "argues that there are liberatory, 'atheist' elements within Christianity with which socialists should make common cause."
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Thomas White (scholar) Thomas White (1593–1676) was an English Roman Catholic priest and scholar, known as a theologian, censured by the Inquisition, and also as a philosopher contributing to scientific and political debates.
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Richard Congreve Richard Congreve (4 September 1818 – 5 July 1899) was an English philosopher, one of the leading figures in the specifically religious interpretation of Auguste Comte's form of positivism. In that capacity he founded the London Positivist Society in 1867 and the Comtist Church of Humanity in 1878. He also wrote political tracts.
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Jim Lippard James Joseph Lippard (born 1965) is an American skeptic and activist freethinker.