Unbelief (Religious Skepticism, Atheism, Humanism, Naturalism

Transcription

Unbelief (Religious Skepticism, Atheism, Humanism, Naturalism, Secularism, Rationalism,
Irreligion, Agnosticism, and Related Perspectives)
A Historical Bibliography
Compiled by J. Gordon Melton ~ San Diego ~ San Diego State University ~ 2011
This bibliography presents primary and secondary sources in the history of unbelief in Western
Europe and the United States, from the Enlightenment to the present. It is a living document
which will grow and develop as more sources are located.
If you see errors, or notice that important items are missing, please notify the author, Dr. J.
Gordon Melton at [email protected].
Please credit San Diego State University, Department of Religious Studies in publications.
Copyright San Diego State University.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
General Sources
European Beginnings
A. The Sixteenth-Century Challenges to Trinitarianism
a. Michael Servetus
b. Socinianism and the Polish Brethren
B. The Unitarian Tradition
a. Ferenc (Francis) David
C. The Enlightenment and Rise of Deism in Modern Europe
France
A. French Enlightenment
a. Pierre Bayle (1647-1706)
b. Jean Meslier (1664-1729)
c. Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789)
d. Voltaire (Francois-Marie d'Arouet) (1694-1778)
e. Jacques-André Naigeon (1738-1810)
f. Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
g. Marquis de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
h. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
B. France and Unbelief in the Nineteenth Century
a. August Comte (1798-1857) and the Religion of Positivism
C. France and Unbelief in the Twentieth Century
a. French Existentialism
b. Albert Camus (1913 -1960)
c. Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
United Kingdom
A. Deist Beginnings, Flowering, and Beyond
a. Edward Herbert, Baron of Cherbury (1583-1648)
b. Charles Blount (1654-1693)
c. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
d. Matthew Tindal (1657-1733)
e. Thomas Chubb (1679-1747)
f. John Toland (1670-1722)
g. Anthony Collins (1676-1729)
h. Peter Annet (1693-1769)
i. David Hume (1711-1776)
B. Unitarianism in Great Britain
a. Joseph Priestley (1733- 1804)
C. Unbelief in England—the Nineteenth Century
a. Percy Shelley (1792-1822) and the Romantics
b. William Godwin (1756-1836)
c. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
d. Richard Carlile (1790-1843)
e. George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906) and Austin Holyoake (1827-1874)
f. The Agnostic Tradition
g. Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891) and the National Secular Society
h. Annie Besant
D. Twentieth-Century Humanism and Atheism in England
a. John Mackinnon Robertson (1856-1933)
b. Joseph Martin McCabe (1867-1955)
c. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
d. Antony Flew (1923-2010)
E. Unbelief in Australia and New Zealand
Germany
A. Enlightenment Beginnings
a. Gottfried Wilhem von Leibnez (1646–1716)
b. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781)
c. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
d. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814)
e. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
B. Unbelief in Germany in The Nineteenth Century
a. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
b. The Young Hegelians
c. Bruno Bauer (1809-1882)
d. Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872)
e. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
C. Karl Marx and Marxism
a. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924)
b. Developing Marxism—the Soviet Union and China
c. Marxism
D. Freud, Psychoanalysis, and Religion
North America
A. American Freethought—Eighteenth-Century Deism
a. John Adams and Abigail Adams
b. Ethan Allen
c. Benjamin Franklin
d. Thomas Jefferson
e. James Madison
f. James Monroe
g. Thomas Paine
h. Elihu Palmer
i. George Washington
B. Unitarianism and Universalism
a. Benjamin Rush
b. William Ellery Channing
c. John Murray and Judith Sargent Murray
d. Hosea Ballou
e. Theodore Parker
f. Free Religious Association
g. Francis Ellingwood Abbot and the American Liberal Union
C. Nineteenth-Century American Freethought
a. Abner Kneeland
b. Robert Green Ingersoll
c. D.M. Bennett
D. Freethought Women Leaders and Writers
E. Twentieth Century
a. Individual Freethinkers/Atheists
i. Joseph Lewis
ii. Clarence Darrow
iii. Marcet Haldeman and Emanuel Julius
iv. Mangasar Magurditch Magasarian
v. Charles Lee Smith and the AAAA
vi. H.L. Mencken
b. Unbelief in the Jewish Community
i. Felix Adler and Ethical Culture
a. Eustace Haydon
b. Herbert Wallace Schneider
c. Joseph L. Blau
d. Howard B. Radest
ii. Horace Meyer Kallen
iii. Jewish Humanist Movement
c. Atheism in North America—Post World War II
i. Madalyn Murray O’Hair and American Atheists
ii. African-American Unbelief
a. W. E. B. Du Bois
b. Hubert H. Harrison
d. Humanism—North America
i. The Humanist Manifestos
ii. John Dewey
iii. Sidney Hook
iv. Corliss Lamont
v. Paul Kurtz
vi. The Chicago School
F. Canada
Science and Pseudoscience
A. 1800-1960
B. Darwin, Evolution, and Creationism
C. 1960-Present
D. The Magicians: Houdini to Randi
Contemporary Unbelief
A. Current Advocates
B. The Death of God Movement
C. Neo-Atheism
a. Major Exponents
b. New Atheism and the Community of Unbelief
c. Muslim Critiques of Neo-Atheism
d. Christian Critiques of Neo-Atheism
D. Global Perspectives
E. Unbelief—Sociological and Demographic Studies
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Introduction
This bibliography is focused on the English-language literature generated by and representative
of the history of Unbelief in the Western World from the sixteenth century to the present. While
there is a longer tradition of non-theistic belief reaching back to the ancient Mediterranean Basin,
especially ancient Greece, such belief was largely nonexistent in the Middle Ages and had to
struggle to reassert itself. As James Turner noted in his study of Unbelief [in God] in America,
until the sixteenth century questioning the belief in God was extremely difficult, if not
impossible, for any length of time. Disbelief in God emerged somewhat tentatively in the
seventeenth century and could be found among the elites of the intellectual world through the
eighteenth century. Through the nineteenth century, the situation changed significantly and the
first atheists, even a few atheist groups, emerged in public. By the beginning of the twentieth
century, it was, as Turner put it, “a fully available option.” As the twenty-first century begins,
Unbelief (operating under a number of names) has become a dominant option for thinking about
the world in several countries and a prominent if still a minority option throughout the Western
world. Its core spokespersons are enthusiast about its future and believe that (1) atheism to be the
coming majority way of comprehending the universe and (2) that belief in God will drop by the
wayside as a basis for organizing human society.
The steps by which the Western World has reached such a situation—in which large numbers of
people can celebrate Unbelief, work for its coming, and fervently believe in its future—now
stands as one of the great stories in intellectual history. That story begins in the sixteenth century
where, in the context of the Protestant Reformation, a spectrum of more radical reformers
appeared, including a small number who began to challenge core items constituting what had
been orthodox Christian faith since the fourth century C.E. Most notable among the radical
reformers was one Michael Servetus (1511-1553), who wrote a book on the Christian doctrine of
the Triune god, which he found without biblical support. He compared the Triune God with the
three-headed hound of Hell. He also joined the Anabaptists in their subversive attack upon the
then existing institutional church by challenging the practice of infant baptism. For his effort, he
would be arrested, tried, and executed.
Servetus’ challenge to the state church—both its theology and practice—would find its life in the
circle of inquirers that formed around the Italian Faustus Socinus (aka Fausto Paolo Sozzini,
1534-1604), a small groups of Eastern European believers known as the Polish Brethren, and the
original Unitarian church in Transylvania. Together, these variant strains of non-Trinitarian
Christianity became known as the Socinian movement, and from Eastern Europe, Socinian
thought would spread to Western Europe and find a home in England among both left-wing
Puritans (the Baptists) and within the Church of England where the attempt to unite Protestants
and Catholics through the Prayer Book, left space for dissenting theological speculation among
those who found both perspectives lacking.
Meanwhile, as Unitarianism penetrated church life in England, a new form of dissent emerged in
Germany. Rosicrucianism, the first form of post-Reformation Esotericism to gain a following,
would provide a very different challenge to the dominance of Christianity, but would, if more
indirectly, challenge the doctrine of the Trinity. It did not so much directly challenge the
doctrine, as ignore the Trinity in its affirmation of a single transcendent and somewhat distant
deity. Early circles of discourse for the discussion of the new Esotericism would give way in the
eighteenth century to the speculative Masons and its Great Architect of the Universe.
Freemasonry and Unitarianism provided the main currents upon which the next major challenge
to the pervasive Trinitarian theology of both Catholic and Protestant churches—Deism. Deism
would draw out the implication of the esoteric model of the deity—utterly transcendent and
distant from creation—especially as such a deity related to prayer, miracles and providential
care. One could perceive an important difference between the Deists and their Unitarian
predecessors. That difference would make them the first upon whom their critics would impose
the label “atheist.” Deist thought seem to lead to something that could be imagined as
synonymous with belief in no God at all. Such a belief could also lead to radical displacements in
society such as the French and American revolutions and their radical introduction of secularism
into their running of the government.
Deism would also be a major product of the Enlightenment and it’s privileging of reason as the
overarching principle for observing the universe, organizing society, and maintaining a personal
life. The Enlightenment built upon the Protestant attack on the Catholic miracle theology and the
privileging of proximate causation over remote causation, and culminate in the religion of
Reason briefly advocated following the French Revolution. The Enlightenment thinkers would,
of course, provide long-term inspiration to the rationalist strain in Unbelief.
Deists struggled with the issue of organizing a religion that affirmed a transcendent unresponsive
god. Some advocated a religion whose remaining function centered upon the perpetuation of a
moral society in which sermons would be replaced by lectures on ethics and moral behavior.
Deism would become a temporary transitional movement that would be superseded by, on the
one hand, an international Unitarian movement, and on the other a full-blown atheist
(Freethought) movement.
Deism did, of course, find a more permanent home in Freemasonry whose affirmation of the
Great Architect of the Universe is purely deistic, and continue as the dominant perspective
within masonry to this day. In 1877, the French branch of Masonry separated from England and
began admitting atheists and the leading French Masonic organization remains officially atheistic
to the present. It has, at the same time influenced a variety of European lodges to adopt its
position.
During the nineteenth century, at least in North America, emerging atheism seems to have been
built around subscription lists to Freethought publications and circles of discourse they
nurtured. Freethinkers, like the popular orator Robert Ingersoll, could sell numerous books and
pamphlets (transcripts of lectures), but they headed no organizations to facilitate the further
integration of his ideas in the society. Many Freethinkers found a home in various Esoteric
groups whose attacks on specific beliefs like hell and the rigidity of personal Christian ethics
resonated with many Freethinkers (who perpetuated deistic and agnostic views).
However, through the nineteenth century, especially after the formal organization of the
American Unitarian Association a whole spectrum of organizations would appear to the left of
the Unitarians including the Universalists, the Free Religionists and groups accepting such
names as Freethinkers, Secularists and Liberals. Britain’s National Secular Society (founded
1866) appears to be the oldest organization promoting Unbelief still in existence, and rightfully
has a prominent place in the history of Unbelief. From it, modern organized Unbelief can be said
to arise, and through it secular perspectives spread throughout the United Kingdom and to former
British colonies such as India and Hong Kong.
One cannot, of course, write the history of Unbelief without reference to Karl Marx, his close
associates like Frederick Engels, and the formation of the Communist movement. The whole
Socialist movement (including Marxist Communism) became wedded to Unbelief and
anticlericalism (though Marx’s opinion of religion was far more complex than the catch phrase
about “opium of the people” implied). A significant portion of the current community of
Unbelief consists of Marxists, or increasingly, post-Marxists.
In the last half of the twentieth century, Unbelief made giant strides. In those countries of North
America and Europe, where Marxism never became a majority perspective, a revived community
of Unbelief emerged around a set of issues that found resonance in the larger society—separation
of church and state, the denunciation of pseudoscience, the articulation of a secular moral
perspective, and the promotion of human rights. At the same time, the contemporary community
of Unbelief rejected its longstanding alignment with the Esoteric community, with whom it had
shared a mutual challenge to Christian orthodoxy.
The contemporary Unbelief community finds its unity in a mutually agreed upon atheism—a
simple observation that having observed the universe (through various scientific lens) and
thought about reality (in post-Enlightenment modes), no basis remains for affirming the
existence of a deity. At the same time, the community is divided on a number of important
issues. Is Unbelief simply a perspective to be affirmed, or a cause to be organized, promoted, and
perpetuated? Is a non-theistic religion (such as religious humanism) viable, or is all religion to be
opposed? Should atheists align with older non-theistic belief systems such as Confucianism,
Jainism and Theravada Buddhism? Where does secular non-theistic beliefs fit within a pluralistic
religious world? Does Unbelief constitute a position protected by law in the same manner as
religious perspectives? How far should government go in protecting religions? What is the
meaning of (implications of) separation of church and state for atheists and for others?
Looking Backward
At one level, the contemporary community of Unbelief is difficult to grasp. It is not religion, but
at the same time is a community largely defined by its stance toward not so much religion in
general but the Western Christian manifestation of religion. It is not religion, but fills the role
religion has primarily supplied for most individuals in the West for the last two millennia. It is a
very diverse movement as once having abandoned Christianity and Judaism, a wide variety of
perspectives remain and differences within the community can frequently be as intense as those
between unbelievers and believers. The intensity of differences within the Unbelief community
has been on full display through the twentieth century as Marxist thought emerged, rose to
prominence and then abruptly fell as the century ended. Religion began to expand rapidly in
China following the Cultural Revolution and in Russia and Eastern Europe following the fall of
the Berlin Wall.
Apart from the short-term gains and losses for unbelief in the last decades, the long-term view
shows a monumental rise of the community of Unbelief from nonexistence at the beginning of
the sixteenth century to a perspective held by hundreds of millions. One can see as step-by-step
growth of a community first created by those who wished to establish a form of Christianity that
challenged key items upon which Christian orthodoxy had organized its thought and practice.
Both the new Protestant community and the Catholicism that emerged from the First Vatican
Council saw a spectrum of dissent and paid relatively little attention to the Socinian/Unitarian
strains (except to end its short-lived period of influence in Poland). Unitarians, like Mennonites
and Baptists, hid in the spaces between the competing larger churches and slowly spread from
country to country and gained adherents.
In the seventeenth century, Deism would emerge as a new movement among intellectuals,
nominally members of the larger churches, who presented their thought as part of the spectrum
of the intellectual endeavor of the elite. Finding their main support among individual readers of
their pamphlets and books, the Deist writers rarely sought to mobilize a following by organizing
a society or club that sought to perpetuate a Deistic perspective. They were content to bring
discomfort to those who would settle; into a weakly thought-out theology or rest on an illdefined tradition of church life. Most chose their battlefield for attacking the religious consensus
with extreme care, quite respectful of the power of a church wedded to the state power that had
shown its ability to suppress theological dissidents. Essential to the history of the rise of unbelief
was the changing punishment for the crime of blasphemy—death to imprisonment, to civil
penalties, to its decriminalization altogether.
Prior to 1800, Unbelief would appear primarily as Unitarianism or Deism. Through the
nineteenth century a whole spectrum of belief would appear under a variety of names, each
suggesting a slightly different emphasis—Freethought, secularism, rationalism, agnosticism,
liberalism, Marxism, skepticism—all words suggesting what few would actually accept as a
label—atheism. Only in the twentieth century, would atheism become a widespread and popular
self-designation.
Early in the twentieth century, two prominent strains of atheist thought would emerge in
prominence. The first continued the Freethought-rationalist-secularist strain of the nineteenth
century as represented, for example, in the Secular Union in Europe and the Liberal League in
the United States. The second strain was represented in the Marxist movement and the associated
socialist political program, which took diverse forms from country to country. Outside North
America and Western Europe, Marxism became the cutting edge of atheist thought and carried it
to power in such diverse places as Albania, China and Ethiopia. It remains a significant element
in atheist thought in the Western world, though noticeably on the decline.
The two main atheist strains would be joined by a new strain of non-theistic thought in the first
half of the twentieth century. Ferment on the leftwing of Judaism and then of Unitarianism
would lead to the emergence of a new non-theistic theology with intellectual centers in New
England and Chicago. The new Humanists dispensed with theism, but retained a central focus in
creating a new ethics–centered religion. The “Humanist” movement began with Felix Adler and
the Ethical Culture community in New York City, and later blossom among Unitarian leaders in
the Midwest.
In the last half of the twentieth century in North America, the community of Unbelief would
recoil from both the post-World War II religious revival that would bring millions into church
membership, pushing it upwards by almost 20 percentage points, and an accompanying national
attack upon “godless Communism” that aligned with American foreign policy during the cold
War. The first sign of an atheist pushback from what appeared as a widespread cultural attack,
came from an unexpected source, an aggressive, even abrasive female, a single mother opposed
to mandatory “Christian” prayer conducted in the classes in the public school to which she sent
her son.
In 1960, Madalyn Murray O’Hair (1919-1995) filed a law suit challenging the practice of have
short devotional services (usually including prayer and Bible reading) as part of the exercises
beginning the school day in most public schools across the United States. The suit became the
focus of a crusade fought out on the public stage as a movement to rid the public schools of
prayer. Conservative religious leaders saw in O’Hair an appropriate target upon whom to vent
their rage. The issue made O’Hair a celebrity, especially after the Supreme Court essentially
accepted her position in its 1963 ruling in a like case—Abington School District v. Schempp—in
1963. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Austin, Texas, and founded American Atheists, which
became the largest atheist organization in the country. Even as atheists gathered around and
found new life in their new identity, O’Hair’s abrasive style of leadership led many to leave her,
and American Atheists became the catalyst for numerous additional atheist groups to form, most
notably the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
Then in the 1970s, a set of issues in the American Humanist Association, including a debate over
the religious nature of humanism, led to a split by one of the movement’s prominent intellectual
and organizational leaders, philosopher Paul Kurtz. Kurtz founded the Council for Secular
Humanism, which became the parent of a set of organizations that together mobilized one of the
largest segments of the Unbelief community. Not unimportant in that endeavor was the growth
of Prometheus Press, also headed by Kurtz, into the most prominent publisher of Unbelief
literature in the world. Additionally, the Council was responsible for initiating a new movement
battling pseudoscience.
While the Unbelief community was experiencing a new stage in its organizational growth, a new
movement appeared within the Jewish and Christian community. Spurred largely by discussions
of the extent of the Jewish Holocaust, a new debate over the problem of evil was punctuated by a
set of religious scholars announcing the death of God. Though a relatively short-lived movement,
the affront caused by a group of Christian and Jewish theologians identifying themselves as
atheists (for whatever reason) created a significant controversy at least within liberal Christian
circles over how far the secularization of Christianity could proceed.
The Unbelief community entered the twenty-first century on an optimistic note. In a mere half
century, it had taken significant steps forward, even as the Marxist world underwent notable
setbacks. It had brought forth a set of large stable organizations, found some international voice
heralded by the formation of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and appeared to be
gaining measurable support in the general population, even in North America. That growth,
however, was not enough for some atheist spokespersons, and by the middle of the first decade
of the new century, a cadre of atheists had emerged with a new aggressive stance marked by a
heightened level of shrillness and willingness to distance themselves from any form of religion.
While energizing some elements of the Unbelief community, it yet remains to be seen whether
the new movement will prove effective catalysts in growing the Unbelief community.
A Note on Labels
The label “Unbelief” is a term that has gained acceptance in the last generation as a
comprehensive term to designate a wide variety of self-chosen labels to describe the various
forms of non-theistic perspectives that have emerged in the west over the last few centuries.
Some, like atheism, were originally derisive labels placed on people more or less appropriately
by religious (primarily Christian) polemicists. Like unbelief, it is a negative term that defines a
position over against a believing majority in the social environment. In the process of attempting
to communicate a positive stand-alone position, which incidentally makes no room for the
supernatural affirmations of the majority, a variety of different names have been appropriated—
Freethought (as opposed to free thought), rationalism, naturalism, secularism, skepticism, and
humanism. Each of these terms also has other popular uses and may at times not communicate
clearly. Naturalism means something very different in the world of literature or even biology and
environmental studies. Skepticism has come to refer not just to religious skepticism, but to the
battles against pseudoscience, which involves many, possibly a majority, who are not otherwise
unbelievers. Humanism means something very different in the sixteenth century than it implies
in the English-speaking world of the twenty-first century.
Modern Unbelief also does not arise in a historical vacuum, but struggles to make a place for
itself out of the challenge to the orthodox Christian hegemony of the sixteenth century. That
challenge began as questions were raised against the Christian doctrine of the Triune God, God’s
providence over the world, the existence of miracles, the possibility of prayer, and the integrity
and authenticity of the biblical text. That criticisms initially produced forms of belief that
competed with Christian orthodoxy, and atheism initially arose among people who had moved to
a non-Trinitarian system of belief and/or one that accommodated a God who had only limited
contact with the world. Over the centuries, a form of non-Trinitarian Christianity has continued
to exist and at times thrive, and it has periodically been the environment, which has nurtured new
non-theistic perspectives, most notably twentieth-century humanism.
Throughout this bibliography, we will use Unbelief in this larger meaning and the terms
Freethought, rationalism, naturalism, secularism, skepticism, and humanism as terms denoting
the various forms of non-theistic thinking, as opposed to their other uses.
This Bibliography
This bibliography looks at the literature that has been produced by and about the Unbelief
community through the last 500 years. Even though Unbelief remains a minority tradition in
Western culture, it has been a literary tradition and produced a sizable body of material. In
addition a large number of observers have commented upon it. Given the large amount of
material available, this bibliography had to be highly selective. It is initially limited by
language—it focuses on the English-language material. Even within that limitation, it makes no
pretense of being exhaustive; rather, for each subtopic considered, it attempts to produce a
selective list of material representative of the best items available.
Second, this bibliography has been developed and arranged in such a way as to manifest the
growth and development of the Unbelief community over the last five centuries. The appearance,
evolution, and spread of Unbelief have not been without controversy. In fact, it has often
appeared that the literature commenting on the movement from a critical polemic position is far
larger than the body of material produced by the movement itself. It is, to some extent,
impossible to understand the growth of Unbelief without reference to the on-going debates, and
the claims and counter-claims made by opposing authors. Indeed, there is a modern tradition of
staged debates between believers and unbelievers on the central topics raised by atheists over the
existence of God and the viability of religion. This bibliography is, however, primarily
concerned neither with the truth claims of the Unbelief community nor the counter claims of
theists.
Rather, this bibliography is narrowly focused upon the historical development of a tradition of
skepticism and Unbelief in God and the parallel appeal to reason as an alternative way of
organizing one’s intellectual life and social community throughout the Western world. It
attempts to define the major currents of the developing movement in those countries that have
taken the leadership in its emergence. It also attempts to identify the major spokespersons of the
tradition and present the most important primary and secondary sources on each. We
successively deal with the origins of the movement in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe
and then with its Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment development on France, Germany, the
United Kingdom, and Russia, before moving to its evolution in North America. Given the
emphasis on English-language literature, the sections on the United States and the United
Kingdom are proportionately larger.
A final section of the bibliography explores the contemporary scene, with a listing on some
recent movements and on the literature that is currently generating significant interest. This
section also includes a sub-chapter with a selection of sociological literature reflecting on the
present state of Unbelief. The size of the Unbelief community, and possibility of its becoming
the majority community in different places is both a major topic of concern and very much a
contested issue among Unbelievers. Its self-image is tied to its hope of moving from its present
minority status to one in which the majority accept the truth claims its presents. Recent
sociological literature has built a growing body of material examining this issue from a variety of
starting points.
Since the mid-nineteenth century, the development of Unbelief has been tied to some extent with
the battle to place the findings of science in the forefront while simultaneously pushing aside of
both (1) pre-scientific views of the world and (20 false views of the world built on flawed
science, i.e., pseudoscience. Two closely related efforts, one focused on creationist views of the
world and the idea of biological evolution of the human species, and the other opposing a variety
of paranormal claims based on reputed empirical observations have developed in the last decades
of the twentieth century and are explored in a final section of the bibliography.
Interaction
In the end, it was decided to publish this bibliography on the Internet. Such a placement allows it
to remain a living document always open to growth by addition of titles, development of topics
covered, and correction of errors. The author invited the input of any readers with suggestions
for its improvement. Suggestions may be sent to [email protected].
The production of bibliographies such as this one is very much affected by the most recent
developments in publishing. Several print-on-demand publishers including but not limited to
Nabu, Kessinger, and BiblioLife have moved to reprint an extensive number of out-of-copyright
books, including many in the Unbelief tradition. Of particular importance to this particular
bibliographical work is the EighteenthCenturyCollectionsOnline or ECCO Project from Gale
Research/Cengate Learning, the large reference book house in suburban Detroit. The ECCO
Project is preparing digital texts of works written and published between 1700 and 1800 in
England and its colonies, including the British editions of the English translations of many
German and French Enlightenment treatises. As this project got off the ground, Gale partnered
with BiblioLife to produce publish-on-demand editions of a large number of eighteenth century
texts. Those using this bibliography, after locating items, which they might like to consult, will
likely find that relatively inexpensive print and/or digital forms of the item will be available for
purchase or through inter-library loan.
In addition, some less formal efforts have succeeded in publishing a large number of relevant
texts of unbelief on-line. Most notable are the many items available at The Secular Web’s
Library at http://www.infidels.org/library/ and the positive Atheism site at
http://www.positiveatheism.org/. Surfing the web also reveals many additional items on
different sites. Increasingly, the items listed below, especially as they move out of copyright, will
become available online, and an online search is the first place to look for any particular item
cited below.
January 2011
J. Gordon Melton
Santa Barbara, California
Back to the Table of Contents
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General Sources
As the world of Unbelief has emerged and developed, a number of attempts have been made to
survey the field both in narrative histories and through the production of much needed reference
works. This section includes reference book (encyclopedia, biographical dictionaries, etc.),
general surveys of the history of Unbelief, and general surveys of the world of Unbelief and the
issues around which it operates.
This author got to know atheist scholar Gordon Stein in the early 1980s in Chicago and
developed a relationship based upon our mutual interests in creating archives and compiling
reference works in two overlapping fields. This author later continued to work with him on
developing atheist sources when we both lived in Southern California. Stein eventually deposited
most of the atheist, Freethought, and related material at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He then deposited many of the duplicate items he had collected at the Davidson Library at the
University of California—Santa Barbara, where this author had deposited the Unitarian,
Freethought, and atheist materials he had collected. These two universities continue to hold the
largest archives in North America on the subject of this bibliography known to this author.
Supplementing the general sources listed below are some important on-line resources, the
Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography (http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/)
immediately coming to mind. This ongoing project is under the general direction of the Unitarian
Universalist Historical Society and under the editorial control of J. D. Bowers, Peter Hughes,
Dan McKanan, Jim Nugent, and Kathleen Parker.
The atheist community is served by “The Online Atheist Dictionary,” posted at
http://atheistdictionary.com/ and the Secular Web (http://www.infidels.org/). The latter site
includes reprints of many classic atheist texts. The online edition of the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy edited by Edward N. Zalta (http://plato.stanford.edu/) includes numerous detailed
entries on the many thinkers who have led the way in the emergence of contemporary atheism.
The items cited below include those books designed in some way to cover broadly the world of
Unbelief and includes encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries, anthologies, histories,
introductory texts to the world of Unbelief, and of course, bibliographies. Overwhelmingly, the
items have been written by people who are themselves unbelievers, but a few worthy studies by
religious believers have been included. Of course, in many cases the personal beliefs of the
author are not known, and ideally should, in the end, be irrelevant to the production of their
studies.
Sources
Baggini, Julian. Atheism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003
Baumer, Franklin L. Religion and the Rise of Scepticism. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1960. 308
pp.
Baylen, Joseph O., and Norbert J. Gossman., eds. Biographical Dictionary of Modern British
Radicals. Vol. 1: 1770-1830. Vol. 2: 1830-1870. Hassocks, Sussex, UK: Harvester Press, 1979,
1985.
Blackford, Russell, and , Udo Schuklenk, eds. 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists. New
York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. 256 pp.
Bratton, Fred Gladstone. The Legacy of the Liberal Spirit: Men and Movements in the Making of
Modern Thought. Boston: Beacon Press, 1943. 319 pp.
Buckley, Michael J. At the Origins of Modern Atheism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1987. 445 pp.
-----. Denying and Disclosing God: The Ambiguous Progress of Modern Atheism. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
Budd, Susan. Varieties of Unbelief. London: Heinemann, 1977.
Cady, Linell E., and, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd. 2010. Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age.
Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 302 pp.
Cobban, Alfred. Search of Humanity: The Role of the Enlightenment in Modern History. New
York: George Braziller, 1960.
Converse, Raymond W. Atheism as a Positive Social Force. New York: Algor, 2003.
Cooke, Bill. Dictionary Of Atheism, Skepticism, & Humanism. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books,
2005. 606 pp.
Courtney, Janet Elizabeth (Hogarth). Freethinkers of the Nineteenth Century. 1920. Rpt. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Library, 2009. 296 pp.
Dixon, Thomas. "Scientific Atheism as a Faith Tradition." Studies in History and Philosophy of
Biological and Biomedical Sciences 33 (2002): 337–359.
Dooley, Brendon. The Social History of Skepticism: Experience and Doubt in Early Modern
Culture. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. 224 pp.
Drachmann, A. B. Atheism in Pagan Antiquity. 1922. Rpt.: Chicago: Ares Publishers, 1977.
Faulkenberry, Carol E. An Uppity Old Atheist Woman's Dictionary. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta
Freethought Society, 1998. 147 pp.
Flynn, Tom, ed. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2007. 897 pp.
Gaskin, J. C. A., ed. Varieties of Unbelief: From Epicurus to Sartre. New York: Macmillan
Publishing Company/London: Collier Macmillan, 1989. 240 pp.
George, John H., and Laird M. Wilcox, eds. Be Reasonable: Selected Quotations for Inquiring
Minds. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994. 361 pp.
Harris, Mark W. The A to Z of Unitarian Universalism. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc.,
2009. 616 pp.
Haught, James A. 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt.
Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1996. 334 pp.
Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation
from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson. New York: HarperOne,
2004. 576 pp.
Jennifer Michael Hecht (Author)


Visit Amazon's Jennifer Michael Hecht Page
See search results for this author
Herrick, Jim. Against the Faith: Essays on Deists, Skeptics and Atheists. Buffalo, NY:
Prometheus Books, 1985. 250 pp.
-----. Humanism: An Introduction. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005. 105 pp.
Hitchins, Christopher. The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever. 3rd ed.
New York: Da Capo Press, 2007. 528 pp.
Joshi, S. T., ed. The Agnostic Reader. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007. 286 pp.
-----. Atheism: A Reader. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2000. 346 pp.
-----. Atheists, Agnostics, and Secularists. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008. 463 pp.
-----. The Unbelievers: The Evolution of Modern Atheism. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books,
2011. 304 pp.
Knight, Margart, and Jim Herrick, eds. Humanist Anthology. London: Rationalist Press
Association, 2000. 169 pp. Rpt as Humanist Anthology: From Confucius to Attenborough.
Kors, Alan Charles, ed. Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. 4 vols. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002.
Larue, Gerald A. Freethought across the Centuries: Toward a New Age of Enlightenment.
Amherst, NY: American Humanist Association 1996. 516 pp.
Levy, Leonard W. Treason against God: A History of the Crime of Blasphemy. New York:
Shrocken, 1981.
McCabe, Joseph. A Biographical Dictionary of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Freethinkers.
Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1945. Posted at
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/dictionary.html.
-----. A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists. London, Watts, 1920. Posted at
http://www.archive.org/stream/modernrati00mccauoft/modernrati00mccauoft_djvu.txt
-----. A Rationalist Encyclopedia: A Book of Reference on Religion, Ethics and Science. 1948.
2nd ed: London: Watts, 1950.
McLelland, Joseph. Prometheus Rebound: The Irony of Atheism. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier
University Press, 1988. 366 pp.
Martin, Michael, ed. An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1980.
354 pp.
-----, and Ricki Monnier. The Impossibility of God. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2003.
Marty, Martin. Varieties of Unbelief. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964. Rpt.: Garden
City, NY: Diubleday Anchor, 1966. 222 pp.
Neusch, Marcel. The Sources of Modern Atheism: One Hundred Years of Debate over God.
Translated by Matthew J. O'Connell. New York: Paulist Press, 1982.
Nokes, G. D. A History of the Crime of Blasphemy. London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1928.
Novikov, M. P. Dictionary of Atheism. New York: French & European Publications, 1983. 559
pp.
Odell, Robin, and Tom Barfield, comps. A Humanist Glossary. London: Pemberton, 1967.
Putnam, Samuel B. Four Hundred Years of Freethought. New York: Truth Seeker Co., 1894.
Robertson, John MacKinnon. A History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern, to the Period of
the French Revolution. 2 vols. London: Watts, 1936.
Smith, Graham. A Short History of Secularism. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007.
Smith, Warren Allen, ed. Who’s Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory of
Humanists, Freethinkers, Natuaralists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists. New York: Barricade,
2000.
Stein, Gordon, ed. An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books,
1980.
-----. Atheism: A World Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1990.
-----, ed. The Encyclopedia of Unbelief. 2 vols. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1985.
-----. God Pro and Con: A Bibliography of Atheism. New York; Garland Publishing, 1990.
-----, ed. A Second Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books,
1987.
Thrower, James. The Alternative Tradition: Religion and the Rejection of Religion in the Ancient
World. The Hague: Mouton, 1980.
-----. A Short History of Western Atheism. London: Pemberton, 1971.
Sanford, James C. Great Freethinkers: Selected Quotations by Famous Skeptics and
Nonconformists. Providence, RI: Metacomet Books, 2004. 250 pp.
Shermer, Michael. How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science. New York:
Freeman, 2000. 302 pp.
Smith, Warren. Celebrities in Hell: A Guide to Hollywood's Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Free
Thinkers, and More. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2002, 288 pp.
Szczesny, Gerhard. The Future of Unbelief. New York: Braziller, 1961.
Underwood, Sara A. Heroines of Freethought. New York: C. P Somerby, 1876.
Warner, Michael. “Secularism.” In Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler, eds. Keywords for
American Cultural Studies. New York: New York University Press, 2007.
-----, Jonathan Van Antwerpen, and, Craig Calhoun, eds. Varieties of Secularism in a Secular
Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
Wheeler, Joseph Mazzini. A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations.
London: Progressive, 1889.
Zuckerman, Phil, ed. Atheism and Secularity. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009.
******************************************************************************
European Beginnings
The Sixteenth-Century Challenges to Trinitarianism
The emergence of atheism in the West did not occur suddenly, but began as an attack upon the
almost universal presence of Christianity as the state supported religious establishment and the
pervasiveness of laws concerning dissent from the assumed truth of the Roman Catholic Church.
That dissent began with the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther challenged the authority of
the Pope and began to create space in which similar challenges could be made. The relative
success of that challenge as aided by the distraction provided by the movement of Turkish troops
through Hungary along the Danube River to the gates of Austria.
Of the various challenges, that begun by a few voices dissenting from the Christian doctrine of
the Trinity would prove most crucial. Defined in the early centuries of the post-Constantinian
Church, the Trinity had become a distinguishing point of orthodox Christianity and a key
element in the doctrine of salvation. To remove the Trinity meant revising the understanding of
the divinity of Jesus Christ and the operation of Divine grace. While Protestantism challenged
church organization, the non-Trinitarians challenged the intellectual structures through which
Christianity operated.
The opponents of the trinity also offered their challenged in the name of reason. Most assuredly,
Luther claimed reason as an allay in his defense at the Diet of Worms but the anti-Trinitarians
used reason as the hammer to batter a doctrine they found unbelievable. Again, from the
perspective of subsequent changes, that approach would prove definitive. Protestantism would
carry the day, at least in northern and western Europe, in the sixteenth century, but the modest
gains of the non-Trinitarians and the miniscule structures they established in Eastern Europe,
would survive and take advantage in the new freedoms which appeared as the Medieval
consensus cracked apart.
Sources
Allen, Don Cameron. Doubt’s Boundless Sea: Skepticism and Faith in the
Renaissance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964.
Cox, John D. Seeming Knowledge: Shakespeare and Skeptical Faith. Waco, TX: Baylor
Grimm, Harold J. The Reformation Era, 1500-1650. New York: The MacMillan Company 1954.
Guana, Max. Upwellings: First Expression of Unbelief in Printed Literature of the French
Renaissance. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (November 1992. 322 pp.
Popkin, Richard H. Popkin, and Arjo Vanderjagt, eds. Skepticism and Irreligion in the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1993. 374 pp.
Singer, Dorothea Waley. Giordano Bruno: His Life and Thought; With Annotated Translation of
His Work On the Infinite Universe and Worlds. New York: Henry Schuman, 1950. Posted at:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/bruno00.htm.
Williams, George Huntston. The Radical Reformation. 3d ed. Sixteenth Century Essays and
Studies, vol. 15. Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1992. 1516 pp.
Febvre, Lucien. The Problem of Unbelief in the 16th Century: The Religion of Rabelais. Trans.
by Beatrice Gottlieb. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985. 552 pp.
Michael Servetus
Early doubts about the Trinity developed for Spanish physician Michael Servetus (1511-1542)
from observances that the doctrine was an obstacle to the conversion of Jews and Muslims. Upon
reading the Bible, he was startled by its lack of any mention of the Trinity. In 1531, he published
his conclusions in a small volume, De Trinitatis Erroribus (or On the Errors of the Trinity). It
appears he hoped to win over the leaders of the protestant Reformation to his cause. Following
the publication of his second volume, Dialogorum de Trinitate (or Dialogues on the Trinity), in
1532, he found himself being hunted by both Catholics and Protestants. He hid for several years
in Paris under a pseudonym, and eventually settled in Vienne, France where he quietly practiced
medicine, and worked on what would become his most substantive theological treatise, his major
theological treatise, Christianismi Restitutio (or The Restoration of Christianity), published in
1553.
His sending Reformer John Calvin a copy led to his downfall. He was arrested at Vienne,
escaped to Geneva, was arrested again, tried and convicted, and executed by fire at the stake.
English editions of Servetus’ writings are found in: The Two Treatises of Servetus on the Trinity,
translated by Earl Morse Wilbur (1932); Michael Servetus, A Translation of His Geographical,
Medical, and Astrological Writings, translated by Charles Donald O'Malley (1953); and The
Restoration of Christianity, translated by Christopher Hoffman and Marian Hillar (2007).
The list below is limited to English-language sources. A much larger body of work exists in
Spanish and other European languages. I appreciate Marian Hillar looking over the list and
making suggestions for its improvement.
Primary Sources
O’Malley, Charles Donald. Michael Servetus: A Translation of His Geographical, Medical, and
Astrological Writings with Introductions and Notes. Philadelphia: American Philosophical
Society, 1953. 208 pp.
Servetus, Michael. Restoration of Christianity: An English Translation of Christianismi
Restitutio.
Trans. by Christopher A. Hoffman and Marian Hillar. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007.
409 pp.
-----. Thirty Letters to Calvin & Sixty Signs of the Antichrist by Michael Servetus. Trans. from
Christianismi restitutio by Christopher A. Hoffman and Marian Hillar. Lewiston, NY: The
Edwin Mellen Press, 2010. 175 pp.
-----. Treatise Concerning the Supernatural Regeneration and the Kingdom of the Antichrist by
Michael Servetus. Translated from Christianismi restitutio by Christopher A. Hoffman and
Marian Hillar. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2008. 302 pp.
-----. Treatise on Faith and Justice of Christ's Kingdom [from Christianismi restitution]. Trans.
by Christopher A. Hoffman and Marian Hillar. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008. 95 pp.
-----. The Two Treatises of Servetus on the Trinity: On the errors of the Trinity; seven books.
A.D. MDXXXI; Dialogues on the Trinity; two books; On the righteousness of Christ's kingdom;
four chapters. A.D. MDXXXII. By Michael Serveto, alias Reves. Trans. and ed. by Earl Morse
Wilbur. Harvard Theological Studies #16. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932.
Secondary Sources
Bainton, Roland H. Hunted Heretic: The Life and Death of Michael Servetus, 1511-1553.
Boston, MA: Beacon Press. 1953. 270pp. Rev. ed. 2004
Benson, George. A Brief Account of Calvin's Burning Servetus for an Heretic. London: J. Noon,
1743.
Chauffepié, Jacques Georges de. The Life of Servetus. London, Printed for the author, and sold
by R. Baldwin, 1771.
Clardy, Brian K. Michael Servetus: Intellectual Giant, Humanist and Martyr. Lanham, MD:
University Press of America. 2002. 304pp.
Cuthbertson, David. A Tragedy of the Reformation, being the authentic narrative of the history
and burning of the "Christianismi restitutio," 1553, with a succinct account of the theological
controversy between Michael Servetus, its author, and the reformer, John Calvin. Edinburgh,
London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1912.
De Marcos, Jaime. The Influence of Erasmus in Michael Servetus’ Works. Villanueva de
Sijena, Spain: Instituto de Estudios Sijenenses Miguel Servet, 2007.
Dibb, Andrew M. T. Servetus, Swedenborg and the Nature of God. Lanham, MD: University
Press of America. 2005. 353pp.
Drummond, William Hamilton. The Life of Michael Servetus: The Spanish Physician, Who For
The Alleged Crime Of Heresy, Was Entrapped, Imprisoned, And Burned, By John Calvin The
Reformer. London: John Chapman, 1848. Rpt.: Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2010. 220
pp.
Fox, Arthur William. Michael Servetus. London: British & Foreign Unitarian Association, 1914.
Friedman, Jerome. Michael Servetus: A Case Study in Total Heresy. Geneva, Switz.: Droz. 1978.
154 pp.
-----. "Michael Servetus: Unitarian, Antitrinitarian, or Cosmic Dualist?" Proceedings of the
Unitarian Universalist Historical Society (1985-86).
Fulton, John F., and Madeleine E. Stanton. Michael Servetus: Humanist and Martyr: With a
Bibliography of His Works and Census of Known Copies. New York: Herbert Reichner. 1953. 98
pp.
-----, Lawrence Goldstone, and Nancy Goldstone. Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of
Michael Servetus and One of the Rarest Books in the World. New York: Broadway Books. 2002.
Goldstone, Robert, and Nancy Goldstone. Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a
Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World. New York:
Broadway Book, 2002. 368 pp.
Gomes, A. W. “De Jesu Christo Servatore: Faustus Socinius on the Satisfaction of Christ,” WTJ
55 (1993): 209-31.
Hillar, Marian. The Case of Michael Servetus (1511-1553): the Turning Point in the Struggle for
Freedom of Conscience. Lewiston. NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997.
-----, and Claire S. Allen. Michael Servetus: Intellectual Giant, Humanist, and Martyr.
Lexington, KY: University Press of America, 2002. 304 pp.
Hirsh, Elizabeth F. "Servetus and the Early Socinians." Proceedings of the Unitarian
Universalist Historical Society (1985-86).
Hughes, Peter. “In the Footsteps of Servetus: Biandrata, David, and the Quran,” The Journal of
Unitarian Universalist History 30 (2006-2007): 57-63.
An Impartial History of Michael Servetus, Burnt Alive at Geneva for Heresie. London: Printed
for A. Ward, 1724.
Kinder, A. Gordon. Michael Servetus. Baden Baden, Germany: V. Koerner, 1989. 167 pp.
Larson, Martin Alfred, Milton and Servetus; a study in the sources of Milton's theology.
Menasha, Wis.: The Modern Language Association of America, 1926.
Mackall, Leonard Leopold. Servetus Notes. New York: P. B. Hoeber, 1919.
Odhner, Carl Theophilus. Michael Servetus: his life and teachings. Philadelphia: Lippincott,
1910.
Reed, Clifford M., ed., A Martyr Soul Remembered: Commemorating the 450th Anniversary of
The Death of Michael Servetus. Prague: International Council of Unitarians and Universalists,
2004.
Riliiet, Albert, Calvin and Servetus: the Reformer's Share in the Trial of Michael Servetus
Historically Ascertained. From the French with notes and additions by Rev. W. K. Tweedle.
London: Paternoster, 1846. 245 pp. Rpt.: Edinburgh, London: J. Johnstone, 1946.
Rives, Stanford. Did Calvin Murder Servetus? Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishing, 2008. 606
pp.
Sigmond, George Gabriel. The Unnoticed Theories of Servetus, a dissertation addressed to the
Medical Society of Stockholm. London: Printed for J.H. Burn, 1826.
Willis, Robert. Servetus and Calvin; a Study of an Important Epoch in the Early History of the
Reformation. London: H. S. King & Co., 1877.
Wright, Richard. An Apology for Dr. Michael Servetus: Including an Account of His Life,
Persecution, Writings and Opinions. Wisbech: Printed and sold by F.B. Wright, 1806.
Zweig, Stefan. Right to Heresy. Castellio against Calvin. Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1951.
Socinianism and the Polish Brethren
Narrowly speaking, the term Socinianism refers to the non-Trinitarian approach to Christianity
developed and perpetuated in the sixteenth century by Laelius Socinus (1526-1562) and his
nephew Faustus Socinus (1539-1604), both natives of Sienna, Italy. They were the leading lights
of a secret society formed among Roman Catholics in the mid-sixteenth century in the diocese of
Venice. Members of the group initially assembled to discuss the doctrine of the Trinity, and then
acted to promote a non-Trinitarian form of the faith. Laelius was the first to publish his nonTrinitarian views, which included the idea of two separate creations by God. The Italian society
would be disbanded, and its members forced to leave Venice. They fled to Poland.
After Laelius’ death in 1562, Faustus eventually associated with the Polish Brethren, a dissenting
minority of non-Trinitarians from the Calvinist Reformed tradition that had established
themselves in Rakow, Poland, in the 1560s. He led many to adopt the peculiar expression of nonTrinitarian view originally espoused by Laelius and influenced the text of the “Racovian
Catechism” published in 1605. It was non-Trinitarian and also rejected the notion of the preexistence of Jesus Christ prior to his birth as a baby in Palestine.
The Polish Brethren existed until the middle of the seventeenth century when their community
was suppressed and scattered. Some fled to England and became one source of contemporary
Unitarianism in the English-speaking world. The term “Socinianism,” used in reference to the
Polish Brethren, emerged in England in the seventeenth century as the publications from Rakow
were circulated among the British dissenting churches.
For additional sources see the bibliographies by Sand and Wilbur cited below.
Sources
Hillar, Marian. “From the Polish Socinians to the American Constitution.” A Journal from the
Radical Reformation. A Testimony to Biblical Unitarianism 3, 2 (1994): 22-57.
Kot, S. Socinianism in Poland: The Social and Political Ideas of the Polish Anti-Trinitarians in
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957.
Levytsky, O. “Socinianism in Poland and South-West Rus.” AUAas 3, 1 (1953).
McLachlan, H. John. Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1951.
Sand, Christoph. Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum. 1684. Reprint, Instytut Filozofii i
Socjologii olskiej Akademii Nauk, Biblioteka pisarzy reforma cyjnych, 6. Varsoviae
[Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe], 1967. 316 p. Facsimile reprint of the 1684 ed.
The Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum is a biographical dictionary with entries on anti-Trinitarian
writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (to 1684). Benedict Wiszowaty added material
on the history of Polish Socinianism.
Wilbur, Earl, comp. A Bibliography of the Pioneers of the Socinian-Unitarian Movement in
Modern Christianity, in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland. Rome, Edizioni di stroia e
letteratura, 1950.
-----. A History of Unitarianism. Vol. 2: Socinianism and its Antecedents. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1945.
Williams, George H. History of the Polish Reformation and Nine Related Documents. Trans. by
Stanislas Lubieniecki. Harvard Theological Studies 37. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.
-----. The Polish Brethren Documentation of the History & Thought of Unitarianism in the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth & the Diaspora, 1601-1685. Pts. I & II. 2 Vols.Harvard
Theological Studies 30. Scholars Press, 1980.
-----. The Radical Reformation. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962.
The Unitarian Tradition
The modern Unitarian tradition traces its existence to the various groups that challenged the idea
of the Trinitarian deity espoused by both Roman Catholics and Protestants as essential to
traditional orthodox faith. The primary community was located in Transylvania (then a part of
Hungary, but since the end of World War I a part of Romania). A non-Trinitarian form of
Christianity emerged at several locations in Eastern Europe as Protestantism spread eastward
from Germany and Switzerland. In 1566, Ferenc David (1510-1579), leader in the Reformed
Church began to preach non-Trinitarian views and developed a large following. It found a
number of converts not only among the German-speaking Saxon communities, but also among
the Hungarian Székely people.
The Unitarian movement was given early recognition and hence some degree of protection by
the Edict of Torda, issued by the Transylvanian Diet and Prince John II Sigismund (1540-1571)
in 1568. After John’s death, the edict was withdrawn and both Catholics and Protestants turned
on the Unitarians. David was arrested and died in prison.
Unitarian ideas emerged among various dissenting denominations in the British Isles beginning
in the seventeenth century. Their progress was hindered in that it was against the law to openly
deny the Trinity. That law remained on the books, though openly disobeyed in places, until the
passing of the Unitarian Relief Act in 1813. While Unitarian views had spread among the
Baptists and Presbyterians, it was not until 1774 that Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808) formed a
separate Unitarian Church. Among the early people associated with that church was the
pioneering scientist Joseph Priestly (1733- 1804), who would migrate to the American colonies,
as much for his political as his religious views.
Unitarians and Universalists emerged across Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
and efforts begun in the 1920s to unite them and to protect them from persecution.
In spite of the hostile environment, the church survived through the centuries, including the
suppressive Marxist regime following World War II, and in the twentieth century was
rediscovered by the American and British Unitarians. In 1995, it became a charter member of the
International Council of Unitarians and Universalists.
Sources
Allen, Joseph Henry An Historical Sketch of the Unitarian Movement since the Reformation.
New York: 1894.
Balazs, Mihaly and Keseru, Gizella, eds. Gyorgy Enyedi and Central European Unitarianism in
the 16th-17th Centuries. Budapest: Balassi Kiedo, 1998.
Cheetham, Henry H. Unitarianism and Universalism: An Illustrated History. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1962.
Cooke, George Willis. Unitarianism: its origin and history. Boston: American Unitarian
Association, 1890.
Cornish, Louis C., ed. The Religious Minorities in Transylvania. Boston: The Beacon Press, Inc.,
1925.
Ferencz, Joseph. “The First International Unitarian Publication.” Transactions of the Unitarian
Historical Society 14, Part II (1968): 72-77.
----- and Szasz, John. “When Hungarian Unitarianism Was Born.” Proceedings of the Unitarian
Universalist Historical Society 17, Part I (1970-72): 57-63.
Ferencz, Jozsef. Hungarian Unitarianism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Chico, CA:
Center for Free Religion, 1990.
-----. A Short Account of the Unitarian Church in Hungary, Compiled under the Auspices of the
Right Rev. Bishop Ferencz. Budapest: Jokai, 1907.
Fretwall, John. Three Centuries of Unitarianism in Transylvania and Hungary. New York: The
Inquirer, 1876.
Gellerd, Imre. A Burning Kiss from God to Preach Truth: Four Centuries of Transylvanian
Unitarian Preaching. Chico, CA: Center for Free Religion, 1990.
-----. A History of Transylvanian Unitarianism Through Four Centuries of Sermons. Chico, CA:
Center for Free Religion, 1999.
Gellerd, Judit. Prisoner of Liberte: Story of a Transylvanian Martyr. Chico, CA: Uniquest, 2003.
-----, ed. Ending the Storm: UU Sermons on Transylvania. Chico, CA: Center for Free Religion,
1996.
-----, ed. 425 Years: In Storm, Even Trees Lean on Each Other: Unitarian Universalist Sermons
on Transylvania. Chico, CA: Center for Free Religion, 1993.
-----, ed. Guidebook for Unitarian Universalist Partner Churches. Chico, CA: Center for Free
Religion, 1997.
Harris, Mark W. The A to Z of Unitarian Universalism. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc.,
2009. 616 pp.
Hewett, Phillip. Racovia: An Early Liberal Religious Community. Providence, RI: Blackstone
Editions, 2004.
Hill, Andrew McKean. A Liberal Religious Heritage: Unitarian and Universalist foundations in
Europe, America and elsewhere. London: Unitarian Publications, n.d.
-----, Jill K. McAllister, and Clifford M. Reed, eds. A Global Conversation: Unitarians/
Universalists at the Dawn of the 21st Century. Prague: Council of Unitarians and Universalists,
2002.
Howe, Charles A. For Faith and Freedom: A Short History of Unitarianism in Europe. Boston:
Skinner House Books, 1997.
Kovacs, Lajos. “The Unitarian Church in Rumania, Its History and Message for Today.”
Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society 14, Part II (1968): 55-67.
Lindsey, Theophilus. The Apology of Theophilus Lindsey, M.A. on resigning the vicarage of
Catterick, Yorkshire. Dublin: Printed for T. Walker, 236 pp.
-----. An Historical View of the State of the Unitarian Doctrine and Worship, from the
Reformation to our own times. . . London: printed for J. Johnson, 1783. 563 pp.
Lorinczy, Dionysisus. “The Hungarian Unitarian Church, Part I.” Transactions of the Unitarian
Historical Society 3 (1923): 20-39.
-----. “The Hungarian Unitarian Church, Part II.” Transactions of the Unitarian Historical
Society 3 (1924): 120-134.
McLachlan, John. “Links between Transylvania and British Unitarians from the Seventeenth
Century Onwards.” Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society 17, Part II (1980): 73-79.
Parke, David B. The Epic of Unitarianism: original writings from the history of Liberal Religion.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1960.
Ritchie, Susan. “The Pasha of Buda and the Edict of Torda: Transylvanian Unitarian/Islamic
Ottoman Cultural Enmeshment,” The Journal of Unitarian Universalist History 30 (2005): 3654.
Short, H. L. “Torda and World History.” Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society 14,
Part II (1968): 68-71.
Tagert, M. Lucy. The Hungarian and Transylvanian Unitarians. London: Unitarian Christian
Publishing Office, 1903.
“Transylvanian Unitarianism Bibliography.” Posted at
http://www.uupcc.org/docs/transunitarianbiblio.pdf.
Wlbur, Earl Morse A Bibliography of the Pioneers of the Socinian-Unitarian Movement in
Modern Christianity in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland. Rome: Edizioni di stroia e
letteratura, 1950.
-----. A History of Unitarianism. Vol 1. Socinianism and its Antecedents. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press 1945.
-----. A History of Unitarianism. Vol. 2. In Transylvania, England and America. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press 1952.
-----. Our Unitarian Heritage: an introduction to the history of the Unitarian Movement. Boston:
Beacon Press. 1925.
Williams, George H. History of the Polish Reformation and Nine Related Documents. Trans. by
Stanislas Lubieniecki. Harvard Theological Studies 37. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.
-----. The Polish Brethren Documentation of the History & Thought of Unitarianism in the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth & the Diaspora, 1601-1685. Pts. I & II. 2 Vols.Harvard
Theological Studies 30. Scholars Press, 1980.
-----. The Radical Reformation. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962.
Ferenc (Francis) David (c. 1510-1579)
Ferenc Dávid (usually called in English Francis David,) was a leading voice of non-Trinitarian
Christianity of Eastern Europe during the first generation of the Reformation. A Catholic priest,
he moved to the Lutheran Church and then the Reformed church, before emerging as a nonTrinitarian. He is recognized as the founder of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania. He began
his questioning of the Trinity with doubts about the propriety of talk about the personhood of the
Holy Spirit and ended up questioning a variety of Christina ideas about the divinity of Jesus and
the possibility of miracles. He died in prison.
David wrote a large number of works, most in Latin or Hungarian, and most remain to be
translated into English.
Sources
Balázs, Mihaly. Early Transylvanian Antitrinitarianism. Baden-Baden & Bouxwiller: Éditions
Valentin Koerner, 1996.
Balazs, Mihaly. Ferenc David. Bibliotheca Dissidentium: Repertoire des non-conformistes
religieux des seizieme et dis-septieme siecles/edite par Andre Seguenny. T. 26: Ungarlandische
Antitrinitarier IV. Trans. by Judit Gellerd. Baden-Baden; Bouxwiller: Koerner, 2008.
Erdo, Janos. “The Biblicism of Ferenc David,” Faith and Freedom 48, Part I, (1995): 44-50.
Erdo, John. “The Foundations of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church.” Faith and Freedom 23,
Part II (1970): 61-70.
-----. “Light Upon Religious Toleration from Francis David and Transylvania.” Faith and
Freedom 32, Part II (1979): 75-82.
-----. Transylvanian Unitarian Church: Chronological History and Theological Essays. Trans.
by Judit Gellerd. Chico, CA: Center for Free Religion, 1990.
Ferencz, Jozsef. In Memoriam F. D. Founder and First Bishop of the Unitarian Church of
Hungary. 1510-1910. Budapest: Karolyi Gyorgy Printing Office, 1910.
Gellérd, Imre. A History of Transylvanian Unitarianism through four hundred years of sermons.
Trans. by Judit Gellérd. Kolozsvár: Unitarian Printing House, 1999. 311 pp.
-----. 'Truth liberates you': The Message of Transylvania's First Unitarian Bishop, Francis
David. Chico, CA: Center for Free Religion, 1990. 104 pp.
Gellérd, Judit. “Francis Dávid's Epistemological Borrowings from Henry Cornelius Agrippa of
Nettesheim.” Posted at http://w3.enternet.hu/sandor64/cffr/papers/agrippa.htm.
-----. “Unitarians in Transylvania.” A paper presented at Earl Morse Wilbur History Colloquium,
Berkeley, CA: Starr King School for Ministry, January 20-22, 1994./ Posted at
http://w3.enternet.hu/sandor64/cffr/essays/emw-colloquium.htm .
Varga, Bela. Francis David: What has endured of his life and work? Budapest: Kiadja a Magyar
Unitarius Egyhaz, 1981. 39 pp.
Wlbur, Earl Morse A bibliography of the pioneers of the Socinian-Unitarian movement in
modern Christianity in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland. Rome, Edizioni di stroia e
letteratura, 1950.
-----. A History of Unitarianism. Vol 1. Socinianism and its Antecedents. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press 1945. Vol. 2. In Transylvania, England and America. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press 1952.
The Enlightenment and the Emergence of Deism in Modern Europe
The Enlightenment, beginning in the seventeenth century and reaching its zenith in the
eighteenth century, is marked by the rise of the scientific method in observing the world and the
demand of scientists that they be allowed to observe the world using their rational talents and
reach conclusions without reference to any prior conclusions dictated by revelation, which in this
case meant conclusions drawn from the Jewish and Christian scriptures.
The religious/philosophical aspect of the Enlightenment was centered upon the Deist
controversy. Deism was a theological position, primarily articulated by academics and other
intellectuals who were nominally members of the established church of their country of
residence (as opposed to being members of a dissenting religious group such as the Unitarians)
but who advocated a theology that stripped Christianity of essential affirmations. So serious and
central were the Christian doctrines altered that critics were justified in branding the Deists as
holding another religion, though a number of critics went further and began to label them
atheists, the deity of the Deists being so distant and irrelevant as to be practically nonexistent.
Deists affirmed one God, but denied any Trinitarian understanding. That denial also necessarily
included a denial of any divinity to Jesus Christ. They also denied the occurrence of miracles
(God’s breaking the laws which established the regularities of the natural world in response to an
individual need or request), the efficacy of intercessory prayer, the value of devotional activity,
and the idea of God’s providence (caring oversight of the world). God’s distance from the world
s/he created also meant that revelation did not occur and hence the Bible had no authority. The
articulation of these positions appeared gradually as did the working out of the implications.
The Deist position would appear in rudimentary form in the writings of Edward Herbert, Baron
of Cherbury (1583-1648), Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704) and be
developed in the writings of Anthony Collins (1676-1729), John Toland (1670-1722), Matthew
Tindal (1657-1733), Thomas Chubb (1679-1747), and Peter Annet (1693-1769). By the 1720s,
the thrust of the Enlightenment thought would be found in France where Deistic themes had been
pioneered by Protestant thinker Pierre Bayle (1674-1706) and . The Enlightenment and all its
aspects would then be articulated in all its aspects by the likes of the Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron
d'Holbach (1723-1789), Marquis de Montesquieu (1688-1755), Denis Diderot (1713-1784),
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), and Voltaire. In Great Britain, The Enlightenment would be
carried forth by Adam Smith (1723-1790), David Hume (1711-1766), and Jeremy Bentham
(1748-1832). Toward the end of the century, it would influence a generation of revolutionaries in
America, including the likes of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, Thomas Paine, and Elihu Palmer.
The German phase of the Enlightenment is usually dated from the mid-seventeenth century, its
first major figure being Gottfried Wilhem Von Leibnez, (1646–1716). German Deists included
most notably Christian Wolff (1679-1754), Johann Christian Edelmann (1698--1767), and
Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768), and the deist movement reached its zenith in the
careers of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832).
Deism was also influential of the founding of Reform Judaism, most notably in the thought of
Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786)
In the early nineteenth century, Deism would largely decline and be superseded by Unitarianism
and atheistic Freethought (such as appeared among Percy Brysshe Shelley and the other romantic
poets).
Sources
Becker, Carl L. The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1932. 2nd ed. 2003. 196 pp.
Berlin, Isaiah, ed. Age of Enlightenment: The Eighteenth Century Philosophers. Boston, MA:
Houghton Mifflin, 1956. 657 pp. Rpt New York: New American Library, 1962, 282 pp.
-----. The Proper Study of Mankind, edited by Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer, New York:
Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1997.
–––,. The Roots of Romanticism, edited by Henry Hardy, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1999.
Bookchin, Murray. The Spanish Anarchists—The Heroic Years, 1868-1933. New York: Harper,
1978.
Cassirer, Ernst. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Trans. by Fritz C. A. Koelln and James P.
Pettegrove. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 1951 366 pp. Rev. ed. 2007. 392 pp.
Chisick, Harvey. Historical Dictionary of the Enlightenment. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press,
2005. 512 pp
Collins, James. God in Modern Philosophy. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1959. 476 pp.
Delon, Michel. Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. 2 vols. London: Routledge, 2001. 1480pp
Derkx, Peter. “Modern Humanism in the Netherlands.” In Annemie Halsema & Douwe van
Houten, eds. Empowering Humanity: State of the Art in Humanistics. Utrecht, Netherlands: De
Tijdstroom uitgeverij, Utrecht, 2002, pp. 61-79. Posted at http://igiturarchive.library.uu.nl/human/2007-1005-201034/UUindex.html.
Farrar, Adam. A Critical History of Freethought in Reference to the Christian Religion. New
York: D. Appleton 1988.
Gay, Peter. Deism: An Anthology. New York: Van Nostrand, 1968.
-----. The Enlightenment: A comprehensive anthology. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. 829
pp.
-----. The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
1995. 532 pp.
-----. The Enlightenment: The Science of Freedom. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996.
744 pp.
Gilmore, J. S. L. “Some Uncollected Authors XXVI: Julian Hibbert, 1800-34.” The Book
Collector 9 (1960).
Gould, F. J. Chats with Pioneers of Modern Thought. London: Watts, 1898.
Haakonssen, Knud, ed. The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-century Philosophy, x vols.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Hampshire, Stuart, ed. The Age of Reason: The Seventeenth-Century Philosophers. New York:
Mentor Books, 1956.
Hampson, Norman. The Enlightenment Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961. 678 pp.
Hazard, Paul. The European Mind, 1680–1715. Translated by J. Lewis May. London: Hollis and
Carter, 1953.
Himmelfarb, Gertrude. The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American
Enlightenments. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. 284 pp.
Horkheimer, and Theodor W, Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. by Edmund Jephcott.
Ed. by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. New York: The Seabury Press, 1972. 258 pp. Rpt,: Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2002.
Hunter, Michael, and David Wootton, eds. Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. 307 pp.
Israel, Jonathan. Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of
Man 1670-1752. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
-----. Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001.
Jacob, Margaret C. The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford
Books, 2001.
Joll, James. The Anarchists. London: Methuen, 1964.
Kramnick, Isaac, ed. The Portable Enlightenment Reader. New York: Penguin, 1995.
Lecky, William Edward Hartpole. History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism
in Europe. London: Watts & Co., 1910. 157 pp. Posted at:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/lecky00.htm.
Leland, John. A View of the Principal Deistical Writers .1754. Rpt.: 2 vols. London: W. Baynes,
1808. Posted at http://www.archive.org/stream/a590425001lelauoft#page/n5/mode/2up.
The Presbyterian minister John Leland wrote the first historical survey of the movement.
Losonsky, Michael. Enlightenment and Action from Descartes to Kant: Passionate Thought
Lubac, Henri de. The Drama of Atheist Humanism. Cleveland: World Publishing, 1963.
Miller, J. Hillis. The Disappearance of God. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.
Nicolson, Harold G. The Age of Reason: the Eighteenth Century. Garden City, NY: Doubleday
& Company, 1961 433 pp.
Orr, John. English Deism: Its Roots and Its Fruits. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans,
1934.
Pack, Ernest. The Trial and Imprisonment of J. W. Gott for Blasphemy. Bradford, Eng., The
Freethought Socialist League, [1912?]. 149 pp.
Popkin, R. H. The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1979.
Schmidt, James, ed. What Is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and TwentiethCentury Questions. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Siebert, Fredwerick S. Freedom of the Press in England, 1476-1776. Urbana, IL: University of
Illinois Press, 1952.
Simon, Walter M. European Positivism in the Nineteenth Century: An Essay in Intellectual
History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1963.
Smith, Nigel. "The Charge of Atheism and the Language of Radical Speculation, 1640-1660." In
Michael Hunter and David Wootton, eds. Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment,
edited by. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992,
Sutcliffe, Adam. Judaism and Enlightenment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2005. 338 pp.
Wootton, David. "New Histories of Atheism." In Michael Hunter and David Wootton,
ed. Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992,
Yolton, John W. et al. The Blackwell Companion to the Enlightenment. New York: WileyBlackwell, 1991. 581 pp.
******************************************************************************
France
French Enlightenment
While the theological challenge of Deism appears to have developed and matured in England,
the full range of Enlightenment thought reached its zenith in mid- and late-eighteenth century
France, where Voltaire became its leading exponent and the salons of Paris its primary points of
dissemination. As the Enlightenment has been explored by the last generation of scholars, it has
been shown to have drawn on antecedents that reach back into the sixteenth century, the have
successfully penetrated all areas of society while simultaneously provoking intense resistance
and major pockets of non-acceptance, and to have laid the foundations for the progress of the
next two centuries while forcing its opponents to adjust their thinking in substantial ways.
This bibliography is primarily concerned with the manner that the Enlightenment encouraged
and nurtured alternative theologies that rejected major parts of the Christian (and Jewish)
tradition, especially those evolved into a form of what is usually termed Deism, and then went on
to lay the foundation for a full-blown atheistic perspective. The jump to atheism had occurred
already in the sixteenth century, but was first presented in a manuscript written by Jean Meslier
(1664-1729) which was discovered and published only after his demise.
The Enlightenment can be seen as that period from the late seventeenth through the eighteenth
century in which intellectual life was marked by a cadre of scholars who questioned the received
tradition of Western Christianity, offered reason as the base from which they offered their
questions, and held up the hope of science as providing the insights leading to a new way of
reordering life.
It is often forgotten that the Enlightenment thinkers formed the cutting edge minority of the
intellectual community. The academy was throughout the period always in the hands of a more
traditionally oriented majority who frequently and often angrily rejected the basic themes of
Enlightenment thought, especially its theological conclusions. Only in the twentieth century
would the control of the university systems of the West begin the shift to the control of the
children of the Enlightenment and Christian theologies start their reconstruction into postEnlightenment modes of presentation.
The French phase of the Enlightenment may be traced to the career of philosopher René
Descartes (1596-1650). Descartes professed an orthodox Roman Catholic faith through his life,
but his philosophical writings appeared to suggest a Deistic perspective that had little use for
God beyond the creation of the world and demanded observation of the world without pre-set
teleological assumptions. Critics on occasion accused him of being a closet deist, if not in fact an
atheist.
The French phase of the Enlightenment is best known and largely defined by the new ideas and
perspectives that were floating around the salons and intellectual circles of Paris in the mid
eighteenth century and found expression in the Encyclopedia compiled by Denis Diderot (1713-
1784), the first volume of which appeared in 1751. Included among the contributors were PaulHenri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789), the Marquis de Montesquieu (1688-1755), JeanJacques Rousseau (1712-1778), and Voltaire (1694-1778). Eventually 17 volumes of articles
would appear between 1751 and 1765 (with additional volumes of illustrations appearing
afterwards). The work would present both the new perspective advocated by the Enlightenment
leadership and the initial scientific findings in which they placed their faith.
Religiously, the encyclopedia claimed philosophy’s independence from (French Catholic)
theology, and claimed reason as its autonomous domain. Without attacking the church directly, it
subversively denied the church the privilege of speaking with authority in scientific matters and
equally denied the state authority in the intellectual and artistic realms. The opinions expressed
in the Encyclopedia would then provide the rationale for the French Revolution, the event
usually used also to mark the end of the Enlightenment.
Sources
Adams, Jeffrey. The Huguenots and French Opinion, 1685-1787: The Enlightenment Debate on
Toleration. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1991. 336 pp.
Betts, C. J. Early Deism in France: From the So-called "Déistes" of Lyon (1564) to Voltaire's
"Lettres philosophiques" (1734). Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984. 328 pp.
Blom, Philipp. Enlightening the World: Encyclopedia, The Book That Changed the Course of
History. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 416 pp.
Bronner, Stephen Eric. Reclaiming the Enlightenment: Toward a Politics of Radical
Engagement. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004 181 pp.
Church, William Farr. The Influence of the Enlightenment on the French Revolution. Boston D.
C. Heath & Co., 1964. 108 pp.
Crocker, Lester. An Age of Crisis: Man and World in Eighteenth Century French Thought.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1959.
–––. Nature and Culture: Ethical Thought in the French Enlightenment. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1963. 540 pp.
Darnton, Robert. The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie,
1775–1800. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1979. 638 pp.
Donato, Clorinda, and Robert M. Maniquis, eds. The Encylopédie and the Age of Revolution.
Boston: G. K. Hall, 1992. 230 pp.
Fellows, Otis E. , and Norman L. Torrey, eds. The Age of Enlightenment: An Anthology of
Eighteenth Century French Literature. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1942, 640 pp.
Gay, Peter. The Party of Humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1971.
Goodman, Dena. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996. 338 pp.
Hunter, Michael, and David Wootten, eds. Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. 320 pp.
Huppert, George. The Style of Paris: Renaissance Origins of the French Enlightenment.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999.
Kafker, Frank A. The Encyclopedists as a Group: A Collective Biography of the Authors of the
Encyclopedie. Oxford, UK: Voltaire Foundation, 1996. 222 pp.
Kors, Alan Charles, Atheism in France, 1650-1729 Volume I: The Orthodox Sources of
Disbelief. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
-----. D'Holbach's Coterie: An Enlightenment in Paris. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1976.
-----, ed. Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. 4 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Korshin, Paul, and Alan Charles Kors. Anticipations of the Enlightenment in England, France
and Germany. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987. 320 pp.
Kristeller, Paul Oskar. “The Myth of Renaissance Atheism and the French Tradition of FreeThought.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 6(1968) 233-243.
McMahon, Dennis H. Enemies of the Enlightenment: The French Counter-Enlightenment and
the Making of Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 288 pp.
McManners, John. Death and the Enlightenment: Changing Attitudes to Death among Christians
and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. 640
pp.
Palmer, Robert R. Catholics and Unbelievers in Eighteenth Century France. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1966. 236 pp.
Perkins, Jean A. The Concept of the Self in French Enlightenment. Geneve: Droz, 1969. 163 pp.
Roche, Daniel. France in the Enlightenment. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Steinbrügge, Lieselotte. The Moral Sex: Woman's Nature in the French Enlightenment. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 168 pp.
Spink, John S. French Free-Thought from Gassendi to Voltaire. London: Athlone, 1960.
Torrey, Norman L. Les Philosophes: The French Philosophers of the Enlightenment and Modern
Democracy. New York: Capricorn Books, 1960.
Vyverberg Henry. Human Nature, Cultural Diversity, and the French Enlightenment. New York:
Oxford University Press. 1989. 223p.
Wade, Ira O. The Clandestine Organization and Diffusion of Philosophical Ideas in France from
1700 to 1750. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1938.
-----. The Intellectual Origins of the French Enlightenment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1971.
Watts, Charles. Atheism and the French Revolution. London: Watts & Co., 1880. 8 pp.
Pierre Bayle (1647-1706)
Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) was a French Protestant and philosopher who pioneered working with
the separation of the realms of faith and reason, an idea that would become a bulwark of the
Enlightenment. He is also remembered for his writing the proto-encyclopedic work, the
Historical and Critical Dictionary which began to appear in1695. He lived most of his adult life
in Holland.
Primary Sources
Bayle, Pierre. The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr Peter Bayle. Trans. By P.
Desmaizeaux, London: Knapton, 1734. Rpt.: New York: Garland Publishing, 1984.
-----. The Great Contest of Faith & Reason—Selections from the Writings of Pierre Bayle. New
York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1963 108 pp.
-----. Historical and Critical Dictionary. 1697. 2nd ed.: 1702. Trans. by Richard Popkin.
Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1965.
-----. Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14.23, Compel Them to
Come In, That My House May Be Full. London, 1708. Rpt. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc.,
2005. 639 pp.
Secondary Sources
Brush, Craig B. Montaigne and Bayle: Variations on the Theme of Skepticism. The Hague:
Nijhoff, 1966.
Lennon, Thomas M., 1999, Reading Bayle, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 199.
Rex, Walter. Essays on Pierre Bayle and Religious Controversy. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1965.
Robinson, Howard. Bayle, the Skeptic. New York: Columbia University Press, 1931,
Sandberg, Karl. At the Crossroads of Faith and Reason: An Essay on Pierre Bayle. Tucson, AZ:
University of Arizona Press, 1966.
Jean Meslier (1664-1729)
Jean Meslier lived and died as a Roman Catholic priest. It was discovered after his death that he
had become a closet atheist and had penned a book promoting atheism and denouncing religion
as he knew it. His lengthy manuscript circulated informally, but was soon condensed and
published, including one edition prepared by Voltaire.
He appears to have been the first person to write an entire book-length volume in support of
atheism. An English translation has recently appeared.
Primary Sources
Meslier, Jean. Superstition in All Ages. Trans. by Anna Knoop. New York: Truth Seeker
Company, 1950. 339 pp.
-----. Testament: Memoir of the Thoughts and Sentiments of Jean Meslier. Trans. by
Michael Shreve. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2009. 593 pp.
Secondary Sources
Brewer, Colin. "Thinker: Jean Meslier." New Humanist 122, 4 (July/August 2007).
Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789)
Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach was a prominent eighteenth-century philosopher who
emerged as a significant voice of the French Enlightenment. Born a German, he later attained
French citizenship. His family was wealthy and with his lavish inheritance he was able to attend
college, to fund one of the more important Parisian salons, and provide support for less fortunate
leaders of the Enlightenment.
Baron d’Holbach wrote voluminously, including articles for Diderot’s Encyclopedia, though the
majority of his writings were largely unheralded until the next century. Most had been published
anonymously or under a pseudonym and were printed outside of France. Voltaire denounced his
writings as atheistic. His 1770 book, The System of Nature (Le Système de la nature), published
under the pseudonym Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud (actually the name of a former secretary of the
French Academy of Science), suggested the non-existence of any deity,
Primary Sources
Baron D'Holbach. Christianity Unveiled by Baron d'Holbach: A Controversy in Documents.
Trans. by David Holohan. Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, UK: Hodgson Press, 2008.
-----. Good Sense Without God: Or Freethoughts Opposed To Supernatural Ideas, A Translation
Of Baron D'holbach's "le Bon Sens." 1772. Rpt. Boston: J P Mendum, 1856. 222 pp. Rpt.:
Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004.
-----. Letters to Eugenie: A Preservative Against Religious Prejudices. 1768. Preface by JacquesAndré Naigeon. Trans. by Anthony C. Middleton. Rpt.: Fairford, Gloucestershire, UK: Echo
Library, 2010. 140 pp.
-----. System of Nature. London: 3 vols. London: Tomas Davison, 1820, 1821. Rpt.: New York:
Burt Franklin, 1970. 368 pp.
Secondary Sources
Cushing, Max Pearson. Baron d'Holbach, A Study Of Eighteenth Century Radicalism In
France. New York: Columbia University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1914. 90 pp. Rpt.: Whitefish, MT:
Kessinger Publishing, 2004. Posted at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/6/2/5621/5621-h/5621h.htm.
Israel, Jonathan. A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of
Modern Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2010.
Kors, Alan Charles. "The Atheism of D'Holbach and Naigeon." In Michael Hunter and David
Wootton. Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
-----. D'Holbach's Coterie: An Enlightenment in Paris. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1976.
Ladd, Everett C., Jr. "Helvétius and d'Holbach." Journal of the History of Ideas 23, 2 (1962):
221-238.
Lough, John. Essays on the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert. London: Oxford
------. "Helvétius and d'Holbach", Modern Language Review 33, 3 (July 1938).
Naumann, Manfred. Paul Thiry D'Holbach. Berlin Akademie Verlag, 1959. 320 pp.
Newland, T. C. "D'Holbach, Religion, and the 'Encyclopédie’." Modern Language Review 69, 3
(July, 1974): 523–533.
Topazio, Virgil W. D'Holbach's Moral Philosophy: Its Background and Development. Geneva:
Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1956.
-----. "Diderot's Supposed Contribution to D'Holbach's Works." Publications of the Modern
Language Association of America LXIX, 1 (1954): 173–188.
Wickwar, W. H. Baron d'Holbach: A Prelude to the French Revolution. London: Allen & Unwin
1935. 253 pp.
Kors, Alan Charles, Atheism in France, 1650-1729. Volume I: The Orthodox Sources of
Disbelief. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Mattill, A. J. An Awesome Trinity: Charvaka, Celsus, Meslier. Gordo, AL: Flatwoods Free Press,
1999. 39 pp.
Morehouse, Andrew R. Voltaire and Jean Meslier. Yale Romanic Studies, IX. New Haven: Yale
Voltaire. Life of Jean Meslier. Rpt.: Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing 2006. 16 pp.
Wade, Ira O. "The Manuscripts of Jean Meslier's ‘Testament’ and Voltaire's Printed ‘Extrait’."
Modern Philology 30, 4 (May 1933): 381-398.
Voltaire (Francois-Marie d'Arouet) (1694-1778)
The most famous of the Enlightenment philosophers, Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet.
He grew up in Paris and decided to make his living by writing. He first attained some fame from
a play he wrote while sitting in prison falsely accused of having written an anonymous satirical
poem. The name by which he became known is an anagram of his own name.
As his fame grew, he became known for his wit, but attained some importance for his advocating
a broadening of civil rights for individuals, and defending those arrested for their religious
opinions. He wrote a number of plays, many pamphlets arguing his often controversial opinions
such as Candide), and articles for Diderot’s Encyclopedia. He defended many, but possibly most
notably Jean-François Lefevre de la Barre (1745-1766), a young man accused of vandalizing a
crucifix and eventually executed. When his body was burned, a copy of Voltaire’s Philosophical
Writings was also consumed in the flames.
Voltaire is usually described as a Deist with a tendency toward pantheism. He knew of atheism,
but distanced himself from association with it, especially in the case of Jean Melsier.
Voltaire wrote many books, pamphlets, articles, and dramas. He owned a large library, which has
remained intact in the National Library of Russia at St. Petersburg. The Voltaire Foundation at
the University of Oxford focuses the study of Voltaire and the French Enlightenment and
publishes scholarly edition of the works of Voltaire and other French Enlightenment figures. It
has issued a multi-volume edition of Voltaire’s Works in English.
Primary Sources
Voltaire. The Best Known Works of Voltaire. New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1927. 504 pp.
-----. Candide and Other Stories. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 329 pp.
-----. God and Human Beings. Intro. By S. T. Joshi. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010. 183
pp.
-----. Letters concerning the English Nation. Trans. by John Lockman. Dublin: George Faulkner,
1733.
-----. Life of Jean Meslier. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing 2006. 16 pp.
-----. Memoirs of the Life of Monsieur de Voltaire. Trans. by Sophie Lewis. London: Hesperus
Press, 2007. 124 pp.
-----. Philosophical Dictionary. 1752. Ed. by Theodore Besterman, London: Penguin, 1984. 400
pp.
-----. Selected Works of Voltaire. London: Watts & Co, 1935. 214 pp,
-----. A Treatise on Toleration and Other Essays. Trans. by Joseph McCabe. Amherst, NY:
-----. Voltaire on Religion: selected writings. Ed. by Kenneth Appelgate. New York: Frederick
Ungar Publishing Co., 1974.
-----. The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version With Notes. 42 vols. Paris/London/ New
York/Chicago: E. R. Dumont, 1901-1903. Rpt.: Ithaca, NY: Cornel University Library, 2007.
Secondary Sources
Besterman, Theodore. Voltaire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. 718 pp.
Bondanis, David. Passionate Minds: Emilie du Chatelet, Voltaire, and the Great Love Affair of
the Enlightenment. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007. 384 pp.
Davidson, Ian. Voltaire: A Life. New York: Pegasus, 2010. 560 pp.
-----. Voltaire in Exile: The Last Years, 1753-78. New York: Grove Press, 2005. 368 pp.
Dzwigala, Wanda. "Voltaire and the Polish Enlightenment: Religious Responses." Slavonic and
East European Review 81 (2003): 70–87.
Gargett, Graham. Voltaire and Protestantism. Oxford, UK: Voltaire Foundation, 1980. 532 pp.
Mason, Hayden. Voltaire: A Biography. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.
214 pp.
Orieux, Jean. Voltaire. Garden city, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1981. 584 pp.
Parker, Derek. Voltaire: The Universal Man. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2006. 256 pp.
Parton, James. Life of Voltaire. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1881.
Pearson, Roger. Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Bloomsbury USA,
2005. 384 pp.
Torrey, Norman L. Voltaire and the English Deists. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1930.
Trapnell, William F. Voltaire and the Eucharist. Oxford, UK: Voltaire Foundation, 1981. 219
pp.
Jacques-André Naigeon (1738-1810)
Jacques-André Naigeon, a Parisian associate of Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, emerged in
the last half of the eighteenth century as a leader among the people who gathered at Baron
d’Holbach’s salon. He assisted d’Holbach with the publishing of his works in Amsterdam and
worked with Denis Diderot as an editor on the Encyclopedia. Naigeon authored only one work,
Le militaire philosophe ou, Difficultés sur la religion proposées au Pére Malebranche (London
and Amsterdam, 1768), which included a final chapter written by d'Holbach. Most of Naigeon’s
work has yet to be translated into English.
Primary Sources
Baron d’Holbach. Letters to Eugenie: A Preservative against Religious Prejudices. 1768. Preface
by Jacques-André Naigeon. Trans. by Anthony C. Middleton. Rpt.: Fairford, Gloucestershire,
UK: Echo Library, 2010. 140 pp.
Secondary Sources
Brewer, Daniel. The Discourse of Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century France: Diderot and the
Art of Philosophizing. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 316 pp.
Kors, Alan Charles, "The Atheism of D'Holbach and Naigeon." In Michael Hunter and David
Wootton, Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
The atheist philosopher Denis Diderot is primarily remembered today as a major contributor and
the senior editor of the Encyclopédie (Encyclopedia), upon which he spent more than two
decades of his life in the mid-seventeenth century. In his hands, the Encyclopedia became an
expansive multi-volume compendium of the emerging scientific work, left-wing political
commentary, and the most radical of contemporary religious perspectives. His writings included
some of the first comments on Asian religion in the West.
During his lifetime, Diderot moved from French Catholicism to Deism to atheism, the later view
originally stated in his 1749 Lettre sur les aveugles (An Essay on Blindness). Written at a time
when public statements of minority religious opinions could have one arrested, the work led to
his speeding a period in the Vincennes prison.
Primary Sources
Diderot, Denis, and d'Alembert, Jean Le Rond. The Encyclopedia: Selections. Edited and
translated by Stephen J. Gendzier. New York: Harper and Row, 1967.
-----. A Letter on Blindness. For the use of those who have their sight. London: printed for
William Bingley, 1770. 132 pp.
-----. The Nun. Trans. by Russell Goulbourne. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 238
pp.
-----, Thoughts on Religion. London: J. Watson, 1841. 8 pp.
Secondary Sources
Crocker, Lester G. Diderot: The Embattled Philosopher. New York: Free Press, 1966.
Furbank, P. N. Diderot: A Critical Biography. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1992.
Goyder, Thomas. A Vindication of the Christian Religion: In reply to Diderot's deistical
pamphlet, entitled "Thoughts on religion," published by R. Carlile. London: J. Hatchard, 1820.
35 pp.
Havens, George R. The Age of Ideas. New York: Holt, 1955.
Simon, Julia. Mass Enlightenment. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Marquis de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
On of the major political thinkers of the French Enlightenment, Charles-Louis de Secondat,
baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu is identified with the idea of separation of church and state
(or religion and government), which with the French and American Revolutions began to spread
through the Western world (though still far from universal acceptance globally). From a well-todo background, he was further privileged by marrying into a wealthy Protestant family in
Southern France.
Intellectually, Montesquieu is credited with observations that would lead to the founding of
anthropology as a separate discipline—in his attempts to classify and understand the different
types of human systems of governance. He placed an emphasis on the understanding of the
environment as a conditioning force in human society. This emphasis on the outward conditions,
including a country’s religion, that affect political life is aligned with his Deism, which posited a
creator who then is absent from the world that has been left to run very much on its own.
Montesquieu had fairly positive views of religion which he saw as being the primary force
available to check the power of despotic governments. At the same time, as he developed his
ideas of separating government from religion he came to advocate tolerating religious differences
in those lands with substantial minority faiths, and the inappropriateness of using government
powers to enforce the rules and laws of any given religious community. Montesquieu’s ideas
would take very different forms in the United States (where the basic concern was keeping the
government out of religion) and France (where the basic concern was keeping religion out of
government).
Primary Sources
Montesquieu. The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu. Translated from the French. 4 vols.
London: printed for T. Evans; and W. Davis, 1777.
-----. Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline. Trans. by
David Lowenthal. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999.
-----. Persian Letters. Trans. by C. J. Betts. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1973.
-----. The Spirit of the Laws, Thomas Nugent (trans.), New York: MacMillan, 1949.
Secondary Sources
Althusser, Louis. Politics and History: Montesquieu, Rousseau. Marx. Trans. by Ben Brewster.
London: Verso, 2007.
Carrithers, David W. Michael A. Mosher, and Paul A. Rahe, eds. Montesquieu's Science of
Politics: Essays on The Spirit of the Laws. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
Cohler, Anne. Montesquieu's Comparative Politics and the Spirit of American Constitutionalism.
Lawrence KS: University of Kansas Press, 1988.
Conroy, Peter. Montesquieu Revisited. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992.
Cox, Iris. Montesquieu and the History of French Laws. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation at the
Taylor Institution, 1983.
Durkheim, Emile. Montesquieu and Rouseau: Forerunners of Sociology. Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 1960.
Hulliung, Mark. Montesquieu and the Old Régime. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1976.
Keohane, Nannerl. Philosophy and the State in France: The Renaissance to the Enlightenment.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Kingston, Rebecca. Montesquieu and the Parlement of Bordeaux. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1996.
Kra, Pauline. Religion in Montesquieu's Lettres persanes. Geneva: Institut et musee Voltaire Les
Delices, 1970. 224 pp.
Krause, Sharon. “The Politics of Distinction and Disobedience: Honor and the Defense of
Liberty in Montesquieu.” Polity 31, 3 (1999): 469-499.
Oakeshott, Michael. “The Investigation of the ‘Character’ of Modern Politics”, in Morality and
Politics in Modern Europe: The Harvard Lectures, Ed. by Shirley Letwin. New Haven, CT: Yale
Pangle, Thomas. Montesquieu's Philosophy of Liberalism: A Commentary on The Spirit of the
Laws. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973. 352 pp.
-----. The Theological Basis of Liberal Modernity in Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws. Chicago:
University Of Chicago Press, 2010. 208 pp.
Rahe, Paul A. Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty: War, Religion, Commerce, Climate,
Terrain, Technology, Uneasiness of Mind, the Spirit of Political Vigilance, and the Foundations
of the Modern Republic. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010. 400 pp.
Schaub, Diana. Erotic Liberalism: Women and Revolution in Montesquieu's Persian Letters.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995. 224 pp.
Shackleton, Robert. Essays on Montesquieu and the Enlightenment, Ed. by David Gilman and
Martin Smith. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution, 1988.
-----. Montesquieu: A Critical Biography. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.
Shklar, Judith. Montesquieu, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a leading writer of the French Enlightenment, was born in Geneva of
Protestant parents. He left Geneva at an early age and converted to Catholicism, eventually
returning to Protestantism in order to regain his lost Genevan citizenship. Of a musical
background, he fist became known for his 1750 Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, in which he
argued that he the arts and sciences had led to the moral degeneration of humankind. Rousseau
asserted that humans were basically good by nature (an idea quite opposed to the dominant
Protestant understanding that humans were depraved and corrupted by sin). He would develop
this perspective in the Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality among Men (1755).
Meanwhile, he had become a close associate of Diderot and was working with him on the
Encyclopedia. He would later break with Diderot over his belief in the spiritual origin of the
human soul.
Rousseau often reflected on religion, toward which he had a positive, if heretical, view. His book
Emile: or, On Education, for example, included a defense of religious belief. Its main character
was a priest who held to a Unitarian (non-Trinitarian) theology and advocated the worth of all
religions, not just Christianity. The book would be burned by both Catholics and Protestants. He
subsequently had to leave Paris to escape arrest, and took refuge in the Swiss canton of
Neuchâtel, and then in England. He returned to Paris in 1770, but had to promise to publish no
more. Except for a fragment of his Confessions, his most famous work, publication of the
remainder of his literary output would appear only after his death.
Rousseau fell out with both the Roman Catholics and Protestants on one hand and his
Enlightenment colleagues on the other. He concluded that religion was necessary, but disagreed
with the idea of original sin. He also believed that God was present in his creation and was the
source of humankind’s natural goodness. He also did not understand why church authorities
viewed saw his “heretical” views as a more sinister threat than the atheistic perspectives of other
Enlightenment spokespersons. He attempted a somewhat futile effort to defend his position in an
open letter to the Archbishop of Paris that included an additional argument, largely
unappreciated in his century, that freedom to discuss diverse religious matters is in the end a
more religious viewpoint than the attempt to impose belief by force.
Primary Sources
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Basic Political Writings. Trans. by Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing, 1987.
-----. Collected Writings. Ed. by Roger Masters and Christopher Kelly. 13 vols. Dartmouth:
University Press of New England, 1990–2010.
-----. The Confessions. Trans. by Angela Scholar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
-----. Emile, or On Education. Trans. by Allan Bloom, New York: Basic Books, 1979.
-----. 'The Discourses' and Other Early Political Writings. Trans. by Victor Gourevitch.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
-----. Rousseau on Philosophy, Morality, and Religion. Ed. by Christopher Kelly. Hanover:
Dartmouth College Press, 2007. 212 pp.
-----. 'The Social Contract' and Other Later Political Writings. Trans. by Victor Gourevitch.
-----. 'The Social Contract. Trans. by Maurice Cranston. London: Penguin: 1968-2007.
Secondary Sources
Alberg, Jeremiah. A Reinterpretation of Rousseau: A Religious System. London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2007. 252 pp.
Bertram, Christopher. Rousseau and The Social Contract. London: Routledge, 2003.
Cassirer, Ernst. Rousseau, Kant, Goethe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1945.
Cassirer, Ernst. The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Trans. and ed. by Peter Gay. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1935.
Cladis, Mark S. Public Vision, Private Lives: Rousseau, Religion, and 21St-Century Democracy.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 360 pp.
Cooper, Laurence. Rousseau, Nature and the Problem of the Good Life. University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.
Cranston, Maurice. Jean-Jacques: The Early Life and Work. New York: Norton, 1982.
Damrosch, Leo. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
Dent, Nicholas, J. H. Rousseau : An Introduction to his Psychological, Social, and Political
Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988. 258 pp.
-----. A Rousseau Dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. 279 pp.
-----. Rousseau. London: Routledge, 2005. 248 pp.
Einaudi, Mario. Early Rousseau. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1968.
Garrard, Graeme. Rousseau's Counter-Enlightenment: A Republican Critique of the Philosophes.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003.
Gauthier, David. Rousseau: The Sentiment of Existence. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006.
Glendon, Mary Anne. “Rousseau & the Revolt against Reason.” First Things: A Monthly
Journal of Religion and Public Life 96 (October 1, 1999): 42-47. Posted at http://www.sullivancounty.com/deism/reason1.htm.
Hendel, Charles W. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Moralist. 2 vols. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs Merrill,
1934.
McCarthy, Vincent A. Quest for a Philosophical Jesus: Christianity and Philosophy in
Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, and Schelling. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986. 240 pp.
Marks, Jonathan. Perfection and Disharmony in the Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Melzer, Arthur. The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseau's Thought. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Riley, Patrick. The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2001.
Scott, John T., and Ourida Mostefai, eds. Rousseau and l'Infâme: Religion, Toleration, and
Fanaticism in the Age of Enlightenment. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008. 312 pp.
Simpson, Matthew. Rousseau's Theory of Freedom. London: Continuum Books, 2006.
-----. Rousseau: Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum Books, 2007.
Starobinski, Jean. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1988.
Strauss, Leo. "On the Intention of Rousseau," Social Research 14 (1947): 455-87.
Strong, Tracy B. Jean Jacques Rousseau and the Politics of the Ordinary. Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.
Virioli, Maurizio. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the 'Well-Ordered Society.' Trans, by Derek
Hanson. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Williams, David Lay. Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 2007.
Wokler, Robert. Rousseau. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Wright, Christopher D. Rousseau's The Social Contract: A Reader's Guide. London: Continuum
Books, 2008.
France and Unbelief in the Nineteenth Century
The Deist and atheist thought of the Enlightenment coupled with the political discussions carried
on in the salons of Paris bore fruit in the French Revolution. In the wake of the end of the
monarchy, the new governing power briefly declared its allegiance to what was termed the “Cult
of Reason,” (the term “cult” having a very different use than what it was put to in recent
decades). Leaning advocates of the new approach to religion were the journalist Jacques Hébert,
and the politician Anacharsis Cloots. The Cult of Reason lasted only a matter of months and was
superseded by a “Cult of the Supreme Being, which took a more Deist approach to religion. The
earlier anti-clerical thrust that emerged with the Revolution remained, however, and the new
leadership led a de-Christinizatiion campaign, suppressing both Catholic and Protestant
churches. In some cases, church buildings were confiscated and turned into temples to the
Goddess of Reason. Violence associated with the campaign, including the desecration of many
churches and sacred sites and the destruction of many sacred artifacts and pieces of religious art,
created a long-lasting hostility between the communities of believers and unbelievers.
The brief Post-revolutionary anti-theism period, now remembered as the first historical incident
of a state proclaiming its allegiance to an atheist philosophy, seeded both the skeptical
philosophies of the post-Hegalians in Germany and the Marxist attempts to take control of
France in the nineteenth century. First, however, Napoleon (r.1799-1814) worked out a new
agreement with the churches (and the Jewish community) that allowed them to exist in a state of
relative freedom, without fear of further suppressive activity by the government. Napoleon also
agreed not to allow any public expression of atheism.
The nineteenth century would be marked by the shifting of forces as successive governments
came to power and the partisans favoring atheism or religion gained the upper hand. During the
brief rule of the Paris Commune, for example, plans were in place to separate the churches from
politics, assume state ownership of all church property, and banish any religious instruction from
the public schools. The Commune was ended by conservative forces opposed to atheism, which
they considered an anti-French tradition. The divisions of over religion in the country eventually
led to the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and State which focused on three
major assumptions: the state’s neutrality in matters of religion, the church’s right to freely live
the religious life, and the existence of some public powers over religious institutions.
The 1905 law works in accord with the principle of laïcite, stated as"The Republic neither
recognizes, nor salaries, nor subsidizes any religion." While Catholicism remanded the faith of
most citizens, the state did not recognize it or any other religions as having official status. It also
placed the church into a voluntary support system, with no public money being made available
for the upkeep of churches or the salaries of clergy. This approach remains in effect in France to
the present.
Meanwhile, as the status of religion was undergoing its ups and down, France became home to
various advocates of atheism, with Marxism (treated elsewhere in this bibliography) gaining a
significant following. Possibly no more important atheist thinker appeared than August Comte
(1798-1857) who amid his broad philosophical endeavor proposed a “Religion of
Positivism.” Amid the many who would profess atheism, Comte emerged as the major
writer/theorist, certainly the most prominent internationally.
Sources
Ashton, Nigel. Religion and Revolution in France, 1780-1804. Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press (September 2000. 435 pp.
Cashdollar, Charles D. The Transformation of Theology 1830-1890. Positivism and Protestant
Thought in Britain and America, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1989, 494 pp.
Charlton, Donald Geoffrey, Positivist Thought in France during the Second Empire 1852-1870.
London: Oxford University Press 1959. 251pp.
-----. Secular Religions in France, 1815-1870, London: published for the University of Hull by
the Oxford University Press, 1963.
De Lamartine, Alphonse. History of the Girondists: or, Personal memoirs of the patriots of the
French revolution, from unpublished sources. Trans. by H. T. Ryde. Ann Arbor, MI: Scholarly
Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2005. 582 pp.
Introvigne, Massimo. “Why France? Historical and Ideological Roots of the French Anti-Cult
Scare.” A paper presented at The 2001 Conference of the center for Studies on New Religions
(CESNUR), London, England. Posted
at http://www.cesnur.org/2001/london2001/introvigne.htm.
Slavin, Morris. The Hebertistes to the Guillotine: Anatomy of a Conspiracy in Revolutionary
France. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press 1994. 280 pp.
Strenski, Ivan. Contesting Sacrifice: Religion, Nationalism, and Social Thought in
France. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2002.
Tallert, Frank, and Nicholas Atkin, eds. Religion, Society and Politics in France since 1789.
London: Hambledon Press 1991, 240 pp.
Watts, Charles. Atheism and the French Revolution. London: Watts & Co., 1880. 8 pp.
Wessel Mueller, Iris. John Stuart Mill and French Thought. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois
Press, 1956. 275 pp.
August Comte (1798-1857) and the Religion of Positivism
French philosopher August Comte was a pioneer thinker and founder of the science sociology
and the advocate of a philosophical school call positivism. He also most notably proposed the
adoption of what he termed the Religion of Humanity.
After completing his education in southern France, Comte moved to Paris where he became the
secretary to Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), a utopian socialist theorist, who developed a
theology out of a search for the essential core of Christianity which he found in Christian ethics,
especially its attention to the poor. Both Saint Simon’s socialism and reductionist theology
would greatly influence Comte. Comte also developed a friendship with John Stuart Mill.
By 1830, Comte had begun to develop his own philosophy and began to publish it in a series of
short writings released through the decade. These set the stage for his important text, A General
View of Positivism (1848, English ed., 1865). The work of social science was to build on natural
science and move toward a reordering of society on a scientific basis.
Positive philosophy, for Comte, evolved into the Religion of Humanity which would function to
meet the continuing needs that religion had fulfilled in the past. This idea was not as well
received as his earlier work, but did receive a hearing in the various Freethought organizations
that began to arise in the last half of the twentieth century. Many of his followers accepted the
idea of a “Religion of Humanity,” but did not like Conte’s particular vision of what such a
religion would consist.
For a more complete bibliography of Comte, mostly in French, see
http://membres.multimania.fr/clotilde/biblio/index.htm
Primary Sources
Comte, August. Auguste Comte and Positivism. The Essential Writings. Ed. by Gertrude Lenzer.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
-----. The Catechism of Positive Religion: Or Summary Exposition of the Universal Religion in
Thirteen Systematic Conversations between a Woman and a Priest of Humanity. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 320 pp.
-----. The Essential Comte. Ed. by Stanislav Andrevski. New-York, Harper and Row, 1974.
-----. A General View of Positivism. Trans. by J. H. Bridges. Cambridges, UK: Cambridge
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Besant, Annie. Auguste Comte: His Philosophy, His Religion, and His Sociology, London:
Freethought Publishing Company, n.d. [1885]. 39 pp.
Bilington, James H. "The Intelligentsia and the Religion of Humanity." American Historical
Review 65 (1959-60).
Bryson, Gladys. “Early English Positivists and the Religion of Humanity.” American
Sociological Review 1 (June 10936): 630-63.
Caird, Edward, The Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte, Glasgow: James Maclehose and
Sons, 1893. 210 pp.
Call, Wathen Mark Wilks, and John Chapman. "The Religion of Positivism." Westminster
Review XII (1858).
Charlton, Donald Geoffrey. Positivist Thought in France during the Second Empire 1852-1870.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951.
-----. Secular Religions in France, 1815-1870. London & New York: Oxford University Press,
1963.
Conway, Moncure D. "What is the Religion of Humanity." Free Religious Index I (1880-81).
Eisen, Sydney. “Frederic Harrison and Herbert Spencer: Embattled Unbelievers.” Victorian
Studies 12 (1968): 33-56.
-----. “Frederic Harrison and the Religion of Humanity.” South Atlantic Quarterly 66 (Autumn
1967): 574-90.
Fletcher, Ronald. Auguste Comte and the Making of Sociology. London: Athlona Press, 1966,
Gould, Frederick James. Auguste Comte. London: Watts, 1920.
Kent, Christopher. Brains and Numbers: Elitism, Comtism and Democracy in mid-Victorian
England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978
Lenzer, Gertrude. Auguste Comte and Positivism. The Essential Writings. Ed. by Gertrude
Lenzer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
-----. A General View of Positivism. Trans. by H. H. Bridges. London: Trubner and Co., 1865
Rpt.: Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
-----. Catechism of Positive Religion. Trans. by Richard Congreve. London; Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trübner and Co., 1891. Rpt. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
-----. The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte; 2 vols. Trans by Harriet Martineau. London:
Chapman, 1853. Rpt.: Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
McGee, John Edwin. A Crusade for Humanity: The History of Organized Positivism in England.
London: Watts, 1931.
Mill, John Stuart. August Comte and Positivism. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press,
1961. 200 pp.
Norhausberber, Rudolf C. The Historical-Philosophical Significance of Comte, Darwin, Marx
and Freud. Human Development Library. Albuquerque, American Classical College Press,
1983, 139 pp.
Paris, Bernard J. “George Eliot’s Religion of Humanity.” English Literary History 29 (December
1962): 418-43.
Pickering Mary. Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993, 2006.
Salmon, Martha. Frederic Harrison: The Evolution of an English Positivist, 1831-1881. New
York: Columbia University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1958.
Sellars, Roy Wood, "Positivism in Contemporary Philosophic Thought." American Sociology
Review 4 (1939).
Simon, Walter M. European Positivism in the Nineteenth Century: An Essay in Intellectual
History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1963.
Style, Jane M. August Comte: Thinker and Lover. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Trübner,
1928.
Thompson, Kenneth. Auguste Comte: The Founder of Sociology. London, Nelson, 1976.
Wernick, Andrew. Auguste Comte and the Religion of Humanity: The Post-theistic Program of
French Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 292 pp.
Wright, Terence R., The Religion of Humanity. The Import of Comtean Positivism on Victorian
Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 324 pp.
France and Unbelief in the Twentieth Century
Through the ups and downs of the nineteenth century, Unbelief grew steadily. It would find
expression in literature as well as the more formal philosophical writings, and become
entrenched in the Socialist Party. A peculiar form of Freemasonry would arise in France that
abandoned the Deist idea of God as the “Great Architect of the Universe” in favor of an avowed
atheism.
Atheist thought took many forms, finding expression in Marxism, existentialism, and
phenomenology, and included many of France’s intellectual elite—Jean Wahl (1888-1974),
Alexandre Kojève (1902-1968), Georges Bataille (1897-1962), Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003),
Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994), Jacques Monod (1910-1976), Albert Camus (1913-1960), Maurice
Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), Michel Foucault (1926-1984), and
Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). It continues with still active philosophers Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc
Nancy, and Quentin Meillassoux.
Sources
Al-Saji, Alia. “The Temporality of Life: Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and the Immemorial Past.”
Southern Journal of Philosophy 45, 2 (2007):177-206.
Archard, David, Marxism and Existentialism, the Political Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre and
Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1980..
Badiou, Alan. Being and Event, transl. by Oliver Feltham. New York: Continuum, 2005.
-----. Briefings on Existence: A Short Treatise on Transitory Ontology, transl. by Norman
Madarasz. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005.
Bataille, George. Theory of Religion. Trans. by Robert Hurley, Cambridge, MA: Zone Books,
1989.
Berman, Michael. “Reflection, Objectivity, and the Love of God, a Passage From MerleauPonty's Phenomenology of Perception.” Heythrop Journal 51, 5 (2010).
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Blanchot, Maurice. The Blanchot Reader. Ed. by Michael Holland. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.
-----. The Station Hill Blanchot Reader. Ed. By Geroge Quasha. Barrytown, NY: Station Hill of
Barrytown, 1998.
-----. Maurice Blanchot: The Thought from Outside. Ed. by Michel Foucault. Cambridge, MA:
Zone Books, 1989.
Cusset, Francois. French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the
Intellectual Life of the United States. Trans. by Jeff Fort. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2008.
Derrida , Jacques. Acts of Religion. New York: Routledge, 2002.
-----. Deconstruction Engaged: The Sydney Seminars. Sydney: Power Publications, 2001.
-----. Ethics, Institutions, and the Right to Philosophy. Trans by Peter Pericles Trifonas. Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.
-----. On Touching, Jean-Luc Nancy. Palo Alro, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.
-----, with Jürgen Habermas. Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas
and Jacques Derrida. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Descombes, Vincent. Modern French Philosophy. Trans. by L. Scott-Fox and J.M. Harding.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. Ed. by Paul Rabinow. New York: Vintage, 1984. 440
pp.
-----. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Vintage,
1988. 320 pp.
Gaensbauer, Deborah B. Eugene Ionesco Revisited. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996.
Galston, David. Archives and the Event of God: The Impact of Michel Foucault on Philosophical
Theology. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010. 200 pp.
Geroulanos, Stephanos. An Atheism that Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought. Palo Alto,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2010. 448 pp.
Greeley, Andrew. Religion in Europe at the End of the Second Millennium: A Sociological
Profile. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2004. 252 pp.
Gutting, Gary. French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2001.
Hägglund, Martin. Radical Atheism: Derrida and the Time of Live. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford
Halperin, David. Saint Foucault: Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography. New York:
Hecht, Jennifer Michael. The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism, and Anthropology
in France. New York; Columbia University Press, 2005. 416 pp.
Ionesco, Eugène. Conversations with Eugene Ionesco. Trans. by Jan Dawson. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1966.
-----. Notes and Counter Notes: Writings on the Theatre. Trans. by Donald Watson. New York:
Grove Press, 1964.
-----. Present Past, Past Present. Trans. by Helen R. Lane. Cambridge, mA: Da Capo Press,
1998,
Kojève, Alexandre. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of
Spirit. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980.
-----. Outline of a Phenomenology of Right. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
2000.
Land, Nick, The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism. London:
Routledge, 1992.
Lubec, Henri de. The Drama of Atheist Humanism. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1995. 539
pp.
Reflections of a Roman Catholic theologian/bishop.
Meillassoux, Quentin. After Finitude, an essay on the necessity of contingency. Trans. by Ray
Brassier. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan/ New York: Continuum, 2008.
Meleau-Ponty, Maurice. Humanism and Terror: An Essay on the Communist Problem. Trans. by
John O'Neill. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.
-----. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. by Colin Smith. New York: Humanities Press, 1962.
Rpt. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962.
-----. The Visible and the Invisible, Followed by Working Notes.Tans. by Alphonso Lingis.
Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968.
Merquior, J. G. Foucault. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987.
Mills, Sara. Michel Foucault. New York: Routledge, 2003
Monod, Jacques. Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology.
New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1971.
Nancy, Jean-Luc. The Sense of the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.
-----. A Finite Thinking. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003
Narville, Ernest. The Heavenly Father. Lectures on Modern Atheism. Trans. by Henry Downton.
Ann Arbor, MI: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2005. 392 pp.
Onfray, Michael. Atheist Manifesto: The Case against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Arcade
Books, 2011. 240 pp.
Roundinesco, Elisabeth. Philosophy in Turbulent Times: Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault,
Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Schrift, Alan. Twentieth Century French Philosophy: Key Themes and Thinkers. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
Smart, Barry. Michel Foucault: Critical Assessments. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Wahl, Jean Andre. Philosophies of Existence: Introduction to the Basic Thought of Kierkegaard,
Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel and Sartre. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969. 134 pp.
-----. Short History of Existentialism. New York: Lyle Stuart, 1972.
Watkin, Christopher. Difficult Atheism: Tracing the Death of God in Contemporary Continental
Thought. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. 224 pp.
Wood, David, ed. Of Derrida, Heidegger, and Spirit. Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
1993.
French Existentialism
Existentialism was a Twentieth century philosophical movement that can be seen as a reaction to
nineteenth century European idealistic themes including the search for the essence of things. It
began with an assertion of existence as a primary category, whose reality preceded essence. The
movement is generally traced to the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), with
the Danish philosopher-theologian Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) seen as an important
nineteenth century precursor.
Devotees of existentialist approaches included a number of leading Protestant theologians
including such as Paul Tillich (1886-1965) and Karl Barth (1886-1968), but the term is most
attached to a set of French thinkers, most notably Jean-Paul Sartre, who explored new categories
for understanding the nature of authentic existence. The existential quest began with a search for
the nature of authentic existence and through art and literature explored what seemed like fruitful
areas of human life for revealing insights--the absurd, evil, and even death—while at the same
time seeing human freedom as a major clue element of authentic existence. Among those who
gathered around Sartre in the mid-twentieth century, these explorations were done in what
proved a largely atheistic context.
Labeling became a concern as the existentialist “movement” blossomed in the year after World
War II. Novelist Albert Camus specifically repudiated it, though commentators saw him
intimately linked to Sartre. Some saw the movement as more a cultural expression of literary
efforts to break out of philosophical straight jackets imposed by both science and philosophy. In
any case, the movement enjoyed a hey day in the 1960s and while fading as a popular culture
phenomenon, remains as an important intellectual current in Western thought.
Atheist existentialism is primarily tied to three figures—Albert Camus, the German writer Franz
Kafka, and Jean-Paul Sartre. These three and their close associates produced a vast set of
literature and provoked an even larger set of writings that has attempted to respond and
understand their existentialist thought. The list below merely hits a few high points.
Sources
Aron, R. Marxism and the Existentialists. New York: Harper and Row, 1969.
Collins, J. The Existentialists: A Critical Study. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1952.
Cooper, David E. Existentialism. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1999. 220 pp.
Fox, Michael Allen. The Remarkable Existentialists. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2008. 323
pp.
Guignon, Charles., 2003. The Existentialists: Critical Essays on Kierkegaard, Nietzsche,
Heidegger, and Sartre, New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.
-----, and D. Pereboom, eds. Existentialism: Basic Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001.
McBride, W., ed. The Development and Meaning of Twentieth Century Existentialism. New
York: Garland Publishers, 1997.
Macquarrie, John. Existentialism. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1972. 252 pp.
Wahl, Jean Andre. Philosophies of Existence: Introduction to the Basic Thought of Kierkegaard,
Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel and Sartre. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969. 134 pp.
-----. Short History of Existentialism. New York: Lyle Stuart, 1972.
Albert Camus (1913 -1960)
Albert Camus was an Algerian-born French novelist who gained notoriety following the
appearance of The Stranger in 1949. He went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957, his
novels having spoken deeply to a generation dealing with the devastation of Europe during
World War II. He then died at a relatively young age in a still controversial automobile accident
in 1960.
Primary Sources
Camus, Albert. The Fall. New York: Vintage, 1991. 160 pp.
-----. Lyrical and Critical Essays. New York: Vintage, 1970. 384 pp.
-----. The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays. New York: Vintage, 1991. 224 pp.
-----. The Plague. New York: Vintage, 1992. 320 pp.
-----. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. Vintage, 1992. 320 pp.
-----. Resistance Rebellion, and Death. New York: Vintage, 1974. 288 pp.
-----. The Stranger. Trans. by Matthew Ward. London: Everyman's Library, 1993. 160 pp.
Secondary Sources
Lottman, Herbert R. Albert Camus: A Biography. Berkeley, CA: Gingko Press, 1997. 805 pp.
McBride. Joseph. Albert Camus. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993. 320 pp.
Sprintzen, David A., and Adrian Van Den Hoven, eds. Sartre and Camus: A Historic
Confrontation. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2004. 275 pp.
Todd, Oliver. Albert Camus: A Life. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2000. 448 pp.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
A German novelist born into a secularized Jewish family in Prague, Kafka was given a classical
German education. He worked at several mundane occupations to provide sustenance while
pursuing his writing. He published little during his life, and all his important worked only
appeared posthumously. After World War II, the sense of hopelessness and the absurd that fill
the attention of Kafka’s readers led to his identification with the existentialism of Camus and
Sartre. Kafka died from the effects of tuberculosis.
Kafka research is focused at the Oxford Kafka Research Center in England.
Primary Sources
Kafka, Franz. The Castle. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 336 pp.
-----. The Diaries of Franz Kafka. New York: Schocken Books, 1988. 528 pp.
-----. Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories. Ed. by Nathan N. Glatzer. New York: Schocken
Books, 1995. 488 pp.
-----. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 208 pp.
Secondary Sources
Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1995. 296 pp.
Hawes, James. Why You Should Read Kafka Before You Waste Your Life. New York: St. Martin's
Press, 2008. 256 pp.
Hayman, Ronad. Kafka: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. 368 pp.
Hubben, William. Dostoevsky Kierkegard Nietzsche and Kafka. New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1997. 192 pp.
******************************************************************************
United Kingdom
Deist Beginnings, Flowering, and Beyond
The British Isles were home to several stages of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth
century. England broke with the Church in Rome but otherwise remained Catholic in faith and
practice until Henry VIII (r.1509-1547) passed from the scene. It tried Protestantism and
Catholicism for brief periods under Edward IV (r.1547-1553) and Mary I (r.1553-1558), and
finally settled on the Anglican compromise under Elizabeth I (r.1558-1603). Meanwhile, a
Calvinist reformation carried the day in Scotland and Presbyterianism came to the fore. England
would brief try Presbyterianism in the seventeenth century during the Commonwealth (16491660), but Anglicanism again became the faith of the Church of England with the Restoration.
Non-Trinitarianism emerged quietly in the more radical of the Puritan sectarian groups in the
seventeenth century, but its progress was inhibited by laws banning Unitarianism that were in
place until the early nineteenth century. Meanwhile, unbelief in the essential doctrines of
Christianity, in some cases implied and then positively advocated, began to appear in the
seventeenth century. By the eighteenth century, Deism provoked a public controversy among the
literate elite. The pioneering Deists texts, which beginning with the writings of John Toland
(1670-1722) became bolder and bolder in their dissent from the religious consensus, provoked a
veritable flood of responses by Christian authors from the popular to the academic.
Deism was largely an intellectual challenge posed by individuals who were nominally Anglicans,
and carried out as a war of ideas, a primary concern being it’s reaching out to a public that was
increasingly liberal. Throughout the seventeenth century, individuals would be arrested and tried
for publishing views considered a rejection of Christian belief. Deism was seen as a more serious
concern once it was tied to the events of the French Revolution, and the religion of reason
associated with the Reign of Terror (1793–1794).
Deism had little impact among the masses as a movement as it did not assume a social dimension
by founding organizations that perpetuated its ideas. Discussions were carried out in clubs and
societies that featured debates as a form of entertainment. Organization of groups that advocated
various aspects of unbelief would be left to the Unitarians. Their initial chapels began to
challenge the laws in the later seventeenth century.
In the nineteenth century, the Unitarian movement would finally attain legal status, and Deism
would give way to full-blown atheism/Freethought.
Sources
Aldridge, A. Owen. “Shaftesbury and the Deist Manifesto.” Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society 41, 2. Philadelphia: 1951.
Benn, Alfred William. The History of English Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century. 2 vols.
London: Longmans Green, 1906. Rpt.: New York: Russell & Russell, 1962.
Berman, David. "Deism, Immortality, and the Art of Theological Lying." In J. A. Leo May, ed.
Deism, Masonry, and the Enlightenment. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1987.
-----. “The Genesis of Avowed Atheism in Britain.” Question 11 (1978).
-----. A History of Atheism in Britain from Hobbes to Russell. London: Croom Helm, 1988. Rpt.:
New York: Routledge, 1990.
Bernstein, John A., “Shaftesbury's Reformation of the Reformation: Reflections on the Relation
between Deism and Pauline Christianity.” Journal of Religious Ethics, 6 (1978): 257-278.
Braly, Earl Burk. The Reputation of David Hume in America. Austin, TX: University of Texas,
Ph.D. dissertation, 1955.
Buckley, George. Atheism in the English Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1932. Rpt.: New York: Russell & Russell, 1965.
Byrne, Peter. Natural Religion and the Nature of Religion: The Legacy of Deism. London and
New York: Routledge, 1989.
Champion, J. A. I. The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken: The Church of England and Its Enemies,
1660–1730. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Craig, William Lane. The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus during the Deist
Controversy. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985.
Farrar, Adam Storey. Critical History of Free Thought in Reference to the Christian Religion.
Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford, in the Year 1862, on the Foundation of
John Bampton. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1963. 487 pp.
Grean, Stanley, Shaftesbury's Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, Athens: Ohio University Press,
1967.
Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution, 1689–1720. New York: Gordon
and Breach, 1990.
——. The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons, and Republicans. London: Allen and
Unwin, 1981. 304 pp.
Hazard, Paul European Thought in the Eighteenth Century from Montesquieu to Lessing.
Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Company, 1965.
Herrick, James A. The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Skepticism,
1680-1750. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1997.
Hudson, Wayne. The English Deists: Studies in Early Enlightenment. London: Pickering &
Chatto Publishers, 2008. 208 pp.
-----. Enlightenment and Modernity: The English Deists and Reform. London: Pickering &
Chatto, 2009. 225 pp.
Kroll, Peter, Richard Ashcraft, and Peter Zagorin. Philosophy, Science and Religion in England
1640-1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Lemay, J. A. Leo, ed. Deism, Masonry, and the Enlightenment. Essays Honoring Alfred Owen
Aldridge. Newark, University of Delaware Press, 1987.
Lovejoy, Arthur O. “The Parallel of Deism and Classicism.” In Essays in the History of Ideas.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1948.
Lund, Roger D., ed. The Margins of Orthodoxy: Heterodox Writing and Cultural Response,
1660–1750. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Important collection of essays related to Deism.
Manuel, Frank E. The Eighteenth Century Confronts the Gods. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1959.
May, J. A. Leo. Deism, Masonry, and the Enlightenment. Newark, DE: University of Delaware
Press, 1987.
Orr, John. English Deism: Its Roots and Its Fruits. -- Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans,
1934.
Page, Anthony. John Jeeb and the Enlightenment Origins of British Radicalism. Westport, CT:
Praeger, 2003.
Porter, Roy. The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment.
New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.
Reid, W. H. The Rise and Dissolution of the Infidel Societies in This Metropolis: Including, the
Origin of Modern Deism and Atheism: the Genius and Conduct of Those Associations: Their
Lecture-Rooms, Field-Meetings, and Deputations. London, 1800.
Siebert, Fredwerick S. Freedom of the Press in England, 1476-1776. Urbana, IL: University of
Stephen, Leslie. History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. 2 vols. London: Smith,
Elder & Co., 1876. Rpt.: New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1962.
Stromberg, Roland. Religious Liberalism in Eighteenth-Century England. Oxford: Oxford
Toole, Robert, “Shaftesbury on God and His Relationships to the World,” International Studies
in Philosophy, 8 (1976): 81-100.
Torrey, N. L. Voltaire and the English Deists. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1930.
Voitle, Robert B. The Third Earl of Shaftesbury, 1671-1713. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State
Waring, G. Graham. Deism and Natural Religion: A Source Book. New York: Frederick Ungar,
1967. 276 pp.
Wickwar, William H. The Struggle for Freedom of the Press, 1619-1832. London: Allen &
Unwin, 1928.
Wiley, Basil. The Eighteenth Century Background: Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thought
of the Period. Boston: Beacon Press, 1940, 1962. 302pp
-----. More Nineteenth Century Studies: A Group of Honest Doubters. London: Chatto &
Windus, 1956.
-----. The Seventeenth Century Background: Studies on the Thought of the Age in Relation to
Poetry and Religion. London: Chatto & Windus, 1942. Rev. ed.: London Ark Paperbacks,
1986. 288 pp.
Wollaston, William. The Religion of Nature Delineated. London, 1724.
Yolton, John. Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth Century Britain. Minneapolis,
University of Minnesota Press, 1984
Early Anti-Deist Writings
Clarke, Samuel. A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. London: James Knapton,
1705.
Leland, John. A View of the Principal Deistical Writers that Have Appeared in England in the
Last and Present Century. London: B. Dod, 1754–1756. 3rd ed. 1757. Rpt. New York: 1978.
Ogilvie, John (1733–1814). An inquiry into the causes of the infidelity and skepticism of the
times: with observations on the writings of Herbert, Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Hume, Gibbon,
Toulmin, &c. &c. London: Richardson and Urquahart, 1783, xvi, 462 pp.
Woolston, Thomas. Six Discourses on the Miracles of our Savior and Defences of His
Discourses. New York: Garland, 1979.
Edward Herbert, Baron of Cherbury (1583-1648)
Seventeenth-century British intellectual Edward Herbert, Baron Herbert of Cherbury, was an
early proponent of Deism which grew out of a desire to build the search for truth solidly
upon the foundation of reason. This thesis was presented most forcefully in his 1624 publication
De Veritate (On Truth)initially published in Paris. Herbert affirmed a belief in God, but rejected
the idea of revealed religion. His approach would lead to the philosophical search for what we
can know about God and the universe apart from revelation, a discipline usually termed “natural
theology.” His writings would be common reading by the seventeenth-century Deists in both
Europe and America.
Primary Sources
Herbert, Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Autobiography. Ed. by J. M. Shuttleworth. London:
London: Walter Scott, 1988. 193 pp. Rpt. as The Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Ann Arbor,
MI: University of Michigan Library, 2009. 216 pp.
-----. De Religione Laici. New York: Yale University Press, 1944. 199 pp.
-----. De Veritate. 1624. English ed. as: On Truth. Trans. by Meyrick H. Carre. Bristol, UK:
University of Bristol, 1937.
The first English translation of the reputedly "first" classic expression of Deism;
-----. The Poems, English and Latin, of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Ed. by John Churton
Collins. 1881. Rpt.: New York: AMS Press, 1987.169 pp.
Secondary Sources
Bedford, R. D. The Defence of Truth: Herbert of Cherbury and the Seventeenth Century.
Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1979. 271 pp.
Hill, Eugene D. Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Boston: Twayne Publishing, 1987. 139 pp.
Toulmin, &c. &c. London: Richardson and Urquahart, 1783. 462 pp.
Stephens, William. An Account of the Growth of Deism in England. London: Printed for the
Author, 1696. 32 pp.
Charles Blount (1654-1693)
Charles Blount, a British Deist, who began publishing a set of skeptical writings in England
beginning in 1673. He was unheralded in his lifetime, as all his writings appeared anonymously.
His views were intertwined with emerging anti-Tory politics in the still infant Whig Party,
founded in 1678.
His first book on religion, Anima mundi, was a almost comical survey of Pagan beliefs on the
afterlife that in the end made fun of the idea of immortality. He followed with Great Diana of the
Ephesians and The Two First Books of Philostratus concerning the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus,
which included direct attacks on Christianity and its beliefs throughout in the footnotes. His final
book, published the year of his death, The Oracles of Reason, included essays that challenged the
possibility of Divine revelation and miracles. It also suggested that other worlds with life on
them existed.
Blount lived a quiet life of relative ease in Staffordshire. He died following a self-inflicted
gunshot wound. Several years after his death, his writings and a biographical sketch were
published in a collected edition by Charles Gildon, who had edited The Oracles of Reason.
Primary Sources
Blount, Charles. Anima mundi. London: Will. Cademan, 1679. 109 pp.
-----. Great is Diana of the Ephesians. London, 1680. Rpt. 1695. 45 pp.
-----. The Miscellaneous Works of Charles Blount. Containing I. The Oracles of Reason. II.
Anima Mundi... III. Great is Diana of the Ephesians... IV. An Appeal from the Country to the
City for the Preservation of his Majesties Person, Liberty, and Property.... V. A just Vindication
of Learning, and of the Liberty of the Press.... VI. A Supposed Dialogue betwixt the late King
James and King William ....To which is prefix'd the Life of the Author, and an Account and
Vindication of his Death. With the Contents of the Whole Volumes. Ed. by Charls Gildon.
London, 1695.
-----. The Oracles of Reason. 1693. Rpt. Whitefish, NT: Kissinger Publishing, 2010. 256 pp.
-----. The Two First Books of Philostratus concerning the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus. 1680.
-----, Thomas Sydenham, and John Dryden. A summary account of the Deists religion: in a letter
to that excellent physician, the late Dr. Thomas Sydenham. To which are annex’d, some curious
remarks on the immortality of the soul, and an essay by the celebrated poet, John Dryden, Esq;
to prove that natural religion is alone necessary to salvation, in opposition to all divine
revelation. 1745.
Secondary Sources
Champion, Justin A. I. “Deism.” In R. H. Popkin, ed. The History of Western Philosophy. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
-----. Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken: The Church of England and Its Enemies, 1660-1730.
Goldie, M. A. “Priestcraft and the Birth of Whiggism.” In Nicholas Phillipson and Quentin
Skinner, ed. Political Discourse in Early Modern Britain. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
Ward, A. W., A. R. Waller, W. P. Trent, J. Erskine, S. P. Sherman, and Charles Van Doren,
eds. The Cambridge history of English and American literature: An encyclopedia in eighteen
volumes. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons; Cambridge, England: University Press, 1907–21. See
volume XI, Chapter 10, “The Deistical Controversy in English Theology; Charles Blount;
Charles Leslie as Champion of Orthodoxy.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
Philosopher Thomas Hobbes was born in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, the son of an
Anglican clergyman. After his graduation from Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1608, he was
employed by a well-to-do family as a tutor and remained in the employ of the family most of his
life. He thus had access to a relatively large library and the intellectual world of contemporary
philosophers and scientists. His primary contribution was to political thought, but his writings
ranged over broad areas of knowledge. He emerged as a materialist and a nominalist (abstract
terms merely pointed to the common attributes of particulars).
Religiously Hobbes has been seen by very differently by recent commentators, some viewing
him as an orthodox Christian, other as an atheist, with various shades in between. Hobbes opened
himself to various interpretations by excluding most religious questions from what he saw as his
primary field of inquiry—philosophy.
Relative to the basic question concerning god’s existence, Hobbes often talked and wrote as if
God existed and in one text, the Elements of Law, he includes a cosmological argument for the
God’s existence. He follows with a discussion reflecting some early Christian theologians that
nothing can be know of God apart from His existence due to our finite state. In spite of Hobbes’
many references to God, some, such as Douglas Jesseph, claim that his ambiguous references
really hid an underlying atheism.
While Hobbes is somewhat cryptic about his understanding of God (often contradictory and at
time citing opinions that may or may not be his), he is less ambiguous about his criticisms of
many widely held religious opinions. He is most clearly downgrading of claims of
dreams/visions in which contact with God is claimed and miracles stories.
Hobbes has bene the subject of several bibliographical studies. See William Sachsteder, Hobbes
Studies 1879 1979: A Bibliography (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University
Philosophy, 1982) and Hugh MacDonald and Mary Hargreaves, Thomas Hobbes: A
Bibliography (London: Bibliographical Society, 1952): 84 pp. From the large selection of
material, items cited below have been chosen for their relevance to Hobbes’ views on religion
and God.
Primary Sources
Note: Oxford University Press is currently issuing what is becoming the standard edition of
Hobbes’ works as the Clarendon Edition, which is slated to be completed with some 23
volumes. As of 2010 about half of the proposed volumes have appeared. In the meantime, the
Molesworth edition (which has been reprinted in modern inexpensive copies) remains the most
complete.
Hobbes, Thomas. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes. Ed. by W. Molesworth. London: John
Bohn, 1839–40.
-----. Leviathan. Ed. by A. P. Marinich. Broadview Press, 2002. 629 pp. Various editions.
Ralph Ross, Herbert W Schneider, Theodore Waldman, eds. Thomas Hobbes in His Time.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1975.
Secondary Sources
Ayres, C. E. “Thomas Hobbes and the Apologetic Philosophy.” Journal of Philosophy,
Psychology and Scientific Methods 16, 18 (1919): 477-486.
Blount, Charles. The Oracles of Reason. . . In Several Letters to Mr. Hobbs and Other Persons of
Eminent Quality and Learning. London, 1693.
Bobbio, Norberto. Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law Tradition. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993.
Coleman, Alisa White Coleman. "Calvin and Hobbes": A Critique of Society's Values.” Journal
of Mass Media Ethics 15, 1 (2000): 17-28.
Curley, E M. “Calvin and Hobbes, or, Hobbes as an Orthodox Christian.” Journal of the History
of Philosophy 34, 2 (1996).
Duncan, Stewart. “Hobbes's Materialism in the Early 1640s.” British Journal for the History of
Philosophy 13, 3 (2005): 437-48.
Courtland, Shane D. “A Prima Facie Defense of Hobbesian Absolutism.” Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly 90, 4 (2009): 419-449.
Edwards, Jonathan J. (2009). “Calvin and Hobbes: Trinity, Authority, and Community.”
Philosophy and Rhetoric 42, 2 (2009): 115-133.
Hampsher-Monk, Iain. A History of Modern Political Thought: Major Political Thinkers from
Hobbes to Marx. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.
Hampton, Jean. “Hobbes and Ethical Naturalism.” Philosophical Perspectives 6 (1992): 333353.
Jesseph, Douglas M. “Hobbes's Atheism.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 26 (2002): 140–66.
-----. Squaring the Circle: The War between Hobbes and Wallis. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1999. 433 pp.
Malcolm, Noel.. Aspects of Hobbes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Martinich, Aloysius P. “Hobbes.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 27, 1 (1989).
-----. Hobbes. New York: Routledge, 2005.
-----. “Leviathan.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 13, 2 (2005): 349-359.
-----. The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003. 452 pp.
Milner, Benjamin. “Hobbes: On Religion.” Political Theory 16, 3 (1988): 400-425.
Mitchell, Joshua Mitchell (1993). “Hobbes and the Equality of All under the One.” Political
Theory 21, 1 (1992): 78-100.
Paganini, Gianni. “Hobbes, Valla and the Trinity.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy
11, 2 (2003): 183 – 218.
Parkin, Jon. Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas
Hobbes in England 1640-1700. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 470 pp.
Rosenberg, Aaron. Thomas Hobbes: An English Philosopher in the Age of Reason. New York:
Rosen Publishing Group, 2006.
Ross, Ralph Gilbert, Herbert Wallace Schneider, and Theodore Waldman. Thomas Hobbes in
His Time. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974.
Skinner, Quentin. 1996. Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes's. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Sorell, T., ed.. The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996.
Springborg, Patricia, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan. Cambridge:
-----. “The Enlightenment of Thomas Hobbes.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 12,
3 (2004): 513-34.
Strauss, Leo. Hobbes's Critique of Religion and Related Writings. Trans. by
Gabriel Bartlett and Svetozar Minkov. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2011. 192 pp.
Tuck, Richard. Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction. London: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Whipple, John. “Hobbes on Miracles.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 89, 1 (2008): 117–142.
Williams, Garrath. “Normatively Demanding Creatures: Hobbes, the Fall and Individual
Responsibility.” Res Publica 6, 3 (2000).
Wright, George. Religion, Politics and Thomas Hobbes. New York: Springer, 2010. 357 pp.
Zagorin, Perez. Hobbes and the Law of Nature. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Matthew Tindal (1657-1733)
Matthew Tindal was one of the leading Deist writers of the early eighteenth century, his major
work Christianity as Old and Creation becoming a favorite target of traditional Christian authors
for a generation. Born the son of a Church of England minister, Tindal attended Lincoln College,
Oxford and was later named a fellow of All Souls College. The student of a high church
professor, he joined the Roman Catholic Church, but remained there only a brief time. Tindal’s
early writing out of his legal training had a role in liberalizing the laws on the freedom of the
press.
Tindal’s first significantly controversial book, the first part of The Rights of the Christian Church
associated against the Romish and all other priests who claim an independent power over it was
published anonymously in 1706. He argued for the state’s right over misbehaving Christians.
Church authorities roundly condemned it, and it was publicly burned.
It was Christianity as Old as the Creation; or, the Gospel a Republication of the Religion of
Nature (1730), however, that made Tindal’s reputation and set him on a pedestal as the leading
Deist thinker in England. Drawing on the new approaches to human understanding articulated by
Locke, Tindal argued that true religion must be both eternal and universal, and at the same time
simple and perfect. Religion consists of nothing but the simple and universal duties towards God
and man, that is, morality. His approach to religion suggested that particular revelations were to
be disregarded and that worship was to be replaced with moral uprightness. Christianity should
deliver humanity from the superstitions that caused them to deviate from true religion. The book
would be translated into German and become the fountainhead of British Deist though in the
German states.
The writings of Matthew Tindal have been included in the massive Eighteenth Century
Collections Online (ECCO) project by Gale Research Company and are also available in
relatively inexpensive reprint editions.
Primary Sources
Tindal, Matthew. Christianity as Old as Creation. or, The Gospel a Replication of the Religion
of Nature. London, 1730. Posted at
http://celestiallands.org/library/christianity_as_old_as_the_creat.htm.
------. The Defection Consider'd, and the Designs of Those Who Divided the Friends of the
Government, Set in a True Light. London: Printed and Sold by J. Roberts, 1717. 55p.
-----. The merciful judgments of high-church triumphant on offending clergymen, and others, in
the reign of Charles I. Together with the Lord Falkland's speech in Parliament 1640. relating to
that subject. London, 1710.
Secondary Sources
Berman, David, and Stephen Lalor. “The Suppression of Tindal’s Christianity as Old as
Creation, Volume 2.” Notes and Queries 229 (March 1984).
Lalor, Stephen. Matthew Tyndall and the Eighteenth-century Assault on Religion. Dublin: Trinity
College, M. A. thesis, 1979.
-----. Matthew Tindal, Freethinker: An Eighteenth-century Assault on Religion. London:
Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2006.
Reed, Orville. Beginnings of Rational Christianity in England, Culminating in Matthew Tindal's
Philosophy of Religion. 1905.
Waring, G. Graham. Deism and Natural Religion: A Source Book. New York: Frederick Ungar,
1967. 276 pp.
Thomas Chubb (1679-1747)
Thomas Chubb was unusual among the contributors to the growth of deism as he was not
formally trained in any standard academic disciplines, rather he was a common man who worked
as a glove maker and tallow chandler. Nevertheless, he authored more than 50 brief works on
religious subjects, beginning with a non-Trinitarian assertion of the unity of God in 1715. In his
Discourse concerning Reason, his most famous work, he argued against the changes in Jesus’
religion that begins with the Apostles and has grown into the institutionalized church and its
theology. He proposes a stripped down religion very similar to that proposed by John Toland.
The leading theologian in the American colonies in the eighteenth century, Jonathan Edwards
critiqued Chubb in his notable text, Freedom of the Will.
Primary Sources
Chubb, Thomas. A Collection of Tracts on Various Subjects. London, 1730.
-----. A Discourse concerning Reason with Regard to Religion and Divine Reason. London,
1731.
Secondary Sources
London: Longmans Green, 1906. Rpt.: New York: Russell & Russell, 1962.
Bushell, Thomas L. The Sage of Salisbury: Thomas Chubb (1679-1747). New York:
Philosophical Library 1967. 159 pp.
Claggett, John. Arianism Anatomized: or Animadversions on Mr. Thomas Chubb's Book Intitled
the Supremacy of the Father Asserted Etc. London: J. Darby. 1719. 99 pp.
Fleming, Caleb. Various Answers etc. to Thomas Chubb. 1738.
Horler, Joseph. Memoirs of Thomas Chubb, Late of Salisbury: Or a Fuller and More Faithful
Account of His Life, Writings, Character and Death (1747). London, 1747. Rpt.: Whitefish, MT:
Kessinger Publishing 2010. 80 pp.
A Short and Faithful Account of the Life and Character of the Celebrated Mr. Thomas Chubb,
Who Died Lately at Salisbury. in a Letter From a Gentleman of That City to His Friend in
London. London: Printed for John Noon, 1747. 25 pp.
Stephen, Leslie. History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. 2 vols. London: Smith,
Elder & Co., 1876. Rpt.: New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1962.
John Toland (1670-1722)
John Toland, an Irishman, became one of the most well-known of the eighteenth-century Deists.
Born in Ardagh, Ireland, he later attended the universities at Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leiden and
Oxford. Shortly after completing his studies in Oxford, he published his first and still most
notable book, Christianity Not Mysterious (1696). He attacked the idea of revelation in the Bible.
As a good deist, he argues that the truth of religion could be discerned by reason from nature. All
knowledge attributed to revelation was, in fact, discovered by reason, it was not a message from
the divine. A grand jury attacked him in London, and his fellow Irishmen (already upset by his
renouncing his childhood Catholicism) burnt his book in public.
Toland settled in London and wrote numerous books, most of an anti-clerical nature. He would
be the first person labeled a freethinker, a derisive term at the time. He is also the first person to
use the term “pantheist,” and some believe that the secretive Pantheist society described in one of
his books actually existed. In any case, today’s pantheists look to Toland as the fountainhead of
their belief.
He also became involved in the Treatise of the Three Impostors hoax, The treatise was a book
rumored to existed (but never actually seen by anyone) in which Christianity, Judaism and Islam
were branded as three great political frauds. Originally, Pope Gregory IX (r.1227-1241) claimed
had been written by Frederick II and was cited as a reason for Frederick’s excommunication. At
one point, Toland claimed to have a copy of the manuscript which he passed on to a French
colleague, who published a French edition.
Historian David Berman has argued for the most radical reading of Toland as an atheist. Berman
argues that Toland understood and knowingly wrote as one who had concluded that a God
stripped of his most important characteristics is no God at all. Ultimately, Deism must lead to
atheism.
Primary Sources
Toland, John. Christianity Not Mysterious; or, A Treatise Showing, That There Is Nothing in the
Gospel Contrary to Reason, Nor Above It, and That No Christian Doctrine Can Be Properly
Call'd a Mystery. London, 1696.
-----. John Toland’s Christianity not Mysterious, Text, Associated Works and Critical
Essays. Ed. by Philip McGuinness, Alan Harrison, and Richard Kearney. Dublin: The Lilliput
Press, 1997.
——. Letters to Serena. London: Bernard Lintot, 1704.
------. Miscellaneous works now first published from his original manuscripts. To the whole is
prefixed a copious account of Mr. Toland's life and writings by Mr. Des Maizeaux. London:
Printed for J. Whiston, S. Baker, and J. Robinson, 1747. 590 pp. Currently available from several
print-on-demand publishers.
——. Reasons for Naturalising the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland. London, 1714.
-----. The Theological and Philological Works of the Late Mr. John Toland: Being a System of
Jewish, Gentile and Mahometan Christianity. London: W. Mears, 1732.
Secondary Sources
Berman, David. "Disclaimers in Blount and Toland." In: Hunter & Wootton (eds.), Atheism from
the Reformation to the Enlightenment. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 268-272.
------. A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell. London: Routledge Kegan &
Paul, 1988. 262 pp.
Champion, Justin. Republican Learning: John Toland and the Crisis of Christian Culture, 16961722. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2009. 264 pp.
Daniel, Stephen H. John Toland His Methods, Manners, and Mind. Montreal: McGill-Queen's
Evans, Robert Rees. Pantheisticon: The Career of John Toland. New York: Peter Lang
Publishing, 1991. 232 pp.
Fouke, Daniel C. Philosophy and Theology in a Burlesque Mode: John Toland and the Way of
Paradox. New York: Prometheus Books, 2008.
Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution, 1689–1720. New York: Gordon
and Breach, 1990. 288 pp.
------. The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons, and Republicans. London: Allen and
Unwin, 1981. 304 pp.
Sullivan, Robert E. John Toland and the Deist Controversy: A Study in Adaptations. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1959. 355 pp.
Anthony Collins (1676-1729)
Anthony Collins was a English free-thinker, deist and materialist, a contemporary of John
Toland, Samuel Bold, Matthew Tindal, Thomas Woolston, and William Wollaston, and the
aging John Locke. The son of a lawyer, he later attended King’s College, Cambridge and became
a lawyer. He developed a broad network among contemporary thinkers and conducted a lengthy
controversy through correspondence with the philosopher Samuel Clarke, a friend of Isaac
Newton.
Much of Collins’ work, including his correspondence with Clarke, was related to issues of the
nature of the soul and the free will-determinism question. Collins was determinist. Relative to the
existence of god, contemporary scholars differ on Collins. James O’ Higgins sees him as a Deist,
while David Berman argues that he is in fact an atheist. While clearly rejecting revelation.
Collins can be read as either supporting natural religion or rejecting religion and God altogether.
Primary Sources
Collins, Anthony. A Discourse of Free-thinking Occasioned by the Rise and Growth of a Sect
call'd Free-Thinkers. 1707. New ed. by Peter Schouls. New York, Garland Press, 1984.
-----. An Essay Concerning the Use of Reason in Propositions. London: 1707.
——. A Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion. London, 1724.
-----. A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Freedom. Rpt. in James O'Higgins.
Determinism and Free Will. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976.
Secondary Sources
Berman, David. “Anthony Collins and the Question of Atheism in the Early Part of the
Eighteenth Century.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1975).
-----. “Anthony Collins: Aspects of his Thought and Writings.” Hermathena (1975).
-----. “Anthony Collins’ Essays in The Independent Whig.” Journal of the History of Philosophy
(1975)
-----. “Anthony Collins: His Thought and Writing.” Hermathena (1975): 49-70.
O'Higgins, James. Anthony Collins: The Man and His Works. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1970.
Rowe, William. “Causality and Free Will in the Controversy between Collins and Clarke.”
Journal of the History of Philosophy 25 (1987): 52-67.
Snoblen, Stephen. “An Eighteenth Century Debate between William Whiston and Anthony
Collins.” Lumen 15 (1996): 195-213.
Peter Annet (1693-1769)
Deist philosopher and writer Peter Annet was a schoolteacher dismissed from his post for his
impious opinions toward Christianity and the bible and general hostility to the clergy. He
initially gained some prominence as a deist writer at the end of the 1730s with his pamphlet,
Judging for Ourselves, or Freethinking the Great Duty of Religion (1739), the catalyst for his
loosing his teaching job. He also attacked the idea of miracles and the arguments for Christianity
based on the credibility of the early Christian witness to the biblical events. He was among the
first to put forth the notion that Jesus did not die on the cross, i.e., he was merely unconscious,
and was revived in the tomb.
Annet’s writings have been included in the massive ECCO project by Gale Research, and his
prominent works are now also available in inexpensive on-demand paperback reprints.
Primary Sources
Annet, Peter. A Collection of the Tracts of a Certain Free Enquirer, Noted by His Sufferings for
His Opinions. London, 1769. Rpt.: London: Routledge / Thoemmes Press, 1995. 458 pp.
-----. Supernaturals examined: in four dissertations on three treatises. . . London: printed for F.
Page, [1750?]. 147 pp. Rpt.” Charleston, SC: Gale ECCO, 2010,
------, and Smith Loftus. The History Of The Man After God's Own Heart. London, 1766.
Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2010. 196 pp.
Secondary Sources
Herrick, James A. The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Skepticism,
1680-1750. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1997.
Hudson, Wayne. The English Deists: Studies in Early Enlightenment. London: Pickering &
Chatto Publishers (December 30, 2008. 208 pp.
-----. Enlightenment and Modernity: The English Deists and Reform. London: Pickering &
Chatto Ltd (October 21, 2009. 225 pp.
Twyman, Ellen. Peter Annet, 1693-1769. London: Pioneer Press, 1938.
David Hume (1711-1776)
One of the most outstanding of modern philosophers, David Hume was the author of four of the
most influential books of the seventeenth century, books still read today—A Treatise of Human
Nature (1739-1740), the Enquiries concerning Human Understanding (1748), concerning the
Principles of Morals (1751), Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779)–the last published
posthumously. Born in Edinburgh, Hume was recognized as a precocious youth. He received
little formal education, however, and, being largely self-educated, never held an academic post.
He moved away from the Presbyterianism of his youth and even in his first book adopted a
critical approach to Christianity (though he cut a chapter on miracles from the text in order to get
it published without significant controversy).
Hume is best known for his empiricist views, based in his observation that the stuff in our minds
about which we think and deliberate originates in either sense perceptions or from our
ruminations about those perceptions. From sense perceptions we are able to build simple ideas
which can then be combined into complex ideas. His position led him to attack a priori notions
about the assumed connection between cause and effect, and from that position to a negative
assessment of the many reports of miracles.
Hume eventually arrived at a reductionist view of religion, which he believed originated in the
postulating of supernatural forces to account for phenomena otherwise unexplainable by people
in the ancient past. Religion was originally polytheistic and relatively tolerant of variant views. It
eventually became monotheistic and Hume believed monotheism was inherently intolerant. He
thought that humans could eventually dispose of religion. His last book, the Dialogues
concerning Natural Religion, includes a strong destructive critique of the argument for God from
design, which had emerged as the most popular argument for God’s existence in Christian
circles.
Hume was accepted as a fellow atheist by Freethinkers in the generations since his Dialogues,
though some still attempt to place him in the Deist camp. He never declared himself an atheist,
but his arguments certainly allow such an opinion of him to be justified.
The literature on Hume is extensive, and those who wish to pursuer his thought may find many
additional resources in Peter Millican, ed. Reading Hume on Human Understanding. Oxford
University Press, 2002. Milliken also has an important David Hume Internet site at
http://www.davidhume.org/. Additional bibliographical studies include T. E. Jessop, A
Bibliography of David Hume and of Scottish Philosophy from Francis Hutcheson to Lord
Balfour (London: A. Brown, 1938; rpt. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966); Roland Hall, Fifty
Years of Hume Scholarship: A Bibliographical Guide (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1978);
William E. Morris, "The Hume Literature, 1986-1993," Hume Studies 20:2 (Nov. 1994): 299326; and James Fieser, A Bibliography of Hume’s Writings and Early Responses (Bristol, UK:
Thoemmes Press, 2003): 211 pp. Scholarship is correlated through The Hume Society,
http://humesociety.org/. It publishes the journal, Hume Studies, and has posted a complete index
and volumes 1-31 online for the general public to access.
Hume’s major writings are readily available in a spectrum of reprint editions, and online through
Project Gutenberg and other sites. The listing below of secondary sources centers on the
questions of God and religious belief.
Primary Sources
Hume, David. A Concise and Genuine Account of the Dispute between Mr Hume and Mr
Rousseau. London, T. Becket & P.A. De Hondt, 1766.
-----. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. London, Robinson, 1779. Online at Project
Gutenberg
-----. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Ed. by Norman Kemp Smith. Indianapolis,
Bobbs-Merrill, 1962.
-----. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. London, A. Millar, 1751. The 1777
edition is available online at Project Gutenberg.
------. Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. 4 vols. London, A. Millar/ Edinburgh, A.
Kincaid & A. Donaldson, 1753.
-----. Essays, Moral and Political. 2 vol. Edinburgh, A. Kincaid; 1742. Include in Essays, Moral
and Political. London, A. Millar, Edinburgh, A. Kincaid, 1748.
-----. The Life of David Hume, Esq. Written by Himself. London, W. Strahan & T. Caddell, 1777.
-----. The Natural History of Religion. Ed. by H.E. Root. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1957.
-----. Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding. London, A. Millar, 1748. Rev.
ed. as: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding in Essays and Treatises on Several
Subjects. London, A. Millar/ Edinburgh, A. Kincaid & A. Donaldson, 1758.
-----. A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of
Reasoning into Moral Subjects, 3 vols. Vols. 1 & 2. London, John Noon, 1739. Vol. 3. London,
Thomas Longman, 1740.
Secondary Sources
Andre, Shane. “Was Hume An Atheist?” Hume Studies XIX, 1 (April 1993):141-166.
Beauchamp, Tom L. and Alexander Rosenberg. Hume and the Problem of Causation. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1981
Bennett, Jonathan. Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1971
Berman, David. “David Hume and the Suppression of Atheism.” Journal of the History of
Philosophy 21, 3 (1983): 375-387.
Braly, Earl Burk. The Reputation of David Hume in America. Austin, TX: University of Texas,
Buckle, Stephen. Hume's Enlightenment Tract: The Unity and Purpose of An Enquiry
concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001.
Burns, R. M. The Great Debate on Miracles: From Joseph Glanville to David Hume. Lewisburg:
Bucknell University Press, 1981.
Dicker, Georges. Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction. London and New
York: Routledge, 1998.
Earman, John. Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument against Miracles. New York: Oxford
Ernest Campbell Mossner, The Life of David Hume. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson: 1954. 2nd ed.:
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.
Flew, Antony. David Hume: Philosopher of Moral Science. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.
-----. “On the Interpretation of Hume.” Philosophy 38, 144 (1963): 178ff..
Fogelin, Robert J. A Defense of Hume on Miracles. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
-----. Hume's Scepticism in the Treatise of Human Nature. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1985.
Fosl, Peter S. “Hume, Skepticism, and Early American Deism.” Hume Studies XXV, 1 & 2
(April/November 1999): 171-192.
Gaskin, J. C. A. Hume's Philosophy of Religion. London: Macmillan, 1978. 2nd ed.: 1988.
Hall, Roland. Fifty Years of Hume Scholarship: A Bibliographical Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
Harris, James A. Of Liberty and Necessity: The Free Will Debate in Eighteenth-Century British
Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005
Huntley, William B. “David Hume and Charles Darwin.” Festschrift for Philip P.
Wiener. Journal of the History of Ideas 33, 3 (July-Sept. 1972): 457-470. Posted at
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709046
Hurlbutt, Robert H. Hume, Newton and the Design Argument. Rev. ed.: Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1985.
Huxley, Thomas Henry. Hume, with Helps to the Study of Berkeley: Essays. London: Macmillan
& Co., 1887. 208 pp. Rpt.: New York D. Appleton & Company 1898.
Livingston, Donald W. Hume's Philosophy of Common Life. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1984.
Mossner, Ernest Campbell. The Life of David Hume. London: Nelson, 1954.
Noonan, Harold W. Hume on Knowledge. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.
Norton, David Fate, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Hume. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993.
-----. David Hume, Common Sense Moralist, Sceptical Metaphysician. Princeton: Princeton
Noxon, James . “In Defence of "Hume's Agnosticism". Journal of the History of Philosophy 14,
4 (1976).
-----. Hume's Agnosticism. Philosophical Review 73, 2 (1964): 248-261.
O'Connor, David. Hume on Religion. London & New York: Routledge, 2001.
Toulmin, &c. &c. London: Richardson and Urquahart, 1783. 462 pp.
Owen, David. Hume's Reason, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Penelhum, Terence. Themes in Hume: The Will, the Self, Religion. Oxford Clarendon Press,
2000.
-----. Hume. London: Macmillan, 1975.
Radcliffe, Elizabeth S. A Companion to Hume. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
Russell, Paul. “’Atheism’ and the Title-Page of Hume's Treatise.” Hume Studies XIV, 2
(November 1988): 408-423.
-----. The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Scepticism, Naturalism and Irreligion. Oxford & New
York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Smith, Norman Kemp. The Philosophy of David Hume. London: Macmillan, 1941.
Stanistreet, Paul. Hume's Scepticism and the Science of Human Nature. Aldershot: Ashgate,
2002.
Stewart, M. A. and John P. Wright. Hume and Hume's Connexions. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
Stroud, Barry. Hume. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977.
Traiger, Saul. The Blackwell Guide to Hume's Treatise. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
Tweyman, Stanley. David Hume: Critical Assessments. Six Volumes, London and New York:
Routledge, 1995.
Wright, John P. The Sceptical Realism of David Hume. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1983.
Yandell, Keith E. Hume's ‘Inexplicable Mystery’: His Views on Religion. Philadelphia: Temple
Unitarianism in Great Britain
Anti-Trinitarian views appeared in England in the middle of the sixteenth century and throughout
the Elizabethan Era, executions of individuals for holding such views sporadically occurred. The
number of anti-Trinitarians began to grow in the seventeenth century with the arrival of
Socinians from Eastern Europe. Anti-Trinitarian views would grow during the years that the
Commonwealth set aside the Anglican establishment (1649-1660)
John Biddle (1615-1662), a school teacher in Gloucester, who spent the 1640s in and out fo
prison for his views, published a tract Twelve Arguments Drawn Out of Scripture (1647) that
argued that the Christian Scriptures did not support the doctrine of the Trinity. His time in prison
eventually took a toll on his health, and he died while in jail in 1662.
A non-Trinitarian religious movement began to take shape in the 1660s and become more public
after the Act of Toleration (1689) extended new rights to dissenting groups. The Act, however,
covered only those groups that did not deny Christian essentials, and most individuals who held a
Unitarian belief remained within the Baptist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches.
Unitarianism thus existed as a theological option within groups that were officially Trinitarian in
their doctrine. An early attempt to gather a Unitarian congregation was made by Thomas Emlyn
(1663–1741) in London in 1705.
In 1773, Theophilus Lindsey (1723–1808) left the Anglican Church, and established the Essex
Street Chapel, with the assistance two clergy colleagues Joseph Priestley and Richard Price
(1723-1791). With the aid of a few highly placed sympathizers, the chapel remained open until
the Doctrine of the Trinity Act 1813, took away legal penalties for denying the Trinity. The
British and Foreign Unitarian Association was formed in 1825. The Unitarians still faced
considerable negative public opinion that only dissipated in the last half of the century.
Unitarians differed from Deists in that they were attempting to develop a non-Trinitarian
Christian theology, whereas for deists, the critique of religion in general and Christianity in
particular was at the forefront of their agenda. In the wake of their critique, Desist took the
logical next step to atheism.
Unitarianism’s disagreements with Trinitarian Christianity indirectly helped prepare the way for
the emergence of atheism, though as atheism emerged, its proponents would attack the
Unitarians as a means of distinguishing their non-theistic position from the more conservative
Unitarian dissent. In the twentieth century. Through the twentieth century, Unitarianism would
nurture religious dissent and thus without prior intent provide a context in which a number of
people would move toward a non-theistic perspective.
Sources
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Elizabethan Puritanism to Modern Unitarianism. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968.
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-----. Heads of English Unitarian History with appended lectures on Baxter and Priestley.
London: Philip Green, 1895.
-----. Heresy: its ancient wrongs and modern rights. London: Lindsey Press, 1913.
Goring, Jeremy. “Unitarianism: history, myth or make-believe.” TUHS 19:4 (1990): 213-227
Hill, Andrew McKean A Liberal Religious Heritage: Unitarian and Universalist foundations in
Europe, America and elsewhere. London, Unitarian Publications, n.d.
Holt, Raymond Vincent. The Story of Unitarianism. London: The Lindsey Press, 1931.
-----. “Strata in the Formation of Unitarian Church Tradition.” TUHS 3:1 (1923): 11-19
-----. The Unitarian contribution to social progress in England. London: The Lindsey Press,
1938.
Kenworthy, Fred. “The Unitarian Tradition in Liberal Christianity.”' TUHS 8, 2 (1944): 58-67.
Kielty, John. British Unitarianism, past, present and future [The Minns lectures 1959]. London:
Lindsey Press, 1960.
Lloyd, Walter. The Story of Protestant Dissent and English Unitarianism. London, Philip Green,
1899.
McLachlan, Herbert. Essays and Addresses. Manchester: University Press, 1950.
-----. The Unitarian Movement in the Religious Life of England: 1. its contribution to thought
and learning 1700-1900. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1934.
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1923.
Mickelwright, F. H. Amphlett. “A New Approach to Unitarian History.” TUHS 8, 3 (1945) 122129.
Short, Harry Lismer. Dissent and the Community. London: Lindsey Press, 1962.
Tayler, John James. A Retrospect of the Religious Life of England; or, the Church, Puritanism,
and Free Inquiry. London: John Chapman, 1853.
Thomas, Roger. 'The Unitarian Tradition and its Significance.” The Inquirer 6783 (January 30,
1973).
------. “The Unitarian Tradition and its Wider Horizons.” The Inquirer 6784 (February 3, 1973).
Webb R. K. “The background: English Unitarianism in the nineteenth century.” In Len Smith et
al. Unitarian to the Core: Unitarian College Manchester, 1854-2004. Lancaster, UK: Carnegie
Publishing, 2004, pp. 1-29.
Webb, Robert K. “Quakers and Unitarians'.” In D. G. Paz. Nineteenth-century English Religious
Traditions: Retrospect and Prospect. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995, pp. 85-115.
Wigmore-Beddoes, Dennis G. Yesterday's Radicals: a study of the affinity between Unitarianism
and broad church Anglicanism in the nineteenth century. Cambridge, UK: James Clarke and Co,
1971. 184 pp.
Wilbur, Earl Morse. A History of Unitarianism. Vol. 2. In Transylvania, England and America
Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press 1952.
Joseph Priestley (1733- 1804)
Joseph Priestley an eighteenth-century British scientist recognized for his discovery of several
elements in their gaseous state, including oxygen, and prolific writer, was also known as a
dissenting Protestant minister who held Unitarian views. A broadly learned scholar, he
contributed studies in a variety of fields—history, education, grammar, etc. In 1767, he settled in
Leeds as the pastor of the Mill Hill Chapel, a Calvinist congregation. While there he published
the three-volume treatise, Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion (1772–74), in which his
Unitarian views became plainly stated. He also argued that one should only accept those revealed
religious truths that could be aligned with one's experience of the natural world. He argued for
his more primitive and simple view of Christianity over against what he saw as layers of
accumulations represented by contemporary orthodoxy.
Over the years, Priestley defended dissenting churches and their right to exist. When in 1774, his
friend Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808) founded the Unitarian movement in England, Priestly
defended him, attended his church, and on occasion preached for him. Priestley support of the
American and then the French Revolution capped a quarter century of controversy, and he
eventually found it convenient to move to the United States, where he participated in the
founding of Unitarianism in North America.
Interestingly, the first avowedly atheistic book published in Great Britain was an anonymous
text, now generally attributed to a Dr. Matthew Turner, entitled an Answer to Dr. Priestley's
letters to a philosophical unbeliever (London, 1782).
For more extensive coverage of material on Priestley, see R. E. Crook’s A Bibliography of
Joseph Priestley (London: Library Association, 1966).
Primary Sources
Priestley, Joseph. Autobiography of Joseph Priestley. Ed. by Jack Lindsay. Teaneck, NJ:
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970.
-----. Collected Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Priestley. Ed. by John T. Rutt. 2
vols. London: George Smallfield, 1832.
-----. Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley. Ed. by John T. Rutt. 2 vols. London: George
Smallfield, 1831.
-----. Priestley: Political Writings. Ed. by Peter N. Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993.
-----. Priestley's Writings on Philosophy, Science and Politics. Ed. by John A. Passmore. New
York: Collier Books, 1964.
-----. A Scientific Autobiography of Joseph Priestley (1733–1804): Selected Scientific
Correspondence. Ed. by Robert E. Schofield. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966.
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Anderson, R. G. W. and Christopher Lawrence. Science, Medicine and Dissent: Joseph Priestley
(1733–1804). London: Wellcome Trust, 1987.
Bowers, J. D. Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America. University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007.
Braithwaite, Helen. Romanticism, Publishing and Dissent: Joseph Johnson and the Cause of
Liberty. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
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1789." Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
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Crossland, Maurice. "The Image of Science as a Threat: Burke versus Priestley and the
'Philosophic Revolution'." British Journal for the History of Science 20 (1987): 277–307.
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Eshet, Dan. "Rereading Priestley." History of Science 39, 2 (2001): 127–59.
Fitzpatrick, Martin. "Joseph Priestley and the Cause of Universal Toleration." The PricePriestley Newsletter 1 (1977): 3–30.
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Philosophical Society, 2002.
Garrett, Clarke. "Joseph Priestley, the Millennium, and the French Revolution." Journal of the
History of Ideas 34, 1 (1973): 51–66.
Gibbs, F. W. Joseph Priestley: Adventurer in Science and Champion of Truth. London: Thomas
Nelson and Sons, 1965.
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1804. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 85 (1995).
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Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Unbelief in England—the Nineteenth Century
Nineteenth-century England proved to be one of the more creative places in the Western world
and was certainly the time/place in which the Unbelief community moved from being a few
voices crying in the wilderness to become a visible minority community that was actively
engaged in changing society especially in relation to religious diversity, concern for blasphemy,
the role of women, and free speech laws. The first purely atheistic book published in Great
Britain was the anonymously issued Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical
Unbeliever (London, 1782). But just a generation later, the nineteenth century would be launched
with a spectrum of prominent people who expressing their atheist views in print, none more
prominent that poet Percy Brysshe Shelley. Largely inspired by French thinking, atheism, forms
of socialism, much based in communalism, and ideas for social reconstruction that challenged
assumptions of the religious tradition emerged in relative abundance.
The century of struggle to open space for atheists perspectives in England is punctuated by a
variety of notable events including the legalizing of Unitarianism (1813); notable trials for
blasphemy (Richard Carlile, 1818; Edward Moxon, 1841; Charles Southwell, 1841; George
Jacob Holyoake, 1842; G. W. Foote, 1883); the founding of the Leicester Secular Society, the
world’s oldest (1851); the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species (1859); the
definition of agnosticism by T. F. Huxley (1860s); the founding of the Secular Society (1866);
and the launch of The Freethinker by G. W. Foote (1881).
It was also the case that atheism would not have the prominence in British academia that it had,
for example, in Germany, and that most atheist thinkers, beginning with the likes of John Stuart
Mill, would push the cause forward with a implicit atheism, avoiding more direct challenges to
theistic positions. Most notably non-theistic assumptions would hover in the background as
major advances were put forward in the biological and geological sciences whose findings set
many against Christian assumptions concerning the age of the earth and the manner of Divine
creation.
The century would culminate in the careers of Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891) and Annie Besant
(1847-1933). Bradlaugh would emerge as the head of the Freethought movement and Besant one
of its most able orators. After a notable career as an atheist, Besant would at the end of the 1880s
convert to Theosophy, and have an equally outstanding life as its leader internationally. Besant’s
conversion, often viewed as an embarrassing fact by some contemporary atheists, is primarily
further illustration of the nineteenth century convergence of the Freethought and Esoteric
communities, both of who opposed Christian hegemony in society and decried what they saw as
the naïve supernaturalism in church life. Bradlaugh was, for example, himself a Freemason.
Esoteric believers were generally theists, but posited a deity was quite similar to that of the
Deists (and in France would be dispensed with by the Freemasons).
Besant was but one of the prominent females involved in Freethought and its associated issues
relative to the status and role of women. Note is made of Harriet Martineau (1802–1876): Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley (1707-1851), Jane and Mary Carlile, George Eliot [pseudonym of Mary
Ann Evans] (1819-1880); and Lady Monson (1803-1891). An additional number of women with
Deist and Unitarian beliefs were prominent in many of the Victorian era social movements.
An early Unitarian group, the Philadelphians, founded in 1793, would through the last half of the
century move toward atheism. Since 1824, it had operated out of a chapel at South Place,
Finsbury, London, and assumed the name South Place Religious Society. In 1888, while under
the leadership of Stanton Coit (1857-1944), an American who brought the Ethical Culture
movement to England, it became the South Place Ethical Society. Coit also founded several other
Ethical Cultures centers in the greater London area. All of these centers except the South Place
group came together as the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896.
In the middle of the century, George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906), encouraged the foundation of
a number of secular societies, the one at Leicester being the oldest still in existence. The
emergence of these groups led to the formation of a National Secular Society by Charles
Bradlaugh in 1866. The National Secular Society would later be joined by the Rational Press
Association in 1899.
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London: Routledge, 1992. 205 pp.
Eisen, Sydney, and Bernard Lightman. Victorian Science and Religion: A Bibliography with
Emphasis on Evolution, Belief, and Unbelief, Comprised of Works Published from c. 1900-1975.
Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1984. 696 pp.
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Review New Series 2 (July 1954): 98-120.
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Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford, in the Year 1862, on the Foundation of
John Bampton. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1963. 487 pp.
Foote, G. W. The Bible Handbook for Freethinkers and Inquiring Christians. 8th ed. London:
Secular Society/Pioneer Press. 1937. 179 pp.
-----. Christianity and Progress. With a Chapter on Mohammedanism. London: Pioneer Press,
n.d. 32 pp.
-----. Flowers of Freethought. London: R. Forder, 1893. 213 pp.
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2010. 37 pp.
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Secular Society. 1965. 32p.
Godwin, William. Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft. London: Constable, 1927.
Gould, Frederick James. History of the Leicester Secular Society. Leicester: Leicester Secular
Society, 1900.
-----. The Pioneers of Johnson’s Court: A History of the Rationalist Press Association from 1899
Onward. London: Watts & Co., 1929. 160 pp.
Grugel, Lee E. George Jacob Holyoake. Philadelphia: Porcupine Press, 1977. 225 pp.
Hartzel. Karl Drew. The Origins of the English Humanist Movement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1934.
Jacobs, Leo. Three Types of Practical Ethical Movements in the Past Half Century. New York.
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Knight, Margaret. Humanist Anthology. London Barrie and Rockliff, 1961.
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Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011, 248 pp.
McCabe, Joseph. Life and Letters of George Jacob Holyoake. London: Watts, 1908. 120 pp.
McGee, John Edwin. A History of the British Secular Movement. Girard, Kans.: Haldeman-Julius
Publications, 1948.
MacKillop, Ian. The British Ethical Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Marsh, Joss. Word Crimes: Blasphemy, Culture, and Literature in Nineteenth-Century England.
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Mullen, Shirley A. (1992). "Keeping the Faith: the struggle for a militant atheist press."
Victorian Periodicals Review 25, 4 (Winter 1992): 150–158.
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Garland Publishing, 1987.
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Owen, Robert, and Alexander Campbell. The Evidence of Christianity: A Debate between Robert
Owen of New Lanark, Scotland, and Alexander Campbell, President of Bethany College, VA,
containing an Examination of the the “Social System” and all of the Systems of Skeptism of
Ancient and Modern times, Held in the City of Cincinnati, Ohio, in April 1929. 1829. Rpt.:
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Paz, D. G. Nineteenth-Century English Religious Traditions: Retrospect and Prospect. Westport,
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Preistman, Martin. Romantic Atheism: Poetry and Freethought, 1780-1830. Cambridge:
Royle, Edward, ed. The Infidel Tradition from Paine to Bradlaugh. London: MacMillan Press
Ltd, 1976.
-----. Radical Politics, 1790-1900: Religion and Unbelief. London: Longman. 1971.
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University of Manchester Press, 1974.
-----, and James Walvin. English Radicals and Reformers 1760-1848. London: The Harvester
Press, 1982. Rpt.: Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. 1982.
Smith, Warren Sylvester. The London Heretics, 1870-1914. New York: Dodd-Mead, 1968. 319
pp.
-----. The Religious Speeches of George Bernard Shaw. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State
Smoker, Barbara. Freethoughts: Atheism, Secularism, Humanism - Selected Egotistically from
"The Freethinker. London: G.W. Foote & Co., 2002
[Southwell, Charles]. An Apology for Atheism. London: J. Watson, 1846
-----. Superstition Unveiled. London: Edward Truelove, 1854.
Stein, Gordon. Freethought in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1981. 183 pp.
Stenhouse, John. "Imperialism, Atheism, and Race: Charles Southwell, Old Corruption, and the
Maori." Journal of British Studies 44, 4 October 2005): 754–774.
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Turner, Frank M. Between Science and Religion: The Reaction to Scientific Naturalism in Late
Victorian England. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974.
——. Contesting Cultural Authority: Essays in Victorian Intellectual Life. Cambridge, U.K.:
Wood, Herbert George. Belief and Unbelief since 1850. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1955.
Percy Shelley (1792-1822) and the Romantics
In the transition from Deism to atheism in the nineteenth century, the romantic poets play an
important role, none more so that Shelley who, like his friend Lord Byron was a Freethinker,
only much more assertively so. The publication of his brief work, “The Necessity of Atheism,”
in 1811 caused his expulsion from Oxford, though he escapes a trial for blasphemy. His father’s
attempted intervention, and Shelley’s further refusal to recant his view, led to a break within the
family. Subsequent visits to William Godwin’s bookshop in London led to his acquaintance with
and eventual marriage to Mary Wollstonecraft (the author of both A Vindication of the Rights of
Women and Frankenstein).
Shortly before Shelley’s untimely death at the age of 30, he joined with his poet colleagues
Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron in the creation of a journal that was to be called The Liberal, in
which their controversial writings on a variety of subjects including religion could be published.
Primary Sources
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Atheist Viewpoint: Selected Essays on Atheism. New York: Arno
Press/New York Times 1972, 96 pp.
-----. The Complete Poetic Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Ed. by George Edward Woodberry.
Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co, 1901.
-----. The Necessity of Atheism. Ed. by Nicolas Walter. London: G. W. Foote, 1998. Rpt.: Girard,
KS: Haldeman-Julius Co., n.d. 32 pp. Little Blue Book No. 935.
-----. The Necessity of Atheism and Other Essays. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books 1993.
-----. The Shelly Papers: The Memoir of Percy Bysshe Shelley. London: Whittaker, Treacher, &
Co., 1833.
-----. Shelley’s Prose. Ed. by David Lee Smith. London: Fourth Estate, 1988.
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Bieri, James . Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Biography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2008.
Blunden, Edmund. Shelley: A Life Story. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Chorley, Lady Katherine. “Victorian Agnostics and Wordworth.” Month 11 (April 1954): 207221.
Garrett, Martin. George Gordon, Lord Byron. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Hay, Daisy. Young Romantics: the Shelleys, Byron, and Other Tangled Lives. London:
Bloomsbury, 2010.
Holmes, Richard. Shelley: The Pursuit. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1975.
Leighton, Margaret Tcarverr. Shelley's Mary: a Life of Mary Godwin Shelley. New York: Farrar
Straus Giroux, 1973. 234 pp.
Morley, Margaret. Wild Spirit: The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1993.
Preistman, Martin. Romantic Atheism: Poetry and Freethought, 1780-1830. Cambridge:
St Clair, William. The Godwins and the Shelleys: A Biography of a Family. London: Faber and
Faber, 1990.
Sloan, Gary. “Lord Byron: The Demons of Calvinism.” American Atheist 40, 4 (2002).
Weiner, Joel H. Radicalism and Freethought in Victorian Britain. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1983.
William Godwin (1756-1836)
Political theorist William Godwin was raised in the home of a Presbyterian minister. He
maintained the strict Calvinist theology through his early life but then evolved progressively
from deism, agnosticism, atheism and then returned to a form of deism which he termed a
"vague theism." He had already developed an interest in political issues when the French
Revolution began. He generally supported the revolution thought upset about what he saw as
irrational parts of it, and participated in an effort to publish Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man. He
followed with a new analysis of society and how it should be governed which appeared in 1893
as An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue
and Happiness
In 1791 he met Mary Wollstonecraft whom he eventually married. She died giving birth to their
daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who later married Percy Bysshe Shelley. Godwin went
on to become popular novelist and for many years ran a bookstore which became a popular
meeting place for those holding radical political and religious views. He is remembered fondly
by people holding anarchist views, as well as by feminists who consider him a man ahead of his
time. His last works were some essays on Christianity, which he attacked for offering hope of a
false afterlife.
Primary Sources
Godwin, William. Essays, Never before published, by the late William Godwin. Ed. by C. Kegan
Paul. London, H.S. King, 1873. Includes reedited version of The Genius of Christianity
Unveiled.
-----. Godwin & Mary; Letters of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Ed. by Rlph M.
Wardle. Lawrence, KA: University of Kansas Press, 1966. Rpt.: Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, [1976].
-----. Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Ed. by W. Clark Durant.
New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1969.
-----. The Anarchist Writings of William Godwin. Ed. by Peter Marshall. London: Freedom
Press, 1986.
-----. Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin. Ed. by M. Philp. 8 vols.
London: William Pickering, 1992.
-----. Political and Philosophical Writings of William Godwin. Ed. by M. Philp. 7 vols. London:
William Pickering, 1993.
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Butler, M. Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
Clark, John P. The Philosophical Anarchism of William Godwin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Detre, Jean. A Most Extraordinary Pair: Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. Garden City,
N.Y. Doubleday & Company, 1975. 328 pp.
Evans, Frank B. "Shelley, Godwin, Hume and the Doctrine of Necessity." Studies in Philology
37 (October 1940): 632-40.
Kegan Paul, Charles. William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries. 2 vols. London: Henry
S. King, 1876.
Kingsland, W. G. "Shelley and Godwin." In Poet-Lore. London: Robinson, 1898.
Leighton, Margaret Tcarverr. Shelley's Mary: a Life of Mary Godwin Shelley. New York: Farrar
Straus Giroux, 1973. 234 pp.
Locke, Don. A Fantasy of Reason: The Life and Thought of William Godwin. London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1980.
Marshall, Peter. William Godwin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.
Monro, D. H. Godwin's Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953.
Pollin, Burton R. Education and Enlightenment in the Works of William Godwin. New York: Las
Americas Publishing Company, 1962.
-----. Godwin Criticism: A synoptic bibliography. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967.
Stafford, W. "Dissenting Religion Translated into Politics: Godwin's Political Justice." History
of Political Thought 1 (1980): 279-99.
Woodcock, George. William Godwin: a biographical study. Montreal; New York: Black Rose
Books, 1989.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
John Stuart Mill has been considered by many as being the most influential English-speaking
philosopher of the nineteenth century. His far-reaching works on political theory, human rights,
and moral behavior provide substantial evidence of such an opinion. He wrote less on religion,
but much of his writing on other subjects led his contemporaries to assume his status as an
unbeliever, especially the utilitarian moral philosophy for which he is most fondly remembered.
Mill was raised apart from any religious training during his childhood and youth. He then wrote
little publically about religion out of fear it would distract from the public acceptance of his other
writings. His essays on religion were published posthumously, and revealed his favoring a
utilitarian approach to religion. Religion had a certain social utility because of its ability to
inculcate a widely accepted moral code. At the same time he had concluded that belief in God
and the supernatural was no longer useful and might have actually become detrimental. In his
last essay on “Theism,” he left a slim opening for the possibility that God existed, but, in the end,
surrounded that possibility with so many observations about any evidence of his handiwork and
to negate any hope for God’s having a role in human life.
Primary Sources
Mill’s major writings are currently in print in a variety of editions, and the text of most are
available online.
Mill, John Stuart. Mill, J. S., Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Ed. by J. M. Robson, Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1963- .
-----. Essential Works of John Stuart Mill. New York: Bamtam, 1965. 431 pp.
-----. Nature and Utility of Religion. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill 1958. 80 pp.
-----. Three Essays on Religion: Nature, the Utility of Religion and Theism. London: Watts & Co.
for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited, 1904. 112 p. Rpt.: Amherst, NY: Prometheus
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Berger, F. R. Happiness, Justice and Freedom: The Moral and Political Philosophy of John
Stuart Mill. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
Britton, K. John Stuart Mill. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1953.
Brodbeck, M. “Methodological Individualisms: Definition and Reduction.” in M. Brodbeck, ed.,
Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, New York: Macmillan, 1968, pp. 280-303.
Bromwich, D., and G. Kateb, eds. John Stuart Mill on Liberty. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2003.
Carr, R. “The Religious Thought of John Stuart Mill: A Study in Religious Scepticism,” Journal
of the History of Ideas, 23 (1962): 475-95.
Courtney, W. L. The Metaphysics of John Stuart Mill. London: Kegan Paul, 1879.
Di Stefano, Christine. “Rereading J. S. Mill: Interpolations from the (M)Otherworld.” In M. S.
Barr and R. Feldstein, eds. Disconnected Discourses: Feminism/Textual
Intervention/Psychoanalysis. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1989, pp. 160-172.
Donner, W. “John Stuart Mill's Liberal Feminism.” Philosophical Studies, 69 (1993): 155-66.
Donner, W. The Liberal Self: John Stuart Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1991.
Donner, W., and R. Fumerton. “John Stuart Mill.” In S. M. Emmanuel, ed. The Blackwell Guide
to Modern Philosophers, from Descartes to Nietzsche. Oxford: Blackwell 2001, pp.343-369.
Douglas, C. M. John Stuart Mill: A Study of His Philosophy. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1895.
Duncan, G. Marx and Mill: Two Views of Social Conflict and Social Harmony. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1973
Gilbert, Margaret. On Social Facts. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Green, Michelle. “Sympathy and Self-Interest: The Crisis in Mill's Mental History.” Utilitas 1
(1989): 259-277.
Griffen, J. Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement and Moral Importance. Oxford: Oxford
Halevy, E. The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism. Trans. by M. Morris. London: Faber and
Faber, 1934.
Holyoake, George Jacob. John Stuart Mill: as some of the working classes knew him. London:
Trubner & Co. 1873. 29 pp.
Jacobs, S. Science and British Liberalism: Locke, Bentham, Mill and Popper. Avebury:
Aldershot, 1991.
Letwin, Shirley. The Pursuit of Certainty: David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill,
Beatrice Webb. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.
Lipkes, Jeff. Politics, Religion and Classical Political Economy in Britain: John Stuart Mill and
His Followers. College Park, MD: Delmar Publishers, 1998. 228 pp.
Okin, S. Women in Western Political Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1979.
Pappe, H. O. John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor. Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press,
1960.
Plamenatz, J. The English Utilitarians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949.
Popper, K. The Open Society and Its Enemies. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1950.
Raeder, Linda C. John Stuart Mill and the Religion of Humanity. Columbia, MO: University of
Missouri Press 2002. 402 pp.
Reaves, Richard. John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand. London: Atlantic Books, 2009. 544 pp.
Rossi, Alice, ed., John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, Essays on Sex Equality. Chicago:
Ryan, A. J. S. Mill. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974.
Scarre, G. Logic and Reality in the Philosophy of John Stuart Mill. Dordrecht, The Netherlands:
Kluwer, 1989.
Schneewind, J. B., ed. Mill: A Collection of Critical Essays. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968.
Skorupski, J. John Stuart Mill. London: Routledge, 1989.
-----, ed. The Cambridge Companion to John Stuart Mill, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998.
Stephen, Leslie. English Utilitarians. 3 vols. London: Duckworth, 1900.
West, Henry R., ed. The Blackwell Guide to Mill's Utilitarianism. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
Whewell, W. History of the Inductive Sciences. 3 vols., London: J. Parker, 1837.
Wilson, F. “Mill and Comte on the Method of Introspection.” Journal of the History of
Behavioral Science 27 (1991): 107-129.
Richard Carlile (1790-1843)
Atheist publisher Richard Carlile began his adult life as a tinsmith in London. He became
politically active and began to publish and distribute the writings of people who called for the
reform of Parliament, including Thomas Paine, initially as a way of supplementing his income.
In 1817 he formed a small publishing house, and a month later published a book parodying the
Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer whose author had been arrested. He was himself
briefly arrested for his publishing the work. He also purchased the journal Sherwin’s Political
Register, which supported political reform and found support from sympathetic voices such as
Percy Shelley and Lord Byron.
Carlile was arrested for blasphemy (and several related charges), in part for publishing Paine’s
Age of Reason. In 1819 he was found guilty and sentenced to three years in jail. While there, he
completed his transition to atheism and in 1821 he published his Address to Men of Science.
That same year, his wife Jane and her sister Mary were also arrested and sentenced to prison
sentences. More than 150 people associated with him were also arrested in a general suppression
of his work.
Once able he resumed his publishing and championed a variety of causes including the equality
and liberation [sexual and otherwise] of women.
Toward the end of the decade, now free from prison, Carlile became associated with one Rev.
Robert Taylor who opened a center called the Rotunda that became a gathering place for both
political reformers and politicians. Taylor published a satirical publication The Devil’s Pulpit, the
issues of which reprinted sermons he had delivered attacking church.
Carlile was arrested again for his political radicalism. This last imprisonment bankrupted him
and he was unable to resume his publications. He died a decade later in poverty and obscurity.
Primary Sources
Carlile, Richard. An Address to Men of Science. London: Printed and published by R. Carlile,
1821. 48 pp.
-----. The Deist, or, Moral Philosopher. Being an impartial inquiry after moral & theological
truths: selected from the writings of the most celebrated authors in ancient and modern times. 2
vols. London: printed & published by R. Carlile, 1819, 1820.
-----. The Life of Thomas Paine: written purposely to bind with his writings. London: Printed and
published by R. Carlile, 1821. 28 pp.
-----. Manual Of Freemasonry: In Three Parts. With an Explanatory Introduction to the Science
and a Free Translation of Some of the Sacred Scripture Names. London: Richard Carlile, 1858 .
331 pp.
Carlile, Richard, and Michael L. Bush. What Is Love?: Richard Carlile's Philosophy of Sex.
London: Verso, 1998, 214 pp.
Secondary Sources
Aldred, Guy Alfred. Richard Carlile, Agitator: His life and times. London: The Pioneer Press,
1923. Rpt.: Glasgow: Strickland Press, 1941. 160 pp.
-----. Richard Carlile: His Battle for a Free Press: How Defiance Defeated Government
Terrorism. London: The Bakunin Press, 1912. 39 pp.
Alfred, Guy A. The Devil’s Chaplain: The Story of the Rev. Robert Taylor, M. A,, M.R.C.S.
(1784-1834). Glasgow: Strickland Press, 1945.
Calder-Marshall, Arthur. Lewd, Blasphemous, and Obscene: Being the Trials and Tribluations of
Sundry Founding Fathers of today's alternative Societies Most Notably: William Hone; Richard
Carlile; George Jacob Holyoak; & George William Foote. London: Hutchinson, 1972. 248 pp.
Campbell. Theophilia Carlile. The Battle of the Press, as Told in the Story of the Life of Richard
Carlile. London: A. & H. B. Bonner, 1899. 319 pp.
Cole, G. D. H. Richard Carlile 1790-1843. London: Victor Gollancz & The Fabian Society, n.d.
37 pp.
Fenton, S. J. “Richard Carlile: His Life and Masonic Writings.” Ars Quatuor Caranatorum 49
(1952): 83-121.
Holyoake, George Jacob. The Life and Character of Richard Carlisle. London: J. Watson, 1849.
40 pp.
McLaren, Angus. “George Jacob Holyoake and the Secular Society: British Popular
Freethought., 1951-1958.” Canadian Journal of History 7 (December 1970): 235-51.
Nott, John William. The Artisan as Agitator: Richard Carlile, 1816-1843. Madison, WI:
University of Wisconsin, Ph.D. dissertation, 1970. 277 pp.
Prescott, Andrew. “'The Devil's Freemason': Richard Carlile and his Manual of Freemasonry.” A
lecture presented to the Sheffield Masonic Study Circle, 2000. View online
Standring, George. Richard Carlile: a brief sketch of his public life. London: E. Truelove, n.d. 8
pp.
Wiener, Joel H. Radicalism and Free-thought in Nineteenth-century Britain: Life of Richard
Carlile. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983. 285 pp.
George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906) and Austin Holyoake (1827-1874)
George Jacob Holyoake was a British unbeliever who coined the term "secularism," which
became a popular alternative self-designation for atheists in Victorian England. He became
associated with journalist Charles Southwell (1814-1860) with whom he shared an interest in
Robert Owen’s utopianism. Southwell founded an atheist journal, The Oracle of Reason, and
when he was arrested, Holyoake picked up the editor’s role.
Holyoake lectured widely and wrote a number of shorter works published as pamphlets.
Following a lecture in 1842 in Cheltenham, he was arrested and convicted of blasphemy. As it
turned out, this conviction was the last in England for blasphemy (though not the last trial).
The Oracle ceased publication at the end of 1843, and Holyoake subsequently founded a new
periodical, The Movement, which took a less extreme position and centered more on the
promotion of communalism. It would later be superseded by the Reasoner.
George Jacob’s brother Austin was also active in the Freethought movement and for a period
worked with Charles Bradlaugh, who founded the National Secular Society.
For a more detailed bibliography on the Holyoake brothers, see the “National Co-operative
Archive: George Jacob Holyoake Collection,” posted at: http://www.co-op.ac.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2010/08/gjHolyoake.pdf.
Primary Sources
Holyoake, Austin. Thoughts on Atheism, or, Can Man by Searching Find Out God? London:
Watts & Co., n.d. 8 pp.
-----. Sixty Years of an Agitator’s Life. 2 vols. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1892.
-----, and Charles Watts, eds. The Secularist's Manual of Songs and Ceremonies. London: Austin
& Co., n.d, 128 pp.
Holyoake, George Jacob. The Co-operative Movement Today. London: Methuen & Co., 1891.
5th ed.: 1912. 198 pp.
-----. English Secularism: A Confession of Belief. Chicago: Open Court, 1896.
-----. Excluded Evidence on the Ground of Speculative Opinion. London: London Book Store,
1865. 16 pp.
-----. The History of Co-operation. 2 vols. London: T Fisher & Unwin. 1906. 691 pp.
-----. John Stuart Mill: as some of the working classes knew him. London: Trubner & Co. 1873.
29 pp.
-----. The Last Trial for Atheism in England: a fragment of autobiography. 4th rev. ed. London:
Trubner & Co. 1871. 124 pp.
-----. Lectures and Debates: their terms conditions and character. N.p.: The Author, 1851. 8 pp.
-----. The Life and Character of Richard Carlisle. London: J. Watson, 1849. 40 pp.
-----. Life and Character of Henry Hetherington. London: 1849.
-----. Life and Last Days of Robert Owen of New Lanark. London: Holyoake & Co., 1859. 28 pp.
-----. The Limits of Atheism. Or why should sceptics be outlaws? J. A. Brook, 1874. 16 pp.
-----. The Logic of Death, or why should the atheist fear to die? London: Austin & Co., 1870. 16
pp.
-----. A Logic of Facts: or plain hints on reasoning. London: Watson. 1848. 92 pp.
-----. The Logic of Life: deduced from the principle of freethought. London: Austin & Co., 1870.
16 pp.
-----. The Principles of Secularism. 3rd rev. ed. London: Austin & Co., 1870. 50 pp.
-----. Rationalism: a treatise for the times. London: J. Watson, 1845. 47pp.
-----. Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1893.
-----. The Spirit of Bonner in the Disciples of Jesus: or the cruelty and intolerance of
Christianity. 2nd ed. Hetherington, 1843. 16pp.
-----. The Trial of Theism: Accused of Obstructing Secular Life. London: Holyoake & Co., 1858.
176pp.
-----. The Uselessness of Prayer. Austin & Co., 1860. 2pp. (Secular Tracts No. 5)
-----, and Charles Bradlaugh. Secularism, Scepticism and Atheism: . . . two night's public debate.
London: Austin & Co., 1870. 78 pp.
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Blaszak, Barbara J. George Jacob Holyoake: an attitudinal study. Albany, NY: State University
of New York, Ph.D. dissertation, 1978. 341 pp
-----. George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906) and the Development of the British Cooperative
Movement. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. 1988. 120pp.
Collet, Sophia Dobson. George Jacob Holyoake and Modern Atheism. A biographical and
critical essay. London: Trübner & Co., 1855.
-----. Phases of Atheism: described, examined and answered. London : Holyoake, 1860.
Grugel, Lee E. George Jacob Holyoake: A Study in the Evolution of a Victorian Radical.
Philadelphia: Porcupine Press, 1976. 189 pp.
McCabe, Joseph. George Jacob Holyoake. London: Watts & Co. 1922. 120pp.
-----. Life and Letters of George Jacob Holyoake. 2 vols. London: Watts & Co. 1908.
Micklewright, Frederick Henmry Amphlett. “The Local History of Victorian Secularism.” Local
Historian 8 (1969): 222-7.
Royle, Edward. George Jacob Holyoake and the Secularist Movement in Britain 1841-1861.
Cambridge: Cambridge University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1968. 411 pp.
-----. The Infidel Tradition from Paine to Bradlaugh. London: Macmillan, 1976. 228 pp.
Smith, Francis Barrymore. “The Atheist Mission, 1840-1900.” In Robert Robson, ed. Ideas and
Institutions of Victorian Britain. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1967, pp. 205-35.
The Agnostic Tradition
The term “agnosticism” was coined by Professor Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) in the
1860s. It has come to be used to denote on a personal level a position of indecision relative to the
existence of god and on a social level as an assertion of the impossibility of reaching a
conclusion. Many atheists have seen it as a way of assuming an atheist position while trying to
avoid the social stigma that can come from making the final leap to full-blown atheism. For
Huxley, agnosticism appeared to be a utilitarian position that provided a useful perspective to
carry on discussions and debates on a variety of issues, but especially evolution and scientific
methodology. He notably offered as a definition of agnosticism in an oft-quoted essay on the
subject:
Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the vigorous application of
a single principle . . . Positively the principle may be expressed as in matters of intellect, do not
pretend conclusions are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable.
He elaborated on this point by suggesting that one erred in professing certainty of the objective
truth of a proposition apart from providing evidence that logically justifies such a level that of
certainty. From this beginning, agnostics and the idea of agnosticism have become an essential
element of the tradition of Unbelief. Such notables as Robert G. Ingersoll and H. K. Mencken
described themselves as agnostics.
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Adams, R. N. “T. H. Huxley and His Clan.” Scientific American 219 (1968): 135-39.
Allen, D. E. The Naturalist in Britain: A Social History. London: Penguin, 1978. 312 pp.
Annas, J., and J. Barnes, eds. Outlines of Scepticism: Sextus Empiricus. Cambridge: Cambridge
Armstrong, Richard A. Agnosticism and Theism in the Nineteenth Century: An Historical
Survey of Religious Thought. London: Philip Green, 1905. 207 pp.
Barr, Alan P., ed. Thomas Henry Huxley’s Place in Science and Letters. Centenary Essays.
Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1997.
Bibby, Cyril. Scientist Extraordinary: The Life and Scientific Work of Thomas Henry Huxley.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972.
Block, Ed., Jr. “T. H. Huxley's Rhetoric and the Popularization of Victorian Scientific Ideas,
1854-1874.” Victorian Studies 29 (Spring 1986): 363-86.
Budd, Susan Varieties of Unbelief: Atheists and Agnostics in English Society, 1850-1960.
London: Heinemann, 1977.
Chorley, Lady Katherine. “Victorian Agnostics and Wordworth.” Month 11 (April 1954): 207221.
Churchill, R. C. English Literature and the Agnostic. London: Watts 1940.
Clausen, Christopher. “Agnosticism, Religion, and Science: Some Unexamined Implications.”
Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association 30 (1976): 73-86.
1864.
Cohen, Chapman. Agnosticism or . . .? London: The Pioneer Press, n.d. 16 pp.
Creaven, Sean. “Materialism, Agnosticism and God.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour
31, 4 (2001): 419–448.
Crowe, M. B. “Huxley and Humanism.” Studies 49 (Autumn 1960): 249-60.
Dawson, Warren R. The Huxley Papers: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Correspondence,
Manuscripts and Miscellaneous Papers of the Rt. Hon. Thomas Henry Huxley. London: Imperial
College of Science and Technology, 1946.
Desmond, Adrian. Huxley: From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest. London: Penguin,
1998.
DiGregorio, Mario A. T. H. Huxley's Place in Natural Science. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1984.
Dockrill, D. W. “The Origin and Development of Nineteenth Century English Agnosticism.”
Historical Journal l, 4 (1971): 3-31.
-----. “T. H. Huxley and the Meaning of ‘Agnosticism.’" Theology 74 (1971): 461-77.
Fabro, C. God in Exile: Modern Atheism. A Study of the Internal Dynamic of Modern Atheism,
from its Roots in the Cartesian Cogito to the Present Day. Westminster, MD: Newman Press
1968.
Flint, Robert. Agnosticism. Edinburgh-London: W. Blackwood, 1903. Rpt. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1903. 628 pp. View online
-----. Anti-Theistic Theories. London: William Blackwood and Sons,1899.
Foote, G. W. What Is Agnosticism? With observations on Huxley, Bradlaugh, and Ingersoll, and
a reply to George Jacob Holyoake; also a defense of atheism. London: 1902.
Forester, George. The Faith of an Agnostic or First Essays in Rationalism. London: Watts & Co.,
1902.
Hallam, George. “Source of the Word ‘Agnostic.’” Modern Language Notes 70 (April 1955),
265-69.
Helmstadter, Richard J., and Bernard Lightman, eds. Victorian Faith in Crisis: Essays on
Continuity and Change in Nineteenth-Century Religious Belief. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
Hudson, Thomson Jay. The Divine Pedigree of Man, or the Testimony of Evolution and
Psychology to the Fatherhood of God. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1907. 379 pp. Includes a
chapter later reprinted as a pamphlet on agnosticism.
Humphrys, John. In God We Doubt: Confessions Of An Angry Agnostic. London: Hodder &
Stoughton 2008.
Huxley, Julian. “Thomas Henry Huxley and Religion.” In Essays in Popular Science, London:
Chatto and Windus, 1933, pp. 137-62.
Huxley, Leonard, ed. The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. 2 vols. New York: D.
Appleton and Co., 1900.
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NY:1921.
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Conflict between Science and Theology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, Ph.D.
dissertation, 1959.
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232 pp.
Le Poidevin, Robin. Agnosticism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2010. 134 pp.
Lightman, Bernard. “’Fighting Even With Death’: Balfour, Scientific Naturalism, and Thomas
Henry Huxley’s Final Battle.” In Alan Barr, ed. T. H. Huxley’s Place in Science and Letters:
Centenary Essays. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997, pp. 323-350.*
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1 (1984): 45-64.
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Paul Wood, ed. Science and Dissent in England, 1688-1945. Aldershot, Hampshire, UK:
Ashgate, 2004, pp. 197-214.
-----. The Origins of Agnosticism: Victorian Unbelief and the Limits of Knowledge. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. 249 pp.
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(1983): 150-163).
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Unknowable, Preceded By a History of Agnosticism. New York: Christian Press Association
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McCabe, Joseph. Freethought and Agnosticism: Lies and Confusion in Conventional Literature
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Pingree, Jeanne. T. H. Huxley: A List of His Scientific Papers. London: Imperial College of
Science and Technology 1968.
-----. Thomas Henry Huxley: List of His Correspondence with Miss Henrietta Heathorn, 18471854. London: Imperial College of Science and Technology 1969.
Popkin, R. H. The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1979.
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2002.
-----, and C. B. Schmitt, eds., Scepticism from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 1987.
Porpora, Douglas V. “Methodological Atheism, Methodological Agnosticism and Religious
Experience.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 36, 1 (2006): 57–75.
Pyle, Andrew, ed. Agnosticism: Contemporary Responses to Spencer and Huxley. Bristol:
Thoemmes, 1995.
Reed, Thomas McHugh. “Christianity and Agnosticism.” International Journal for Philosophy
of Religion 52, 2 (2002): 81-95.
Rosenkranz, Sven. “Agnosticism as a Third Stance.” Mind 116, 461 (2007): 55-104.
Schurman, Jacob G. Agnosticism and Religion. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1896. 190
pp.
Spencer, Herbert. First Principles. London: Williams and Norgate, 1862.
Stenerson, Douglas C. H. L. Mencken: Iconoclast from Baltimore. Chicago: University of
Steven, Leslie. An Agnostic's Apology and Other Essays. London: Watts, 1937. 231 pp.
Victorian England. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Pres, 1974.
Wall, James Kirk. To Be an Agnostic: An Agnostic Approach to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2009. 176 pp.
Ward, James, Naturalism and Agnosticism. 2 vols. New York Macmillan Company, 1899.
White, Paul. Thomas Huxley: Making the "Man of Science." Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891) and the National Secular Society
Political activist Charles Bradlaugh was the most outstanding of the late-nineteenth century
Freethinkers. Born in London, he was raised as an Anglican. He left the church as a teenager and
was was thrown out of the family home. He lived for a time with Elizabeth Sharples Carlile, the
widow of Richard Carlile, and soon came to know George Jacob Holyoake, who coined the tern
secularism. He was but 17 when he authored his first publication representing his new
Freethought position, A Few Words on the Christian Creed.
After a stint in the army, Bradlaugh settled in London in 1853 and began to write under the
pseudonym "Iconoclast." He became president of the London Secular Society in 1858 and twoyear later editor of the National Reformer. In 1866 he co-founded the National Secular Society,
which would soon become the leading Freethought organization in England. He also came to
know Annie Besant, the former wife of an Anglican minister with whom he worked closely for
many years. Together they opposed blasphemy laws and worked for freedom of speech on birth
control issues. The pair was tried for obscenity in 1877. Though convicted, they escaped
imprisonment.
In 1880, Bradlaugh was elected a Member of Parliament for Northampton, his election setting
off an eight-year period of debates and actions challenging the religious nature of the oath for
taking office. A new Oaths Act was finally passed which responded to Bradlaugh’s challenge.
He is today memorialized by celebrations on his birthday, a statue in Northampton, and
Bradlaugh Hall at the University of Northampton.
A prolific writer, Bradlaugh wrote numerous pamphlets and articles. These have been the subject
of many anthologies and collected works. Also, many of his writings are now available online,
especially at http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_bradlaugh/.
Primary Sources
Bradlaugh, Charles. Debates and Essays-a Bound Collection of 13 Core Bradlaugh Pamphlets
and Tracts Incl. 'is It Reasonable to Worship God', 'Christian Theism' and 'Christian Evidences.'
London: Freethought Publishing Company [1880-1900].
-----. Essays on Freethought and Allied Subjects. A bound collection of 14 pamphlets and tracts
including Evolutionary Ethics, Foreign Missions, Woman and Christianity, and Pioneer Leaflets.
London; Freethought Publishing Company [1882-1890].
-----. A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and Essays. New York: A.
K. Butts & Co., 1874.
-----. Hall of Science Thursday Lectures. London: Freethought Publishing Co., 1882.
Includes Bradlaugh lectures on Anthropology, as well as Annie Besant and Hypatia Bradlaugh’s
lectures on the physiology and chemistry of the home, and Edward Aveling’s lectures on
Shakespeare.
-----. Humanity’s Gain from Unbelief and Other Selections from the Works of Charles
Bradlaugh. Ed. by Hypathia Bradlaugh Bonner. London, Great Britain: Watts & Co, 1932.
148pp. The Thinker's Library #4.
-----. A Plea for Atheism. London: Austin & Co., London, [1864]. 23 pp.
-----. A Selection of the Political Pamphlets of Charles Bradlaugh. Ed. By J. Saville. New York:
Kelley, 1970.
Grant, Brewin, and Charles Bradlaugh. Discussion on Atheism: Report of a Public Discussion
Between the Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., and Charles Bradlaugh. London: Henry Hodge, 1875. 255
pp.
Secondary Works
Arnstein, Walter L. The Bradlaugh Case: a Study in Late Victorian Opinion and Politics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965. 2nd ed. as: The Bradlaugh Case: Atheism, Sex and
Politics Among the Late Victorians, Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1983.
Besant, Annie. Charles Bradlaugh: a sketch of his life and work. San Francisco: The Reader's
Library, 1891. 39 p. The Reader's Library Vol. 1, no. 1. Posted at
http://www.archive.org/details/charlesbradlaugh00besarich.
Bonner, Hypathia Bradlaugh. Charles Bradlaugh: A Record of his Life and Work. With an
Account of his Parliamentary Struggle, Politics and Teachings by John M. Robertson, M.P. 2
vols. 1894. Rpt. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908.
-----. “Charles Bradlaugh as a Freemason.” Notes and Queries 166 (May 26, 1934): 370; (June 9,
1934): 411-12.
Chandrasekhar, Aripati. A Dirty Filthy Book: The Writings of Charles Knowlton and Annie
Besant on Reproductive Physiology and Birth Control and an Account of the Bradlaugh-Besant
Trial. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981. 232 pp.
1964.
Courtney, James E. Freethinkers of the Nineteenth Century. London: Chapman & Hall, 1920.
Davies, Charles Maurice. Heterodox London: or, Phases of Free Thought in the Metropolis.
London: Tinsley Brothers, 1974. 386 pp.
Foote, George William. Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh. 1891. Rpt.: Whitefish, MT:
Kessinger Publishing, 2010. 37 pp.
Gilmour, James, ed. Charles Bradlaugh: Champion of Liberty. London: C. A. Watts, 1933. 346
pp. (A collection of works by Bradlaugh with a variety of appreciations written for the
centennial of his birth.)
Headingley, Adolphe S. The Biography of Charles Bradlaugh. Remington & Co.. 1880. London:
Freethought Publishing Company, 1883. 212 pp. Rpt.: Kessinger Publishing, 2004. 212 pp.
Herrick, Jim. Vision and Reform: the Freethinker 1881 to 1981. London: G. W. Foote, 1982.
Holyoake, George J. and Charles Bradlaugh. Secularism. Scepticism and Atheism (a two-night
public debate). London: Austin, 1870.
Ilardo, J. A. “Charles Bradlaugh: Victorian Atheist Reformer.” Today’s Speech: Journal of the
Speech Association of the Eastern States 17 (November 1969) 25-34.
Krantz, Charles Krzentowski. The British Secularist Movement: A Study of Militant Dissent.
Rochester, NY: University of Rochester, Ph.D. dissertation, 9164.
McCann, James, and Charles Bradlaugh. Secularism: unphilosophical, immoral, and anti-social:
verbatim report of a three nights' debate between the Rev. Dr. McCann and Charles Bradlaugh,
in the Hall of Science, London, on December 7th, 14th, and 21st, 1881. 1881. Rpt.: Pranava
Books, New. 2008.
McGee, John Edwin. A History of the British Secular Movement. Girard, Kans.: Haldeman-Julius
Publications, 1948.
Mackay, Charles R. Life of Charles Bradlaugh, M. P.
D. J. Gunn & Co., 1888.
Manvell, Roger. The Trial of Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. New York: Horizon Press,
1976. 182 pp.
Nelson, Walter D. British Rational Secularism: Unbelief from Bradlaugh to the Mid-twentieth
Century. Seattle, WA: University of Washington, Ph.D. dissertation, 1963.
Royle, Edward, ed. The Infidel Tradition from Paine to Bradlaugh. London: MacMillan Press
Ltd, 1976.
-----. Radical Politics, 1790-1900: Religion and Unbelief. London: Longman. 1971.
-----. Radicals, Secularists, and Republicans: Popular Freethought in Britain, 18661915. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980.
-----. Victorian Infidels: The Origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791-1866. Manchester:
University of Manchester Press, 1974.
Steele, Michael Rhoads. Secularist Literature of Victorian England: 1870-1880. East Lansing,
MI: Michigan State University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1975.
Tribe, David H. 100 Years of Freethought. London: Elek Books, 1967.
-----. President Charles Bradlaugh, M.P. London: Elek, 1971.
Tribe was the president of the National Secular Society and editor of The Freethinker.
-----. “Secular Centenary.” Contemporary Review 209 (1966): 200-205.
Watson, John Gillard. “From Secularism to Humanism: An Aspect of Victorian Thought.”
Hibbert Journal 60 (January 1962): 133-40.
Weiner, Joel H. Radicalism and Freethought in Victorian Britain. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1983.
West, Geoffrey. The Life of Annie Besant. London: Gerald Howe. 1929. 295pp.
White, A. Gowans. “Victorian Rationalism and Religion.” Rationalist Annual (1949): 81-88.
Annie Besant
Annie Besant, one of the most controversial figures in the history of Freethought, was the wife of
an Anglican clergyman, who lost her faith and became an atheist. Following her separation from
her husband, she became associated with Charles Bradlaugh, and with her oratorical skills,
became one of the most popular public advocates of atheism, the promotion of the status and role
of women, and the end of blasphemy (and obscenity) laws. Many of her lectures were
transcribed and published as pamphlets.
The most controversial action came at the end of the 1880s when she developed a relationship
with Helena P. Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society, she eventually left her
position with the National Secular Society to head the Esoteri Section of the Theosophical
Society and then to succeed Henry Steel Olcott as the society’s international president. She
would hold that post for more than a quarter of a century.
Besant’s action in becoming a theosophist was seen by many atheists as a betrayal and a sharp
break with her life as a secularist. Many contemporary writers simple leave her out of the history
as much as possible. Others, however, have seen her move to Theosophy as a less radical move,
that maintained much continuity with the Freethought. In the nineteenth century a convergence
of Unbelief and Esotericism existed as both struggled with the power of the churches and
traditional theology. Both movements shared roots in the Deist thinking of the previous century.
Also, as a theosophist, Besant continued many of the causes she had championed as a secularist,
especially the work for the upward mobility of women, and further broadened her social
consciousness.
The references below are selected from Besant’s many relevant works with an emphasis on her
years as an atheist working with Bradlaugh. Several collections covering these years now exist
and make the more representative publications readily available. Many of the works were
originally published anonymously. For a more complete bibliography, covering the atheist years
as well as the other phases of Besant’s life and work, see Kurt Leland’s “The Annie Besant
Shrine: A Bibliography of Annie Besant (1847-1933)” posted at
http://www.kurtleland.com/annie-besant-shrine.
Collected Works
-----. The Origins of Theosophy: Annie Besant--The Atheist Years. Comp. by J. Gordon Melton.
New York, NY: Garland Publishing 1990.
Includes 13 Secular and Freethought pamphlets: 1) The Gospel of Christianity and the Gospel of
Freethought; 2) The Christian Creed; 3) The World without God; 4) The Jesus of the Gospels; 5)
The World and Its Gods; 6) Life, Death, and Immortality; 7) Biblical Biology; 8) A Burden on
Labor; 9) A Creature of Crown and Parliament; 10) Why I Do Not Believe in God; 11) The
Teachings of Christianity; 12) The Fruits of Christianity; 13) Christian Progress.
-----. My Path to Atheism. London: T. Scott, 1877. 3rd edition: 1885
A collection of pamphlets Including: 1) On the Deity of Jesus of Nazareth; 2) A Comparison
between the Fourth Gospel and the Three Synoptics; 3) On the Atonement; 4) On the Mediation
and Salvation of Ecclesiastical Christianity; 5) On Eternal Torture; 6) On Inspiration; 7) On the
Religious Education of Children; 8) Natural Religion versus Revealed Religion; 9) On the
Nature and the Existence of God; 10) Euthanasia; 11) On Prayer; 12) Constructive Rationalism;
13) The Beauties of the Prayer-Book, pt. I; 14) The Beauties of the Prayer-Book, pt. II; 15) The
Beauties of the Prayer-Book, pt. III; 16) The Church of England Catechism.
-----. A Selection of the Social and Political Pamphlets of Annie Besant. Ed. by J. Saville. New
York: Kelley, 1970.
Single titles
Besant, Annie. Annie Besant: An Autobiography. London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1893. 368pp.
Frequently reprinted.
-----. Blasphemy. London: Freethought Publishing Company, 1882.
-----. The Christian Creed; or, What It Is Blasphemy to Deny. London: Freethought Publishing
Company, 1884.
-----. Civil and Religious Liberty: With Some Hints Taken from the French Revolution. Lecture.
London: C. Watts, 1874.
-----. Constructive Rationalism. London. T. Scott, 1975.
-----. The Freethinker’s Text-Book. Part 2: Christianity, Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality,
Its History. London: Freethought Publishing Company, 1876.
-----. The Gospel of Christianity, and the Gospel of Freethought. London: C. Watts, 1877.
-----. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. London: C. Watts, 1874.
-----. Natural Religion versus Revealed Religion. London: T. Scott, 1874.
[-----]. On the Deity of Jesus of Nazareth. An Enquiry into the Nature of Jesus by an
Examination of the Synoptic Gospels. By the Wife of a Beneficed Clergyman [Annie Besant].
Ed. by Rev. Charles Voysey. London: T. Scott, 1873. One of Besant’s first works.
[-----].On the Mediation and Salvation of Ecclesiastical Christianity. London: T. Scott, 1975.
-----. On the Nature and Existence of God. London: T. Scott, 1875.
-----. “Why I Became a Theosophist.” 2 parts. Lucifer 4 (August 1889): 448ff.; 5 (September
1889): 47ff.
Secondary Sources
Besterman, Theodore. A Bibliography of Annie Besant. Theosophical Society. 1924. 114pp.
-----. Mrs Annie Besant: A Modern Prophet. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd..
1934.
Manvell, Roger. The Trial of Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. London: Elek, 1976. 182
pp. Rpt.: New York: Horizon Press 1976. 182 pp.
Nethercott, A. H. The First Five Lives of Annie Besant. London: Rupert Hart Davis, 1961.
Oppenheim, Janet. "The Odyssey of Annie Besant." History Today 39 (September 1989): 12.
Taylor, Anne. Annie Besant: A Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. 383 pp. (also
US edition 1992
Williams, Gertrude Marvin. The Passionate Pilgrim: A Life of Annie Besant. New York, NY:
Coward-McCann. 1931. 382pp.
Twentieth-Century Humanism and Atheism in England
Having been freed from persecution for blasphemy, atheism and its related perspectives
blossomed through the twentieth century. A number of prominent philosophers who espoused
atheism emerged, as did a spectrum of popular writers. The National Secular Society continues
as a leading Atheist organization and it has been joined by the Ethical Culture movement and
humanst groups to present a complete spectrum of perspectives to the public.
During the last half of the nineteenth century, a number of social theorists from Karl Marx to
Émile Durkheim had suggested that the modernization of society coincide with a decline in
religious belief and practice, a theory that also coincided with their own preference for a secular
society. That view settled within the social and psychological sciences and found it greatest
verification in the declining support for established churches, especially in England and France.
England has been home to a number of notable advocates of atheism and its related perspectives.
Included would be philosophers Bertrand Russell, (1872–1970), A. J. Ayer (1910–1989), Karl
Popper (1902-1994), and Peter Lipton (1954–2007). Still active are Simon Blackburn (1944- )
and A. C. Grayling (1949- ), Robin Le Poidevin (b.1962), Michael Palmer (b.1945), Julian
Baggini (b. 1968).
As the twentieth century began, the Unbelief community in England was focused on the National
Secular Society, the Leicester Secular Society, the South Place Ethical Society, the Union of
Ethical Societies, and the Rational Press Association. The National Secular Society remains the
most prominent and has included a string of outstanding presidents through the twentieth century
including G. W. Foote, editor of The Freethinker, Chapman Cohen (president for more than three
decades, 1915-1949), David Tribe, and Barbara Smoker. Smoker is also an honorary vice
president of the recently formed Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association.
The Union of Ethical Societies moved away from Ethical Culture and its religious associations
toward a secular humanist stance and in 1967 changed it name to British Humanist Association.
Among its outstanding presidents were philosopher A. J. Ayer and biologist Julian Huxley.
Huxley, who at various times described himself as a humanist, religious naturalist, and agnostic,
actively participated in various British atheist groups. He was an Honorary Associate of the
Rationalist Press Association and the first president of the British Humanist Association, and
presided over the founding Congress of the International Humanist and Ethical Union
Biologist Richard Dawkins currently serves as one of the British Humanist Association’s vicepresidents. Though now most popular in the United States, the new “Neo-Atheist” movement
which emerged around his writings, had its origin in England in the middle of the first decade of
the twenty-first century (and is covered in the Contemporary Perspectives section of this
bibliography).
Sources
Avrich, Paul. The Modern School Movement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Ayer, A. J. The Concept of a Person and Other Essays, London: Macmillan, 1963.
-----. The Humanist Outlook. London: Pemberton, 1968.
-----. Metaphysics and Common Sense. London: Macmillan, 1969.
-----. More of My Life. London: Collins, 1984.
-----. Part of My Life. London: Collins, 1977.
-----. Philosophical Essays. London: Macmillan, 1954.
Ayer, A. J. “What I Believe.” Humanist 81, 8 (1966): 226-228.
Baggini, Julian. Atheism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
136 pp.
Blackburn, Simon. Being Good: a Short Introduction to Ethics. London: Oxford University
Press, 2001. 176 pp.
-----. How To Read Hume. London: Granta Books, 20009. 128 pp.
-----. Truth: a Guide. London: Oxford University Press, 2005. 238 pp.
Blackham, H. J. The Human Tradition. Boston: Beacon Press, 1953. 252 pp.
-----. Humanism. London: Penguin, 1968.
-----. “Modern Humanism.” Journal of World History/Cahiers D’Histoire Mondiale III (1964):
5, 101-20.
-----. Objections to Humanism. Westprot, CT: Greenwood Press. 1974.
-----, and Harold Loukes. Humanists and Quakers: An Exchange of Letters. London: Friends
Home Service Committee, 1969.
Bridges, Horace J., Stanton Coit, G. E. O'Dell, and Harry Snell. The Ethical Movement: Its
Principles and Aims. London: Union of Ethical Societies, 1912. 138 pp.
Brown, Marshall G., and Gordon Stein. Freethought in the United Kingdom and the
Commonwealth: A Descriptive Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1981.
Budd, Susan. Varieties of Unbelief: Atheists and Agnostics in English Society, 1850-1960.
London: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1977. 307 pp.
Cave, Peter. Humanism: A Beginner's Guide. London: Oneworld Publications, 2009. 208 pp.
Clark, Ronald W. Sir Julian Huxley. London: Phoenix, 1960.
Cohen, Chapman. Agnosticism or . . .? London: Pioneer Press, n.d. 16 pp.
-----. Almost an Autobiography. London: Pioneer Press, 1940.
-----. Atheism. London: The Pioneer Press, n.d. 14pp.
-----. God and the Universe: Eddington, Jeans, Huxley, and Einstein, with a Reply to A. S.
Eddington. London n.d.
-----. The Grammar of Freethought. London: Pioneer Press, 1941.
-----. Materialism re-stated. London: Pioneer Press 1927. 123 pp.
-----. Must we have a religion? London: The Pioneer Press, 1952. 14pp.
-----. What Is Freethought? London: The Pioneer Press, n.p. 15pp,
Coit, Stanton. The Message of Man: A Book of Ethical Scriptures Gathered from Many Sources
and Arranged. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., n.d. 323 pp.
-----. The One Sure Foundation for Democracy. Conway Memorial Lecture delivered at Conway
Hall, Red Lion Square W.C.1 on May 26, 1937. London: Watts & Co., 1937. 56 pp.
-----. The Subjection of Women. London: Longmans, Green and CO., 1909.
Cooke, Bill. The Gathering of Infidels: A Hundred Years of the Rationalist Press Association.
Gordon, Mick, and A. C. Grayling. On Religion. London: Oberon Books, 2006. 96 pp.
Grayling, A. C. Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness. London:
Oberon Books, 2007. 64pp.
-----. To Set Prometheus Free: Religion, Reason and Humanity. London: Oberon Books, 2009.
112 pp.
Herrick, Jim. Vision and Reform: the Freethinker 1881 to 1981. London: G. W. Foote, 1982.
-----. “Bertrand Russell: A Passionate Rationalist.” In Against the Faith.
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell6.htm.
Posted at:
Huxley, Julian. Essays of a Humanist. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1969. 295 pp.
-----. Evolutionary Humanism. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. 1992. 287 pp.
-----. Memories. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970.
-----. Memories II. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1973.
-----. Religion without Revelation. London: Watts & Co, 1941. 118 pp.
-----. Towards the Open A Preface to Scientific Humanism. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1927.
257 pp.
Knight, Margaret, and Jim Herrick, eds. Humanist Anthology: From Confucius to Attenborough.
Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1995. 220 pp.
Le Poidevin, Robin. Agnosticism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2010. 144 pp.
-----. Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. London: Routledge,
1996. 184 pp.
Mackintire, William. Ethical Religion. London: Watts & Co 1905. 128 pp.
Palmer, Michael. The Atheist’s Creed. Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 2010. 356 pp.
-----. The Question of God: An Introduction and Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2001. 384 pp.
Popper, Karl. Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography. Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, 1977.
255 pp.
Waters, C. Kenneth, and Albert Van Helden, eds. Julian Huxley: biologist and statesman of
science. Houston: Rice University Press, 1993.
Whyte, Adam Gowans. The Story of the R.P.A. 1899-1949. London: Watts & Co., 1949.
John Mackinnon Robertson (1856-1933)
Born on the Isle of Arran off the coast of Scotland, John M. Robertson dropped out of school
when he was thirteen but went on to become an editor at one of Edinburgh’s newspapers. As a
young man he then became a dedicated secularist and joined the National Secular Union led by
Charles Bradlaugh. He soon moved to London to write for the movement’s periodical, the
National Reformer. He succeeded Bradlaugh as editor in 1891. He assumed leadership of the
South Place Ethical Society in 1899, a post he held for several decades.
He is remembered today primarily for his monumental two volume history of Freethought and
the other historical and biographical materials he authored on the pioneers of Freethought in the
United Kingdom. He also wrote a large number of additional Freethought books and pamphlets.
One of his favorite themes was the attack on Christianity as a religion built on a purely
mythological base, and he advocated the idea that Jesus did not exist as a historical person, a
subject upon which he penned several texts.
Much of his writing has now been posted online. See the Online Books page
Primary Sources
Robertson, John Mackinnon. Christianity and Mythology. London: Watts, 1900. Posted online.
-----. The Historical Jesus: A Survey of Positions. London: Watts, 1916.
-----. History of Freethought in the Nineteenth Century. 2 vols. 1899. Rpt. Bristol, UK:
Thoemmes Press. 2001.
-----. Jesus and Judas: A Textual and Historical Investigation. London: Watts, 1927.
-----. The Jesus Problem: A Restatement of the Myth Theory. London: Watts, 1917.
-----. Letters on Reasoning. London: Watts, 1902. 2nd ed.: 1905. Posted online.
-----. Modern Humanists: Sociological Studies of Carlyle, Mill, Emerson, Arnold, Ruskin and
Spencer. London: S. Sonnenschein and Co., 1891.
-----. Modern Humanists Reconsidered. London: Watts and Co., 1927.
-----. Pagan Christs. London: Watts & Co., 1903, 1911. Posted at http://sacredtexts.com/bib/cv/pch/index.htm.
-----. Pioneer Humanists. London: Watts, 1907.
-----. A Short History of Christianity. London: Watts & Co., 1901. Posted online (1902)
-----. A Short History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1899;
2nd ed.: London: Watts & Co., 1906. 3rd ed. 1914; 4th ed. 1915; 5th ed. as A History of
Freethought Ancient and Modern, to the Period of the French Revolution. 2 vols. London: Watts,
1936.
1915 edition posted online.
-----. A Short History of Morals. London: Watts, 1920.
-----. Studies in Religious Fallacy. London: Watts, 1900.
Secondary Sources
Andreski, Stanislav (April 1979), "A Forgotten Genius: John Mackinnon Robertson (18561933)." Question 12 (April 1979): 61-73.
Britain’s Unknown Genius: The Life-Work of J. M. Robertson. London: South Place Ethical
Society, 1984.
Dekkers, Odin. J. M. Robertson. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
Kaczkowski, Conrad Joseph, John Mackinnon Robertson: Freethinker and Radical. St. Louis,
MO: St. Louis University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1964.
Tame, Chris. The Critical Liberalism of J.M. Robertson (1856-1933). London: Libertarian
Alliance, 1998. Posted at http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/libhe/libhe019.htm.
Wells, G. A., ed. J. M. Robertson (1856-1933): Liberal, Rationalist, and Scholar. London:
Pemberton Publishing, 1987.
Joseph Martin McCabe (1867-1955)
Joseph Martin McCabe was a British Roman Catholic and Franciscan priest who left the order
and became an atheist. His story was initially told in From Rome to Rationalism (1897), later
published in an expanded edition as Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897). He subsequently
served as secretary of the Leicester Secular Society and he became one of the founders of the
Rationalist Press Association. He wrote numerous books and booklets, many originally
published in London by the Freethought-oriented press, Watts & Co., and later published in the
United States by Haldeman-Julius either as Little Blue Books or Big Blue Books.
A selection of many of McCabe’s titles is currently available on line at
http://www.positiveatheism.org/ and/or http://www.infidels.org/.
Primary Sources
McCabe, Joseph. A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists. London: Watts & Co.,
1920.
-----. A Biographical Dictionary of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Freethinkers. Girard, Kansas:
Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1945.
-----. Crises in the History of the Papacy. London: Watts, 1916.
-----. Eighty Years a Rebel; Autobiography. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1947.
-----. The Existence of God. The Inquirer's Library 1. London: Watts & Co., 1913.
-----. A History of the Popes. London: Watts, 1939.
-----. Is The Position Of Atheism Getting Stronger? Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius
Publications, 1936.
-----. Life and Letters of George Jacob Holyoake. 2 vols. London: Watts, Issued for the
Rationalist Press Association, 1908.
-----. A Rationalist Encyclopædia: A Book of Reference, On Religion, Philosophy, Ethics, and
Science. London: Watts & Co., 1948.
-----. The Riddle of the Universe To-day. London: Watts & Co., 1934.
-----. The Social Record of Christianity. Thinker's Library 51. London: Watts & Co., 1935. 144
pp.
-----. The Sources of the Morality of the Gospels. London: Watts & Co., 1914.
-----. The Story of Evolution. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1912.
-----. The Story of Religious Controversy. Boston: The Stratford Company, 1929.
-----. Twelve Years in a Monastery. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1897. Rpt.: London: Watts &
Co., 1912. Posted at http://books.google.com/books?id=R4bnJd-1MEkC&printsec=frontcover.
-----, and W. T. Lee. Christianity or Secularism: Which is the Better for Mankind?: a verbatim
report on two nights' debate between W.T. Lee and Joseph McCabe,: held at the town hall
Holborn on Thursday and Friday evenings March 9 and 10 1911. London: Watts, 1911. 72 pp.
Shebbeare, C. J. The Design Argument Reconsidered—A Discussion Between the Rev C. J.
Shebbeare and Joseph McCabe. London: Watts & Co., 1923.
Secondary Sources
Cooke, Bill. A Rebel to His Last Breath: Joseph McCabe and Rationalism. Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books, 2003.
Goldberg, Isaac. Joseph McCabe: Fighter for Freethought. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius, 1936.
Haldeman-Julius, Marcet. Talks with Joseph McCabe and Other Confidential Sketches. Girard,
KS: Haldeman-Julius, n.d.
Verb, Hal. "Joseph McCabe: Atheist Prophet for Our Time." Free Thought Today (2003). Posted
at http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-621385391.html.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Philosopher Bertrand Russell, widely acknowledged as one of the great analytic minds of the
twentieth century, a co-founder of analytic philosophy, was also a public atheist and advocate of
many liberal social causes. He was the son of an atheist father who had asked the aging John
Stuart Mill to act as the equivalent of a godfather for his son. He left a provision in his will that
the children be raised as agnostics, which his wife went to court to break following his death.
Young Bertrand’s move to atheism was spurred in part by his discovery of the writings of the
poet Shelley during his teen years. He later attended and graduated from Trinity College,
Cambridge.
He specialized in the study of mathematics and logic and early in his career collaborated with
Alfred north Whitehead on the monumental Principia Mathematica. While teaching at
Cambridge, Russell accepted Ludwig Wittenstein as his student and with him would begin what
became analytic philosophy.
Russell lost his post at Cambridge for his pacifism during World War I, merely the first incident
in an at-times tumultuous academic career. Russell eventually moved to the United States. He
taught successively at the University of Chicago, the University of California--Los Angeles, and
the City College of New York. However, his career in New York was cut short when his views
on sexuality were deemed unfit to share with his students. John Dewey and Horace M. Kallen
edited a collection of articles on the CCNY affair in The Bertrand Russell Case. Russell finally
made his way back to Cambridge and was able to reassume his former position at Trinity
College. In 1950, his career was capped with the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Russell’s personal atheistic humanism found initial expression in his essays from the 1920s, most
notably “What I Believe” and “Why I Am not a Christian.” The latter was originally delivered as
a speech for the South London Branch of the National Secular Society. He would follow with a
set of Sceptical Essays (1928) and a volume on Religion and Science (1935), and he included his
original speech as the lead item in his 1957 anthology, Why I Am Not A Christian and Other
Essays on Religion and Related Subjects.
The Bertrand Russell centre at McMaster University in Toronto
(http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~russell/) has become the focal point for ongoing Russell
studies. It publishes Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies and in 1983 began the
publication of The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell. Volume 29 (of 36 projected volumes)
in this series appeared in 2003. The series also includes Kenneth Blackwell’s A Bibliography of
Bertrand Russell (London: Routledge, 1994). Meanwhile, a selection of Russell’s essays on
religion and Unbelief have been made available online at the “Positive Atheism” site,
http://www.positiveatheism.org/tochruss.htm.
Primary Sources
Russell, Bertrand. Atheism. New York: Arno Press, 1972.
-----. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. 3 vols. London: Allen & Unwin, 1967-1969.
-----. The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell. Ed. by Robert E. Egner and Lester E. Denonn.
London: Allen & Unwin, 1961.
-----. Bertrand Russell on God and Religion. Ed.by Al Seckel. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books,
1986. 350 pp.
Includes text of debate with Frederick Copleston on the existence of God that was broadcast on
the BBC in 1948.
-----. Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind. Cleveland & New York: World, 1960.
-----. The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell. Ed. by Kenneth Blackwell. London: Routledge,
1983. 28 vols.
-----. Essays in Skepticism. New York: Philosophical Library, 1963.
-----. Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?: An Examination and a Criticism.
London: Watts, 1930.
-----. A History of Western Philosophy: Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances
from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945.
-----. The Life of Bertrand Russell in Pictures and His Own Words. Ed. by Christopher Farley
and David Hodgson. Nottingham, UK: Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 1972.
-----. My Own Philosophy. Hamilton, ON: McMaster University Library Press, 1972.
-----. My Philosophical Development. London: Allen & Unwin, 1959
-----. The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism. London: Allen & Unwin, 1920. Rpt. as:
Bolshevism: Practice and Theory. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Howe, 1920.
-----. Religion and Science. New York: Holt, 1935.
-----. Russell on Religion: Selections from the Writings of Bertrand Russell. Ed. by Stefan
Andersson and Louis Greenspan. London: Routledge, 1999. 272 pp.
-----. Sceptical Essays. New York: Norton, 1928.
-----. The Scientific Outlook. New York: W.W. Norton, 1931.
-----. The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell. Ed. by Nicholas Griffin assisted by Alison
Roberts Miculan. London: Routledge, 2001.
-----. Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell. New York: Modern Library, 1927.
-----. Unpopular Essays. London: Allen & Unwin, 1950.
-----. What I Believe. New York: Dutton, 1925
-----. Why I Am Not a Christian. London: Watts, 1927.
-----. Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. London:
Allen & Unwin, 1957.
-----. Wisdom of the West: A Historical Survey of Western Philosophy in Its Social and Political
Setting. Ed. by Paul Foulkes. London: Macdonald, 1959.
Secondary Sources
Andersson, Stefan. In Quest of Certainty: Bertrand Russell's Search for Certainty in Religion
and Mathematics Up to the Principles of Mathematics. London: Coronet Books, 1994. 192 pp.
Carey, Rosalind, and John Ongley. Historical Dictionary of Bertrand Russell's Philosophy.
Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2009. 336 pp.
Clark, Ronald William. The Life of Bertrand Russell. London: Cape, 1975.
Denton, Peter A. The ABC of Armageddon: Bertrand Russell on Science, Religion, and the Next
War, 1919-1938. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001. 174 pp.
Dewey, John, and Horace M. Kallen, eds. The Bertrand Russell Case. New York: Viking, 1941.
Leggett, Harry W. Bertrand Russell, O.M.: a pictorial biography. London: Lincolns - Praeger
Publishers, 1949. 78 pp.
Griffin, Nicholas. The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003
Roberts, George W., ed. Bertrand Russell Memorial Volume, London: Allen and Unwin, 1979.
Watling, John. Bertrand Russell. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1970.
Wielenberg, Eril J. God and the Reach of Reason: C. S. Lewis, David Hume, and Bertrand
Russell. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 254 pp.
Wood, Alan. Bertrand Russell: The Passionate Sceptic. London: Allen and Unwin, 1957.
Wood, George Herbert. Living Issues in Religious Thought. From George Fox to Bertrand
Russell. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924. 187 pp. Rpt.: Freeport, NY: Books for
Libraries Press, 1966. 187 pp.
Antony Flew (1923-2010)
Antony Flew was a prominent philosopher and public atheist in the last half of the twentieth
century. He completed his education after World War II at St John's College, Oxford. And
subsequently taught at Christ’s College, Oxford, the University of Aberdeen, the University of
Keele, University of Reading, and York University, Toronto. He wrote numerous books and
articles, and frequently and publicly debated key issues with Christians and other believers.
After many years defending atheism, in 2005 he announced an acceptance of a Deist position, an
action that raised new controversy. A few claimed that the changes was a hoax while others were
led to call into question his lifetime of advocacy for Unbelief.
Primary Sources
Flew, Antony. Atheistic Humanism. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1993. 302 pp.
-----. Evolutionary Ethics. N. Y. Macmillan/St Martin Press, 1967. 70 pp.
-----. “Falsification and Hypothesis in Theology.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 40, 3
(1962):318-323.
-----. God and Philosophy. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1966. Rpt. Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books, 2005, 210 pp.
-----. God, Freedom, and Immortality: A Critical Analysis. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1984. 183
pp.
-----. “Humanism and Ethics.” Journal of Moral Education 5, 1 (1975): 85-90.
-----. A New Approach to Psychical Research. London: Watts & Co., 1953.
----- and Alasdair MacIntyre, eds., New Essays in Philosophical Theology (London: SCM Press,
1955.
-----, ed. New Essays in Philosophical Theology. New York, Macmillan, 1964.
-----. The Presumption of Atheism, and other Philosophical Essays on God, Freedom and
Immortality. New York : Barnes & Noble, 1976. 183 pp.
-----. “The Presuppositions of Survival.” Philosophy 62, 239 (1987):17ff.
-----. “A Religious Form of Scientific Life.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 30, 2
(1979):183-186.
Collaborative works
Bagget, David J., ed. Did the Resurrection Happen? A Conversation with Gary Habermas and
Antony Flew. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009. 184 pp.
Flew, Antony, with Roy Abraham Varghese. There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious
Atheist Changed His Mind. New York: HarperOne, 2008. 256 pp.
Meithe, Terry l., and Antony Flew. Does God Exist?: A Believer and an Atheist Debate. London:
Harpercollins, 1991. 224 pp.
Wallace, Stan W. ed. Does God Exist: The Craig-Flew Debate. Ashgate Publishing, 2003, 230
pp.
In 1998, William Craig and Antony Flew debated god’s existence occasioned by the 50th
anniversary of a similar debate by Frederick Copleston and Bertrand Russell that had been
broadcast over the BBC.
Warren, Thomas B., and Antony G. N. The Warren-Flew Debate on the Existence of God.
Jonesboro, AR: National Christian Press, 1977. 237 pp.
Unbelief in Australia and New Zealand
Unbelief in Australia and New Zealand can be traced to the immigration of freethinker Charles
Southwell (1814-1860), who arrive in Australia in April 1855 and then settled in New Zealand
the next year. Southwell had had a falling out with British secularist George Jacob Holyoake. His
career focused more on politics than religious issues and was brief as he passed away in 1860.
He was followed by Daniel Wallwork, who founded the first Freethought organization in
Australia in the early 1860s. The first periodical serving the cause was the Harbinger of Light,
founded in 1870 (the same year that the government in New South Wales passed an antiblasphemy law) primarily served Spiritualists, but was an additional indicator of the close
relationship between Freethought and other forms of religious dissent. Spiritualist would also
stand behind the Liberal Association of New South Wales, founded in 1881 to promote a
spectrum of progressive causes. The doubts about Spiritualist phenomena would spur the
formation of a number of local groups more clearly focused on Freethought and secularism.
In 1894 the community was joined by British secularist Joseph Symes (1841-1906). He would
immediately assume a leading role in the Freethought community, but soon become one of its
most controversial members. His colleagues complained of his autocratic ways and embarrassed
by his pamphlet, Ancient and Modern Phallic or Sex-worship. During the 1890s, the cause
would be decimated by the national financial crises that hit Australia, the deaths of a number of
its first generation leaders, and the fragmentation of the movement.
In 1901, the various states of the subcontinent were unified into the Commonwealth of Australia.
The new constitution guarantees religious freedom, including the right not to believe any
religion. Soon afterwards, Joseph McCabe came from England to lecture under the auspices of
the National Secular Society. While in the country, he led in the founding of the Rationalist Press
Association, which in turn led to the Freethought community’s evolving into a more rationalistoriented movement through the first decades of the twentieth century. Humanism would largely
supersede rationalism after World War II. The first Humanist society was formed in 1960, and a
national organization emerged five years later. However, during the last quarter of the twentieth
century, the current broad spectrum of organizations supporting an Unbelief perspective
gradually appeared.
Also, through the twentieth century, a number of academics have made their atheist opinions
known, including a set of leading philosophers such as John Leslie Mackie (1917-1981), John
Anderson (1893-1962), ethicist Peter Singer (b.1946), and Graham Oppy (b. 1960).
Organized Unbelief in Australia and New Zealand is currently focused in the Australia New
Zealand Secular Association (formerly the Australian National Secular Association), the
Rationalist Society of Australia, the New Zealand Association Of Rationalists and Humanists,
the Atheist Foundation of Australia and the Council of Australian Humanist Societies. The
Global Atheist Convention, sponsored by the Atheist Foundation and held in 2010 in Melbourne,
became the largest gathering of Australian in the country’s history.
Unitarianism was introduced into Australia in the 1850s and three churches were initially
founded in Adelaide, Sydney, and Melbourne. The Auckland, New Zealand, congregation was
organized in 1897. As the number of congregations grew, they united as the Australian Assembly
of Unitarian and Liberal Christian Churches, which was superseded by the more inclusive
Australian and New Zealand Unitarian Universalist Association in 1974.
http://www.atheistconvention.org.au/john-perkins/
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rationalists, humanists, and others involved in Australia's secular movement from 1850 onwards.
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Humanist, no. 96 (1987): 5-6.
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Society of New Zealand, 1992.
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NZ: George T Clarke, 1879.
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North: Dunmore Press, 1990, pp. 173-85.
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Fox, Nancy M., Jindra Rutherford, and Bill Allen. Unitarians in New Zealand. Wanganui: N.Z.
Society of Unitarians, 1964.
Frame, Tom. Losing My Religion: Unbelief in Australia. Sydney: University of New South
Wales Press, 2009. 352 pp.
Franklin, James. Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia. Paddinton, NSW:
Macleay Press, 2003.
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Melbourne University Press, 1995.
Lineham, Peter J. "Christian Reaction to Freethought and Rationalism in New Zealand." Journal
of Religious History 15, 2 (1988): 236-50.
-----. "Freethinkers in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand." New Zealand Journal of History 19,
no. 1 (1985): 61-81.
-----. "Secularists and Secularisation in Nineteenth Century New Zealand." Religion and Change.
Papers of International Religious Studies Conference. Printed by Victoria University of
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Clarendon Press, 1982. 278 pp.
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1898 (Building 1901) - 1991. Auckland: Auckland Unitarian Church, 1991.
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pp.
Smith, F. Barrymore. Religion and Freethought in Melbourne, 1870-1890. Melbourne:
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[Southwell, Charles]. An Apology for Atheism. London: J. Watson, 1846
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Williams, Robyn. Unintelligent Design: Why God Isn't as Smart as She Thinks She Is. Crows
Nest, NSW, Aust.: Allen & Unwin, 2007. 176 pp.
******************************************************************************
Germany
Enlightenment Beginnings
Just as the first atheist in France came in the form of a closeted priest who had lost his faith, so
too the first open advocate of a modern atheist perspective was a lone figure who emerged in
Germany. That man was Matthias Knutzen, who seems to have emerged in Königsberg, in
Prussia, in the 1670s. He termed his followers, of which there were but few, “conscienciaries,” as
conscience was the only authority he recognized. He denied the existence of God and denounced
the church. Though he claimed a large following across Europe, he was largely dismissed after
he published a few works that circulated in Prussia, On refutation was written by a local
professor, but Knutzen then passed from the scene and died in obscurity. His small effort has
only been recovered by historians in the modern era as atheism itself has emerged and grown in
importance.
Knutzen emerged just as the German phase of the Enlightenment, usually dated from the career
philosopher Gottfried Wilhem von Leibnez (1646–1716) was beginning. It would proceed
slowly, Germany still being a land divided into numerous small autonomous city states and
princedoms. It would reach its zenith in the careers of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), and
Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). It would make its transition to the nineteenth
century, when atheism initially gained some measurable support, in the work of Johann Gottlieb
Fichte (1762-1814) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831).
Unbelief in nineteenth-century German would build on Hegel and move in a variety of directions
among the young Hegelians and within the Jewish community, and find it greatest response in
the writings of Karl Marx. Then at the beginning of the twentieth century a whole new thrust of
Unbelief would find its basis throughout the German-speaking world in the psychoanalytic
theories of Sigmund Freud.
Sources
Anderson, Abraham. The Treatise of the Three Impostors and the Problem of Enlightenment.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997. 192 pp.
This early eighteenth-century publication attacked Moses, Jesus and Mohammad as imposters.
Chambers, Alexander. “Matthias Knutzen.” Entry in The General Biographical Dictionary. 32
vols. London, 1812-1815. Vol. 19, p. 417.
Clark, William. "The Death of Metaphysics in Enlightened Prussia." In The Sciences in
Enlightened Europe. Edited by William Clark, Jan Golinski, and Simon Schaffer. Chicago:
Estes, Yolanda, and Curtis Bowman, eds. J.G. Fichte and the Atheism Dispute (1798-1800).
Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2010. 316 pp.
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. Nathan the Wise. Translated by Edward Kemp. London: Nick Hern,
2003.
Reimarus, Hermann Samuel. Reimarus, Fragments. Edited by Charles H. Talbert, translated by
Ralph S. Fraser. Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985.
Samuel, Moses. Moses Mendelssohn: The First English Biography and Translation. Bristol,
U.K.: Thoemmes Press, 2002.
Spinoza, Benedictus de. The Collected Works of Spinoza. Ed. and trans. by Edwin M. Curley.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.
Gottfried Wilhem von Leibnez (1646–1716)
Gottfried Leibnez is remembered for his work as a mathematician and his developments in
calculus and binary numbering and as a philosopher for his suggesting that the Universe as we
know it is the best possible one that a deity could have created, one that possesses a pre-existing
harmony. By no means a religious skeptic, he helped prepare the way for atheism as an advocate
of rationalism, that is, the privileging of reason as the primary way of acquiring knowledge.
Primary Sources
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhem von. The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence. Ed. by H. G. Alexander.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956.
-----. Leibniz: Philosophical Texts. Ed. R. S. Woodhouse and R. Franks. Oxford: Oxford
-----. Leibniz: Selections. Ed. by Philip Weiner. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951.
-----The Philosophical Works of Leibnitz. With Notes by G[eorge] M[artin] Duncan. New
Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1890, 392 pp.
Currently available in a variety of reprint editions.
Secondary Sources
Adams, Robert Merrihew. Lebniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist. New York: Oxford, Oxford
Antognazza, Maria Rosa. Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
Hall, A. R., Philosophers at War: The Quarrel between Newton and Leibniz. Cambridge, UK:
Hostler, J., Leibniz's Moral Philosophy. London: Duckworth, 1975.
Jolley, Nicholas, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
Mates, Benson. The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics and Language. Oxford: Oxford
Russell, Bertrand. A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz. London: George Allen &
Unwin, 1900.
Rutherford, Donald. Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781)
Philosopher Gotthold Lessing, the son of a clergyman, emerged as one of the leading voices of
the German Enlightenment and a severe critic of key aspects of Christianity in his day. He is
remembered for posing the problem that came to be known as Lessing’s Ditch. Relative to the
use of miracles as a proof of God’s existence, he noted that the occurrence of miracles were in
doubt and hence lacked any convincing power to prove God’s existence. Historical truths, which
are themselves in doubt, cannot substantiate metaphysical assertions. With supernatural events
(including revelation) put on the back burner,
Lessing then argued for a Christianity based on reason without the assistance of revelation.
Lessing’s position led him on the one hand to question biblical authority and on the other to call
for tolerance toward the world’s religions (primarily Judaism and Islam). His call for religious
toleration interacted with his friendship for Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. He most
famously incorporated these ideas in a play he writes, Nathan the Wise.
Primary Sources
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. Nathan the Wise. Translated by Edward Kemp. London: Nick Hern,
2003. Various editions are available.
-----. Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts. Trans. and ed. by Leo Markun. Girard,
Kan., Haldeman-Julius Co., 1926.
-----. Philosophical and Theological Writings. Ed. by H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge
-----. Selected prose works of G. E. Lessing. Trans. by E. C. Beasley and Helen Zimmern.
London: G. Bell and Sons, 1890.
-----. Theological Writings; Selections in Translation with an Introductory Essay. Ed. by Henry
Chadwick. London: A. & C. Black, 1956.
Secondary Sources
Allison, Henry E. Lessing and the Enlightenment. His Philosophy and Its Relation to
Eighteenth-Century Thought. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1966. 216 pp.
Benton, Matthew A. “The Modal Gap: The Objective Problem of Lessing's Ditch(es) and
Kierkegaard's Subjective Reply.” Religious Studies 42, 1 (2006): 27-44.
Henriksen, Jan-Olav. The Reconstruction of Religion: Lessing, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche.
Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2001. 208 pp.
Michalson, Gordon. Lessing's "Ugly Ditch": A Study of Theology and History. Philadelphia:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1985. 224 pp.
Rolleston, T. W. Life of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. London: Walter Scott, 1889.
Ugrinsky, Alexej. Lessing and the Enlightenment. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1986. 188
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Wessell, Leonard P. G. E. Lessing's Theology: A Reinterpretation: A Study in the Problematic
Nature of the Enlightenment. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, 1977. 283 pp.
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on Christianity and Reason. New York: Oxford University Press/American Academy of
Religion, 2002. 208 pp.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Immanuel Kant remains one of the most influential of modern philosophers and the leading voice
of the German phase of the Enlightenment. Both Kant’s Career and the Enlightenment were
punctuated by his key publications: The first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781);
Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics (1783); Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
(1785); the Critique of Pure Reason (1787); and Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone
(1793). He spent his career at the University Königsburg, in the city of his birth.
According to Kant, it was reading David Hume’s critique of rationalism (in which he pointed out
that one could not infer a priori cause from any given effect), that awakened him from what he
termed his “dogmatic slumber.” This led to his scrutiny of reason and his understand that
epistemology had much to say about the possibilities and conclusion available to metaphysics.
From this starting point, and his conclusions about what can be known a priori by reason alone,
Kant began his monumental reconstruction of philosophy.
Relative to the place of God, Kant critical philosophy worked to undercut traditional arguments
for the existence of god, those systems that equated god with the ultimate causal ground of the
visible world. Kant argued that the concept of God properly functions as a limiting principle in
discussions of the causal element in the order of things. In the end, Kant undercut what
traditional metaphysics had presented as proofs for the existence of God but undercutting the
foundation of such arguments.
The harshest aspect of Kant’s approach to philosophical problems of God’s existence was
countered by his relatively good experience of his Pietist Protestant upbringing, which left him
with a positive view of religion. He came to view religion as principally a human phenomenon
within which important aspects of human life interact in ways that are significant for our role in
the cosmos.
Kant shifted the debates over god to questions of morality. As Laura Denis notes, “Although
Kant argues that morality is prior to and independent of religion, Kant nevertheless claims that
religion of a certain sort (“moral theism”) follows from morality. “Thus, “Kant criticizes atheism
as morally problematic in four ways: atheism robs the atheist of springs for moral action, leads
the atheist to moral despair, corrupts the atheist’s moral character, and has a pernicious influence
on the atheist’s community.”
Over five decades of thinking and writings, Kant left a large body of material, frequently
returning to the questions of God and religion, occasionally seeming to contradict himself,
certainly leaving conclusions suggestive of different lines of reasoning on questions of ultimate
important about how we think about the world and how we should live. Both theologians and
radical skeptics found material from which to work and claim Kant as their own. He remained a
theist all his life, but was significant in pushing aside the arguments for God’s existence for those
who built on his foundation. Those who would continue to use such arguments would have to
operate out of others forms of philosophical inquiry.
Primary Sources
The writings of Immanuel Kant have been published in English in the Cambridge University
Press edition of “The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant in Translation,” edited
by Paul Guyer and Alan W. Wood. All of his more important writings are available in a variety
of popular and inexpensive reprints.
Kant, Immanuel. An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? 1784. Trans. by Mary J.
Gregor. In Mary J. Gregor, ed. Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1006, pp. 17–22.
-----. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. 1785. Trans. by Mary J. Gregor. In Mary J.
Gregor, ed. Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 43–108.
-----. The Metaphysics of Morals. 1797. Trans. by Mary J. Gregor. In Mary J. Gregor, ed.
Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 365–603.
-----. Opus Postumum. Ed. by Ekart Föster. Trans. by Ekart Föster and Michael Rosen.
-----. Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as a Science.
1783. Trans. by Gary Hatfield. In Henry Allison and Peter Heath, ed. Theoretical Philosophy
after 1781. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 51–169.
-----. Religion and Rational Theology. Trans. and ed. by Allen W. Wood. and George Di
Giovanni. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Includes many of Kant’s major writings about religion
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Abela, Paul. Kant's Empirical Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Allison, Henry E. Kant's Theory of Taste: a Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 424 pp.
-----. Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense. New Haven, CT: Yale
Ameriks, Karl. Kant's Theory of Mind: An Analysis of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason. Oxford:
Bennett, Jonathan. Kant's Analytic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1966.
Byrne, Peter. Kant on God. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007.
Cassier, Ernst, Stephan Korner, and James Haden. Kant's Life and Thought. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1986.
Denis, Lara. “Kant's Criticism of Atheism.” Kant-Studien 94, 2 (2003):198-219.
Despland, Michel. Kant on History and Religion. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press,
1973.
England, Frederick Ernest. Kant's Conception of God. New York: Dial Press, 1930.
Fistioc, Mihaela C. The Beautiful Shape of the Good: Platonic and Pythagorean Themes in
Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment. London: Routledge, 2002
Gasché, Rodolphe. The Idea of Form: Rethinking Kant's Aesthetics. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford
Guyer, Paul, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Kant. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1992. 482 pp.
-----. Kant and the Claims of Knowledge. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
500 pp.
-----. Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Critical Essays. Lanham, MD: Rowman
& Littlefield, 1997. 186 pp.
Gardner, Sebastian. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason.
London: Routledge, 1999.
Höffe, Otfried. Categorical Principles of Law: A Counterpoint to Modernity. Trans. by Mark
Migotti. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.
Kerstein, Samuel J. Kant's Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. Cambridge, UK:
Kitcher, Patricia, ed. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: Critical Essays. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, 1998.
Korsgaard, Christine M. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1996.
Kuehn, Manfred. Kant: A Biography. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 582
pp.
Makkrell, Rudolf A. Imagination and Interpretation in Kant: The Hermeneutical Import of the
Critique of Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Michalson, Gordon E. Fallen Freedom: Kant on Evil and Moral Regeneration. Cambridge:
-----. Kant and the Problem of God. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
O'Neill, Onora. Kant on Reason and Religion. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, 1997. Ed.
buy Grethe B. Patterson. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1997, pp. 269–308.
Ray, Matthew Alun. Subjectivity and Irreligion: Atheism and Agnosticism in Kant,
Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy. Aldershot, UK:
Ashgate Publishing, 2004. 140 pp.
Scruton, Roger. Kant. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Smith, Norman Kemp. Commentary to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Loandon: Macmillan
and Co., 1918. 615 pp.
Stratton-Lake, Philip. Kant, Duty, and Moral Worth. London: Routledge, 2000.
Sullivan, Roger J. An Introduction to Kant's Ethics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1994.
Timmons, Mark, ed. Kant's Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretative Essays. Oxford: Oxford
Voeller, Carol W. The Metaphysics of the Moral Law. New York: Garland Publishing, 2000.
Walker, Ralph C. S. Kant. London: Routledge, 1999.
Warren, Daniel. Reality and Impenetrability in Kant's Philosophy of Nature. London: Routledge,
2001.
Weatherston, Martin. Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant: Categories, Imagination, and
Temporality. London: Macmillan, 2002.
Wood, Allen W. Kant's Moral Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1970 .
-----. Kant's Rational Theology. Ithaca, NY: London: Cornell University Press, 1978.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814)
Philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte served as a bridge between the Enlightenment philosophy of
Immanuel Kant and the new directions of nineteenth-century philosophy that would be taken by
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and his students. Due to his poverty, he dropped out of seminary
at Jena, and would later begin his philosophy career with a small book, Versuch einer Kritik aller
Offenbarung (Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, 1792), which discussed the role of divine
revelation in Kant's philosophy. As occurs on occasion, the first edition of the book was
published prematurely, without Fichte's name on the title page or the signed preface. Those who
initially published reviews on the book mistakenly thought it a new book by Kant. Then came
forward and denied his authorship, but praised the unknown author. Fichte’s reputation soared.
He subsequently became the professor of Philosophy at Jena.
Several years after assuming his position at Jena, Fichte published an essay, “On the Basis of
Our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World” (1798) in which, building on Kant, he argued
that religious belief became legitimate as it found its foundation in moral considerations and
further that God‘s existence could not be considered apart from the cosmic moral order. A
cutting edge position at the time, the essay led critics to condemn him as an atheist (which had a
slightly different meaning in seventeenth-century polemics) and as a result of the controversy
had to leave Jena.
Fichte moved to Berlin and became a independent scholar, living off his writings and giving
lectures to the public. Some of his writings wee aimed at trying to clear up the
misunderstandings that he felt falsely led to his being branded an atheist. He also continued work
on his own unique approach to philosophy.
Primary Sources
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. Attempt at a Critique of all Revelation [1792, 1793]. Trans. Garrett
Green. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
-----. Fichte: Early Philosophical Writings [1790-1799]. Trans. and ed. Daniel Breazeale. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1988.
-----. Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge [1794/95]. In The Science of Knowledge,
trans. and ed. Peter Heath and John Lachs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
-----. “The Science of Knowledge in its General Outline” [1810]. Trans. by Walter E. Wright.
Idealistic Studies 6 (1976): 106-117.
Secondary Sources
Breazeale, Daniel and Tom Rockmore, eds. Fichte: Historical Contexts/Contemporary
Controversies. Atlantic Highlands, New York: Humanities Press, 1994.
-----. New Essays in Fichte’s Foundation of the Entire Doctrine of Scientific Knowledge.
Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2001.
-----. New Essays on Fichte’s Later Jena Wissenschaftslehre. Evanston, IL: Northwestern
-----. New Perspectives on Fichte. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996.
La Vopa, Anthony J. Fichte: The Self and the Calling of Philosophy, 1762-1799. Cambridge:
Martin, Wayne. Idealism and Objectivity: Understanding Fichte’s Jena Project. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 1997.
Neuhouser, Frederick. Fichte’s Theory of Subjectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990.
Zöller, Günter. Fichte’s Transcendental Philosophy: The Original Duplicity of Intelligence and
Will. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
A German politician and scholar whose expertise reached across a number of disciplines, Johann
von Goethe is known not only for his poetry and literature, but his contributions to science and
the humanities. As a young man he cultivated an interest in the law, but at the same time pursued
an avocation in poetry and literature. In 1774, he published the fist book that gained wide public
attention, The Sorrows of Young Werther. As a result of the book, he was invited to the court of
Carl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, where Goethe became the Duke’s confidant.
Goethe’s work as a scientist led to important books on plant morphology, meteorology, and on
the theory of light. He considered his 1810 publication, Theory of Colors, among his most
important publications. Most, however, see his scientific contributions as secondary to his
literary one. His most famous work, Faust appeared in two parts separated by many years (1808,
1832).
Goethe’s childhood Lutheran faith was shaken by the his consideration of the problem of evil as
a result of the suffering engendered by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and the Seven Years' War.
As early as 1782, he described himself as no longer a Christian, and the God worshipped in
churches as dead to him. He rejected the atheist label that some put on him, and his religiosity
seems to have evolved toward pantheism while containing elements of various diverse religions
he had learned of his studies. Toward the end of his life he lamented his failure to find a truly
satisfying religion, though he had discovered mention of an ancient pagan sect, the
Hypsistarians, which he described as a group who treasured the best of whatever they might
come into contact with. He dissented from those of his contemporaries who believed in reason’s
ability by itself to create the happy society, as other forces on culture and history were too
strong.
Primary Sources
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Goethe: The Collected Works. 12 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
-----. Goethe's Faust (Parts 1 and 2). New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1976. 296 pp.
-----. Selected Works. London: Everyman's Library, 2000. 1248 pp.
-----. The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings. Trans. by Catherine Hutter. New
York: Signet Classics, 2005. 256 pp.
Secondary Sources
Boyle, Nicholas. Goethe and the English-Speaking World: A Cambridge Symposium for His
250th Anniversary. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2001.
Dieckmann, Liselotte. Goethe's Faust: A Critical Reading. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
1972.
Fairley, Barker. A Study of Goethe. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1947.
Gray, R. D. Goethe: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1967.
Pruys, Karl Hugo. The Tiger's Tender Touch: The Erotic Life of Goethe. Trans. by Kathleen
Bunten. Carol Stream, IL: Edition Q, 1999. 192 pp.
Reed, T. J. Goethe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Sharpe, Leslie. The Cambridge Companion to Goethe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2002.
Sherrington, C. Goethe on Nature and on Science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1949.
Tantillo, Astrida Orle. The Will to Create: Goethe's Philosophy of Nature. Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002.
Ugrinsky, Alexej. Goethe in the Twentieth Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987.
Vietor, K. Goethe the Thinker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950.
Williams, John R. The Life of Goethe: A Critical Biography. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001.
352 pp.
Unbelief in Germany in The Nineteenth century
The German-speaking state of Europe entered the twentieth century with a strong conservative
academic establishment that had been deeply affected by the work of Kant and Goethe, and just
enough openness that a critical enterprise could emerge and challenge the orthodox tradition
largely represented in the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church and by extension the reformed and
Roman Catholic Churches. That challenge ranged from a relatively mild “liberal” Christianity
represented by the likes of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), to the emergence of the
historical criticism of the Bible. For the first time, a number of scholars began to look at the
Bible with all of the tools of modern history and to treat the Bible as a collection of historical
documents. They asked questions about the integrity of the text, the evolution of ideas, and the
believability of the events it recorded.
For some, philosophical and theological rumination were crucial in pushing them toward a nontheistic position. For others, the criticism of the foundational documents of Judaism and
Christianity simply destroyed their confidence and them their ability to maintain any faith.
The first critical break came from a group of students of the thought of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel (1770-1831). In the decade following their teacher’s death, they emerged as both
philosophical and political radicals and amid their differences found some cohesion as the young
Hegelians. For their radical views, most would either be denied their academic career or never be
allowed to start. Their books and articles would, nevertheless, find an audience, and the deist
beliefs of the previous century would evolve into a full-blown atheism.
Following his break with the Young Hegelians and his move out of Germany, Karl Marx would
rise above his contemporaries and develop his economic analysis of politics, society, and history,
which would be embodied in the spectrum of Socialist and Communist political parties and take
up a revolutionary call for the reform of society. While affecting history throughout Europe,
Marxism as it was developed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) and Mao Zedong, (aka Mao
Tse-tung, 1893-1976) would find a much larger audience than that of any of the Young
Hegelians. Marx would include in his over all perspective a critique of religious belief and
practice that included both a non-theistic understanding of the world and a harsh condemnation
of the religious community. The suppression of religion in those countries in which Marxists
came to power would strongly affect the reception of Marx’s ideas in the western world.
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, psychology struggled to develop as a new secular
arena of knowledge that would pose an understanding of the nature of human being apart from
the religious assumptions that had long dominated Western culture. Crucial to the emergence of
psychology was the creation of the filed of psychoanalysis and the dominance of that endeavor
by Sigmund Freud. Integral to Freud’s work, based in German-speaking Vienna, was critique of
religion that included a casting off of the beliefs in God and the supernatural. Freud gave the
emerging field a decidedly negative view of all religion, especially Freud’s own Judaism and the
culturally dominant Christianity. That anti-religious bias still permeates the whole field of
psychology though it was somewhat ameliorated in the late twentieth century as the churches
began to integrate the insights of psychology into its delivery of pastoral care.
The intellectual developments in Germany in the nineteenth century were complex and provoked
a variety of responses. For the purposes of this bibliography, however, the important trend was
the emergence of first a liberal Christianity that made room for some partial revisions of the
tradition that included a challenge to the doctrine of the Christian Trinity and a revision of the
manner in which believers approached the Bible. Those changes then opened space for more
severe criticisms of the faith resulting in the emergence of secular non-theistic perspectives; the
number and forms of Unbelief increased decade by decade. In the twentieth century, a significant
number, if not the majority, of unbelievers in Europe would build on the foundations laid by
Marx and/or Freud.
Sources
Beiser, Frederick C., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Hegel. Cambridge: Cambridge
-----, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. Cambridge:
Dreisbach-Olsen, Jutta. Ludwig Büchner. Marburg, Germany: Lahn, 1969.
Büchner, Ludwig;, Force and Matter: empirico-philosophical studies, intelligibly rendered. Ed.
by J. Frederick Collingwood. London: Trübner, 1864. 324 pp. Posted Online.
Fredrick Gregory: Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany. Berlin: Springer,
1977.
Löwith, Karl. From Hegel to Nietzsche: the Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Thought. Trans.
by David E. Green. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1967.
Toews, John Edward. Hegelianism: The Path toward Dialectical Humanism, 1805–1841.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
G. F. W. Hegel was the leading German philosopher of the early nineteenth century. Unlike his
Enlightenment predecessors, he was himself a largely orthodox Christian and wrote in defense of
basic Christian ideas, including the deity of Jesus Christ. His importance, however, cannot be
underestimated for the history of Unbelief, as several of his leading students, who took his
philosophical system in a completely different direction, included many of the most vocal atheist
voices of the middle- and late-nineteenth century, none more notable than Karl Marx.
Primary Sources
Hegel, G. W. F. Early Theological Writings. Trans. by Thomas M. Knox and Richard Kroner.
Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1948. Rpt.: Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1971. 352 pp.
Hegels’s early writings show his indebtedness to discussions of Deism.
-----. Lectures on the Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree New York: Dover, 1956.
-----. Hegel: Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 1825–6. Ed. and trans. by Robert F. Brown.
3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006–9.
-----. Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. Ed. by Peter C. Hodgson. Trans. by R. F.
Brown, P. C. Hodgson, and J. M. Stewart, with the assistance of H. S. Harris. 3 vols. Oxford:
Secondary Sources
This highly selective list of books on Hegel has been slanted toward discussion of religious
issues.
-----, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. Cambridge:
-----. Hegel. New York and London: Routledge, 2005.
Deligiorgi, Katerina, ed. Hegel: New Directions. Chesham: Acumen, 2006.
Dickey, Laurence. Hegel: Religion, Economics, and Politics of Spirit, 1770–1807. Cambridge:
Forster, Michael N. Hegel and Skepticism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Goldstein, Joshua D. Hegel's Idea of the Good Life: From Virtue to Freedom, Early Writings and
Mature Political Philosophy. New York: Springer, 2010. 263 pp.
Hook, Sydney. From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx. New
York: Columbia University Press. 335 pp.
Jaesche, Walter. Reason in Religion: The Foundations of Hegel's Philosophy of Religion. Trans.
by J. M. Stewart and Peter Hodgson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
Pinkard, Terry. Hegel: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Stern, Robert, ed. G. W. F. Hegel: Critical Assessments. 4 vol. London: Routledge, 1993.
Williams, Robert R. Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other, Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1992.
Wood, Allen W. Hegel's Ethical Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
The Young Hegelians
The term “Young Hegelians” refers to a group of German, mostly Prussian, intellectuals in the
mid-nineteenth century who attempted to build on the writings and insights of philosopher Georg
F. W. Hegel, but who took his thought in the most critical direction. The shared a basic
commitment to the idea that their work demanded opposition to irrationality and those ideas and
structures that would restrict freedom. High on their agenda was religion against which they
mounted a severe critique before turning their attention to the Prussian political system, a bastion
of tradition hierarchy. Hegel had suggested that history had reached a certain culmination in the
Germany of his day. The Young Hegelians challenged that aspect of Hegel’s thought in that they
saw the church (and synagogue) permeated with what they saw as irrational notions and the state
imposing numerous restrictions on the citizenry.
The first event that gave the young scholars a sense of identity was the publication of David
Friedrich Strauss’ Life of Jesus in which a set of modern historical tools were turned on the
narrative in the Christian New Testament as well as the many apocryphal gospels which were
frequently used to fill in details in Jesus’ life. Strauss’ work is seen as setting off a goal that has
continued as one major trend in biblical studies, the “quest for the historical Jesus” amid all of
the mythical, theological and ecclesiastical material that has been placed on him. For some, the
work led to the conclusion that Jesus never really existed, but was a complete mythical
personage. In the first instance, however, the firestorm following Strauss’ publication both
revealed to the public where biblical scholarship at the time was leading and caused a
conservative backlash over the direction it was taking over the insistence of judging the biblical
text by the standards of contemporary historical research.
The Prussian government of the 1830s turned a deft ear to religious controversy. It was busy
building a united Protestant church that required a certain suppression of theological debate.
However, it was the arrival of a new young ruler in 1840, which moved to suppress both
religious deviation and freedom of speech throughout his kingdom. His move tended further to
radicalize the community of scholars and pushed two of the leading figures—Bruno Bauer and
Ludwig Feuerbach—toward a full-blown atheism. In 1842, two of the Young Hegelians based in
Berlin, Bauer and Karl Neuwerck lost their teaching license.
Associated with the Young Hegelians, but soon breaking with them over their alternate analysis
of economics as more important to the power of traditional government, were Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels. Marx continued to build on Hegel, but had a very different critique of religion
relative to its role in supporting rather than suppressing the proletariat, but can justifiably be seen
as a major outgrowth of the Young Hegelians intellectual endeavor.
The major people associated with the Young Hegelians, besides Strauss (1808-1874), Bauer
(1809-1882), and Feuerbach (1804-1872), would include Arnold Ruge (1802-1880), who edited
a journal Hallische Jahrbucher (1838–41) that assisted in providing the group with some selfidentity, Karl Neuwerck, Max Stirner (1806-1856), Moses Hess (1812-1875), Heinrich Heine
(1797-1856), August von Cieszkowski (1814-1894), Karl Schmidt ((1819-1864)), and Bruno’s
brother Edgar Bauer (1820–1886).
This section of the bibliography has been largely developed from “The Autodidact Project” by
Ralph Dumain, posted at http://www.autodidactproject.org/. I am most appreciative of his work.
Primary Sources
Heine, Heinrich. Religion and Philosophy in Germany. Trans. by John Snodgrass. Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1986.
Hess, Moses; The Revival of Israel: Rome and Jerusalem, the Last Nationalist Question. Trans.
by Meyer Waxman. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
Ruge, Arnold et al. Logic. Trans. by Ethel Meyer. London: Macmillan, 1913.
Schmidt, Karl. Love Letters Without Love, Trans. by Eric v.d. Luft. North Syracuse, NY:
Gegensatz Press, 2010.
Stepelvich, Lawrence S., ed. The Young Hegelians: An Anthology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.:
Humanities Press, 1997. [Originally published: Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1983.
Stirner, Max. The Ego and His Own. Trans. by Steven T. Byington. New York; Benjamin R.
Tucker, 1907.
------. The False Principle of Our Education: Or, Humanism and Realism. Trans. by Robert H.
Beebe. Ed. by James J. Martin. Colorado Springs: Ralph Myles Publisher, Inc., 1967.
Strauss, David Friedrich. In Defense of My Life of Jesus against the Hegelians. Trans. and ed. by
Marilyn Chapin Massey. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1983.
-----. The Life of Jesus Critically Examined. Ed. by Peter C. Hodgson. Trans. by George Eliot.
Ramsey, NJ: Sigler Press, 1994.
-----. The Old Faith & the New. Trans. by Mathilde Blind. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books,
1997.
-----. The Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History: A Critique of Schleiermacher's Life of Jesus.
Trans. and ed. by Leander E. Keck. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977.
Secondary Sources
Avineri, Shlomo. Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism. New York: New York
Barth, Karl. Protestant Thought: from Rousseau to Ritschl, translation of eleven chapters of Die
protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert. Trans. By Brian Cozzens. New York: Harper &
Row, 1959.
Brazill, W .J. The Young Hegelians. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970.
Breckman, Warren. Marx, the Young Hegelians, and the Origins of Radical Social Theory:
Dethroning the Self. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Dematteis, Philip Breed. Individuality and the Social Organism: The Controversy between Max
Stirner and Karl Marx. New York: Revisionist Press, 1976.
Hampsher-Monk, Iain. A History of Modern Political Thought: Major Political Thinkers From
Hobbes to Marx. Oxford; Blackwell, 1992.
Hellman, Robert J. Berlin—The Red Room and White Beer: The 'Free' Hegelian Radicals in the
1840s. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1990.
Hook, Sidney. From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx. New
York: the Humanities Press, 1936, 1950. Rpt with new introduction. Ann Arbor: The University
of Michigan Press, 1962.
Kouvelakis, Stathis. Philosophy and Revolution: From Kant to Marx. Trans by G. M.
Goshgarian. London: Verso, 2003.
Liebich, André. Between Ideology and Utopia: The Politics and Philosophy of August
Cieszkowski. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1978.
Lowith, Karl; translated by David E. Green. From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in
Nineteenth-Century Thought. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1967. (Original German edition,
1941)
Mah, Harold. The End of Philosophy, the Origin of "Ideology": Karl Marx and the Crisis of the
Young Hegelians. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
Macintosh, Robert. Hegel and Hegelianism. Bristol: Thoemmes, 1990.
McLellan, David. The Young Hegelians and Karl Marx. New York: F. A. Praeger, 1969.
Moggach, Douglas, ed. The New Hegelians: Politics and Philosophy in the Hegelian School.
Moggach, Douglas. The Philosophy and Politics of Bruno Bauer. Cambridge: Cambridge
Paterson, R. W. K. The Nihilistic Egoist Max Stirner. : Oxford: Oxford University Press for the
University of Hull, 1971. Rpt,: Aldershot: Gregg Revivals, 1993.
Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003.
Roberts, Tyler T. Contesting Spirit: Nietzsche, Affirmation, Religion. Princeton: Princeton
Robertson, Ritchie. Heine. New York: Grove Press, 1988.
Rosen, Zvi. Bruno Bauer and Karl Marx. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1978.
Sass, Hans-Martin. “Bruno Bauer's Critical Theory.” Philosophical Forum 8 (1978): 93–103.
Silberner, Edmund. The Works Of Moses Hess; An Inventory of His Signed and Anonymous
Publications, Manuscripts, and Correspondence. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1958.
-----. Moses Hess, An Annotated Bibliography. New York, B. Franklin, 1951.
Stepelevich, L. S., ed. The Young Hegelians: An Anthology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983.
Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. A Critical Study of its Progress from
Reimarus to Wrede. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Thomas, Paul. Karl Marx and the Anarchists. London; Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
Toews, John Edward. Hegelianism: The Path toward Dialectical Humanism, 1805-1841.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980, 1985.
-----. "Transformations of Hegelianism, 1805-1846." In Beiser, Frederick C., ed. The Cambridge
Companion to Hegel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 378-413.
Weiss, John. Moses Hess, Utopian Socialist. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1960.
Bruno Bauer (1809-1882)
Bruno Bauer was a theologian and biblical scholar who in the late 1830s began to adopt a set of
then radical positions relative to the Christian faith. Most notably he concluded that concluded
that Jesus as a mythical personage and that Christianity owed more to ancient Greek philosophy,
specifically Stoicism than to Judaism. By 1840, he had become an atheist and began to voice
these opinions in his lectures at the University of Bonn. In 8142 his teaching license was
revoked. He retired to a town outside Berlin and worked in his father’s tobacco shop. He
continued to write, however, and paid to have his books published. His major work on biblical
criticism appeared in 1850/52, A Critique of the Gospels and a History of their Origin.
Unfortunately, most of Bauer’s work has yet to be translated into English. Some hesitancy may
be due to the implicit anti-Semitism of his basic thesis relative to the role of Judaism in the
emergence of Christianity, which is also seen today as historically invalid.
Primary Sources
Bauer, Bruno. Christ and the Caesars: The Origin of Christianity from Romanized Greek
Culture. Translation by Frank E. Schacht. Charleston, SC: A. Davidonis, 1998.
-----. An English edition of Bruno Bauer's 1843 Christianity Exposed: a recollection of the
eighteenth century and a contribution to the crisis of the nineteenth century. Ed. by Paul Trejo.
Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002.
-----. The Trumpet of the Last Judgement against Hegel the Atheist and Antichrist: An
Ultimatum. Trans. by Lawrence Stepelevich. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989.
Secondary Sources
Leopold, David. "The Hegelian Antisemitism of Bruno Bauer," History of European Ideas 25, 4
(1999).
Moggach, Douglas. The Philosophy and Politics of Bruno Bauer. Cambridge: Cambridge
Rosen, Zvi. Bruno Bauer and Karl Marx: The Influence of Bruno Bauer on Marx's Thought. The
Hague: Nijhoff, 1977.
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872)
The German philosopher and anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach had begun his education looking
toward being a theologian. He was diverted to philosophy and attended the University of Berlin
to study with Georg F. W. Hegel, the most eminent of the German philosophers of the day. After
completing his education, he taught at Erlagen, but his career was cut short by the discovery of
his having published an early anonymous text Thoughts on Death and Immortality (1830) in
which he made the case that the individual human consciousness would be reabsorbed into the
larger infinite consciousness after death. The conclusion of his argument was that belief in God
and immortality were unnecessary. He added a variety of anti-religious statements to the text that
infuriated his more conservative readers. Having been fired, he was unable to find further
academic work.
Fortunately, he had married a wealthy young woman, and was able to pursue his career as an
independent scholar. He contacted Arnold Ruge, editor of the journal, Hallische Jahrbücher für
deutsche Wissenschaft und Kunst, which became the organ of the Young Hegelians, who saw in
religion a collection of anti-progressive superstitions, and in monarchical government and
blockade to freedom. The Young Hegelians attacked both. In 1841, Feuerbach published one of
his most important books, The Essence of Christianity, in which he develops the idea that God
does not have an existence independent of humans, God is ultimately the outward projection of
humanity’s inward nature.
Feuerbach is often seen as carrying to its logical conclusion the theology of Friedrich
Schleiermacher (1768-1834) who located the basic foundation of religion in the feeling of
absolute dependence upon God. His internalizing of the reality of the individual’s consciousness
of God provided the opening for redefining God and the creation of human experience.
Primary Sources
Feuerbach, Ludwig. The Essence of Christianity. Trans. by George Eliot. Amherst, NY:
-----. The Essence of Faith According to Luther. Trans. by Melvin Cherno. New York: Harper &
Row, 1967.
-----. The Fiery Brook: Selected Writings of Ludwig Feuerbach. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday,
1972.
-----. Lectures on the Essence of Religion. Trans. by Ralph Manheim. New York: Harper &
Row, 1967.
-----. Principles of the Philosophy of the Future. Trans. by Manfred H. Vogel. Library of Liberal
Arts. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966.
-----. Thoughts on Death and Immortality from the Papers of a Thinker, along with an Appendix
of Theological-Satirical Epigrams, Ed. by one of his friends. Trans. by James A. Massey.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
-----. The Essence of Religion, Trans. by Alexander Loos. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books,
2004.
Secondary Sources
Bulgakov, Sergei Nikolaevich, and Virgil R. Lang. Karl Marx as a Religious Type: His Relation
to the Religion of Anthropothesism of L. Feuerbach. Trans. by Luba Barna. Belmont, MA:
Notable & Academic Book, 1980. 116 pp.
Cherno, Melvin, 1955, “Ludwig Feuerbach and the Intellectual Basis of Nineteenth Century
Radicalism” Ph.D dissertation, Stanford University.
Engels, Friedrich and Karl Marx. The German Ideology, including Theses on Feuerbach.
Fiorenza, Francis Schössler. “Feuerbach's Interpretation of Religion and Christianity.” The
Philosophical Forum 11, 2 (1979): 161–181.
Harvey, Van A. Feuerbach and the Interpretation of Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge
–––. “Feuerbach on Religion as Construction.” In Sheila Greeve Davaney, ed. Theology at the
End of Modernity: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Kaufman. Philadelphia: Trinity Press
International, 1991, pp. 249–268.
–––. “Feuerbach on Luther's Doctrine of Revelation.” The Journal of Religion 78, 1 (1998): 3–
17.
–––. “Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Marx.” In Ninian Smart, Patrick Sherry and Steven T. Katz,
eds. Religious Thought in the West. Vol 1. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp.
291–328.
Kamenka, Eugene. The Philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1970.
Wartofsky, Marx. Feuerbach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Philologist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche remains one of the more controversial figures in
German philosophy. His persistent and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth is
but one characteristic that makes him difficult to classify. Trained in philology, he became a
professor at Basel in Classical Philology in 1868 at the University of Basel. He was forced to
resign due to health a decade later (1879) and toward the end of the 1880s was diagnosed with a
mental illness. During his rather brief career, he left behind some classic works that continue to
attract broad readership.
Nietzsche’s most productive period was just beginning when he had to leave Basel, the year that
Human, All Too Human appeared. Over the next decade, at least one book appeared annually,
though some were not well received by any audience at the time of their initial release. The
1880s would be highlighted by the appearance of the first part of The Gay Science (1882) and
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1882-83), which appeared in four parts each with a smaller printing
than the former), Beyond Good and Evil (1886-1887), On the Genealogy of Morals (1887),
Twilight of the Idols (1888) and The Antichrist (1888).
Among the most provocative of Nietzsche’s insights was his observation that "God is dead,"
which occurred most notably in The Gay Science. According to Nietzsche, the secularization of
the modern world has left no place for God. The Christian God, who supplied the foundation and
meaning for Western culture, had simply faded away. This statement gained additional
significance in light of the past situation. Prior to the sixteenth century, it had been relatively
impossible for Westerners to conceive of a universe without God. Most of his contemporaries
dismissed Nietzsche, but his writing would influence some and steadily gain respect through the
twentieth century, as sociology grew and ascribed added meaning to the growing phenomenon of
secularization. Nietzsche’s idea would, of course, give its name to the “Death of God” movement
in Christian theology in the 1960s.
Nietzsche remains one of the most interesting figures in philosophy. Arguments remain over
whether he was himself an atheist or merely a sophisticated social observer, whether his works
constitute philosophy or mere cultural commentary, and whether his ideas have value given the
negative twists placed on them by a variety of twentieth-century social movements.
Bibliographically, see William H. Schaberg’s The Nietzsche Canon: a Publication History and
Bibliography (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996). An online bibliography posted
by the Philosophy Department at Wright State University can be found at
http://www.wright.edu/cola/Dept/PHL/Class/Nietzsche/BIB.HTML.
Primary Sources
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Antichrist. Trans. by Walter Kaufmann. In The Portable Nietzsche. Ed.
by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Viking Press, 1968.
-----. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, 1966.
-----. The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner. Trans. by Walter Kaufmann. New York:
Random House, 1967.
-----. The Gay Science, with a Prelude of Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs. Trans. by Walter
Kaufmann. New York: Random House, 1974.
-----. On the Genealogy of Morals and ecce Homo. Trans. by Walter Kaufmann and R. J.
Hollingdale. New York: Random House, 1967.
-----. The Portable Nietzsche. Ed. By Walter Kaufmann. New York: Viking Press, 1968.
-----. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. trans. Walter Kaufmann, in The Portable Nietzsche. New York:
Viking Press, 1968.
-----. The Will to Power. Trans. by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, 1967.
Secondary Sources
Gillespie, Michael. Nihilism Before Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Gilman, Sander L, ed. Conversations with Nietzsche: A Life in the Words of his Contemporaries.
Trans. by David J. Parent. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Green, Michael. Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition. Champaign IL: University of
Hatab, Lawrence J. Nietzsche's Life Sentence: Coming to Terms with Eternal Recurrence.
Hayman, Ronald. Nietzsche, a Critical Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Higgins, Kathleen Marie. Comic Relief: Nietzsche's Gay Science. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999.
–––. Nietzsche's “Zarathustra” Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987.
Hollingdale, R. J. Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Princeton: Princeton
Lampert, Laurence. Nietzsche's Teaching: An Interpretation of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
–––. Nietzsche's Task: An Interpretation of “Beyond Good and Evil”. New Haven: Yale
Leiter, Brian. Routledge Guidebook to Nietzsche on Morality. London: Routledge, 2002.
Löwith, Karl. From Hegal to Nietzsche: The Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Thought. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.
Magnus, Bernd, and Kathleen M. Higgins (eds.), 1996, The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche.
Oliver, Kelly, and Marilyn Pearsall (eds.), 1998, Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche
(Re-reading the Canon). University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.
Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003.
Richardson, John. Nietzsche's System. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
–––. Nietzsche's New Darwinism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Rosen, Stanley. The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche's Zarathustra. Cambridge: Cambridge
Safranski, Ruediger. Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography. Trans. by Shelley Frisch. New York:
W.W. Norton, 2002.
Salomé, Lou, 1894, Nietzsche. Ed. and trans. by Siegfried Mandel. Redding Ridge, CT: Black
Swan Books, Ltd., 1994.
Scott, Jacqueline, and A. Todd Franklin, eds. Critical Affinities: Nietzsche and African American
Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Stauffer, Jill, and Bettina Bergo, eds. Nietzsche and Levinas: After the Death of a Certain God.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Stern, J. P. A Study of Nietzsche. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Williams, Stephen. The Shadow of the Antichrist: Nietzsche's Critique of Christianity. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006. 320 pp.
Young, Julian. Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge
–––. Nietzsche's Philosophy of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Karl Marx and Marxism
Karl Marx (21818-1883) grew up in a German Jewish home. As a college student in Berlin, he
associated himself with the Young Hegelians. Unable to find a job at a university, he went into
journalism. He moved to Paris in 1843 and began to combine the radical Hegelian philosophy
with French socialism. He met Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) and they developed a life-long
friendship and literary collaboration. The pair became the major theoreticians of an emerging
Communist movement. In 1847, they produced the Communist Manifesto, which served to
project Marx’s followers as a significant element in the anti-monarchical revolutions that
appeared in several European countries in 1848. Marx had returned to Germany to participate in
the revolution there, but in 1849 was forced out of the country and would spend the rest of his
life in exile in England. Engels partially supported him with money from his family’s business in
Manchester.
In London, he completed the work for which he is largely remembers, the three volume study of
the economic structure of society, Capital (1867). Meanwhile he worked on the building of the
Communist International movement, founded in 1864. He died March 14, 1883, and was buried
at London’s famous Highgate Cemetery. Shortly after Marx’s death, Engels published one of his
more important book, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884) and then
worked on editing the manuscripts of the second and third volumes of Capital and saw to their
publication.
Though they saw the emergence of a large international following, neither Marx nor Engels lived
to see their ideas put into actions. That would come with their twentieth century students, most
notably Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924), Mao Zedong, (aka Mao Tse-tung, 1893-1976), and
Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969). The pair did however, set in motion a current of atheist thought that
became and remains the largest form of Western atheism, relative to the number of adherents.
Though he had a much more sophisticated view of religion, Marx is well-known for his
statement that religion is the opiate of the people, something that puts them to sleep relative to
their best interests in opposing autocracy. As Marx and Engels generally opposed state-aligned
churches that used their position to support autocracy, so they praised those movements that
aligned with the proletariat as they understood it and seemed to contribute to the upward rise of
people who challenged the state’s arbitrary rule. Marxist governments have tended to lose that
more sophisticated approach to religion and oppose all religion as counter-evolutionary.
For a more expansive bibliography than is possible here, see Cecil L. Eubanks. Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels: An Analytical Bibliography. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1984): 299 pp.
Primary Sources
Engels, Friedrich. The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State: in the light of the
researches of Lewis H. Morgan. Moscow: International Publishers, 1972. 274 pp.
-----, and Karl Marx. The German Ideology, including Theses on Feuerbach. Amherst, NY:
Marx, Karl. Karl Marx: Selected Writings. Ed. by David McLellan. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford
-----, Marx on Religion. Ed by John Raines. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002. 242
pp.
-----. On Religion. Ed. by Saul K. Padover. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974. The Karl Marx
Library5.
-----, and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works. New York and London: International Publishers.
1975.
-----, and Friedrich Engels. 1978. The Marx-Engels Reader. Ed. by R. C. Tucker. New York:
Norton, 1978.
-----, and Friedrich Engels. On Religion. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1957.
Rpt.: Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2008.
-----, and Friedrich Engels. Selected Works. 2 vols. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing
House, 1962.
Secondary Sources
Aveling, Edward. “Charles Darwin and Karl Marx: a Comparison.” New Century Review 1
(1897): 232 ff.
Avineri, Shlomo. The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx. Cambridge University Press,
1968.
Isaiah Berlin. Karl Marx: His Life and Environment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Bulgakov, Sergei Nikolaevich, and Virgil R. Lang. Karl Marx as a Religious Type: His Relation
to the Religion of Anthropothesism of L. Feuerbach. Trans. by Luba Barna. Belmont, MA:
Notable & Academic Book, 1980. 116 pp.
Caplan, A. L., and B. Jennings, eds. Darwin, Marx, and Freud. Their Influence on Moral Theory.
New York and London, 1984.
Carlton, Grace. Friedrich Engels: The Shadow Prophet. London: Pall Mall Press, 1965.
Carver, Terrell, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Marx. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991.
-----. Friedrich Engels: His Life and Thought. London: Macmillan, 1989.
Goldstein, Warren S. Marx, Critical Theory, and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice.
Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009.
Green, John. Engels: A Revolutionary Life. London: Artery Publications, 2008.
Henderson, W. O. The Life of Friedrich Engels. London : Cass, 1976.
Hook, Sidney. From Hegel to Marx. New York: Humanities Press, 1950.
Hunt, Tristram. The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels.
London: Allen Lane, 2009.
Kamenka, Eugene. The Ethical Foundations of Marxism London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1962.
Kolakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Lukes, Stephen. Marxism and Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Mckown, Delos. The Classical Marxist Critiques of Religion: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Kautsky.
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975.
McLellan, David. Karl Marx: His Life and Thought. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
Norris, Russel. God, Marx, and the Future: Dialogue with Roger Garaudy. Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1974.
Tucker, Robert. Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1967.
Wheen, Francis. Marx's Das Kapital. London: Atlantic Books, 2006.
Wise, Rick B. A. Religion & Marx. Austin, TX: American Atheist Press, 1988. 268 pp.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924)
Revolutionary architect Vladimir Ilyich Lenin grounded Karl Marx’s abstract ideas and turned
them into a successful program for seizing control of a country and turning it into a working
model of a proletarian republic. Of noble Russian background, much of Lenin’s revision of Marx
concerned the role that intellectuals have in educating the working class and in taking the lead in
creating the revolution, the vanguard of the working class. The working class will not of
themselves rise up and take control of the state and the means of production.
Lenin’s revisions to Marx and the subsequent rise of the Soviet Union opened the gate for a
spectrum of variations on Marxist themes, many prompted by the need to solve real problems in
running a country.
Lenin’s institution of anti-religious policies and his suppression of the Russian Orthodox Church
have opened a debate over the relationship of atheism, the Soviet Union’s policies on religion,
and the many deaths of religious people during the time that Lenin and his successors, especially
Joseph Stalin (r.1922-1953) were in office. While atheists have attempted to attribute the
brutalities of especially the Stalin years to other than atheist ideological commitments, the debate
continues, with no signs of reaching an immediate resolution.
Primary Sources
Lenin, Vladimir Ilich. Collected Works. 47 vols. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1960-1980.
-----. Essential Works of Lenin: "What Is to Be Done?" and Other Writings. New York: BN
Publishing, 2009. 384 pp.
-----. The Lenin Anthology. Ed. by Robert C. Tucker. New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
1975. 768 pp.
-----. Selected Works. 3 vols. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1967.
Secondary Sources
Carrère d'Encausse, Hélène. Lenin. New York: Holmes & Meier, 2001.
-----. Lenin: Revolution and Power. London: Longman, 1982.
Claudin-Urondo, Carmen. Lenin and the Cultural Revolution. Sussex and Totowa, New Jersey:
Harvester Press/Humanities Press, 1977.
Cliff, Tony. Lenin. London: Pluto Press, 1979.
Gabel, Paul. And God Created Lenin: Marxism vs. Religion in Russia, 1917-1929. Amherst, NY:
Harding, Neil. Lenin's Political Thought. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1981.
Harding, Neil. Leninism. London: Macmillan, 1991.
Krupskaya, Nadezhda. Memories of Lenin. London: Panther, 1970.
Lewin, Moshe. Lenin's Last Struggle. New York: Random House, 1968.
Pipes, Richard. The Unknown Lenin. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996.
Read, Christopher. Lenin: A Revolutionary Life. London: Routledge, 2003.
Service, Robert. Lenin: A Political Life. 3 vols. London: Macmillan, 1994.
Service, Robert. Lenin—A Biography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Rpt.
London: Pan books, 2010. 561 pp.
Shub, David. Lenin. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966.
Thrower, James, and Maxine Rodinson. Marxist-Leninist Scientific Atheism and the Study of
Religion and Atheism in the USSR. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1983. 500 pp.
Ulam, Adam. Lenin and the Bolsheviks. London: Fontana/Collins, 1969.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Lenin: A New Biography. New York: Free Press, 1994.
Volkogonov, Dmitril. Lenin: Life and Legacy, ed. Harold Shukman. London: Harper Collins,
1995.
Weber, Gerda, and Weber, Hermann. Lenin: Life and Work. London: Macmillan, 1980.
White, James. Lenin: The Practice and Theory of Revolution. London: Palgrave, 2000.
Williams, Beryl. Lenin. London: Harlow Longman, 2000.
Developing Marxism—the Soviet Union and China
The success of the Bolshevik and then the Chinese Revolution set the stage for the spread of
Marxist thought globally. Marxism in turn became the vehicle for the rapid spread of both nontheistic and anti-religious views, the later often emerging in a program of forceful suppression of
religious belief and activity. In the west, Marxist perspective were almost always atheistic and
dismissive of religion, but rarely accompanied by a program of active suppression of religious
groups.
The citations below sample the literature on post-revolutionary Marxism especially in relation to
issues of atheism and religion. The rise of the Soviet Union led to the establishment of atheism as
a state-backed perspective, the suppression of religion through the growing territory under Soviet
hegemony, and then the global rise of atheism among the admirers of the soviet experiment. The
most notable extension came in China following the coming to power of the Maoist forces.
Equally important for modern atheist history has been the reversal of fortunes suffered by the
atheist cause with the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent revival of the Russian
Orthodox Church and the steady growth of religion (including Islam) in post-Soviet lands.
The Chinese Revolution led to a period of massive suppression of all outward expression of
religion in China during what was termed the Cultural Revolution. At the end of the 1970s,
however, china ended its harshest measures against religion (except in Tibet), and the last
generation has seen a remarkable recovery by Buddhism (the largest religious community in
China), Islam (in the northwest), and Christianity (in the more populated eastern provinces along
the Pacific Ocean from Shanghai to Hong Kong). While atheism remains the policy of the state,
significant steps to accommodating religion have been made as China recovered from the near
bankruptcy during the last years that Mao was in power.
Sources
Bercken, William van den. Ideology and Atheism in the Soviet Union. Berlin: Mouton, 1989.
Froese, Paul. “Forced Secularisation in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed.”
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 40, 1 (2004): 35-50.
Gabel, Paul. And God Created Lenin: Marxism vs. Religion in Russia, 1917-1929. Amherst, NY:
Hormel, Leontina M.. “Atheism and Secularity in the Former Soviet Union.” In Phil Zuckerman,
ed. Atheism and Secularity. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009, pp. 45-71. Includes an
extensive bibliography.
Husband, William B. Godless Communists: Atheism and Society in Soviet Russia, 1917-1932.
Rockford, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003.
Kline, George Louis, (1921). Religious and Anti-religious Thought in Russia. Chicago,
University of Chicago Press [1968]
MacInnis, Donald E.. Religion in China Today: Policy & Practices. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1989. 458 pp.
March, Christopher. Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and
Revival. New York: Continuum (January 15, 2011. 288 pp.
Overmyer, Daneil L., ed. Religion in China Today. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 235 pp.
Peris, Daniel. Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1998. 238 pp.
Petrovic, Gajo. Karl Marx in the Mid-Twentieth Century. New York: Anchor Books, 1967.
Pospielovsky, Dimitry. A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Antireligious Policies.
London: Macmillan, 1987.
Pospielovsky, Dimitry. Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and Persecutions. Basingstoke, UK:
Macmillan, 1988.
Qizheng, Zhao, and Luis Palau. Riverside Talks a Friendly Dialogue Between and Atheist and a
Christian. Beijing: New World Press, 2006. 140 pp.
Sher, Gerson, ed. Marxist Humanism and Praxis. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1980.
Stumme, Wayne. Christians and the Many Faces of Marxism. Minneapolis: Augsburg Press,
1984.
Thrower, James, and Maxine Rodinson. Marxist-Leninist Scientific Atheism and the Study of
Religion and Atheism in the USSR. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1983. 500 pp.
Tong, Liang. “Atheism and Secularity in China.” In Phil Zuckerman, ed. Atheism and Secularity.
2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009, pp. 197-221.
Yu, Anthony C. State and Religion in China: Historical and Textual Perspectives. Chicago:
Open Court, 2005. 192 pp.
Yu, Harzhang, and Wang Yousan, ed. The History of Atheism in China. Beijing: China Social
Sciences Press, 1992.
Zhuffeng, Luo, ed. Religion under Socialism in China. Trans. by Donald E. MacInnis and Zheng
Xi’an. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1991. 254 pp.
Marxism
Marxist thought attracted numerous thinkers through the twentieth century. Almost all were nontheists of one form or the other, and atheism was assumed in their writings. At the same time,
politics and economics were far more important that religious issues and a relatively small
percent of their writings directly dealt with the subject of the existence of god and/or argued for
or against a role for religion in the world. This list concentrates on Marxist comments relevant to
the basic issues surrounding their atheism.
Sources
Bleich, Harold. Philosophy of Herbert Marcuse. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America,
1977.
Hook, Sidney. From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx. New
York: John Day Co., 1936.
-----. ed. The Meaning of Marx. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1934. 88 pp. A [Symposium
with contributions by Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Morris R. Cohen, Sherwood Eddy, and
Sidney Hook.
-----. Toward the Understanding of Karl Marx: A Revolutionary Interpretation. New York: John
Day Co., 1933.
Neilsen, Kai. Marxism And The Moral Point Of View: Morality, Ideology, And Historical
Materialism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988. 302 pp.
Phelps, Christopher. Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University, 1997. 2nd ed.: Lansing, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
Freud, Psychoanalysis, and Religion
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), a neurologist residing in Vienna, Austria, developed
psychoanalysis as a means of treating patients through exploration of the unconscious using
conversations between the psychologist and patient as the primary technique. Success came as
the patient was able to balance the needs of the various elements of the psyche—the ego, id, and
superego. In the process of developing psychoanalysis, Freud offered a map of the interior world
of the individual that became widely though far from universally accepted.
Freud’s early exploration of the unconscious produced a purely mundane understanding of the
forces shaping the individual and led to a severe critique of traditional understandings of the
spiritual realm as presented in both Christianity and Freud’s own Jewish tradition. In its simplest
form, religion was seen as an illusion and God as a projection of unresolved issues with a child’s
father. He drew heavily on the nineteenth century explorations of “primitive” peoples still living
in tribal cultures, which he then reinterpreted through the psychoanalytic lens.
While Freud seemed to be revising his opinions of religion in his later life, the earlier works,
which became available in English in the years between the two world wars, became the
dominant literature in the burgeoning field of psychotherapy and dominated the field through the
twentieth century. It would suffer in the late twentieth century from a lack of evidential base and
the general critique of Freud from other weaknesses in his work, not the least being the male
orientation of his overall analysis. This later reappraisal of Freud does not lessen the
understanding of his influence on the understanding of religion and his role in supporting the
spread of atheistic views of reality. As Marx had attacked the outward trapping of religion and its
social impact, so Freud undermined the individual’s claim to inner spirituality.
All of Freud’s writings on religion are included in what is now the Standard Edition of the
Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud published by Hogarth Press, but the major
texts are also available in multiple reprint editions.
Primary Sources
Freud, Sigmund. “An autobiographical study.” Standard Edition, 20 (1925): 3-74.
-----. Civilization and Its Discontents. 1930. New York: Norton, 1961. 121 pp. Included in the
Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Trans. and ed. by
James Strachey. Vol. 21. London: Hogarth Press, 1961.
-----. The Future of an Illusion. Trans. by W.D. Robson-Scott. New York: Liveright, 1928, 1953.
98 pp. Included in the Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund
Freud. Trans. and ed. by James Strachey. Vol. 21. London: Hogarth Press, 1961.
-----. Moses and Monotheism. London, The Hogarth Press and The Institute of Psychoanalysis,
1939. 223 pp. Trans. of Der Mann Moses und die Monotheistische Religion. 1939. Standard
Edition, 23,
-----. "A Religious Experience.” 1928. Included in the Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Trans. and ed. by James Strachey. Vol. 21. London:
Hogarth Press, 1961.
-----. Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics.
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Bakan, David. Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition, Princeton, NJ: D. Van
Nostrand Company, 1958. Rpt.: New York, Schocken Books, 1965.
Bergmann, M. S “Moses and the Evolution of Freud’s Jewish Identity.” In M. Ostow, ed.
Judaism and psychoanalysis. New York: KTAV, 1982. (First published, 1976.)
Bettelheim, Bruno. Freud and Man’s Soul. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.
Brock, Charles.. Freud and Religion. Farmington Papers. Philosophy of Religion 6. Oxford:
Farmington Institute for Christian Studies, 2000.
Capps, Donald, ed. Freud and Freudians on Religion: A Reader. New Haven, CT: Yale
Clark, Ronald W. Freud: The Man and the Cause: A Biography. New York: Random House,
Inc., 1980. 652 pp.
Crews, F. C. Unauthorized Freud: doubters confront a legend. New York, Viking 1998.
DiCenso, James. TheOtherFreud: Religion, Culture, andPsychoanalysis. New York: Routledge,
1999.
Drobin, F. A. Freud and Religion: A psycho-historical view. New York: New York University,
M. A. thesis, 1978.
Dufresne, T. Killing Freud. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003.
Eysenck, H. J. The Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire, Washington D C: Scott-Townsend
Publishers, 1990.
Fromm, Erich. Psychoanalysis and Religion. New haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959. 128
pp.
Gay, Peter. Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York: Norton, 1988. 810 pp.
-----. A Godless Jew: Freud, Atheism, and the Making of Psychoanalysis. New Haven, CT: Yale
Grollman, E. A. Judaism in Sigmund Freud’s World. New York: Block, 1965.
Irwin, J. E. G. "Pfister and Freud: The Rediscovery of a Dialogue." Journal of Religion and
Health 12 (1973): 315–327.
Jaffe, Martin D. The Primal Instinct: How Biological Security Motivates Behavior, Promotes
Morality, Determines Authority, and Explains Our Search for a God. Amherst, NY: Humanity
Books2010. 100 pp.
Jones, Ernest. The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. 3 vols. New York: Basic Books, 1953-57.
Kaplan, Gregory, and William B. Parsons, eds. Disciplining Freud on Religion: Perspectives
from the Humanities and Sciences. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010. 248 pp.
Kung, Hans. Freud and the Problem of God. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Terry
Lectures 41.
LaPiere, R. T. The Freudian Ethic: An Analysis of the Subversion of Western
Character. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974.
Meissner, W.W. Psychoanalysis and Religious Experience. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1984.
Meng, Heinrich, and Freud, Ernst L., eds. Psychoanalysis and Faith: The Letters of Sigmund
Freud and Oskar Pfister, trans. Eric Mosbacher. New York: Basic Books, 1963.
Nicholi, Armand M., Jr. The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God,
Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life. New York: Free Press, 2003. 304 pp.
Oehlschlegel, L. “Regarding Freud’s Book on ‘Moses’—a religio-psychoanalytic study.”
Psychoanalytic Review 30 (1943): 67-76.
Ostow, M., ed. Judaism and psychoanalysis. New York: KTAV, 1982. 305 pp.
Palmer Michael. FreudandJungonReligion. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Pfister, Oskar. "Die Illusion einer Zukunft" ("The Illusion of the Future"). Imago 14 (1928):
149–184; English translation published in International Journal of Psychoanalysis 74 (1993):
557–579.
Rainey, R. M. Freud as a Student of Religion: Perspectives on the background and development
of his thought. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975.
Ray, Darrell R. The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture. IPC Press, 2009. 241
pp.
Rieff, Philip. Freud: The Mind of the Moralist. 3d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1979.
Rizzuto, Ana-Maria. “Freud, God, the Devil and the Theory of Object Representation.”
International Review of Psychoanalysis, 3 (1976):165-180.
-----. Why Did Freud Reject God?: A Psychodynamic Interpretation. New haven, CT: Yale
Scharfenberg, Joachim, and O. C. Dean. Sigmund Freud and his Critique of Religion.
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988.
Scharnberg, Max. The Non-authentic Nature of Freud's Observations. Stockholm, Sweden:
Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1993.
Stannard, D. E. Shrinking History: On Freud and the Failure of Psychohistory Oxford: Oxford
Vitz, P. C. “Sigmund Freud's Attraction to Christianity: Biographical Evidence.” Psychoanalysis
and Contemporary Thought, 6 (1983): 73-183.
-----. “The Psychology of Atheism.” Truth 1 (1985): 29-36.
-----, and J. Gartner. “Christianity and Psychoanalysis. Part 1: Jesus as the Anti-Oedipus.”
Journal of Psychology and Theology 12 (1984): 4-14.
-----, and J. Gartner. “Christianity and Psychoanalysis, Part 2: Jesus as Transformer of the Superego.” Journal of Psychology and Theology, 12 (1984): 82-90.
Webster, Richard. Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science, and Psychoanalysis Basic Books, 1995
Westphal, Merold. Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism. New York:
Fordham University Press, 1999. 296 pp.
Wright, Jack, Jr. Freud's War with God: Psychoanalysis vs. Religion. Lafayette, LA: Huntington
House, 1994. 128 pp.
Zilboorg, G. Psychoanalysis and Religion. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1962.
******************************************************************************
North America
American Freethought—Eighteenth-Century Deism
Deism was passed from Europe, especially England, to the American Colonies. In England, it
has developed through the eighteenth century as an opinion expressed by members of the Church
of England, the established church, to which all belonged who did not specifically declared
themselves dissenters of various kinds—mostly Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, or
Roman Catholic. It took no separate organizational form but was a popular topic for discussion
in various kinds of gatherings including the lodges of the Freemasons, who shared both a
rejection of many points of Orthodox Christianity and a similar understanding of a distant deity.
In the American colonies, it developed as an opinion among the emerging intelligencia and was
especially popular at several of the institutions of higher learning, most notably Harvard and
William and Mary. As in England, it did not take on a separate institutional life though there was
on short-lived attempt to found a Deistical society by Elihu Palmer, a ministerial convert to the
perspective. Most adherents remained a member of the Anglican Church (after the war known as
the Protestant Episcopal Church, or the Congregational church. In the nineteenth century deism
died out in Episcopal circles, but would evolve into the Unitarian movement that eventually split
the Congregational Church.
Sources
Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Bonwick, Cohn. “Joseph Priestley: Emigrant and Jeffersonian.” Enlightenment and Dissent 2
(1983): 3-22.
Cady, Daniel. “Freethinkers and Hell Raisers: A Brief History of American Atheism and
Secularism.” in Phil Zuckerman, ed. Atheism and Secularity. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger,
2009.
Clark, John Ruskin. “Joseph Priestley—Empirical Christian,” Unitarian Universalist Christian
34, 4 (1980): 23-36.
Cobb, Standford. H. The Rise of Religious Liberty in America: A History. New York. Macmillan,
1902. 541 pp. Rpt. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1968.
Cohen, I. Bernard. Science and the Founding Fathers: Science in the Political Thought of
Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Madison. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.
Cousins, Norman. In God We Trust: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the Founding Fathers.
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958.
Cragg, Gerald R. Reason and Authority in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: University
Press, 1964.
Eastland, Terry, ed. Religious Liberty in the Supreme Court: The Cases That Define the Debate
Over Church and State. Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center/Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993.
Eckenrode, H. J. Separation of Church and State in Virginia: A Study in the Development of the
Revolution. Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1910; Rpt.: New York: Da Capo Press, 1971.
Flowers, Ronald B. That Godless Court? Supreme Court Decisions on Church-State
Relationships. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994.
Gamwell, Franklin I. The Meaning of Religious Freedom: Modern Politics and the Democratic
Resolution. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Grasso, Christopher. “Deist Monster: On Religious Common Sense in the Wake of the American
Revolution.” Journal of American History 95:1 (June 2008): 43-68.
Grasso, James V. “Humanism in the Eighteenth Century.” The Humanist 11, 4 (July/August
1951): 175-76.
Harp, Gillis J. “‘The Church of Humanity’: New York’s Worshipping Positivists.” Church
History 60 (1991): 508-523.
-----. Positivist Republic: Auguste Comte and the Reconstruction of American Liberalism, 18651920. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.2444 pp.
Haynes, Charles C., and Oliver S. Thomas. Finding Common Ground: A First Amendment Guide
to Religion and Public Education. Nashville, TN: Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at
Vanderbilt University, 1998.
Hoffman, Ronald, and Peter Alberts, eds. Religion in a Revolutionary Age. Charlottesville, VA:
University Press of Virginia, 1994.
Holmes, David L. The Faiths of the Founding Fathers. New York: Oxford University Press,
2006. 225 pp.
Kieft, Lester, and Bennett R. Willeford, eds. Joseph Priestley: Scientist, Theologian and MetaPhysician. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1980. 117 pp.
Koch, Gustav A. Religion of the American Enlightenment. 1933. rpt. New York: Thomas Y.
Crowell, 1968.
Kramnick, Isaac, and R. Lawrence Moore. The Godless Constitution: The Case against Religious
Correctness. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. 192 pp.
LaHaye, Tim. Faith of Our Founding Fathers. Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers,
1987.
Levy, Leonard W. The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment, 2d ed. Chapel
Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
Marini, Stephen A. Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
May, Henry Farnham. The Enlightenment in America. New York: Oxford University Press,
1976.
Meacham, Jon. American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. New
York: Random House, 2007. 448 pp.
Mead, Sidney Earl. The Lively Experiment: The Shaping of Christianity in America (1st ed.).
New York: Harper and Row, 1963.
-----. The Nation with the Soul of a Church. New York: Harper and Row, 1975.
-----. The Old Religion in the Brave New World: Reflections on the Relation between
Christendom and the Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977
Miller, William Lee. The First Liberty: Religion and the American Republic. New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1988.
Morais, Herbert M. Deism in Eighteenth Century America. New York: Russell & Russell, 1960.
203 pp.
Noll, Mark. “When `Infidels’ Run for Office.” Christianity Today 28 (October 5, 1984): 20-25. A
discussion of the election of 1650.
Peterson, Merrill D., and Robert C. Vaughan, eds. The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.
Seth Payson. Proofs of the Real Existence, and Dangerous Tendency, of Illuminism: containing
an abstract of the most interesting parts of what Dr. Robison and the Abbe Barruel have
published on this subject, with collateral proofs and general observations. New Haven, 1802.
Rpt. as: Proof of the Illuminati. Arlington, VA: Invisible College Press, 2003. 201 pp. This early
text attacking Deism is also now available from various publish-on-demand companies.
Shenkman, Rick. “An Interview with Jon Butler. . . Was America Founded as a Christian
Nation?” History News Network (February 20, 2004). Posted at http://hnn.us/articles/9144.html.
Richards, David A. J. Toleration and the Constitution. New York: Oxford University Press,
1986.
Riley, I. Woodbridge. American Philosophy, The Early Schools. New York: Dodd, Mead &
Company, 1907.
Robbins, Caroline. “Honest Heretic: Joseph Priestley in America, 1794-1804.” Proceedings of
the American Philosophical Society 106 (1962): 60-76.
Steiner, Franklin. The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents: An account of the religious beliefs,
and lack of such beliefs, of our chief executives, and a chronicle of the ... and controversies of
their administrations. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius, 1936. 190 pp. Rpt. as Religious Beliefs of
Our Presidents: From Washington to F.D.R. Amherst, NY Prometheus Books, 1995. 190 pp. An
abridged text has been published at
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/franklin_steiner/presidents.html
Torre, Jose R., ed. The Enlightenment in America, 1720–1825. 4 Vols. London: Pickering &
Chatto, 2008. 1360 pp
Walters, Kerry S. The American Deists: Voices of Reason and Dissent in the Early Republic.
Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1992.
-----. Rational Infidels: The American Deists. Durango, CO: Longwood Academic Press, 1992.
Wood, James E., Jr., and Derek Davis, eds. The Role of Government in Monitoring and
Regulating Religion in Public Life. Waco, TX: Baylor University, 1993.
John Adams (1735-1826) and Abigail Adams (1744-1818)
One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams was born John Adams was
born October 13, 1735, at Quincy (then known as Braintree), Massachusetts. After graduating
from Harvard he became a lawyer. He later became a leading theorist of the leader of the
American Revolution, and went on to become the first vice-president and second president of the
United States. Abigail Adams, his wife, was born Abigail Smith in 1744 at Weymouth,
Massachusetts. Both her father and grandfather were Congregational ministers. Along with her
husband, Abrigial joined First Parish, Braintree, where the minister, Lemuel Briant (1722-1754),
was an early Unitarian. His denial of some major Calvinist doctrines (original sin, election, and
salvation by arbitrary grace) led to a trial by a church council
Abigail died in 1818. John died July 4th, 1826, just a few hours after the passing of Thomas
Jefferson. He was laid to rest in a crypt beneath the church he long attended.
The development of this bibliography on the Adams has drawn on “Perspectives in American
Literature - A Research and Reference Guide - An Ongoing Project “ by Paul P. Reuben posted
at http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap2/adams.html.
Primary Sources
Adams, Abrigail. New letters of Abigail Adams, 1788-1801. Ed. by Stewart Mitchell. Boston,
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1947.
-----, and John Adams. The Book of Abigail and John: selected letters of the Adams family, 17621784. Ed. by L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, and Mary-Jo Kline. Cambridge: Harvard
-----, and John Adams. My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams. Ed. by Margaret
A. Hogan, C. James Taylor, and Joseph J. Ellis. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007.
The Adams-Jefferson letters; the complete correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and
Abigail and John Adams. Ed. by Lester J. Cappon. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1959.
Adams, John. Diary and autobiography. Ed. by L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge: Harvard
-----. The Earliest Diary of John Adams; June 1753-April 1754, September 1758-January 1759.
Ed. L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966.
-----. Legal papers of John Adams. Eds. L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel. Cambridge:
-----. Papers of John Adams. Ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977.
-----. and Benjamin Rush. The spur of fame, dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, 18051813. Ed. by John A. Schutz and Douglass Adair. San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1966.
Secondary Sources
Ferling, John E. John Adams: a life. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1996.
Gelles, Edith B. Portia: the world of Abigail Adams. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1992.
-----. ed. First Thoughts: life and letters of Abigail Adams. New York: Twayne, 1998.
Goff, Philip Kevin. The Religious World of the Revolutionary John Adams. Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina, Ph.D. dissertation, 1993.
Hawke, David F. A Transaction of Free Men: the birth and course of the Declaration of
Independence. New York: Da Capo Press, 1989.
2006. 225 pp.
Lossing, B. J. Signers of the Declaration of Independence. New York: George F. Cooledge &
Brother, 1848.
McCullough, David. John Adams. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Murphy, Gretchen. Hemispheric Imaginings: The Monroe Doctrine and Narratives of U.S.
Empire. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
Nagel, Paul C. Descent from Glory: Four Generations of the John Adams Family. Oxford:
-----. The Adams Women: Abigail and Louisa Adams, their sisters and daughters. New York:
Schulz, Constance Bartlett. The Radical Religious Ideas of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams: A
Comparison. Cincinnati, OH: University of Cincinnati, Ph.D. dissertation, 1973.
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/franklin_steiner/presidents.html.
Trees, Andrew S. The Founding Fathers and the Politics of Character. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Withey, Lynne. Dearest Friend: a life of Abigail Adams. New York: Free Press, 1981.
Ethan Allen (1738-1789)
Ethan Allen was a hero of the American Revolution, best known for the efforts he and the Green
Mountain Boys made in the taking of Fort Ticonderoga. Returning to farming after the war, he
emerged in the public spotlight as the author of one of the new nation’s first skeptical religious
treatises, Reason, the Only Oracle of Man. Drawing on themes from British Deism, he attacked
the conservative New England clergy for denigrating the dignity of ordinary people. Though
widely condemned by the ministers it attacked, it found a popular public audience. Allen died in
1789. His brother Ira wrote a history of the exploits of the Green Mountain boys.
Primary Sources
Allen, Ethan. On Natural Religion... Selections from REASON THE ONLY ORACLE OF MAN.
Ed. and abridged by J. Michael McKnight. Burlington, VT: The editor, 2005. 20pp. Posted at
www.essentialteachings.com.
-----. Reason the Only Oracle of Man. 1784. Rpt.: Boston J.P. Mendum 1854. 171 pp. Rpt.: New
York: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1940. This book is currently available in a variety of
the publish-on-demand facsimile formats. Electronic text posted at
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/ethan_allen/reason-the_oracle_of_man.html.
Ethan and Ira Allen Collected Works. Ed. by J. Kevin Graffagnino. 3 vols. Benson, Vermont:
Chalidze Publications, 1991.
Secondary Sources
Anderson, George Pomeroy. “Who Wrote ‘Ethan Allen’s Bible?’” New England Quarterly 10
(1937).
Bellesiles, Michael. Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on
the Early American Frontier. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995. 444 pp.
Brown, Charles Walter. Ethan Allen of Green Mountain Fame: A Hero of the American
Revolution. Chicago: M. A, Donohue & Co., 1902. 281 pp. Posted at
http://books.google.com/books
Brown, Slater. Ethan Allan & the Green Mountain Boys. New York: Random House Landmark,
1956.
Dennis, Donald Dean. The Deistic Trio: A Study in the Central Religious Beliefs of Ethan Allen,
Thomas Paine, and Elihu Palmer. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah, Ph.D. dissertation.
Gohdes, Clarence. “Ethan Allen and His Magnum Opus.” Open Court 43 (1929).
Holbrook, Stewart H. Ethan Allen. New York: Macmillan Company, 1940. 288 pp.
Hoyt, Edwin P. The Damndest Yankee: Ethan Allen & his Clan. Brattleboro, VT: The Stephen
Greene Press, 1976.
Jellison, Charles A. Ethan Allen, Frontier Rebel. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press,
1969.
Moore, Hugh. Memoir of Col. Ethan Allen; Containing the Most Interesting Incidents Connected
With His Private and Public Career. Plattsburg, NY: O. R. Cook, 1834. 252 pp.
Morris, Carol. “A Comparison of Ethan Allen’s Reason the Only Oracle of Man and Hosea
Ballou’s A Treatise on Atonement.” Journal of the Universalist Historical Society 2 (1961): 3469.
Pell, John. Ethan Allen. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929.
Schantz, B. T. “Ethan Allen’s Religious Ideas.” Journal of Religion 18 (1938).
Shapiro [Levy], Darline. “Ethan Allen: Philosopher-Theologian to a Generation of American
Revolutionaries.” William and Mary Quarterly 3rd series. 21 (1964).
Walters, Kerry S. The American Deists: Voices of Reason and Dissent in the Early Republic.
Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1992.
-----. Rational Infidels: The American Deists. Durango, CO: Longwood Academic Press, 1992.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Benjamin Franklin, a leading figure of the American Revolution, was born on January 17, 1706,
in Boston, Massachusetts, He was the tenth of seventeen children. Destined for the ministry, he
was unable to get the required education due to the financial limitations of his parents. Moving to
Pennsylvania, he became a successful printer and publisher. He developed a number of social
improvement efforts, made a number of inventions, and became politically active. Franklin was
elected to the Second Continental Congress and served on the committee that drafted the
Declaration of Independence. He later served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and
became a signer of the Constitution. He died on April 17, 1790.
Franklin was known for generally supporting religion in Philadelphia, and gave money for the
builing of various religious houses. His own opinions about religion, significantly liberal for his
day are best presented in two works, A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain
(1725), and early satirical work in which he lampooned contemporary religion, and Articles of
Belief and Acts of Religion 1728), the most complete statement of his personal spiritual beliefs,
with obvious deistic leanings.
This highly selective bibliography draws in part on the “Biographical Directory of the United
States Congress,” posted at http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/bibdisplay.pl?index=F000342.
Primary Sources
Franklin, Benjamin. Autobiography and Other Writings. 1961. Reprint, selected and edited with
an introduction by L. Jesse Hemisch, New York: Signet Classic, 2001.
___. Autobiography, Poor Richard, and Later Writings: Letters from London, 1757-1775, Paris
1776-1785, Philadelphia, 1785-1790, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1733-1758, The
Autobiography. Ed. by J. A. Leo Lemay. New York: Library of America, 1987.
___. Benjamin Franklin: A Biography in His Own Words. Ed. by Thomas Fleming. 2 vols. New
York: Newsweek, 1972.
___. Benjamin Franklin: His Life As He Wrote It. Ed. by Esmond Wright. Cambridge, MA:
-----. A Benjamin Franklin Reader. Ed. by Walter Isaacson. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
576 pp.
-----. Benjamin Franklin: Writings. Ed. by J. A. Leo Lamay. New York: Library of America,
1987.
-----. Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Criticism. Ed.
by J. A. Leo Lemay and P. M. Zell. A Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton, 1986.
___. The Compleat Autobiography. Ed. by Mark Skousen. Washington, D. C.: Regnery
Publishing, 2006.
___. Franklin on Franklin. Ed. by Paul M. Zall. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky,
2000.
___. The Papers of Benjamin Franklin. 25 volumes. Ed. by Leonard W. Labaree and William B.
Willcox. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959.
-----. The Writings of Benjamin Franklin. Ed. by Albert Henry Smyth. 10 vols. New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1905-7.
Secondary Sources
Aldridge, Alfred Owen. Benjamin Franklin and Nature’s God. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 1967.
-----. Benjamin Franklin, Philosopher & Man. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, 1965.
-----. Franklin and His French Contemporaries. 1957. Reprint Edition, Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1976.
-----. “Franklin’s Experimental Religion.” In Roy N. Lorren, ed. Meet Dr. Franklin.
Philadelphia: The Franklin Institute, 1981.
Anderson, Douglas. The Radical Enlightenments of Benjamin Franklin (1997) - fresh look at the
intellectual roots of Franklin
Becker, Carl. Benjamin Franklin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1946.
Bowen, Catherine Drinker. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Scenes from the Life of
Benjamin Franklin. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974.
Buxbaum, Melvin H. Critical Essays on Benjamin Franklin. Boston: G. K, Hall & Co., 1987.
Campbell, James. Recovering Benjamin Franklin: An Exploration Of A Life Of Science and
Service. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1999.
Cohen, I. Bernard. Benjamin Franklin: His Contribution to the American Tradition. Indianapolis,
IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953.
-----. Benjamin Franklin: Scientist and Statesman. New York: Scribner, 1975.
-----. Science and the Founding Fathers: Science in the Political Thought of Jefferson, Franklin,
Adams, and Madison. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.
2006. 225 pp.
Huang, Nian-Sheng. Benjamin Franklin in American Thought and Culture, 1790-1938. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University, Ph. D. dissertation, 1990.
-----. Benjamin Franklin in American Thought and Culture, 1790-1990. Philadelphia, PA:
American Philosophical Society, 1994.
Humes, James C. The Wit & Wisdom of Benjamin Franklin. Warsaw, Poland: Gramercy Books,
2001.
Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.
608 pp.
Ketcham, R. L. Benjamin Franklin. New York: Washington Square Press, 1965.
Lawrence, D. H. Studies in Classic American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003. 712 pp. Posted at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/LAWRENCE/dhltoc.htm.
Lopez, Claude-Anne. Mon Cher Papa: Franklin and the Ladies of Paris. Rev. ed. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1990.
Studies on Benjamin Franklin, The Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of His Birth, January
17, 1956. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 1955.
Van Doren, Carl. Benjamin Franklin. 3 vols. New York The Viking Press 1938.
Walters, Kerry S. Benjamin Franklin and His Gods. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
213 pp.
Weaver, Jeanne Moore. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson: Two American Philosophes
Compared. Alburn, AL: Auburn University, Ph. D. dissertation, 1988.
Weinberger, Jerry Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and
Political Thought. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2005. 336 pp.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Born in 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia, Thomas Jefferson went on to become the main
author of the declaration of Independence and later the third president of the United States. He
attended the College of William and Mary, and then went on to become a lawyer. He also ran a
plantation, the site of his mansion, Monticello. An intellectual of prominence, he thought about
religious issues and published from his then radical deistic and anticlerical perspective. That
perspective led to a variety of actions from his producing an abridged edition of the Bible to his
writing a bill establishing religious freedom, in Virginia, enacted in 1786. Jefferson also
proposed the phrase “wall of separation” to describe the perspectiev fo the Bill or Rights on the
relation of religion and government. He died on July 4, 1826, the same day that John Adams also
passed away.
This bibliography is highly selective with a concentration on Jefferson’s religious beliefs and the
political policies that flowed from them. For amore complete bibliography see Frank Shuffelton,
ed. “Thomas Jefferson: A Comprehensive, Annotated Bibliography of writings about him, 18261997,” posted at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/bibliog/Dates/. This sight builds on
Shuffelton’s earlier book, Thomas Jefferson: A Comprehensive, Annotated Bibliography of
Writings about Him: 1826-1980. New York: Garland Publishing, 1983. 486 pp.
Primary Sources
The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and
Abigial and John Adams in Two Volumes. Ed. By Lester J. Cappon. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina, 1959.
Jefferson, Thomas. The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1790. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. 162 pp.
-----. The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Boston, Massachusetts,
U.S.A.: Beacon Pr, 1991. 171 pp.
-----. Jefferson Himself: The Personal Narrative of a Many-Sided American. Ed. by Bernard
Mayo. Charlottesville, VA, University of Virginia Press. 1995, 384 pp.
-----. A Jefferson Profile as revealed in his letters. New York J. Day Co. 1956. 359 p.
-----. Jefferson’s Letters. Selections from the private and political correspondence of Thomas
Jefferson, telling the story of American independence and the founding of the American
Government. Eau Claire, WI: E. M. Hale and Company, n.d. 374 p.
-----. The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Ed. by Adrienne Koch and William
Peden. New York: Modern Library, 1944. 756 pp.
-----. Thomas Jefferson Writings. Autobiography, A Summary View of the Rights of British
America, Notes on the State of Virginia, Public Papers, Addresses, Messages, and Replies,
Miscellany, Letters. 8 vols. New York: Library of America, 1984.
Smith, James Morton, ed. The Republic of Letters: The Correspondence between Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison, 1776-1826. 3 vols. New York: Norton, 1995.
Ye Will Say I Am No Christian: The Thomas Jefferson/John Adams Correspondence on Religion
Morals And Values. Ed. by Bruce Braden. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005. 258 pp.
Secondary Sources
Aldridge, A. Owen. “Franklin, Paine, and Jefferson.” In The Dragon and the Eagle: the Presence
of China in the American Enlightenment. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1993, pp.
85-97.
Blau, Joseph L. “The Wall of Separation.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 38 (1984): 263-88.
Boorstill, Daniel J. The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Henry Holt and Company,
1948.
Bryan, Susan. “Reauthorizing the Text: Jefferson’s Scissor Edit of the Gospels,” Early American
Literature 22 (1987): 19-42.
Buckley, Thomas E. “After Disestablishment: Thomas Jefferson’s Wall of Separation in
Antebellum Virginia.” Journal of Southern History 61 (1995): 445-80.
Buckley, Thomas E. “The Political Theology of Thomas Jefferson.” In Merrill D. Peterson and
Robert C. Vaughan, eds. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom: Its Evolution and
Consequences in American History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 75-108.
Buie, Jim. “Forgetting Religious Freedom: Why Mr. Jefferson’s Legacy Isn’t Being Taught in
America’s Classrooms.” Church and State 39 (April 1986): 80-82.
Carmody, Denise Lardner, and John Tally Carmody. “Thomas Jefferson and Disestablishment”
in The Republic of Many Mansions: Foundations of American Religious Thought. New York:
Paragon House, 1990, pp. 87-119.
Church, F. Forrester. “Thomas Jefferson’s Bible.” In Ernest S. Frerichs, ed. The Bible and Bibles
in America. , ed. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1988, pp. 145-61.
Conkin, Paul K. “Priestley and Jefferson: Unitarianism as a Religion for a New Revolutionary
Age.” InRonald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, ed. Religion in a Revolutionary Age.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994, pp. 290-307.
-----. “The Religious Pilgrimage of Thomas Jefferson,” In Peter S. Onuf, ed, Jeffersonian
Legacies. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993, pp. 19-49.
Cord, Robert L. “Resurrecting Madison and Jefferson.” Separation of Church and State:
Historical Fact and Current Fiction. New York: Lambeth Press, 1982, pp. 16-47.
Cunningham, Noble E. The Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson. Baton Rouge, LA:
Louisiana State University Press, 1987.
Dalal, B. P. “Thomas Jefferson and the Struggle for Religious Freedom in the United States.”
Indian Journal of American Studies 22, 2 (1992): 63-68.
Derr, Thomas S. “The First Amendment as a Guide to Church-State Relations: Theological
Illusions, Cultural Fantasies, and Legal Practicalities.” In Jaye B. Hensel, ed. Church, State, and
Politics. Washington, DC: Roscoe Pound-American Trial Lawyers Foundation, 1981, pp. 75-91.
Dreisbach, Daniel L. “In Pursuit of Religious Freedom: Thomas Jefferson’s Church-State Views
Revisited.” In Luis Lugo, ed. in Religion, Public Life, and the American Polity. Knoxville, TN:
University of Tennessee Press, 1994, pp. 74-111.
-----. “A New Perspective on Jefferson’s Views on Church-State Relations: The Virginia Statute
for Establishing Religious Freedom in Its Legislative Context.” American Journal of Legal
History 35 (1991): 172-204.
-----. “‘Sowing Useful Truths and Principles’: The Danbury Baptists, Thomas Jefferson, and the
‘Wall of Separation,’“ Journal of Church and State 39 (1997): 455-501.
Dunn, James M. “Neutrality and the Establishment Clause,”In Paul J. Weber, ed. Equal
Separation: Understanding the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1990, pp. 55-72.
Eidsmoe, John. “Thomas Jefferson.” In John Eidsmoe. Christianity and the Constitution: The
Faith of Our Founding Fathers. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987, pp. 215-46.
Ericson, Edward L. “Freethinker in the White House: Thomas Jefferson.” In Edward Ericson.
The Free Mind Through the Ages. Nw York: Ungar, 1985, pp. 105-20.
Fairbanks, Rick. “The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God: The Role of Theological Claimsin
the Argument of the Declaration of Independence.” Journal of Law and Religion 11 (1995): 551589.
Frank, Willard C., Jr. “Thomas Jefferson’s Religious Journey.” Religious Humanism 20 (Winter,
1986): 8-17.
Gaustad, Edwin S. “Liberty of Religion: For Virginia and Far Beyond.” Valley Forge Journal 3
(1987): 253-71.
-----. “On Jeffersonian Liberty.” In Jerald C. Brauer, ed. The Lively Experiment Continued.
Athens, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987, pp. 85-104.
-----. “Religion.” In Merrill D. Peterson, ed. Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography.
New York: Scribners, 1986, pp. 277-295.
-----. Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography of Thomas Jefferson. Grand Rapids, MI:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1996. 246 pp.
-----. “Religious Liberty in America: The Contribution of Thomas Jefferson and James
Madison,” Indian Journal of American Studies 25 (1995): 1-21.
Goodspeed, Edgar J. “Thomas Jefferson and the Bible.” Harvard Theological Review 40 (1947):
71-76.
Gummerson, William Mitchell. Severing the Gordian Knot: The Search for a Workable
Interpretation of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. Columbia, SC: University of
South Carolina, Ph. D. dissertation, 1993. 271 pp.
Gurley, James Lafayette. Thomas Jefferson’s Philosophy and Theology: As Related to His
Political Principles Including Separation of Church and State. Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan, Ph.D. dissertation, 1975.
Healey, Robert M. “Jefferson on Judaism and the Jews: `Divided We Stand, United, We Fall!’.”
American Jewish History 73 (1984): 359-374.
Healey, Robert M. “Thomas Jefferson’s `Wall’: Absolute or Serpentine?” Journal of Church and
State 30 (1988): 441-62. Rpt. In Paul J. Weber, ed. Equal Separation: Understanding the
Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1990, pp. 123-48.
Hill, Kent R. “Religion and the Common Good: In Defense of Pluralism.” This World 17 (1987):
77-87.
2006. 225 pp.
Howe, Charles A. “Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Rush: Christian Revolutionaries.” Unitarian
Universalist Christian 44, 3-4 (1989): 63-71.
Huddleston, Eugene L. Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. 374 pp.
Hunter, C. Bruce. “Jefferson’s Bible: Cutting and Pasting the Good Book” Bible Review 13 (Fall,
1997): 38-41, 46.
Huntley, William B. “Jefferson’s Public and Private Religion.” South Atlantic Quarterly 79
(1980): 286-301.
Jayne, Allen, ed. The Religious and Moral Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Vantage
Press, 1984. 219 pp.
Kessler, Sanford. “Jefferson’s Rational Religion.” In Sidney A. Pearson, Jr., ed. The
Constitutional Polity: Essays on the Founding Principles of American Politics.
Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1983, pp. 58-73.
-----. “Locke’s Influence on Jefferson’s `Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom’.” Journal of
Church and State 25 (1983): 231-52.
King, Richard. “Civil Rights and Civil Religion: The Jeffersonian Legacy.” In Gary L.
McDowell and Sharon L. Noble, eds. Reason and Republicanism. Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 1997, pp. 231-50.
Knittel, Gregory Lawrence. The Euthanasia of Platonic Christianity: Thomas Jefferson, Plato,
Religion and Human Freedom. San Jose, CA: San Jose State University, M. A. thesis, 1993. 202
pp.
Konvitz, Milton R. “Religious Liberty: The Congruence of Thomas Jefferson and Moses
Mendelssohn.” Jewish Social Studies 49, 2 (1987): 115-24.
Kramer, Lloyd S., ed. Paine and Jefferson on Liberty. New York: Ungar, 1988. 144 pp
Lambert, Frank. “‘God--and a Religious President ... [or] Jefferson and No God’: Campaigning
for a Voter-Imposed Religious Test in 1650.” Journal of Church and State 39 (1997): 769-89.
Luebke, Fred C. “The Origins of Thomas Jefferson’s Anti-Clericalism” Church History 32
(1963): 344-356.
Mabee, Charles. “Thomas Jefferson’s Anti-Clerical Bible.” Historical Magazine of the
Protestant Episcopal Church 48 (1979): 473-481.
McKenzie, David. “Fundamentalism and Founding Faith.” Religious Humanism 25 (Spring,
1991): 92-101.
McKenzie responds to Baptist minister Tim LaHaye’s attempt in his book Faith of Our Fathers
(1987) to present the Founding Fathers as good and orthodox Christians.
Malone, Dumas. Jefferson and His Times. 6 vols. Boston: Little Brown, 1948-1981.
Currently considered the definitive biographical work on Jefferson. The six volumes include: 1:
Jefferson the Virginian, 2: Jefferson and the Rights of Man, 3: Jefferson and the Ordeal of
Liberty, 4: Jefferson the President, First Term 1801-1805, 5: Jefferson the President, Second
Term 1805-1809, 6: Jefferson and His Time, The Sage of Monticello.
Peterson, Merrill D. “Jefferson and Religious Freedom.” The Atlantic Monthly 274 (December,
1994): 112-24.
-----. “Jefferson, Madison, and Church State Separation.” In Richard A. Rutyna and John W.
Kuehl, eds. Conceived in Conscience: An Analysis of Contemporary Church-State Relations.
Norfolk, VA: Donning, 1983, pp. 34-42.
-----. Thomas Jefferson: Religious Liberty and the American Tradition. Fredericksburg, VA:
Thomas Jefferson Institute for the Study of Religious Freedom, 1987
Pierard, Richard V. “Separation of Church and State: Figment of an Infidel’s Imagination?”
Faith and Freedom: A Tribute to Franklin H. Littell, ed. Richard Libowitz. New York: Pergamon
Press, 1987, pp. 143-50.
Popkin, Richard H. “Thomas Jefferson’s Letter to Mordecai Noah.” American Book Collector 8
(June, 1987): 9-11.
Rahe, Paul. “Church and State.” American Spectator 19 (January, 1986): 18-23.
Richards, David A. J. Toleration and the Constitution. New York: Oxford University Press,
1986.
Samuelson, Richard A. “What Adams Saw Over Jefferson’s Wall.” Commentary 104 (August,
1997): 52-54.
Sanford, Charles B. The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson. Charlottesville: University Press of
Virginia, 1984. 246 pp.
Schulz, Constance Bartlett. The Radical Religious Ideas of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams: A
Comparison. Cincinnati, OH: University of Cincinnati, Ph.D. dissertation, 1973.
Shuffelton, Frank. “Jefferson: Conscience v. Church.” Humanities: The Magazine of the
National Endowment for the Humanities 14 (March/April 1993): 17-19.
This article follows up Jefferson’s prediction that Unitarianism would become the general
religion of the United States.
Somerville, Terry. “Did America’s Founding Fathers Really Stand on the Word of God?”
Christianity Today: 27 (June 17, 1983): 17-19.
The author warns fellow Christians not to turn to Jefferson for spiritual or theological comfort, in
spiet of his rich treasure of political wisdom.
Smylie, James H. “Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom: The Hanover Presbytery
Memorials, 1776-1786.” American Presbyterians (formerly Journal of Presbyterian History) 63
(1985): 355-73.
Strout, Cushing “Jefferson’s Statute and the Glorious First.” Proteus 4, 2 (1987): 5-12.
Thompson, Peggy. “Jefferson Trimmed the Bible to His Taste.” Smithsonian 14 (September,
1983): 139-45, 47-48.
Wills, Garry. “Jefferson: The Uses of Religion” and “Jefferson: The Protection of Religion.” In
Under God: Religion and American Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster,1990, pp. 354-72.
Zagarri, Rosemarie. “Founding Intentions: Jefferson & Madison on School Prayer.” New
Republic 193 (September 9, 1985): 10-11.
James Madison (1751-1836)
James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, was born on March 5, 1751, at Port
Conway, Virginia. He later attended the Presbyterian-sponsored College of New Jersey (now
Princeton University). He helped write the Virginia Constitution of 1776, later served in the
Continental Congress, and was active in the Constitutional Convention. He is best known as the
co-author of the Federalist essays, still basic documents on the United States government. He
died on June 28, 1836, the last of the founding fathers to pass away.
James Madison, an Episcopalian, attended St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington during his
years as President, though theologically, he was a Deist. He often shifted his position on different
issues relative to freedom of religion and separation of church and state as he encountered
variant political realities. Often cited is the so-called “Detached Memorandum” in which he
argued against hiring chaplains for the congress. This brief document is posted at http://presspubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions64.html.
For a more complete bibliography on Madison, see “Bibliography—James Madison (1751 1836)” posted at the site of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia:
http://millercenter.org/scripps/onlinereference/bibliographies/madison.
Primary Sources
Madison, James. The Complete Madison: His Basic Writings. Ed. by Saul K. Padover. New
York: Harper and brothers, 1953.
-----. The Forging of American Federalism: Selected Writings of James Madison. Ed by Saul K.
Padover. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965. 361 pp.
-----. James Madison on Religious Liberty. Ed. by Robert S. Alley. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus
Books, 1985).
-----. The Papers of James Madison. Ed. by William T. Hutchinson et al. Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press, 1962-.
-----. The Political Writings of James Monroe. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2002. 863
pp.
-----. The Writings of James Madison. Ed. by Guillard Hunt. 9 vols. New York: G.P. Putnam’s
Sons, 1900-1910.
Smith, James Morton, ed. The Republic of Letters: The Correspondence between Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison, 1776-1826. 3 vols. New York: Norton, 1995.
Secondary Sources
Adair, Douglass, ed. “Madison’s Autobiography.” William and Mary Quarterly 2 (1945).
Adams, John Quincy. The Lives of James Madison and James Monroe. Boston: Phillips,
Sampson & Co., 1850.
Alley, Robert S. James Madison on Religious Liberty. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1985.
Brant, Irving. James Madison. 6 vols. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1941-1961.
Ketcham, Ralph L. James Madison: A Biography. New York: Macmillan, 1971.
2006. 225 pp.
Muñoz, Vincent Phillip. “James Madison’s Principle of Religious Liberty.” American Political
Science Review 97, 1 (2003): 17–32.
Peterson, Merrill D. ed. James Madison: A Biography in His Own Words. New York:
Newsweek, 1974.
Rutland, Robert A., ed. James Madison and the American Nation, 1751–1836: An Encyclopedia.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Scarberry, Mark S. “John Leland and James Madison: Religious Influence on the Ratification of
the Constitution and on the Proposal of the Bill of Rights.” Penn State Law Review 113, 3 (April
2009): 733-650.
James Monroe (1758-1831)
James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States, was born on April 28, 1758 and grew up
in Virginia. He attended the College of William and Mary, but dropped out to fight in the
American revolution with the Continental Army. He later studied law with Thomas Jefferson.
While president, in 1823, he articulated what has become known as the Monroe Doctrine, still a
major building block of American foreign policy, which set American opposition European
expansion and intervention throughout the Western Hemisphere. In 1831, he became the third of
the early US presidents to die on July 4.
Little has been written by or about Monroe’s religious views. He appears to have been a Deist,
and like many of his Deist colleagues was both a Freemason and a member of the Episcopal
Church, though never confirmed and not particularly active. Monroe reportedly burned much of
his family correspondence in which references to religion might have been made.
Correspondence that survived included no comments about spiritual matters. His public
statements and speeches are remarkably silent about religious matters, and lack citations of the
Bible and any references to Jesus Christ. References to God are limited to a few stock phrases
common to Deists. David L. Holmes suggests that “. . . James Monroe may have been the most
skeptical of the early presidents of the United States.”
This bibliography of Monroe draws from the “Biographical Directory of the United States
Congress” posted at http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/bibdisplay.pl?index=M000858. Also
see Harry Ammon’s James Monroe: A Bibliography (Westport, CT: Meckler, 1991).
Primary Sources
Monroe, James. The People, the Sovereigns: Being a Comparison of the Government of the
United States with Those of the Republics which Have Existed Before, with the Causes of Their
Decadence and Fall. Ed. by Samuel L. Gouverneur. 1867. Reprint. Cumberland, VA: James
River Press, 1987.
Secondary Sources
Adams, John Quincy. The Lives of James Madison and James Monroe. Boston: Phillips,
Sampson & Co., 1850.
Ammon, Harry. James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity. New York: McGraw-Hill Book
Co., 1971.
Berkeley, Edmund, and Dorothy Smith Berkeley. “ ‘The Piece Left Behind’: Monroe’s
Authorship of a Political Pamphlet Revealed.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 75
(April 1967): 174-80.
Brown, Stuart Gerry, ed. The Autobiography of James Monroe. Syracuse: Syracuse University
Press, 1959.
Cresson, W.P. James Monroe. 1946. Reprint. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1986.
Cronin, John W., and W. Harvey Wise, Jr., eds. A Bibliography of James Madison and James
Monroe. Washington: Riverford Publishing Co., 1935.
Dickson, Charles Ellis. “James Monroe’s Defense of Kentucky’s Interests in the Confederation
Congress: An Example of Early North/South Party Alignment.” Register of the Kentucky
Historical Society 74 (October 1976): 261-80.
-----. “Politics in a New Nation: The Early Career of James Monroe.” Columbus, OH: Ohio State
Elliot, Ian, ed. James Monroe, 1758-1831; Chronology, Documents, Bibliographical Aids.
Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1969.
Garrison, Curtis Wiswell, and David Lawrence Thomas, eds. James Monroe Papers in Virginia
Repositories. University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, 1969. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly
Resources, 1989. Microfilm. 13 reels and guide.
Gilman, Daniel Coit. James Monroe. 1898. Reprint, with new introduction by Robert Dawidoff.
New York: Chelsea House, 1983.
Hamilton, Stanislaus Murray. The Writings of James Monroe. 7 vols. 1898-1903. Reprint. New
York: AMS Press, 1969.
2006. 225 pp.
-----. “The Religion of James Monroe.” Virginia Quarterly Review (October 2003). Posted at
http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2003/autumn/holmes-religion-james-monroe/.
Morgan, George. The Life of James Monroe. 1921. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1969.
Schoenherr, Steven E., and Iris H.W. Engelstrand. “James Monroe, Friend of the West.” Journal
of the West 31 (July 1992): 20-26.
Styron, Arthur. The Last of the Cocked Hats: James Monroe and the Virginia Dynasty. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1945.
Weston, Elizabeth. The Early Career of James Monroe. Charlottesville, VA: University of
Virginia, M.A. Thesis, 1942.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Thomas Paine, possibly the most important and oft-quoted of the eighteenth-century American
Deists, was born January 29, 1737 in Thetford, Norfolk, England. His religious dissent began
with his Quaker father. Paine met Benjamin Franklin in London, and afterwards migrated to the
American colonies (1774). He emerged as an advocate American independence, and won the
hearts of many colonists to the cause with his pamphlet “Common Sense,” which appeared in
1776. As the war began, he wrote a series of pamphlets under the collective title “The American
Crisis” that inspired many especially during the years that the struggle appeared all but lost.
After the war, in 1791, Paine published Rights of Man, in support of the French Revolution,
which the British government saw as seditious. Paine already in Paris, nevertheless was jailed for
opposing the execution of King Louis XVI. While in prison, he wrote the “Age of Reason,” in
which he attacked orthodox religion and stated his own Deistic views. He wrote a second volume
when he got out of jail.
Returning to the United Strates, he found some support from then President Thomas Jefferson,
but died in relative obscurity, denounced by many as an atheist and infidel, common labels
applied to deists by orthodox Christian believers. He died in New York City on June 8, 1809.
Because of the controversy surrounding his religious views, Paine’s role in the Revolution was
often downplayed, though he was never fully forgotten and has always had his advocates.
Numerous edition of his writings have appeared during the last generation. Possibly the most
succinct statement of Paine’s religious views is found in his essay “Of the Religion of Deism
Compared with the Christian Religion,” a copy of which is posted at
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/paine-deism.html.
Primary Sources
Paine, Thomas. The American Crisis, numbers 1-4 (Philadelphia: Printed and sold by Styner and
Cist, 1776-1777); number 5 (Lancaster: Printed by John Dunlap, 1778); numbers 6-7
(Philadelphia: Printed by John Dunlap, 1778); numbers 8-9 (Philadelphia: Printed by John
Dunlap?, 1780); The Crisis Extraordinary (Philadelphia: Sold by William Harris, 1780); The
American Crisis, numbers 10-12 (Philadelphia: Printed by John Dunlap?, 1782); number 13
(Philadelphia, 1783); A Supernumerary Crisis (Philadelphia, 1783); A Supernumerary Crisis
[number 2] (New York, 1783); numbers 2-9, 11, and The Crisis Extraordinary republished in
The American Crisis, and a Letter to Sir Guy Carleton…(London: Printed and sold by D. I.
Eaton, 1796?).
------. The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology. Paris: Printed
by Barrois, 1794. Rpt.: London: Sold by D. I. Eaton, 1794. Rpt.: New York: Printed by T. and J.
Swords for J. Fellows, 1794.
-----. The Age of Reason: Part the Second. Being an Investigation of True and of Fabulous
Theology. Paris: Printed for the author, 1795. Rpt.: London: Printed for H. D. Symods, 1795.
Rpt.: Philadelphia: Printed by Benjamin Franklin Bache for the author, 1795.
-----. The Age of Reason, the Complete Edition. Introduction by Bob Johnson. San Diego: Truth
Seeker, 2009. 270 pp.
------. Collected Writings: Common Sense; The Crisis; Rights of Man; The Age of Reason;
Pamphlets; Articles; and Letters. Ed. by Eric Foner. New York: Library of America, 1995, 905
pp.
-----. Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America… Philadelphia: Printed and sold
by R. Bell, 1776. Rev. ed.: Philadelphia: Printed by William Bradford, 1776.
-----. The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine. Collected and edited by Philip S. Foner, 2 vols.
New York: Citadel Press, 1945.
-----. Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution. London:
Printed for J. Johnson, 1791. Rpt.: Baltimore: Printed and sold by David Graham, 1791.
-----. Rights of Man: Part the Second. London: Printed by J. S. Jordan, 1792. Rpt.: New York:
Printed by Hugh Gaine, 1792.
Secondary Sources
Aldridge, Alfred Owen. Man of Reason: The Life of Thomas Paine. Philadelphia: Lippencott,
1959.
-----. Thomas Paine’s American Ideology. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1984.
Ayer, A. J. Thomas Paine. New York: Atheneum, 1988.
Bindman, David. “‘My own mind is my own church’: Blake, Paine and the French Revolution.”
In Alison Yarrington and Kelvin Everest, eds. Reflections of Revolution: Images of Romanticism.
Blakemore, Steven. Crisis in Representation: Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, Helen Maria
Williams, and the Rewriting of the French Revolution. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson
Claeys, Gregory. Thomas Paine: social and political thought. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989.
Collins, Paul. The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine. New
York and London: Bloomsbury, 2005. 275 pp.
Davidson, Edward h., and William J. Scheick. Paine, Scripture, and Authority: The Age of
Reason as Religious and Political Ideal. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press 1994.
Dyck, Ian. ed. Citizen of the World: Essays on Thomas Paine. NY: St. Martin’s, 1988.
Fruchtman, Jack, Jr. Thomas Paine and the Religion of Nature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
-----. Thomas Paine: Apostles of Freedom. New York: Fall Walls Eight Windows, 1994.
The Genuine Trial of Thomas Paine, for a Libel Contained in the Second Part of Rights of Man;
at Guildhall, London, Dec. 18, 1792, before Lord Kenyon and a Special Jury: together with the
Speeches at Large of the Attorney-General and Mr. Erskine, and Authentic Copies of Mr.
Paine’s Letters to the Attorney-General and Others, on the Subject of the Prosecution. Taken in
Short-hand by E. Hodgson. London, Printed for J.S. Jordan, 1792. 109p. 2d ed., corrected: 1793.
143p.
Gimbel, Richard. “The First Appearance of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason.” Yale University
Library Gazette 31 (1957): 87–89.
Hawke, David Freeman. Paine. New York: Harper & Row. 1974. 500 pp.
Ingersoll, Robert G. Vindication of Thomas Paine. Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1877.
Kaye, Harvey J. Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. New York: Hill and Wang 2005.
326 pp.
King, Ronald F., and Elsie Berler, eds. Thomas Paine: Common Sense for the Modern Era. San
Diego: San Diego State University Press, 2007. 318 pp.
Excellent set of papers and proceeding from a conference on Paine held at San Diego State
University.
Kramer, Lloyd S., ed. Paine and Jefferson on Liberty. New York: Ungar, 1988, 144 pp
Lewis, Joseph. Thomas Paine: The Author of the Declaration of Independence. New York:
Freethought Press Association, 1947.
Philp, Mark. Paine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Putz, Manfred, and Jon K Adams. A Concordance to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and The
American Crisis. New York: Garland Publishers, 1989.
Royle, Edward, ed. The Infidel Tradition from Paine to Bradlaugh. London: Macmillan Press
Ltd., 1976.
Stein, Gordon. “Thomas Paine and the Age of Reason.” American Rationalist 25, 1 (May/June
1980).
Vincent, Bernard. The Transatlantic Republican: Thomas Paine and the Age of Revolutions.
Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi B.V. 2005. 186 pp.
Watson, Richard. An Apology for the Bible, in a Series of Letters, addressed to Thomas Paine.
Cambridge, Brown and Hilliard, 1828. Rpt.: Philadelphia: James Carey, 1979. Watson was a
prominent Methodist scholar.
Weaver, Jeanne Moore. “Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson: Two American Philosophes
Compared (Volumes I and II).” Ph. D. diss., Auburn University, 1988.
Williamson, Audrey. Thomas Paine: His Life, Work and Times. London: George Allen and
Unwin, 1973.
Wilson, Jerome D., and William F. Ricketson. Thomas Paine. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989.
Woll, Walter. Thomas Paine: Motives for Rebellion. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1992.
Elihu Palmer (1764-1806)
Elihu Palmer, an early advocate of Deism through the revolutionary Era, was born in Canterbury,
Connecticut, in 1764. He attended Dartmouth College after which he became a minister at the
first Presbyterian church of Nerwtown (New York). He left after he came to reject both the
particular Calvinist beliefs and more generally the essentials of Christian orthodoxy. He became
first a Universalists and then a Deist. He initially settled in Philadelphia as a lawyer but caught
yellow fever which left him blind. He later settled in New York City, where in 1796 he founded
the Deistical Society of New York, the first such religious organization in the United States.
He spoke often and published much, though principlally remembered for his The Principles of
Nature, or A Development of the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery among the Human
Species. He died in 1806.
Primary Sources
Palmer, Elihu. Posthumous Pieces by Elihu Palmer, Being Three Chapters of an Unfinished
Work Intended to Have Been Entitled “The Political World.” . . . London, R. Carlile, 1824. 30p.
-----. Principles of Nature; or, A Development of the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery
Among the Human Species. 1819. Posted at http://www.deism.com/principlesofnature.htm.
-----. Prospect, or View of the Moral World. New York, 1804.
-----. A Report of the trial of James Watson: for having sold a copy of Palmer’s Principles of
nature, at the shop of Mr. Carlile, 201, Strand, tried at the Clerkenwell sessions house, at the
adjourned sessions for the county of Middlesex, on the 24th day of April, 1823, before Mr. Const,
as chairman, and a common jury. London : R. Carlile, 1825.
Secondary Sources
French, R. S. “Elihu Palmer, Radical deist, Radical republican: A reconsideration of American
Freethought.” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture. Vol. 8. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1979.
Walters, Kerry S. Elihu Palmer’s Principles of Nature. Wolfeboro: Longwood Academic, 1990.
George Washington (1732-1799)
Among the founding fathers, George Washington, the leader of the Continental Army and then
the first president of the United States, remains among the hardest to pinpoint religiously. He
was a life-long Episcopalian, Never confirmed, he attended church with his more devout wife,
Martha, but unlike her did not partake of the sacraments. He was also a Freemason. There is little
in his papers to suggest that he was anything other than a Deist Episcopalian and little to suggest
that he paid much attention to what might be considered the essential and peculiar beliefs of
orthodox Christianity.
Washington made occasional mention of God in his correspondence and his public papers, but
did so in an abstract and distant manner, speaking, for example of the “Supreme Author of all
Good,” or the “Father of Mercies.” He does not speak of Jesus or make personal references to the
deity. His utterances appear to have been made to reflect a general high regard of all the various
religious divisions of his own day and the needs to unite people of differing persuasions of the
needs of loyalty to the young nation.
One popular bit of Washington lore concerns his being overseen while in private prayer for the
troops at Valley Forge. This incident has been called into question by scholars and remains a
most disputed point. Largely refuted is the rumor that Washington was baptized by Baptist
minister John Gano has also been thoroughly refuted.
From the vast literature on Washington, items have been selected for this bibliography that
highlight reflections on Washington’s religious views and his relations with a spectrum of
religious bodies.
Primary Sources
Washington, George. The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript
Sources, 1745-1799. Ed. by John C. Fitzpatrick. 39 vols. Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1931-1944.
Secondary Sources
Andrist, Ralph K., ed. George Washington: A Biography in His Own Words. 2 vols. New York:
1972.
Barnes, Lemuel C. “George Washington and Freedom of Conscience.” Journal of Religion XII
(October, 1932): 493-525.
-----. “The John Gano Evidence of George Washington’s Religion.” Bulletin of William Jewell
College Series No. 24, 1 (September 15, 1926).
Beatty, Albert R. “Washington’s Christmases.” National Republic 20 (January, 1933): 3-5, 26.
-----. “Was Washington Religious?” National Republic 20 (February and March 1933): 3-5, 28;
18-19, 29.
Bellamy, Francis Rufus. The Private Life of George Washington. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell
Company, 1951.
Boller, Paul F., Jr. George Washington and Religion, Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University
Press, 1963.
-----. “George Washington and the Methodists.” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal
Church 27 (June, 1959): 165-86.
-----. “George Washington and the Presbyterians.” Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society
39 (September, 1961): 129-49.
Fitzpatrick, John C. “George Washington and Religion.” Catholic Historical Review 15 (April
1929): 23-42. Rpt. in Washington as a Religious Man. Washington DC: Geo Washington
Bicentennial Commission, 1931.
Grizzard, Frank E., Jr. George Washington: A Biographical Companion. Santa Barbra, CA:
ABC-CLIO, 2002. 436 pp.
-----. The Ways of Providence: Religion and George Washington. Buena Vista and
Charlottesville, VA: Mariner Publishing. 2005.
2006. 225 pp.
Jones, Gilbert Starling. “Prayer of Valley Forge May Be Legend or Tradition or a Fact, Yet It
Remains Symbol of Faith.” The Picket Post, (Valley Forge Historical Society) 9 (April, 1945).
Posted at http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/washington/prayer.html.
Lewis, Abraham. “Correspondence between Washington and Jewish Citizens.” Proceedings of
the American Jewish Historical Society III (1894): 87-96.
Lillback, Peter A. with Jerry Newcombe. George Washington’s Sacred Fire. West
Conshohocken, PA: Providence Forum Press, 2006. 1208 pp.
M’Guire, Edward Charles. The Religious Opinions and Character of Washington. Harper &
Brothers, 1836. 220 pp. Posted at http://www.archive.org/details/religiousopinion02mgui.
Muñoz, Vincent Phillip. “George Washington on Religious Liberty.” Review of Politics 65, 1
(2003): 11-33.
Nordham,George Washington. George Washington’s Religious Faith. Chicago: Adams Press,
1986. 62 pp.
Novak, Michael, and Novak, Jana. Washington’s God: Religion, Liberty, and the Father of Our
Country. New York: Basic Books, 2006. 282 pp.
The Novaks attack the notions that Washington was a deist, that his religion was a marginal
Christianity that lacked any depth of conviction; and that he merely affirmed an impersonal
divine force that he spoke of as “Providence.”
Padover, Saul K., ed. The Washington Papers. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1955.
Washington as a Religious Man. Washington DC: George Washington Bicentennial
Commission, 1931.
Includes two works: (1) “George Washington and Religion” by John C, Fitzpatrick and (2)
“Washington’s Own Words on Religion” compiled by Albert Bushnell Hall.
Wills, George. Cincinnatus: George Washington & the Enlightenment. Garden City, NY:
Doubleday & Company, 1984.
Unitarianism and Universalism
Both Unitarianism, a monotheistic Christian perspective that affirms the existence of one deity
and by implication denies the Christian doctrine of the Trinity (three persons in a single
Godhead) and the deity of Jesus Christ, and Universalism, a perspective that affirms that
ultimately all will be saved and denies the doctrine of an eternal punishment of those who die in
a state of sin, emerged in eighteenth century North America to challenge the more dominant
orthodox and traditional Anglican and Calvinist theological on view. Both perspective led to the
formation of competing churches with found their greatest support in New England. These two
movements emerged side-by-side but existed as two distinct organizations until their merger in
the 1960s.
Unitarianism had a strong affinity with Deism, both affirming a single deity in place of the
Christian Trinity, while at the same time coming out of different contexts and producing
different results. Deism developed in the context of the Church of England and offered a much
more skeptical outlook. There was greater emphasis on what it denied than what it affirmed and
adherents only rarely attempted to give their beliefs any organizational expression. Unitarianism,
which slowly emerged and then thrived in the context of New England Congregationalism, was
an attempt to build what was seen as a more believable Christian theology, that still assigned
some authority to the Christian Bible and ascribed a central role to the figure of Jesus. It also led
to the formation of church congregations.
Unitarian belief arrived in America from England, one of the primary exponents being Joseph
Priestley (1733-1804), who settled in Pennsylvania in 1794 and soon afterwards founded the first
Unitarian church in the New World in Philadelphia. Unitarian belief subsequently spread
northward among the Congregationalists and in 1807 asserted its presence at Harvard with the
appointment of three liberal professors to the faculty. The movement found a champion in the
person of William Ellery Channing (1780-1842).
New Englanders debated Unitarianism in each of their congregations through the first decades of
the nineteenth century. There being but one congregation per parish, when a majority accepted
the Unitarian perspective the parish church became Unitarian. In such cases, the orthodox
Congregationalist minority then faced the reality of having lost their church and being forced to
start over. King’s Chapel, the single Anglican Church in Boston, somewhat disconnected from
the larger Episcopal Church, also voted to become Unitarian. An organization of Unitarian
congregations, the American Unitarian Association was established in 1825, the same day that
the British Unitarians formed the British and Foreign Unitarian Association.
The Universalist Church in America is generally traced to John Murray (1741-1815), who
became a Universalist in England and subsequently arrived in the colonies in 1770. The
movement grew in stages over the next twenty years but a significant point was reached with the
meeting of the first general Universalist Convention convened at Oxford, Massachusetts, in
September of 1785. The Universalist General Convention (later the Universalist Church of
America) was formed in 1866. It merged with the American Unitarian Association to form the
Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961. By this time both the Universalists and Unitarians
had moved further away from the Christian contexts that had given them birth and the debates
that had energized them in the nineteenth century and moved more into alignment with the larger
community of unbelief.
Sources
Ahlstrom, Sydney E. and Jonathan S. Carey, eds. An American Reformation: A Documentary
History of Unitarian Christianity. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1985. 493 pp.
Allen, J. H., and R. Eddy. A History of the Unitarians and the Universalists in the United States.
“American Church History” series, Vol. X, 1894.
Broadway, J. William. “Universalist Participation in the Spiritualist Movement of the Nineteenth
Century.” Proceedings of the Unitarian Universalist Historical Society 19, Pt. 1 (1981): 1-15.
Bumbaugh, David E. Unitarian Universalism: A Narrative History. Chicago: Meadville
Lombard Theological Seminary, 2001. 226 pp.
Cassara, Ernest. Universalism in America: A Documentary History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971.
290 pp.
Cheetham, H. H. Unitarianism and Universalism: An Illustrated History. Boston: Beacon Press,
1962.
Chestnut, Paul Iver. The Universalist Movement in America. Durham, NC: Duke University,
Conway, Moncure Daniel. The Life of Thomas Paine. 2 vols. New Work: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1892.
-----. Autobiography: Memoirs and Experiences. 2 vols. New York: Cassell and Company, 1892.
Cooke, George Willis. Unitarianism in America: a History of its Origin and Development
Boston, 1902.
Darrow, Clarence. The Story of My Life. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1932.
Davies, A. Powell. America’s Real Religion. Washington, DC: All Soul’s Church, 1949. 87 pp.
Eddy, Richard. Universalism in American History. 2 vols., Boston: Universalist Publishing
House, 1884, 1886.
Eliot, Samuel A. Heralds of a Liberal Faith. 4 vols. Boston: American Unitarian Association,
1910; Rpt.: Boston: Beacon Press, 1952.
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Fritchman, Stephen H. Men of Liberty; Ten Unitarian Pioneers. New York: Kennikat Press,
1968.
Geffen, Elizebeth M. Philadelphia Unitarianism 1796-1861. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1961.
Hewett, Philip. Unitarians in Canada: How the Unitarians Have Exerted a Powerful Influence
on Canadian Life for Over 150 Years. Don Mills, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1978. 390 pp.
Hornback, Kimberly. Women in the Nineteenth Century Unitarian Controversy. Tallahassee, FL:
Florida State University, M.A. Thesis, 2007. 62 pp.
Howe, Daniel Walker. The Unitarian Conscience: Harvard moral Philosophy, 1805-1861.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
Bruce Kuklick, ed. The Unitarian Controversy, 1819-1823. 2 vols. New York: Garland
Publishing, 1987.
Macaulay, John Allen. Truth Over Fanaticism: The Independence of Southern Unitarianism,
1970-1860. Columbia: University of South Carolina, Ph.D. dissertation, 1998.
MacPherson, David H. “The Decline of Universalism, 1900-1950: I. The Massachusetts
Universalist Convention,” Journal of the Universalist Historical Society 6 (1966): 4-24.
Marini, Stephen A. Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Miller, Russell E. The Larger Hope. 2 vols. Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association, 1979–
1985.
Robinson, David. The Unitarians and the Universalists. Denominations in America, vol. 1.
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. 368 pp.
Robinson, Elmo Arnold, “Universalism in Indiana,” Indiana Magazine of History, XI11 (March,
1917).
Schafersman, Steven D. “The History and Philosophy of Humanism and Its Role in Unitarian
Universalism.” An Address to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Butler County, Oxford,
Ohio, September 24, 1995. Posted at http://freeinquiry.com/humanism-uu.html.
Scott, Clinton Lee. The Universalist Church of America: A Short History. Boston: Universalist
Historical Society, 1957. 124 pp.
Seaburg, Alan. “Recent Scholarship in American Universalism: A Bibliographical Essay.”
Church History 41.4 (1972: December): 513-523.
-----. “The Universalist Collection at Andover-Harvard.” Harvard Library Bulletin 28 (1980):
443-455.
Tapp, Robert B. Religion among the Unitarian Universalists. New York: Seminar Press, 1973.
-----. “The Unitarian Universalists: Style and Substance.” Christian Century 96 (1979): 274-279.
Unitarians in Canada Today: A Decade of Growth. Toronto: Canadian Unitarian Council, 1963.
Watts, Heather, ed. Guide to the Records of the Canadian Unitarian and Universalist Churches,
Fellowships and Other Related Organizations. [Halifax, Nova Scotia?]: Archives Committee,
1990. 301 pp.
Wilbur, Earl Morse. A History of Unitarianism. Volume 2: In Transylvania, England, and
America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952.
Williams, George Huntston. American Universalism: A Bicentennial Historical Essay. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1971. 94 pp.
Wintersteen, Prescott B. Christology in American Unitarianism. Boston: Unitarian Universalist
Christian Fellowship, 1977.
Wright, Conrad Edick. “American Unitarian and Universalist Historical Scholarship: A
Bibliography of Items Published 1946-1995.” Journal of Unitarian Universalist History 28, Pt.
1(2001).
-----. The Beginnings of Unitarianism in America. Boston: Starr King Press, 1955. 305 pp.
-----. The Liberal Christians: Essays on American Unitarian History. Boston: Beacon Press,
1970. 147 pp.
-----. Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism: Channing, Emerson, Parker. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1961. 152 pp.
-----. The Unitarian Controversy: Essays on American Unitarian History, Boston: Skinner House
Books, 1994.
Benjamin Rush (1745-1813)
Benjamin Rush, the most prominent physician in the American colonies as the Revolutionary Era
began and a notable Universalist, was born December 24, 1745, near Philadelphia. After
studying medicine in Europe, he set up practice in Philadelphia. He later was a delegate to the
Continental Congress and an enthusiastic signer of the Declaration of Independence. Though
early a member of a Presbyterian church, he withdrew from formal religious connections after
espousing universal salvation and redirected his energies to a variety of social reform
movements, most notably the abolition of slavery. He was a good friend with Joseph Priestly,
after the latter’s move to America in the 1790s, and John Adams. He died on April 19, 1813.
Rush wrote voluminously, and had received attention from various perspectives due to his broad
interests and activities. For a more complete survey of the literature, see Claire G. Fox, Gordon
Miller, and Jacquelyn Miller Benjamin Rush, M.D: A Bibliographic Guide (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1996),
Primary Sources
Adams, John, and Benjamin Rush. The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin
Rush, 1805-1813. Edited by John A. Schutz and Douglass Adair. 1966. Reprint, Indianapolis,
Ind.: Liberty Fund, 2000
Rush, Benjamin. An Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania (1789).
1910. Reprint, With a new introduction by William T. Parsons. Collegeville: Institute on
Pennsylvania Dutch Studies, 1974.
-----. An Account of the State of the Body and Mind in Old Age. Edinburgh: N.p., 1807.
-----. An Address on the Slavery of the Negroes in America. Address to the Inhabitants of the
British Settlements in America. New York: Arno Press, 1969.
-----. An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America, Upon Slave-keeping.
Philadelphia: Printed by J. Dunlap, 1773.
-----. The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush; His Travels Through Life Together with his
Commonplace Book for 1789-1813. 1948. Rpt.: Ed by George W. Corner. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1970.
-----. Benjamin Rush’s Lectures on the Mind. Edited, annotated, and introduced by Eric T.
Carlson, Jeffrey L. Wollock, and Patricia S. Noel. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society,
1981.
-----. Considerations on the Injustice and Impolicy of Punishing Murder by Death: Extracted
from the American Museum: With Additions. Philadelphia: From the Press of Mathew Carey,
May 4, 1792.
-----. Considerations Upon the Present Test-law of Pennsylvania: Addressed to the Legislature
and Freemen of the State. Philadelphia: Printed by Hall and Sellers, [1784].
-----. An Enquiry into the Effects of Spiritous Liquors Upon the Human Body, and Their
Influence Upon the Happiness of Society. 1787. Reprint, Philadelphia: Printed by Thomas
Bradford, [1790].
-----. Essays: Literary, Moral, and Philosophical. 1806. Reprint, edited with an introductory
essay by Michael Meranze, Schenactady, N.Y.: Union College Press, 1988.
-----. Experiments and Observations on the Mineral Waters of Philadelphia, Abington, and
Bristol, in the Province of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Printed by James Humphreys, junior,
1773.
-----. Letters. Edited by L. H. Butterfield. [Princeton]: Published for the American Philosophical
Society by Princeton University Press, 1951.
-----. Sixteen Introductory Lectures. With an introduction by Lawrence A. May. 1811. Reprint,
Oceanside, N.Y.: Dabor Science Publications, 1977.
-----. Two Essays on the Mind: An Enquiry into the Influence of Physical Causes Upon the Moral
Faculty, and On the influence of Physical Causes in Promoting an Increase of the Strength and
Activity of the Intellectual Faculties of Man. Introduction by Eric T. Carlson. New York:
Brunner/Mazel, 1972.
-----. A Vindication of the Address, to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements, on the Slavery of
the Negroes in America, In Answer to a Pamphlet Entitled, “Slavery not forbidden by Scripture;
or, A defence of the West-India planters from the aspersions thrown out against them by the
author of the Address.” By a Pennsylvanian. Philadelphia: J. Dunlap, 1773.
Secondary Sources
Barton, David. Benjamin Rush: Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Aledo, TX: Wall
Builder Press, 1999.
Binger, Carl Alfred Lanning. Revolutionary Doctor: Benjamin Rush, 1746-1813. New York:
Norton, 1966.
Blinderman, Abraham. Three Early Champions of Education: Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin
Rush, and Noah Webster. Bloomington, IN.: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, 1976.
Brodsky, Alyn. Benjamin Rush: Patriot and Physician. New York: Truman Talley, 2004.
D’Elia, Donald J. Benjamin Rush, Philosopher of the American Revolution. Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society, 1974.
Douty, Esther Morris. Patriot Doctor, the Story of Benjamin Rush. New York: Messner, 1959.
Goodman, Nathan G. Benjamin Rush, Physician and Citizen, 1746-1813. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1934.
Hawke, David F. Benjamin Rush, Revolutionary Gadfly. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971.
Neilson, Winthrop. Verdict for the Doctor; The Case of Benjamin Rush. New York: Hastings
House, 1958.
Riedman, Sarah Regal and Clarence C. Green. Benjamin Rush: Physician, Patriot, Founding
Father. London, New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1964.
William Ellery Channing
William Ellery Channing, who emerged as the champion of Unitarianism in the 1820s was born
in Newport, Rhode Island on April 7, 1780. He studied for the Congregationalist ministry and in
1803 became the minister of the Federal Street Church in Boston. In 1815 he was among those
attacked by fellow Congregationalist minister Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826)in The Panoplist, a
Christian periodical, as an example of the liberal Boston Unitarian clergy. Channing responded
on several occasions, most notably in 1819 on the occasion of the ordination of Jared Sparks
when he delivered the sermon “Unitarian Christianity.” He remained the minister at Federal
Street until his death on Oct. 2, 1842,
A more extensive bibliography on Channing can be found in David Robinson, Bibliography of
Edward Channing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932): 20 pp.
Primary Sources
Channing, William Ellery. The Liberal Gospel, as set forth in the writings of William Ellery
Channing. Ed. by Charles Lyttle. Boston Beacon Press, 1925.
-----. Memoir of William Ellery Channing, with Extracts from His Correspondence and
Manuscripts. Ed. by William Henry Channing. Boston: Wm. Crosby & H. P. Nichols, 1848. 3
vols.
-----. The Perfect Life in Twelve Discourses. Ed. by William Henry Channing. Boston: Roberts
Brothers, 1873.
-----. Unitarian Christianity & Other Essays. Ed. by Irving H. Bartlett. Bobbs-Merrill, 1957. 121
pp.
-----. William Ellery Channing: Selected Writings. Ed. by David Robinson. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist
Press 1985. 310 pp.
-----. The Works of William Ellery Channing D.D. Glasgow: Richard Griffin and Co, 1840.
559pp.
-----. The Works. Third complete edition, with an introduction. 6. vols. Boston, Munroe 1843.
-----. Works of William E. Channing, D. D. With an Introduction New and Complete Edition
Rearranged. Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1885. 931pp.
Secondary Sources
Brown, Arthur W. Always Young for Liberty: A Biography of WEC. Syracuse: Syracuse
-----. William Ellery Channing. New York: Twayne, 1962.
Delbanco, Andrew Henry. William Ellery Channing: An Essay on the Liberal Spirit in America.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1980.
Han, John J. “William Ellery Channing (1780-1842).” in Knight, Denise D. ed. Writers of the
American Renaissance: An A-to-Z Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003.
Lyttle, David. Studies in Religion in Early American Literature: Edwards, Poe, Channing,
Emerson, Some Minor Transcendentalists, Hawthorne, and Thoreau. Lanham, MD: University
Press of America, 1983.
Mendelsohn, Jack. Channing, the Reluctant Radical: a Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971.
Patterson, Robert L. The Philosophy of William Ellery Channing. New York: Bookman, 1952.
Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer. Reminiscences of Rev. Wm. Ellery Channing, D. D. Boston: Roberts
Brothers, 1880.
Robinson, David. “William Ellery Channing.” In Wesley T. Mott, ed. The American Renaissance
in New England. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2001. 533 pp.
Toulouse, Teresa. The Art of Prophesying: New England Sermons and the Shaping of Belief.
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987.
Wagenknecht, Edward C. Ambassadors for Christ: Seven American Preachers. New York:
Wright, Conrad Edick. Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism: Channing, Emerson, Parker.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1961. 152 pp.
John Murray (1741-1815) and Judith Sargent Murray 1751 -1820
John Murray, from whose career Universalism in America is generally dated, was born in Alton,
Hampshire, England, on December 10, 1741. He became a lay preacher in the Countess of
Huntington’s Connexion, the Calvinist Methodist movement associated with George Whitefield.
When it was discovered that he had become a Universalist, the church disfellowshipped him and
his wife, and, broke and in debt, he left for America in 1770. He eventually settled in New
Hampshire and founded a congregation (1774). After the Revolution, he would participate in the
first Universalist convention held at Oxford, Massachusetts, in 1785 and eventually become the
pastor of a Universalist congregation in Boston (1793).
Judith Sargent Murray, John’s wife, deserves mention in her own right. A writer/thinker, she
wrote on subjects as varied as metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, and politics. She was an early
North American feminist who published an essay on women’s equality in 1790. She was also
responsible for much that her husband got into print, and after his death she compiled and edited
his papers.
Murray wrote some of the early Universalist hymns, some of which were initially published in a
reprint of British Universalist James Relly’s Christian Hymns, Poems and Sacred Songs, sacred
to the praise of God, our Saviour (Portsmouth, NH: 1782) in which Murray added five of his
own songs.
Primary Sources
Murray, John. Letters and Sketches of Sermons. 3 vols. Boston: the Author, 1812.
-----. Life of John Murray by Himself with Continuations by Judith Sargent Murray. Boston,
1816.
-----. Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray, late Minister of the Reconciliation, and Senior
Pastor of the Universalist congregated in Boston. Written by Himself. The Records Contain
Anecdotes of the Writer’s Infancy, and are Extended to some Years after the Commencement of
his Public Labours in America. To which is added a brief continuation to the closing scene.
Boston: Bowen and Cushing, 1827
Murray, Judith Sargent. Selected Writings of Judith Sargent Murray. Ed. by Sharon M. Harris.
Secondary Sources
Bressler, Ann Lee. The Universalist Movement in America, 1770-1880. Oxford: Oxford
Cassara, Ernest. “The New World of John Murray.” In Charles A. Howe, ed., “Not Hell, But
Hope”: The John Murray Distinguished Lectures, 1987-1991, Lanoka Harbor, NJ: The Murray
Grove Association, 1991, pp. 9-29.
-----. “The New World of John Murray: A Character Study.” Unitarian Universalist Christian 46
(1991): 9-26.
Eddy, Richard. Universalism in American History. 2 vols., Boston: Universalist Publishing
House, 1884, 1886.
Gibson, Gordon D. “The Rediscovery of Judith Sargent Murray.” In Charles A. Howe, ed., “Not
Hell, But Hope”: The John Murray Distinguished Lectures, 1987-1991. Lanoka Harbor, N.J.,
The Murray Grove Association, 1991, pp. 69-90.
Hersey, Laura Smith. “By their works”: Biographical Sketches of Universalist Women.
Association of Universalist Women, 1954.
Howe, Charles A. The Larger Faith. Boston: Skinner House, 1993.
-----. To Bring More Light and Understanding: The John Murray Distinguished Lectures.
Volume II. Lanoka Harbor, NJ: The Murray Grove Association, 1995.
Hurd, Bonnie Smith. From Gloucester to Philadelphia in 1790: Observations, anecdotes, and
thoughts from the 18th Century letters of Judith Sargent Murray. Cambridge, MA: Judith
Sargent Murray Society, 1997. 338 pp.
Kykeman, Therese Boos. The Neglected Canon: Nine Women Philosophers First to Twentieth
Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997.
Marini, Stephen A. Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Miller, Russell E. The Larger Hope: The First Century of Universalist Church in America.
Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association, 1979.
Hosea Ballou (1771-1852)
Hosea Ballou, for a half century a prominent Universalist theologian, was born on April 30,
1771, in Richmond, New Hampshire. His conversion to Unitarianism from a traditional Calvinist
perspective occurred in stages, and along the way he was strongly influenced by his reading
Ethan Allen’s Reason the Only Oracle of Man (1784). Ballow hsowed his creative thinking early
with his Universalist discussion of salvation in A Treatise on Atonement (1805). Ballou began his
ministerial career at Portsmouth, New Hampshire (1815), but spent most of his life as the pastor
of Second Universalist Church in Boston (beginning in 1817).
He delivered thousands of sermons and authored a number of hymns and essays. He was the
founder/editor of The Universalist Magazine (1819), superseded by The Universalist Expositor
(1830), later renamed The Universalist Quarterly and General Review. Less known is his open
correspondence with former Universalist minister turned Freethinker Abner Kneeland eventually
published as a book, A Series of Letters in Defense of Divine Revelation. Ballou died in Boston
on June 7, 1852.
Primary Sources
Ballou, Hosea. A Series of Lecture Sermons (1819).
-----. A Series of Letters, in defence of Divine Revelation; in reply to Rev. Abner Kneeland’s
Serious Inquiry into the authenticity of the same. To which is added, a Religious
Correspondence, between the Rev. Hosea Ballou, and the Rev. Dr. Joseph Buckminster, and Rev.
Joseph Walton, Pastors of Congregational Churches in Portsmouth, N. H. Boston, 1820. Posted
at http://www.wordsvalley.org/node/21829.
-----. A Treatise on Atonement. 1805. 4th ed.: Ed. by A. A. Miner. Boston Universalist
Publishing House, 1882. Posted at http://www.danielharper.org/treatise.htm.
Secondary Sources
Adams, John Colemen. Hosea Ballou and the Gospel Renaissance of the Nineteenth Century.
Boston, Universalist Publishing House. 1903. 28 pp.
Ballou, Maturin M. Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou. Boston: Abel Tompkins, 1852. 404 pp.
Cassara, Ernest. Hosea Ballou: The Challenge to Orthodoxy. Boston: Universalist Historical
Society/Beacon Press 1961, 226 pp.
Safford, Oscar F. Hosea Ballou: a Marvelous Life-story. Boston: Universalist Publishing House,
1889. 290pp
The Universalist Pulpit; Containing Sermons by Hosea Ballou, , E. H. Chapin, Thomas
Whittemore. O. H. Tillotson, T. B. Thayer, John Murray, Lemuel Willis, AND A. A. Miner; With
a fine likeness and biography of each. Third Edition: Boston: James m. Usher, 1856.
Whittemore, Thomas. Life of Rev. Hosea Ballou; With Accounts of His Writings, and
Biographical Sketches of His Seniors and Contemporaries in the Universalist Ministry. 4 vols.
Boston: James M. Usher, 1854-55.
Theodore Parker (1810-1860)
Theodore Parker, a Unitarian preacher and religious and social reformer, is credited with pushing
Unitarianism away from its specifically Christian roots and engendering an activist stance toward
broader social participation. In the face of the loss of much of his large family to tuberculosis
while still a young man, he rejected Orthodox Christianity and emerged as a convinced
Unitarian. Too poor to attend college, he educated himself, even in the biblical languages, to the
point that he was accepted at Harvard Divinity School even without a degree. Beginning his
career as a traditional Unitarian, his study of the new findings of German biblical criticism
convinced him that miracle stories were myths and the Bible not a revelation of Divine truth.
In the 1830s, Parker adhered to the new Transcedentalist movement, his leadership role
confirmed in his controversial 1841 sermon, “A Discourse on the Transient and Permanent in
Christianity.” As a result of the sermon, many of his Unitarian colleagues concluded that he was
no longer a fellow Christian, even of the Unitarian kind. Unitarians debated his expulsion
throughout the 1840s, and despite his rejection by Unitarian clergy, he had the largest
congregation. In 1845, Parker’s followers formed a free church which offered him a stable place
from which to regularly voice his perspective to a growing audience. By the end of the decade,
he was a national figure representing the most liberal wing of the religious community. At the
same time he developed a perspective on society that would become a basis of social activism
aimed at its improvement. He became a staunch member of Boston’s abolitionist community.
Parker remained active through the 1850s but eventually succumbed to the family disease and
died of tuberculosis in 1860. Parker left an extensive literary legacy and collections of his papers
and correspondence can be found at several locations, most notably the Andover-Harvard
Theological Library and the Boston Public Library. Extensive bibliographies appeared in Dean
Grodzins, American Heretic: Theodore Parker and Transcendentalism (Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press, 2002); and Joel Myerson, Theodore Parker: A Descriptive
Bibliography (New York: Garland Publishing, 1981).
Primary Sources
Parker, Theodore. The Collected Works of Theodore Parker. 14 vols. London: Trubner & Co,
1963-1972.
-----. A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion. Boston: American Unitarian Association,
1907. 451 pp.
-----. The Revival of Religion which We Need, A Sermon, delivered at Music Hall, Boston, on
Sunday, April 11, 1858. Phonographically reported by James M. W. Yerrinton. Boston: W. L.
Kent & Compnay, 1858. 20 pp.
-----. Theodore Parker: An Anthology. Ed. by Henry Steele Commager. Boston: Beacon Press,
1960. 391 pp.
-----. Theodore Parker’s Experience as a Minister, With Some Account of His Early Life and
Education for the Ministry Contained in a Letter From Him to the Members of the TwentyEighth Congregational Society of Boston. Boston: Rufus Leighton, Jr. 1859. 182 pp.
-----. The Works of Theodore Parker, Centennial Edition. 15 vols. Boston: American Unitarian
Association, 1907-1913.
Secondary Sources
Chadwick, John White. Theodore Parker: Preacher and Reformer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1900. 422 pp.
Chuman, Jonathan Nathan. Between Secularism and Supernaturalism: The Religious
Philosophies of Theodore Parker and Felix Adler. New York: Columbia University, Ph.D.
dissertation, 1994.
Collins, Robert E. Theodore Parker: American Transcendentalist. Metuchen, N J: Scarecrow
Press 1973.
Commager, Henry Steele. Theodore Parker. Boston: Little, Brown, 1936. 339 pp. Rpt as:
Theodore Parker: Yankee Crusader. Boston: Beacon Press, 1960. 339 pp.
Cooke Frances E. The Story of Theodore Parker. Boston, MA: Cupples, Upham & Company.
1883. 115 pp.
Dean, Peter. The Life and Teachings of Theodore Parker. Williams & Norgate 1877. 286 pp.
Dirks, John Edward. The Critical Theology of Theodore Parker. New York: Columbia
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks. Theodore Parker: A Biography. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co,
1874. 588 pp.
Grodzins, Dean. American Heretic: Theodore Parker and Transcendentalism. Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press, 2002. 631 pp.
-----. “Theodore Parker and the 28th Congregational Society: The Reform Church and the
Spirituality of Reformers in Boston, 1845-1859,” in Charles Capper and Conrad E. Wright, eds.,
Transient and Permanent: The Transcendentalist Movement and Its Contexts. Boston:
Massachusetts Historical Society 2002.
Gura, Philip F. “Theodore Parker and the South Boston Ordination: The Textual Tangle of A
Discourse on the Transient and Permanent in Christianity.” In Joel Myerson, ed., Studies in the
American Renaissance, Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1988, pp. 149-178.
Hudson, Herbert Edson. “The Quest for the Historical Parker.” Proceedings of the Unitarian
Historical Society 13, Pt. 1 (1961): 45-61.
-----. “Recent Interpretations of Parker: An Evaluation of the Literature Since 1936,”
Proceedings of the Unitarian Historical Society 13, Pt. 1 (1960): 1-35.
Martin, John Herbert. Theodore Parker. Chicago: University of Chicago, Ph.D. dissertation.
1953.
Riback, William H. “Theodore Parker of Boston: Social Reformer.” Social Service Review 22
(1948): 451-460.
Smith, H. Shelton. “Was Theodore Parker a Transcendentalist?” New England Quarterly 23
(1950): 351-364.
Newbrough, George F. “Reason and Understanding in the Works of Theodore Parker.” South
Atlantic Quarterly 47 (1948): 64-75.
Teed, Paul E. “‘A Brave Man’s Child’: Theodore Parker and the Memory of the American
Revolution.” Historical Journal of Massachusetts (Summer 2001).
Walkley, Albert. Theodore Parker: A Series of Letters. Boston: Neponset Press, 1900. 127 pp.
Weiss, John. Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton &
Company 1864.
Free Religious Association
In the 1860s, as Unitarianism was taking on the characteristics of a separate denomination, the
issue arose as to it specifically Christian nature or its openness to religiously liberal people of all
religious persuasions. When the new Unitarian organization took shape in the mid 1860s, the
majority voted to adhere to their Christian roots. This decision prompted the most liberal among
them in 1867 to form a separate body, the Free Religious Association. Leading members of the
new group included Octavius Brooks Frothingham (the first president), Francis Ellingwood
Abbott, Cyrus A. Bartol, William James Potter, John Weiss, David Wasson, John White
Chadwick, Louisa May Alcott, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The group was compatible with the
idea of outgrowing Christianity in favor of a more universal theism that allowed individuals to
think about God in a variety of ways.
The Free Religion movement as originally constituted did not survive the 1870s, but it continued
to reemerge, especially among the Unitarians outside New England, and operated as a force to
continually urge Unitarianism toward the left religiously. It would lead to the formation of the
National Liberal league and the American Secular Union (which in 1885 chose Robert G.
Ingersoll as its president). Many of the FRA founders would go on to distinguished careers both
inside and outside of the Unitarian fold.
Sources
Albrecht, Robert C. “The Political Thought of David A. Wasson.” American Quarterly 17, 4
(Winter 1965): 742-748.
Boller, Paul F., Jr. American Transcendentalism, 1830-1860: An Intellectual Inquiry, New York
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974. 227 pp.
Caruthers, J. Wade. Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gentle Radical. Tuscaloosa, AL: University
of Alabama Press, 1977.
-----. “Who Was Octavius Brooks Frothingham?” New England Quarterly 43 (1970): 631-637.
Elliott, Samuel, ed. Heralds of a Liberal Faith, 3 vols. Boston: Boston American Unitarian
Association, 1910.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson. 3 vols. Ed. by Stephen F.
Whicher, Robert F. Spiller, and Wallace E. Williams. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1961-72.
Foster, Charles H., ed. Beyond Concord: Selected Writings of David Atwood Wasson.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,, 1965.
Peden, W. Creighton. Civil War Pulpit to World’s Parliament of Religion: The Thought of
William James Potter, 1829-1893. New York: Peter Lang, 1996. 395 pp.
-----. Empirical Tradition in American Liberal Religious Thought, 1860-1960. New York: Peter
Lang Publishing, 2009. 310 pp.
-----. Evolutionary Theist: An Intellectual Biography of Minot Judson Savage, 1841-1918.
Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. 229 pp.
-----. “Francis Ellingwood Abbot: Prophet of Free Religion.” Proceedings of the Unitarian
Universalist Historical Society, 22, Pt. 1 (1990/91): 51-61.
-----. An Intellectual Biography of David Atwood Wasson (1828-1887); an American
Trancendentalist Thinker. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008
-----. “The Foundations of William J. Potter’s ‘Religion of Humanity’,” Religious Humanism 27
(1993): 67-77.
-----. “A Young Minister Faces the 1860s: William James Potter, 1829-1893,” Religious
Humanism 28 (1994): 115-126.
Potter, William James . Essays and Sermons of Williams James Potter (1829-1893), Unitarian
Minister and Freethinker. Ed. by W. Creighton Peden and Everett J., Jr. Tarbox, Jr. Lewiston,
NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003.
The Free Religious Association: Its Twenty Five Years and Their Meaning (1892).
-----. Twenty-five Sermons of Twenty-five Years (1885).
-----. Lectures and Sermons (1895), Ed. by Francis Ellingwood Abbot.
Spence, Robert. “D. A. Wasson, Forgotten Transcendentalist.” American Literature. 27, 1
(March 1955): 31-41.
Wasson, David A. Ancient Feasts & Modern Famine. a Sermon... before the Worcester Free
Church, 12/2/1855. Baker, Trumbull & Barnes, Worcester, 1855. 16 pp.
-----. Beyond Concord: Selected Writings of David Atwood Wasson. Ed. by Charles H. Foster.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1965. 334 pp.
-----. Essays Religious, Social, Political. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1889.
-----. Poems. Ed. by Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1888. 172 pp.
-----. The Radical Creed: A Discourse at the Installation of Rev. David A. Wasson, As Minister of
the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society of Boston, May 7, 1865. Boston: Walker, Fuller,
1865. 40 pp.
-----. Religion Divorced from Theology. A Farewell Discourse, preached before the
Congregational Society in Groveland, August 29, 1852, Second Edition, published by request.
Boston: Thurston, Torry & Emerson, 1852.
-----. The Universe No Failure. a Sermon before Worcester Free Church, 11/4/1855. Worcester,
MA: Charles Hamilton, 1856. 15 pp.
Francis Ellingwood Abbot (1836-1903) and the American Liberal Union
Unitarian minister Francis Ellingwood Abbott rejected the affirmation of the 1865 founding
meeting of the National Conference of Unitarian Churches that affirmed its members to be
“disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Newly ordained, he failed to convince his colleagues to
adopt a more inclusive stance, and thus in 1967 (while still serving a Unitarian pulpit) joined
with his more liberal colleagues in the formation of the Free Religious Association. He ran into
problems in 1868, when a New Hampshire Court ruled that the radical supporters he pastured at
Dover were non-Christians, and hence forbidden to use the local church building as a meeting
place. He resigned and moved to Toledo, Ohio, as the minister of the local Unitarian Society.
Abbot also edited and published the Index, the magazine of the FRA. In 1873, he moved the
magazine to Boston, and began to call for the formation of numerous local Liberal Leagues to
oppose what he saw as the Christian bondage into which the nation had succumbed. Those local
groups came together in 1876 to form the National Liberal League. Robert Ingersoll became the
organization’s vice-president. Two years later, both Abbott and Ingersoll resigned from the
League over its support of D. M. Bennett who had been arrested for circulating obscene material
in the form of a book on birth control. This case brought the league into opposition with the
infamous Anthony Comstock. In 1880 Abbot turned the editorship of The Index to William
James Potter (1829-1893) and pursued a Ph.D. in philosophy at Harvard University. He
graduated in 1881, and became an instructor at a boy’s school in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
While there, he wrote his most heralded text, Scientific Theism (1885), in which he laid out the
principles of what he saw as a religion of scientific realism.
Meanwhile, in 1883 the National Liberal League changed its name to the National Secular Union
under which name it would exist for the next decade. Freethinker Robert Green Ingersoll (18331899), who described himself as an agnostic, would serve as one of its presidents. In 1892,
freethinker Samuel P. Putnam (1839-1896) formed the Freethought Federation of America which
in 1894 merged with the National Secular Union to form the American Secular Union, which
continued as a Freethought organization into the 1920s. Among Abbot’s last book was The Way
Out of Agnosticism, or The Philosophy of Free Religion (1893), which continued to offer his
scientific religion in place of the more secular perspective that the Union was pursuing.
Primary Sources
Abbot, Francis E. The Collected Essays of Francis Ellingwood Abbot (1836-1903). 3 vols.
Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996.
-----. Gleanings from Francis Ellingwood Abbot’s Writings, Free religion in a free state.
Selected by Ross Winans. Baltimore : John P. Des Forges, 1872. 15 pp.
-----, The Impeachment of Christianity. Ramsgate: T. Scott, 1872.
-----. Scientific Theism. Boston: Little, Brown, And Company 1885. 219 pp.
-----, Truths for the Times. Toledo, OH: The Index Association, 1872.
The Way Out of Agnosticism, or The Philosophy of Free Religion. Boston: Little Brown & Co.,
1893. Rpt. New York: AMS Press 1980. 83 pp.
American Secular Union and Freethought Federation. New York: Truth Seeker Co, 1892.
Secondary Sources
Ahlstrom, Sydney E. “Francis Ellingwood Abbot and the Free Religious Association”
Proceedings of the Unitarian Historical Society 1973-1975, Vol. 17, Pt. 2 (1975): 1-21.
-----. Francis Ellingwood Abbot: His Education and Active Career.” Cambridge, MA: Harvard
-----, and Robruce Mullin. The Scientific Theist: A Life of Francis Ellingwood Abbot. Macon,
GA: Mercer University Press, 1987.
Callahan, William Jerome. “The Philosophy of Francis Ellingwood Abbot.” New York:
Columbia University, Ph.D. dissertation,1958.
DeKay, Sam Hoffman. An American Humanist: The Religious Thought of Francis Ellingwood
Abbot. New York: Columbia University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1977.
Peden, W. Creighton. The Philosopher of Free Religion. New York: Peter Lang Publishing 1992.
203 pp.
Potter, William James. The Free Religious Association: Its Twenty Five Years and Their
Meaning (1892).
Rivers, Fred M. “Francis Ellingwood Abbot: Free Religionist and Cosmic Philosopher.” College
Park, MD: University of Maryland, Ph.D. dissertation.
Williams, Gardner. “Francis Ellingwood Abbot: Free Religionist. The Toledo Episode, 18691873.” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 20 (1948): 128-143.
Nineteenth-Century American Freethought
Sources
Annan, Noel. “The Strands of Unbelief.” In Harman Grosewood, ed. Ideas and Beliefs of the
Victorians. New York: 1949.
Brown, Marshall G., and Gordon Stein. Freethought in the United States: A Descriptive
Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978. 146 pp.
Burtis, Mary Elizabeth. Moncure Conway., 1832-1907. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press, 1952.
Cady, Daniel. “Freethinkers and Hell Raisers: A Brief History of American Atheism and
Secularism.” in Phil Zuckerman, ed. Atheism and Secularity. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger,
2009.
Carver, Charles. Braun the Iconoclast. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1957. 196 pp. Rpt.
1987.
Conway, Moncure. Autobiography. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1904.
Cooper, Berenice. The Contribution of the Freien Gemeinden to Sciences, Arts, and Letters in
Wisconsin. Transcations of the Wisconsin Academy of Letters for 1964 and 1965.
-----. “Echoes from the Past—German Free Religion, 1850 Style.” Unitarian –Universalist
Register-Leader (April 1965).
Cothran, A. N. The Little Blue Book Man and the Big American Parade: A Biography of
Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. Ciollege Park, MD: University of Maryland, Ph.D. dissertation,
1966.
Dalgliesh, Malcolm. The Sage of San Diego Said Choose Quality and Reason. New York: A
New Enlightenment, n.d. 100 pp.
D’entremont, John. Moncure Conway. London: South Place Ethical Socoety, 1977.
-----. Moncure Conway: The American Years, 1832-1865. New York: Oxford University Press,
1985.
Goldberg, Isaac. “E. Haldeman-Julius A Psychography.” The Stratford Monthly 4, 1 (January
1925).
Gunn, John W. E. Haldeman-Julius—The Man and His Work. Little Blue Book #678. Gerard,
KS: Haldeman-Julius, 1924.
Hurth, Elizabeth. Between Faith and Unbelief: American Transcendentalists and the Challenge
of Atheism. Studies in the History of Christian Thought. Leyden: Brill, 2007. 224 pp.
HurmenceHawton, Hector. The Humanist Revolution. London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1963. 247
pp.
Jacoby, Susan. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. New York: Herny Holt, 2004.
417 pp.
Johnson, James Hervey. “Charles Smith: 1887–1964.” The Truth Seeker 91, 11 (November
1964).
Joshi, S. T. Icons of Unbelief: Atheists, Agnostics, and Secularists. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 2008.
Koch, G. Adolf. Republican Religion: The American Revolution and the Cult of Reason. New
York: Henry Holt, 1933. 334 pp.
Lackey, Michael. African American Atheists and Political Liberation: A Study of the
Sociocultural Dynamics of Faith. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2008. 192 pp.
MacDonald, George E. Fifty Years of Freethought. 2 vols. New York: Truth Seeker Company,
1929.
Martineau, Harriet. Society in America. Ed. and abridged by Seymour Martin Lipset. Gloucester,
MA: Peter Smith 1968.
Marty, Martin. The Infidel: Freethought and American Religion. Cleveland: Peter Smith
Publisher , 1961.
Maxwell, Alice S. and Marion B. Dunlevy. Virago. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc,
1985.
May, Henry F. The Enlightenment in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. 419
pp.
Mordell, Albert, ed. The World of Haldeman-Julius. New York: Twayne, 1960.
Persons, Stow. Free Religion. Boston: Beacon Press, 1947. 162 pp.
Post, Albert. Popular Freethought in America, 1825-1850. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1943.
Putnam, Samuel Porter. 325 Years of Freethought. New York: The Truth Seeker Company,
1894.
-----. My Religious Experience. New York: The Truth Seeker Company, 1894.
Reichert, William O. Partisans of Freedom: A Study in American Anarchism. Bowling green,
OH: Popular Press, 1976.
Ryan, William F. “Bertrand Russell and Haldeman-Julius: Making Readers Rational.” Russell:
The Journal of the Bertrand Russell Archives (1978): 29-32.
Schroeder, Theodore. Constitutional Free Speech Defined and defended in a Unfinished Case of
Blasphemy. New York: Free Speech League, 1919.
Sheldon, Henry C. Unbelief in the Nineteenth Century: A Critical History. New York: Eaton &
Mains, 1907. 399 pp.
Stein, Gordon. Abner Kneeland.” American Rationalist (Nov./Dec. 1981).
-----. “D. M. Bennett.” Progressive World 24, 7 (September 1970): .
Taylor, Robert M. “The Light of Reason: Hoosier Freethought and the Indiana Rationalist
Association, 1909- 1913.” Indiana Magazine of History
Thrower, James. Western Atheism: A Short History. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1999. 157 pp.
Tribe, David. 100 Years of Freethought. London: Elek, 1967. 259 pp.
Turner, James. Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America. Baltimore,
MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1985.
Underwood, Sara L. Heroines of Freethought. New York: Charles P. Somerby, 1876. 327 pp.
Warren, Sidney. American Freethought: 1860-1914. New York: Columbia University Press,
1943.
Whitehead, Fred, and Verle Murhler. Freethought on the American Frontier. Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Boos, 1992. 314 pp.
Weiss, John. Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker. New York: 1964.
Williams, David Allen. A Celebration of Humanism and Freethought. Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books, 1995.
Wright, Lawrence. Saints and Sinners. New York: Random House, 1993.
Abner Kneeland (1774-1844)
Abner Kneeland, a Universalist minister, and later outspoken Freethinker became the last man to
be convicted of blasphemy in the state of Massachusetts. Beginning his adult life as a Baptist
preacher, he converted to Universalism after reading the works of British Universalist Elhanan
Winchester. He later met and became good friends with Hosea Ballou. Ordained as a
Universalist, he was sent to his itinerant work in New Hampshire with and ordination sermon by
John Murray.
By 1818, when Kneeland settled into a pastorate in Philadelphia, he was already doubting his
religion. In the city, he eventually became acquainted with commutarian and skeptic Robert
Owen, whose skeptical views he slowly adopted. Moving on to New York (1825-17), he began
to share his views with is parish, and by the end of 19267 he and his supporters left to form a
new congregation. the city’s Second Universalist Society. He further offended his Universalist
colleagues by opening his pulpit to Frances Wright, the radical feminist, social activist, and
religious thinker. In 1829, Kneeland renounced his remaining Christianity and resigned from the
Universalist Church.
In 1831 Kneeland moved to Boston as the “lecturer” of what was called the First Society of Free
Enquirers. Toe the large crowds that gathered to hear him, he articulated beliefs that could best
be termed pantheist—identifying God with the nature in which humans move and have their
being. In 1833, he penned a public letter in which he stated that the god of the Universalists was
but “a chimera of their own imagination.” This statement led to a trial in which he was accused
of being an atheist. He defended himself by arguing that he did not believe in the Universalists
god and that he was a pantheist, not an atheist.
The courts would have none of his fine distinctions, and also was opposed to the broad social
changes he advocated. Convicted, he spent sixty days in jail in 1838. His incarceration led to a
number of prominent citizens demanding his pardon, most notably William Ellery Channing,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, George Ripley, William Lloyd Garrison, and Bronson
Alcott. This celebrated case became the last instance of a person being jailed for blasphemy in
the United States.
After being freed, Kneeland moved to Iowa, and founded an intentional community called
Salubria.
Primary Sources
Kneeland, Abner. The New Testament in Greek and English. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Wm. Fry,
1822-23.
-----. A Philosophical Dictionary: From the French of M. De Voltaire. With Additional Notes,
both Critical and Argumentative. 2 vols. Boston J. Q. Adams, 1836.
Secondary Sources
Ballou, Hosea. A Series of Letters, in defence of Divine Revelation; in reply to Rev. Abner
Kneeland’s Serious Inquiry into the authenticity of the same. To which is added, a Religious
Correspondence, between the Rev. Hosea Ballou, and the Rev. Dr. Joseph Buckminster, and Rev.
Joseph Walton, Pastors of Congregational Churches in Portsmouth, N. H. Boston, 1820. Posted
at http://www.wordsvalley.org/node/21829.
French, Roderick Stuart. “Abner Kneeland.” In Gordon Stein, ed. The Encyclopedia of Unbelief.
2 vols. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1985. Vol. I, pp. 379-80.
-----. “The Published Writings of Abner Kneeland.” Bulletin of Bibliography 31 4 (Oct.-Dec.
1974).
-----. “Liberation from Man and God in Boston: Abner Kneeland’s Free-Thought Campaign,
1830-1839.” American Quarterly 32, 2 (Summer 1980).
-----. The Trials of Abner Kneeland: A Study in the Rejection of Democratic Secular Humanism.
Washington, DC: George Washington University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1971.
Kneeland, S. F. “Seven Centuries of the Kneeland Family. New York: n.p., 1897. 583 pp.
Levy, Leonard Williams. Blasphemy in Massachusetts. Freedom of Conscience and the Abner
Kneeland Case: A Documentary Record. New York: Da Capo Press, 1973.
Post, Albert. Popular Freethought in America, 1825-1850. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1943.
Stein, Gordon. “Abner Kneeland.” American Rationalist (Nov./Dec. 1981).
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Robert Green Ingersoll was a lawyer, politician, popular orator, and advocate of Freethought. He
was popularly called the Great Agnostic, and labeled his skeptical opinions agnosticism. A Civil
War veteran, he served as Illinois’ Attorney General (1867-69) and was an active Republican. He
delivered the nominating address for James G. Blaine, for President. Already a popular lecturer,
his religious opinion, especially his attacks on orthodox religion, cut his support to the point of
his being passed over for national office. He moved to Washington, D.C. in 1878 and then settled
in New York City (1885).
His lectures were widely popular. They were repeated from platforms around the country and
widely published both singularly and in anthologies. Most popular on religion were his lectures
“Some Mistakes of Moses” and “The Gods and Ghosts.” He was a family man, but supported
women’s rights.
In 1876, Ingersoll identified with the National Liberal League, founded by Ellingwood Abbott,
and became its vice-president. The socially conservative Ingersoll resigned when the League
chose to support Freethinker D. M. Bennett, who had been arrested for violating the laws
preventing the circulation of obscene material. In 1885, the Liberal League changed its name to
the American Secular Union, and Ingersoll rejoined and became the union’s president.
Ingersoll became a hero to the continuing Freethought movement and then for twentieth-century
atheists and humanists. His birthday (August 11) is kept as a holiday for many, and his birthplace
in Dresden, New York, is now a museum. There is a statue of him in Peoria, Illinois, where he
lived for many years.
The many popular reprints of Ingersoll’s lectures created a bibliographical nightmare which
Gordon Stein made sense of in his monumental study Robert G. Ingersoll: A Checklist. (Kent,
OH: Kent State University Press, 1969). See also Herman Kittridge’s Ingersoll: A Biographical
Appreciation, issued as vol. 13 of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (New York: C. P. Farrell,
1901).
Primary Sources
Ingersoll, Robert Green. The Best of Robert Ingersoll: Selected from his Writings and Speeches.
Ed. by Roger Greeley. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1983.
-----. The Complete Works of Robert G. Ingersoll. 12 vols.. New York: C. P. Ferrell/ The
Dresden Publishing Co, 1901. Posted online at
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/.
-----. Fifty Great Selections: Lectures, tributes, after-dinner speeches and essays carefully
selected from the twelve volume edition of Colonel Ingersoll’s complete works. New York: C. P.
Farrell 1929. 357 pp.
-----. Ingersoll’s Greatest Lectures: Containing Speeches and Addresses Never Before Printed
Outside of the Complete Works. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1944. 419 pp.
-----. The Letters. Ed. by Eva Ingersoll Wakefield. New York: Philosophical Library, 1951. 747
pp.
Secondary Sources
Adler, Felix. “The Influence of the Late Robert G. Ingersol.” Ethical Record 1 (1899): 26-31.
Anderson, David. Robert Ingersoll. New York: Twayne Press, 1972. 137 pp.
Baker, I. Newton. An Intimate View of Robert G. Ingersoll. New York: C. P. Farrell. 1920.
207pp.
Cramer, Clarence H. Royal Bob. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952. 314 pp.
Roger E. Greeley. Ingersoll: Immortal Infidel. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. 1977. 171pp.
Jensen, J. V. The Rhetoric of Thomas H Huxley and Robert G. Ingersoll in Relation to the
Conflict Between Science and Theology, Ph. D. thesis, University of Minnesota, 1959.
-----. “Thomas H. Huxley and Robert G. Ingersoll: Agnostics and Roadblock Removers.” Speech
Monographs 32 (1965): 59-68.
Kittridge, Herman. Ingersoll: A Biographical Appreciation. Vol. 13 of The Works of Robert G.
Ingersoll. New York: C. P. Farrell, 1900.
Larson, Orwin. American Infidel: Robert G. Ingersoll. New York: Citadel Press, 1962. 316 pp.
McCabe, Joseph. Robert G. Ingersoll: Benevolent Agnostic. Girard, KS: Haldeman Julius, 1927.
64 pp.
MacDonald, Eugene M. Col. Robert G. Ingersoll as He Is. New York: Truth Seeker Co., 1893.
199 pp.
O’Hair, Madalyn Murray. Sixty-Five Press Interviews with Robert G. Ingersoll. Austin, TX:
American Atheist Press, 1989.
Rogers, Cameron. Colonel Bob Ingersoll. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1922. 93
pp.
Smith, Edward Garstin. The Life and Reminiscences of Robert G. Ingersoll. New York: National
Weekly Publishing Company. 1904. 342pp.
Stein, Gordon. Robert G. Ingersoll: A Checklist. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1969.
128 pp.
D. M. Bennett (1818-1882)
DeRobigne Mortimer Bennett, who spent his young adulthood among the Shakers, a celibate
Christian communal group in nineteenth-century America, left in 1946 and married another
former member Mary Wicks. He subsequently worked as a druggist, having gained some
knowledge of herbs while a Shaker. His wide reading finally led to his conversion to
Freethought, the writing of Thomas Paine being the most convincing.
In 1873 while living in Peoria, Illinois (where the popular agnostic lecturer Robert Ingersoll also
resided), Bennett found the local newspapers refusing to print some of his letters that voiced his
now radical religious views. In response, Bennett founded his own periodical, The Truth Seeker.
Before the year was out, he moved to the more welcoming environment of New York City. It
became, by the time of Bennett’s death a substantial journal with a national audience. For a time,
it was the official periodical for the National Liberal League.
In 1878, Bennett attended the initial gathering of the New York Freethinkers Association, and a
short time later was arrested for circulating obscene material in the form of a book called Cupid’s
Yokes by Ezra Heywood, a birth control advocate. The book had been sold openly at the
convention. Following a trial in 1879, he was fined $300, and sentenced to thirteen months in
prison.
The Truth Seeker has continued under various managements, and was later associated with the
American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, through the twentieth century to the
present. Bennett died in 1882. A number of Bennett’s hard to find books may be found in the
library of the University of Wisconsin and Madison.
Primary Sources
Bennett, D. M. Answers to Christian Questions and Arguments. New York: Truth Seeker Co.,
n.d. [1882?]. 146 pp.
-----. The Champions of the Church: their crimes and persecutions. New York, D. M. Bennett,
1878. 1119 pp.
-----. From Behind the Bars: a series of letters written in prison. New York: Liberal and
Scientific Publishing House, [1879?] 565 pp.
-----. The Trial of D. M. Bennett in the United States Circuit Court. New York: Truth Seeker
Office, 1879.
-----. A Truth Seeker Around the World. 4 vols. New York: Truth Seeker Co. 1882.
-----. World Sages, Infidels, and Thinkers. New York: The author, 1880.
Secondary Sources
Bradford, Roderick. D. M. Bennett: the Truth Seeker. Nineteenth Century America’s Most
Controversial Publisher and Free-Speech Martyr. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006. 412
pp.
“Roots of Atheism: D. M. Bennett.” American Atheism (November 1978) (December 1978).
Stein, Gordon. “D. M. Bennett.” Progressive World 24, 7 (September 1970).
Freethought Women Leaders and Writers
Feminist historians in the last generation have recovered much of the neglected history of
women’s participation in various social reform programs and the cause of women’s rights. As
might be expected, many women came to see the church as an instrument in their subjugation.
Some rejected Christian orthodoxy and moved into liberal churches, most notably the
Universalists and Unitarians, while other rejected religion altogether and became freethinkers.
The refusal of conservative male leaders to allow women full participation in the abolitionist
movement would lead to a gathering of women at Seneca falls, New York, the radical Wesleyan
church there offering their building for the meeting, and launched the women’s rights movement
that after the civil war began the push for suffrage and worked on a host of issues of vital
importance to women. The women’s movement included a spectrum of organizations from the
very conservation Women’s Christian Temperance Union, to the more secular-based National
Woman Suffrage Association.
Relative to the history of Unbelief, women’s history is still in its beginning states, as much more
effort has gone into exploring the role of women in religion, while secular studies have
concentrated on their contributions to other fields, from sports to politics. Annie Laurie Gaylor’s
book provides a good starting point.
Sources
Avrich, Paul. An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Beck, Frank O. Hobohemia: Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Ben Reitman & Other Agitators &
Outsiders in 1920s Chicago. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 2000.
Child, Lydia Maria. A Lydia Marie Child Reader. Ed. by Carolyn L. Karcher. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 1997.
Colman, Lucy N. Reminiscences. Buffalo, NY: H. L. Green, 1891.
Drinnon, Richard. Rebel in Paradise: A Biography of Emma Goldman. Chicago: University of
Eckhardt, Celia Morris. Fanny Wright: Rebel in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1984.
Farrell, Grace. Lillie Devereaux Blake: Retracing a Life Erased. Amherst, MA: University of
Massachusetts Press, 2007.
Foote, G. W. “Harriet Law.” The Freethinker (July 4, 1915).
Gage, Matilda Joslyn. Woman, Church and State. a Historical Account of the Status of Woman
Through the Christian Ages: With Reminiscences of the Matriarchate. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr
& Company, 1893. 554 pp. Rpt.: Watertown, MA: Persephone Press, 1980. 294 p.
Gaylor, Annie Laurie, ed. Women without Superstition: No Gods, No Masters. Madison, WI:
Freedom from Religion Foundation, 1997. 696 pp.
Gilbert, Amos. Memoir of Frances Wright: The Pioneer Woman in the Cause of Human Rights.
Cincinnati: Longley Brothers. 1855. 86pp.
Goldman, Emma. Anarchism and Other Essays (New York, 1910)
-----. Voltairine de Cleyre. Berkley Heights: Oriole Press, 1932.
Goldsmith, Margaret. Seven Women against the World. London: Methuen, 1935.
Gray, Carole. “I Love Lucy.” American Atheist (Spring 1997). Re: Lucy Colman.
Karcher, Carolyn L. The First Woman of the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Marie
Child. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994.
Kern, Kathi. Mrs. Stanton’s Bible. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002, 304 pp.
Kerr, Andrea Moore. Lucy Stone: Speaking Out for Equality. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
Kirkley, Evelyn A. Rational Mothers and Infidel Gentlemen: Gender and American Atheism,
1865-1995. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000. 198 pp.
Kissel, Susan S. In Common Cause: The “Conservative” Frances Trollope and the “Radical”
Frances Wright. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. 1993.
175pp.
Kolmerten, Carol A. The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University
Press, 1999. 300 pp.
Newsom, Carol E., and Sharon H. Ringe, eds. The Women’s Bible Commentary. Expanded ed.
Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. 501 pp.
Perkins, A. J. G., and Theresa Wolfson. Frances Wright, Free Enquirer: The Study of A
Temperament. New York: Harper & Bros., 1939. 393pp.
Rose, Ernestine Louise. An Address on Woman’s Rights, delivered before the peoples Sunday
meeting, in Cochituate Hall, on Sunday afternoon, October 19th, 1851. Boston: J.P. Mendum,
1851.
-----. A Defense of Atheism: Being a Lecture, delivered in Mercantile Hall, Boston, April 10,
1861. Boston: J.P. Mendum, 1889. 3rd edition.
-----. Mistress of Herself: Speeches and Letters of Ernestine Rose, Early Women’s Rights Leader.
New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2008. 389pp
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. The Woman’s Bible. 2 vols. New York: European Publishing Company,
1898. Part I. Comments on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. 217 pp. Part
II. Comments on the Old and New Testaments from Joshua to Revelation. Rpt.: 2 vols. Seattle,
WA: Coalition Task Force on Women and Religion, 1976. Rpt: Boston, MA: Northeastern
University Press, 1998. 325 pp. Rpt.: Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999.
Underwood, Sara. Heroines of Freethought. New York: Charles P. Somerby, 1876. 336 pp.
Waterman, William Randall. Frances Wright. New York: Columbia University Press. 1924.
267pp.
White, Edmund. Fanny Wright. London: Chatto & Windus, 2003.
Wiseman, Alberta. Rebels and Reformers, Biographies of Four Jewish Americans, Uriah
Phillips Levy, Ernestine L. Rose, Louis D. Brandeis, Lillian D. Wald. Garden City, NY: Zenith
Books, Doubleday & Company, 1976.
Wright, Frances. Biography, Notes, and Political Letters of Frances Wright D’Arusmont.
Dundee, Scotland: J. Myles. 1844. 48pp.
Yuri, Suhl. Ernestine L. Rose and the Battle for Human Rights. New York: Reynal, 1959. 310
pp.
-----. Ernestine L. Rose: Women’s Rights Pioneer. New York: Biblio Press, 1990.
Twentieth Century
Individual Freethinkers/Atheists
Joseph Lewis (1889-1968)
Freethinker Joseph Lewis was a self-educated atheist who developed his perspective from his
reading of Robert Ingersoll and Thomas Paine. He moved from Alabama to New York City in
1920 where he founded Freethinkers of America and its associated publishing arm the
Freethought Press Association. He began issuing a periodical, Freethinkers of America, in 1937
(later renamed Freethinker and then in the 1950s Age of Reason). In the 1930s, he also founded
the Eugenics Publishing Company to publish materials on various medical issues. Over the years
Lewis, published, and reprinted a variety of books on Atheism.
Lewis, Joseph. American Atheist Heritage. Ed. by Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Austin: American
Atheist Press,, 1981. 55 pp. Compiles Lewis’ writings of Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln and Luther
Burbank.
Sources
-----. Atheism and other Addresses. New York: The Freethought Press Association, 1941.
-----. An Atheist Manifesto. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1954. 64 pp.
-----. The Bible and the Public Schools. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1931.
-----. The Bible Unmasked. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1926. 236 pp.
-----. Burbank, the Infidel. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1929. 8 pp.
-----. Franklin, the Freethinker. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1926.
-----. In the Name of Humanity. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1949. 160 pp.
-----. Ingersoll, The Magnificent. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1957. 576 pp.
-----. Jefferson, the Freethinker. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1925. 48 pp.
-----. Lincoln, the Freethinker. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1925. 30 pp.
-----. Should Children Receive Religious Instruction? New York: Freethought Press Association,
1933.
-----. Spain: A Land Blighted by Religion. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1933. 96
pp.
-----. The Ten Commandments. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1946. 644 pp.
-----. Thomas Paine: The Author of the Declaration of Independence. New York: Freethought
Press Association, 1947. 315 pp.
-----. The Tragic Patriot. New York: Freethought Press Association 1954. 237 pp.
-----. The Tyranny of God. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1921. 121 pp.
-----. Voltaire, the Incomparable Infidel. New York: Freethought Press Association, 1929. 91 pp.
Clarence Darrow
Attorney Clarence Darrow, most famous for his defending taking a number of high-profile
people charged with criminal offenses, also emerged as an agnostic of note. Born in Kinsman,
Ohio, on 18th April, 1857, his father was an unbeliever who had lost his faith while training for
the Unitarian ministry. Young Clarence attended Allegheny College and the University of
Michigan Law School, and began his career in Ohio in 1878. He moved to Chicago in 1887.
Darrow’s first major case was a defense of Eugene Debs, president of the American Railway
Union, and Darrow became identified with the cause of American labor. Along the way he, in
1906-7, he successfully defended William D. “Big Bill” Haywood, who headed the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW). He also became a socialist and was a co-founder of the
Intercollegiate Socialist Society. In his most famous criminal case, he defended two wealthy
students (Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb) who had kidnapped and murdered a young boy.
His defense saved them from the death penalty.
Over time, with the continued defense of a literal interpretation of Genesis by conservative
Christians, Darrow’s 1925 defense of John T. Scopes, charged with teaching evolution in a
Tennessee public school, had emerged as his most famous case, the subject of a Broadway play
that was turned into a movie on four occasions. He lost the case, though the conviction was later
overturned on a technicality. Darrow died on 13 March, 1938
Primary Sources
Darrow, Clarence. Attorney for the Damned. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983.
-----. Closing Arguments: Clarence Darrow on Religion, Law, and Society. Ed. by S. T. Joshi.
Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2005. 232 pp.
-----. The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow. Ed. by
Edward J. Larson and Jack Marshall. New York: Modern Library, 2007. 288 pp.
-----. The Story of my Life. New York: Grosset & Dunlap 1932. Rpt.: with and introduction by
Alan Dershowitz. New York: DaCapo Press, 1996. 508 pp.
-----. Verdicts Out of Court. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1963. 448 pp.
-----. Why I am an Agnostic: and Other Essays. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994. 109 pp.
-----, and Wallace Rice. Infidels and Heretics: An Agnostics Anthology. Boston: Stratford, 1929.
293 pp.
Secondary Sources
Thirney, Kevin. Darrow. New York: Thomas Y. Crowelll, 1979.
Geiger, Ray. “Clarence Seward Darrow, 1856-1938.” Antioch Review (March 1953).
Johnson, Frank W. C. Rhetorical Criticism of the Speaking of William Jennings Bryan and
Clarence Seward Darrow at the Scopes Trial. Cleveland, OH: Case Western Reserve University,
MacRae, Donald. The Great Trials of Clarence Darrow: The Landmark Cases of Leopold and
Loeb, John T. Scopes, and Ossian Sweet. Mew York: Harper Perennial, 2010. 448 pp.
-----. The Last Trials of Clarence Darrow. New York: William Morrow & Company, 2009. 432
pp.
-----. The Old Devil: Clarence Darrow: the World’s Greatest Trial Lawyer. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2009. 352 pp.
Mordell, Albert. Clarence Darrow, Eugene V. Debs and Haldeman-Julius: Incidents in the
Career of an Author, Editor and Publisher. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1950. 79
pp.
Vine, Phylis. One Man’s Castle: Clarence Darrow in Defense of the American Dream. New
York: Amistad Press, 2005. 384 pp.
Weinberg, Arthur & Lila. Clarence Darrow: A Sentimental Rebel. New York: G. P. Putnam’s
Sons, 1980.
Marcet Haldeman (d. 1941) and Emanuel Julius (1889-1951)
Shortly after their marriage, in 1919, Marcet Haldeman and Emanuel Julius purchased a
publishing concern in Girard, Kansas, and for the next decades published hundreds fo small
inexpensive booklets through which they spread their related and for-the-time very radical set of
ideas on religion politics and history. They published under the last name Haldeman-Julius.
Julius was born in Philadelphia in 1889, the son of Russian Jewish parents. The anti-Semitism he
experienced as a youth led him to reject all religion. Though he dropped out o school in his teens,
he read Socialist literature, which he could acquire for little or no cost, and found himself much
attracted to its views. In 1915, he moved to Girard to write for Appeal to Reason, a socialist
periodical. A short time later he met Marcet Haldeman, a feminist and sister of social reformer
Jane Addams. They combined their last names to symbolize their belief in gender equality.
In 1919, they purchased the Appeal to Reason and its printing plant. Among their first
publications was a novel they had written called simply Dust (1921). They subsequently became
famous for the many small paperback booklets they published, most reprints of older literature
which were sold at an ever-decreasing price. Through the 1940s, some 6,000 titles were issued.
The booklets were aimed at informing the general public about things the publisher believed that
people in power wished to keep them ignorant. Topics forbidden included topics included
religion, personal freedoms, and birth control.
In 1933, the Haldeman-Julius’ legally separated. Marcet died in 1941. Emanuel died in 1951,
from a accidental drowning.
At the time of his death, his firm had published more than 500 million books, and represented the
first wave of what in the 1950s became the paperback revolution. Originally intended as throwaway volumes, in recent years the few surviving copies have become collectors’ items, and
putting the bibliographical record of the company together a libnrarian’s nuightmare. See the
“Laughingly Incomplete Checklist of Little Blue Books Cover Titles.” Posted at http://little-bluebooks.com/articles/LBBChecklist.html.
Primary Sources
Haldeman-Julius, Emanuel. The First Hundred Million. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1928.
Rpt. as: First Hundred Million: How To Sky Rocket Your Book Sales With Slam Dunk Titles.
Vancouver, BC: Angelican Press, 2008. 272 pp.
-----. The Meaning of Atheism. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Publications, n.d.. 32 pp.
-----. My First Years and My Second 25 Years. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius, 1949.
Haldeman Julius, Emmanuel, and Marcet Haldeman-Julius. Dust. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius.
n.d.. 251pp.
Haldeman-Julius, Marcet. Jane Addams as I Knew Her. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius
Publications, [1936]. 30 pp.
-----. What the Editor’s Wife Is Thinking About. Little Blue Book #809. Girard, KS: HaldemanJulius, 1924.
Secondary Sources
Haldeman-Julius, Alice, ed. International Freethought Annual: A Group of Rationalists Look at
the World of Today, Diagnose Some of Its Ills, and Point the Way to Intellectual, Social and
Cultural Progress. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1940. 127 pp.
Gunn, John W. E. Haldeman-Julius--the Man and His Work. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius,
1824, 64 pp.
Herder, Dale M. “Haldeman-Julius, The Little Blue Books, and the Theory of Popular Culture”,
Journal of Popular Culture 4, 4 (Spring 1971): 881-891.
Herder, Dale M. “The Little Blue Books as Popular Culture: E. Haldeman-Julius’ Methodology.”
In: New Dimensions in Popular Culture. Ed. by Russel B. Nye. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling
Green University Popular Press, 1972, pp. 31-42.
Holmes, John Haynes. Why I Am Not an Atheist, (With a Reply By E. Haldeman-Julius). Girard,
KS: Haldeman-Julius, n.d. 64 pp.
McCabe, Joseph. Freethought and Agnosticism; lies and confusion in conventional literature.
Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1943. 31pp.
Mordell, Albert. Clarence Darrow, Eugene V. Debs and Haldeman-Julius: Incidents in the
Career of an Author, Editor and Publisher. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1950. 79
pp.
-----. Trailing E. Haldeman-Julius in Philadelphia and Other Places: The early years of an
author, editor and publisher who has done much to spread sound ideas on controversial
subjects. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius, n.d. 60pp.
-----. The World of Haldeman-Julius. New York: Twayne, 1960. 288 pp.
Mangasar Magurditch Mangasarian (1859-1943)
M. M. Mangasarian was a Turkish-born American Freethinker. He had already been ordained as
a Presbyterian minister when he arrived in the united States at the beginning of the 1880s to
attend Princeton University. In 1885, he resigned the pastorate he was serving to become an
independent preacher . he eventually drifted to the Ethical Culture movement, but left it in 1900
when he organized the Independent Religious Society of Chicago, an autonomous rationalist
group, which he led until his retirement in 1925. He is remembered for the many booklets he
wrote and published.
Sources
Mangasarian, Mangasar Magurditch (1859-1943). The Bible Unveiled. Chicago: Independent
Religious Society [Rationalist], 1911.
-----. A New Catechism. Introduction by George Jacob Holyoake (U.S. printing, 1902; London:
Watts & Co., 1904).
-----. The Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate on The Question: “Did Jesus Ever Live?” Girard, KS:
Haldeman-Julius Publications.
-----. The Neglected Book or The Bible Unveiled. New York: The Truth Seeker Company, 1926.
-----. The Truth About Jesus, Is He a Myth? Chicago: Independent Religious Society, 1909.
-----. What is Christian Science? London: Watts & Co., 1922.
Charles Lee Smith and the AAAA
The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism (AAAA) was an atheist
organization founded in 1925 by Charles Lee Smith (1887-1964), a lawyer converted to atheism
from his reading Freethought books. He subsequently became a writer for The Truth Seeker, an
independent Freethought journal published in New York City. Smith promoted the AAAA and
his perspective by engaging a variety of controversial actions, including multiples debates with
Christian on various topics. Eventually the AAAA attained a membership of around 2,000, many
university students.
In 1930 Smith purchased The Truth Seeker, which continued as an independent journal. It and
the AAAA suffered in the 1930s from the depression and then increasingly from Smith’s antiSemitism and racism. Just before his death in 1964, Smith sold The Truth Seeker to James
Hervey Johnson, who moved it and the AAAA to San Diego. The AAAA continued by remained
small, around 200 members in the 1970s. Being an atheist was a requirement for membership, It
ceased to exist following Johnson’s death in 1988. The Truth Seeker continues to be published to
the present.
Primary Sources
A Debate Between W. L. Oliphant and Charles Smith (on Atheism). Dallas, TX: F. L. Rowe,
Publisher, 1929. 177 pp. Rpt. Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, 1952.
Johnson, James Hervey. “Charles Smith: 1887–1964.”The Truth Seeker 91, 11 (November
1964).
-----. Superior Men: A Book of Reason for the Man of Vision. San Diego, CA: Author, 1949. 192
pp.
McPherson, Aimee Semple, and Charles Lee Smith. Debate: There Is a God! Los Angeles:
Foursquare Publications, n.d.
Smith, Charles Lee. Sensism: The Philosophy of the West. 2 vols. New York: Truthseeker Co.,
1956.
Secondary Sources
Cardiff, Ira D. “If Christ Came to New York.” New York: American Association for the
Advancement of Atheism, [1932].
Crey, Homer. “Atheism Beckons to Our Youth.” World’s Work 54 (1927).
-----. “Atheism Rampant in Our Schools.” World’s Work 54 (1927).
Dalgliesh, Malcolm. The Sage of San Diego Said Choose Quality and Reason. New York: A
New Enlightenment, n.d. 100 pp.
Graves, Kersey. The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors. New York: Truth Seeker, 1875.
Heller, Mordecai ; E. Haldeman-Julius and John D. McInerney. The Shameful Decline of the
“Truth Seeker”: How a once-fine organ of Freethought fell into the clutches of ignoble bigots
and became a sewer for Anti-Semitism. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Publications 1949. 24 pp.
McElroy, Wendy. Queen Silver: The Godless Girl. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2000.
Stein, Gordon. “Charles Lee Smith, 1887-1964.” American Rationalist (May-June 1984).
Swancara, Frank. Separation of Religion and Government. New York: Truth Seeker Co., 1950.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1856)
Journalist H. L. Mencken developed a large national following for his irreverence, wit, and
command of the English language. In the half-century since his death, he maintains a large
following, and in the twenty-first century, a new generation of Unbelievers has discovered his
writings on religion. Mencken described himself as an agnostic, but his opinions differ little from
contemporary atheism. His coverage of the Scopes Monkey Trial appears as relevant in the midst
of the current public debates on evolution as when they were originally written, and we still use
his term, the “Bible Belt,” to describe the South.
A writer who left behind a mountain of words, Mencken has never been out of print, however, a
host of newly edited books offer a easy access to the vast literature and new studies of him offer
some assessment of his continuing impact. No less than four book-length bibliographical studies
will assist the more dedicated Mencken fan locate exactly the items for which they are looking:
Carroll Frey, A Bibliography of the Writings of H. L. Mencken (Philadelphia The Centaur Book
Shop 1924); Betty Adler, comp., H.L. Mencken: an Annotated Bibliography (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins Press, 1961); Richard J. Schrader, George H. Thompson, and Jack R. Sanders, H.
L. Mencken: A Descriptive Bibliography. (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh, 1998); and
S. T. Joshi, H. L. Mencken: An Annotated Bibliography (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 2009).
The highly selective list below centers on biographical materials and Mencken’s writings that
touch on religion.
Primary Sources
Mencken, H. L. Mencken on Mencken: A New Collection of Autobiographical Writings. Ed by
S.T. Joshi. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. 263 pp.
-----. H. L. Mencken: Prejudices: The Complete Series. 2 vols. Ed. by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers.
New York: Library of America, 2010.
-----. Happy Days 1880-1892. New York Alfred A. Knopf, 1940. 313 pp
-----. The Impossible H.L. Mencken: A Collection of His Best Newspaper Stories. Ed. by Marion
Elizabeth Rodgers. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1991. 707 pp.
-----. A Religious Orgy in Tennessee: A Reporter’s Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2006. 206 pp.
-----. Treatise on the Gods. New York Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. 364 pp. Rpt.: Baltimore, MD:
-----, and S. T. Joshi. H.L. Mencken on Religion. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books (October
2002). 330 pp.
Secondary Sources
Fitzpatrick, Vincent. H. L. Mencken. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press (March 1, 2004). 216
pp.
Harrison, S. L. Mencken Revisited: Author, Editor, & Newspaperman. Lanham, MD: University
Press of America, 1999. 144 pp.
Rodgers, Marion Elizabeth. Mencken: The American Iconoclast. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005. 672 pp.
Teachout, Terry. The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken. New York: Harper Collins, 2002. 432 pp.
Unbelief in the Jewish Community
Secular Jews, who dissented in both belief and practice from traditional Judaism, appeared in
measurable numbers the nineteenth century. By the end of the century, various organizational
forms, asserting allegiance to Jewish culture and traditions, but developing a certain distance
from religion and the behavioral patterns it produced, appeared in a variety of movements from
the agricultural communal movement to Zionism. The Reform movement emerged as an
alternative between a purely secular approach to Judaism and the traditional Jewish religious life
that reasserted itself as modern Orthodoxy in its several cultural variations (German, Eastern
European, Hasidic).
In North America, a new non-theistic perspective on life and society was articulated by Felix
Adler, a perspective that Jews could see as a secular form of Judaism. Beginning within New
York’s Jewish community, over time the Ethical Culture movement lost much of its specifically
Jewish flavor and attracted a number of members and leaders from the general population. Then
through the twentieth century, even as the economic condition of the community was rapidly
improving, a significant minority of Jews identified with various forms of Marxism. They also
looked to other and movements led by intellectual leaders who like Marx combined a Jewish
background with an attack upon traditional Jewish theism—Sigmund Freud among the most
prominent.
Given the Jewish emphasis on education, it is not surprising that, beginning with Adler, a
disproportionate number of the twentieth century leaders of the emerging atheist and Humanist
communities were Jews. (In like measure, in the late twentieth century, a disproportionate
number of American Jews assumed leadership roles in the new wave of Eastern religions.) Many
Jews found their way to Ethical Culture, but just as many emerged elsewhere. Their leadership
proved a necessary antidote to the anti-Semitism that came to dominate the American
Association for the Advancement of Atheism.
At the end of the twentieth century, a new Humanist push within the Jewish community was
founded by Rabbi Sherwin Wine who led what he termed a Humanistic Jewish synagogue in
suburban Detroit. Out of his work a new Association for Humanistic Judaism emerged along
with an International Federation of Secular Humanistic Jews based in Israel. The association is
committed to maintaining Jewish culture while searching out the implications of unbelief in the
deity traditionally credited with revealing the law as His will. Other secular Jewish
organizations, wishing to affirm both a non-theistic approach to life and values they found in
Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and culture, include the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations
http://www.csjo.org/) and the Center for Cultural Judaism in New York City
(http://culturaljudaism.org/). The Center publishes two journals: Contemplate: The International
Journal of Cultural Jewish Thought, an annual imprint journal and a web journal, Secular
Culture & Ideas. Jewish Unbelievers, like the larger community of Unbelief, disagrees over its
assessment of the value of religion, with or without God.
Sources
Berlinerblau, Jacques. Why Unbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously. Cambridge: Cambridge
Biale, David. Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2010. 272 pp.
Blau, Joseph Leon, ed. “The Philosopher as Historian of Philosophy: Herbert Wallace
Schneider.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 10, 2, (April 1972): 212-215.
-----. “Some Reflections on the Heritage of Humanism.” Humanism Today 2 (1986). Posted at
http://www.humanismtoday.org/vol2/.
Chuman, Joseph. “Religion and Ethnicity: Which Has more Staying Power?” Humanistic
Judaism 25, 3 (Summer 1997). Posted at http://culturaljudaism.org/ccj/articles/27.
Goldfinger, Eva. Basic Ideas of Secular Humanistic Judaism. Lincolnshire, IL: International
Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, 1996.
Goldstein, Rebecca. Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity. New York:
Schocken Books, 2006. 287 pp.
Heller, Mordecai ; E. Haldeman-Julius and John D. McInerney. The Shameful Decline of the
“Truth Seeker”: How a once-fine organ of freethought fell into the clutches of ignoble bigots
and became a sewer for Anti-Semitism. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Publications 1949. 24 pp.
Hook, Sidney. Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century, New York: Harper & Row,
1987. 630 pp.
-----. “Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life,” Commentary 30 (1960), pp 139-149.
-----. Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life. New York Basic Books ,1974. 224pp.
-----. Sidney Hook on Pragmatism, Democracy, and Freedom: The Essential Essays. Ed. by
Robert B. Talisse and Robert Tempio. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002. 420 pp.
Horowitz, Brian. “S. Ansky: Prophet of Modernism.” Posted at
http://culturaljudaism.org/pdf/Ansky.pdf.
Jacoby, Susan. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. New York: Henry Holt, 2004.
417 pp.
Kallen, Horace Meyer. What I Believe and Why— Maybe. New York, NY: Horizon Press, 1971.
207 pp.
-----. Why Religion? New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927. 316 pp.
Levy, Zev, and Karen Katz. The Early Modern European Roots of Secular Humanistis Judaism.
Lincolnshire, IL: International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, 1998.
Malkin, Yaakov. Judaism Without God?: Judaism as Culture and Bible as Literature. Trans. by
Shmuel Gertel. N.p.: The Library of Secular Judaism, 2007. 336 pp.
Mayer, Egon. “The Rise of the Seculars in American Jewish Life.” Contemplate 2 (2003).
Postedat http://culturaljudaism.org/ccj/articles/23.
Michels, Tony. A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2009. 352 pp.
Posen, Felix. “An Experiment Whose Time Has Come.” Jewish Chronicle (London, England)
(June 1, 2001). Rpt.: Contemplate 1 (2001). Postedat http://culturaljudaism.org/ccj/articles/24.
Rosenfeld, Max. Festivals, Folklore & Philosophy: A secularist revisits Jewish traditions.
Philadelphia, PA: Sholom Aleichem Club, 1997. 274 pp.
Sarna, Jonathan. “The Rise, Fall and Rise of Secular Judaism.” Posted at
http://culturaljudaism.org/pdf/Contemplate_Sarna.pdf.
Schneider, Herbert W. Morals for Mankind. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1960.
82 pp.
Seid, Judith. God-Optional Judaism: Alternatives for Cultural Jews Who Love Their History,
Heritage, and Community. New York: Citadel, 2001. 226 pp.
-----, ed. Understanding Secular Humanistic Judaism. Kopinvant Secular Press, 1990. 84 pp.
-----. We Rejoice in Our Heritage: Home Rituals for Secular and Humanistic Jews. Kopinvant
Secular Press, 1989. 45 pp.
Shane, Paul G. Shabbes Book: A Secular Humanist Guide to the History, Relevance & Ways of
Observing Shabbes, Shabbat, the Sabbath with an Annotated Bibliography. Lincolnshire, IL:
International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, 1998. 91 pp.
Silver, Mitchell. Respecting the Wicked Child: A Philosophy of Secular Jewish Identity and
Education. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. 248 pp.
Sorj, Brnardo. Judaism for Everyone ... without Dogma. Lincolnshire, IL: International
Federation for Secular & Humanistic Judaism, 2010. 190 pp.
-----. “Secular Judaism in the XXI Century.” Contemplate 2 (2003). Postedat
http://culturaljudaism.org/ccj/articles/20.
Tisch, Jesse. “Q & A with Rebecca Goldstein.” Posted at
http://culturaljudaism.org/pdf/Contemplate_RGoldstein.pdf.
Tzaban, Yair. “An Unabashed Secular Jew.” Contemplate 2 (2003). Postedat
http://culturaljudaism.org/ccj/articles/10.
Voss, Carl Hermann. Rabbi and Minister: The Friendship of Stephen S. Wise and John Hayne
Holmes. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1980.
Felix Adler (1851-1933) and Ethical Culture
Felix Adler, a young immigrant from Germany, initiated the New York Society for Ethical
Culture and the whole Ethical Culture movement with a sermon he delivered on May 15, 1876.
In this and subsequent lectures/sermons he developed a philosophy of moral existence drawing
heavily from Immanuel Kant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and a spectrum of additional contemporary
thinkers. He attracted large attendance at his lectures which increasingly included those beyond
the Jewish base he had originally established. Soon additional leaders emerged and new centers
appeared in other American cities and even Europe. These ethical societies would later be
associated through the American Ethical Union. The Union would become aligned with Ethical
culture societies outside the United States and eventually make common cause with Humanists
in the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
Adler emphasized action over affirmation and developed a number of welfare projects in New
York City. He was named to a chair in political and social ethics at Columbia University in 1902,
a position he retain until his death in 1933. As the Humanist movement developed within
Unitarian circles in the decades after World War II, individual leaders and members moved
freely between the two movements leading to a significant amount of cross-fertilization.
Primary sources
Adler, Felix, Atheism—A Lecture before the Society of Ethical Culture, April 6, 1879. Lehmaier
& Bros., New York, 1884.
-----. An Ethical Philosophy of Life, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1918.
----- . Creed and Deed: A Series of Discourses. New York, Pub. for the Society for Ethical
Culture, by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1877. Rpt.: New York: Arno, 1972.
----- . The Essentials of Spirituality. New York: J. Pott, 1905.
-----. The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal. New York: London: D. Appleton, 1924.
-----. “The Relation of Ethical Culture to Religion and Philosophy.” International Journal of
Ethics 4, 3 (1894): 335-347.
-----. Life and Destiny; or, Thoughts from the ethical lectures of Felix Adler. New York,
McClure, Phillips & Co., 1903.
-----. The Freedom of Ethical Fellowship. Philadelphia: S. Burns Weston, 1895.
Secondary sources
Blackham, H. J. “The Ethical Movement during Seventy Years.” The Plain View 6 (January
1946): 137-49.
Bridges, Horace J. Aspects of Ethical Religion: Essays in Honor of Felix Adler on the Fiftieth
Anniversary of his Founding of the Ethical Movement, 1876, by His Colleagues. New York:
American Ethical Union 1926 423 pp. Rpt. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1968. Rpt.
New York: Ayers Company, 1968. 423 pp.
-----, The Emerging Faith: Answers to Questions on Ethical Religion. London: Watts, 1937. 149
pp.
Chubb, Percival. On the Religious Frontier: from an Outpost of Ethical Religion. New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1931, 148 pp.
Chuman, Joseph. “Religion and Ethnicity: Which Has more Staying Power?” Humanistic
Judaism 25, 3 (Summer 1997). Posted at http://culturaljudaism.org/ccj/articles/27.
Ericson, Edward L., ed. The Humanist Way: An Introduction to Ethical Humanist Religion. New
York: A Frederick Ungar/Continuum Publishing Company, 1988. 205 pp.
Friess, Horace Leland. Felix Adler and Ethical Culture: Memories and Studies. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1981.
The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Ethical Movement, 1876–1926. New York: A. Appleton and
Company, 1926.
Guttchen, Robert S. Felix Adler. New York: Twayne, 1974.
Hemstreet, Robert M. “Felix Adler and the Free Religious Association.” Religious Humanism 17
(Spring 1983): 108-118, 143; 17 (Summer 1983): 64-75.
Kraut, Benny. From Reform Judaism to Ethical Culture. The Religious Evolution of Felix Adler.
Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1979. 285 pp.
Murphy, Howard R. “The Ethical Revolt against Christian Orthodoxy in Early Victorian
England.” American Historical Review 60, 4 (July 1955): 650-17.
Muzzey, David Saville. Ethical Religion. Its Historical Sources, Its Elements, Its Sufficiency, Its
Future. New York: American Ethical Union, 1943.
-----. Ethics as a Religion. New York: Simon and Schuster 1951. 276 pp. Rpt.: New York: Ungar
Publishing Co., 1980.
-----. The Meaning of Ethical Religion. New York: American Ethical Union, n.d.
-----. “The Union of Hebrew and Christian Ideals in the Ethical Culture Movement.” Ethical
Addresses [Philadelphia: S. Burns Weston]. 11, 8 (April 1904).
Neuhaus, Cable A Lively Connection: Intimate Encounters with the Ethical Movement in
America. Ethical Press, 1978. 159 pp.
Neumann, Henry. Spokesman for Ethical Religion. Boston: Beacon Press, 1951. 173 pp.
Radest, Howard B. Toward Common Ground: The Story of the Ethical Societies in the United
States. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1969.
Spiller, Gustav. The Ethical Movement in Great Britain. London: 1934.
-----. Faith in Man: the Religion of the Twentieth Century. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co.,
1908. 84 pp.
-----. The Mind of Man. London, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1902. 552 pgs.
Eustace Haydon (1880-1975)
Canadian Eustace Hayden, a prominent historian of religion at the University of Chicago’s
Divinity School began his adult life as a Baptist minister. He subsequently earned his Ph.D. from
the University of Chicago, and in 1919 was named the chair of the Chair of the Department of
Comparative Religion (still an emerging field at the time). He taught at the Divinity School for
almost four decades.
Though still formally a Baptist, Haydon moved toward the new Humanist movement within the
Unitarian church and commuted on the weekends to serve a Unitarian society in Madison,
Wisconsin, as its minister (1918-1923). The subsequently became involved with the ethical
Culture movement in Chicago and would serve as its leader for a decade following his retirement
in 1945. By this time he had publicly identified himself with the larger Humanist movement and
was among the original signers of the first Humanist Manifesto (1933).
In 1956, the American Humanist Association’s named him the Humanist of the Year.
Sources
Haydon, A. Eustace. Biography of the Gods. New York: Macmillan Company, 1941. 352 pp.
-----. The Quest of the Ages. New York: Harper & Bros., 1929. 243 pp.
-----. Man’s Search for the Good Life. New York: Harper & Bros., 1937.
-----, ed. Modern Trends in World-Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934. 250 pp.
-----. Pragmatism And the Rise of Religious Humanism: the Writings of Albert Eustace Haydon,
1880-1975. Vol. 1: The Conception of God in the Pragmatic Philosophy. Ed. by Creighton Peden
and John N. Gaston. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006. 200 pp.
1880-1975. Vol. 2, Secular Religion and the Public Addresses. Ed. by Creighton Peden and John
N. Gaston. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006. 429 pp.
1880-1975. Vol. 3, Meditations on Man and the Radio Talks. Ed. by Creighton Peden and John
N. Gaston. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006. 229 pp.
Peden, Creighton. A Good Life in a World Made Good: Albert Eustace Haydon, 1880-1975.
American Liberal Religious Thought. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006. 312 pp.
Tapp, Robert B. “How Often Haydon Said It First!.” A Journal of Liberal Religion (2006).
Posted at http://meadville.edu/LL_JLR_v8_n1_Tapp.htm.
Herbert Wallace Schneider (1892-1984)
Dr. Herbert Wallace Schneider, a Humanist affiliated with the Ethical Culture Movement in New
York, was for many years a professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. Born in Ohio, he
attended Columbia where he studied under John Dewey. After receiving his Ph.D., he became
Dewey’s teaching assistant. He then served on the Columbia faculty for almost four decades
(1918 to 1957). He later taught at Colorado College (195859) and the Claremont Colleges in
California (1959-1963). He passed away in 1984
Schneider continued the Humanism of his predecessor, and, as Dewey had signed the original
Humanist Manifesto, he signed the second.
Primary Sources
Ralph Ross, Herbert W Schneider, Theodore Waldman, eds. Thomas Hobbes in His Time.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1975.
Schneider, Herbert W. History of American Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press,
1963.
-----. Morals For Mankind. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1960. 82 pp.
-----. Religion in 20th Century America. New York: Atheneum, 1964.
-----. Science and Social Progress; A Philosophical Introduction to Moral Science. Lancaster,
PA: New Era printing Co., 1920.
-----. Three Dimensions of Public Morality. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1956.
166 pp.
Smith, Adam. Adam Smith’s Moral and Political Philosophy. Ed. by Herbert W. Schneider. New
York: Hafner Publishing, 1948.
Secondary Sources
Blau, Joseph Leon. “The Philosopher as Historian of Philosophy: Herbert Wallace Schneider.”
Journal of the History of Philosophy 10, 2, (April 1972): 212-215.
Walton, Craig, and John Peter Anton, eds. Philosophy and the Civilizing Arts: Essays Presented
to Herbert W. Schneider. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1974. 508 pp.
Joseph Leon Blau (1909-1986)
Joseph Blau was an American philosopher and Jewish historian. Born in Brooklyn, New York,
he attended Columbia University, where both John Dewey and Herbert Schneider taught, and
from which he received his B/A., M.A. and Ph.D. (1944). He subsequently taught at Columbia
for 34 years (1944-1977) He became chair of the Department of Religion in 1968-1977.
Blau was one of the signers of “A Secular Humanist Declaration” in 1980, and for many years a
Member of the Fraternity of Leaders of the American Ethical Union.
Primary Sources
Blau, Joseph Leon, ed. Cornerstones of Religious Freedom in America. Beacon Press Studies in
Freedom and Power. Boston, MA: The Beacon Press, 1950. 250 pp. Rpt.: New York: Harper &
Row 1964. 250 pp.
-----. Judaism in America--From Curiosity to Third Faith. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1976. 156 pp.
-----. Men and Movements in American Philosophy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1958.
403 pp.
-----. Modern Varieties of Judaism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972. 217 pp.
-----. “The Philosopher as Historian of Philosophy: Herbert Wallace Schneider.” Journal of the
History of Philosophy 10, 2, (April 1972): 212-215.
-----. “Some Reflections on the Heritage of Humanism.” Humanism Today 2 (1986). Posted at
http://www.humanismtoday.org/vol2/.
-----, and Francis Wayland. The Elements of Moral Science. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1963. 457 p
Secondary Sources
Wohlgelernter, Maurice, ed. History, Religion, and Spiritual Democracy: Essays in Honor of
Joseph L. Blau. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. 375 pp.
Howard B. Radest
Howard B. Radest, a prominent contemporary Ethical Culture leader, is Dean Emeritus of the
Humanist Institute and a member of the National Council of Ethical Culture Leaders. He
attended Columbia College (B.A.), and received his M.A. at The New School for Social
Research and his Ph.D. in Philosophy at Columbia University. Over the years he has served as
Leader of the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, NY (1956-1963); Executive Director of
The American Ethical Union (1963-1969); Director of The Ethical Culture Fieldston School in
New York City (1979-1991), and as Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at The University of South
Carolina-Beaufort (1992-2008). He has served on a variety committees and board for various
Humanist organizations and the Ethical culture movement and is widely known for his expertise
in medical ethics.
Primary Sources
Radest, Howard. Bioethics: Catastrophes in a Time of Terror Lanham, MD: Lexington Books
2009. 174 pp.
-----. Biomedical Ethics: Humanist Perspectives of Humanism Today. Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books 2006. 236 pp.
-----. Can We Teach Ethics? Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers 1989. 162 pp.
-----. Community Service: Encounter with Strangers. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1993.
-----. The Devil and Secular Humanism: the Children of the Enlightenment. Westport, CT:
Praeger Publishers, 1990.
-----. “Ethical Culture and Humanism: A Cautionary Tale.” Religious Humanism 16 (Spring
1982): 59-70.
-----. Felix Adler: An Ethical Culture. New York: Peter Lang Publishing 1998.
-----. From Clinic to Classroom: Medical Ethics and Moral Education. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000.
-----. Humanism with a Human Face: Intimacy and the Enlightenment. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996. 212 pp.
-----. Toward Common Ground: The Story of the Ethical Societies in the United States. New
York: Frederick Ungar, 1969.
Horace Meyer Kallen (1882-1974)
Horace M. Kallen was the son of a rabbi. Born in Germany, he migrated to the United States
with his family as a five-year old boy. He later attended Harvard, from which he graduated in
1908. While in Cambridge, he became acquainted with William James, edited his last book, and
developed a life-long interest in psychical research. He later developed a friendship with
Immanuel Velikovsky. In 1919, He became one of the founders of the New School for Social
Research in New York City and would remain there until 1965.
Kallen was an unabashed pluralist. Philosophically, he focused the variety manifest among
humans and throughout nature and society. He celebrated the processes of change, and the hope
that a new future could bring. Culturally, Kallen argued that each ethnic and cultural group in
America contributed to its richness as a national entity. At the same time he was Zionist, who
worked for an independent Jewish nation.
While retaining a strong role within the Jewish community, Kallen developed a Humanist
perspective and frequently addressed a spectrum of Humanist organizations. He was invited by
John Dewey to sign the Humanist Manifesto, but turned down the opportunity out of a general
opposition to creedal-like statements. He later joined with Dewey in writing a defense of
Bertrand Russell when he was denied a teaching position due to his views on sexuality and
marriage.
Primary Sources
Dewey, John, and Horace M. Kallen. The Bertrand Russell Case. New York: The Viking Press,
1941.
Kallen, Horace Meyer. Individualism— An American Way of Life, New York: Liveright, Inc.,
1933.
-----. Freedom and Experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1947.
-----. Ideals and Experience. Ithaca, NY. Cornell University Press, 1948.
-----. Democracy’s True Religion. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1951.
-----. Freedom in the Modern World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1952.
-----. The Liberal Spirit: Essays on Problems Of Freedom In The Modern World. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1948. 242 pp.
-----. Liberty Laughter and Tears: Reflections on the Relations of Comedy and Tragedy to
Human Freedom. De Kalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, [1968].
-----. Of Them Which Say They Are Jews. Ed. by Judah Pilch. New York Bloch Publishing, 1954.
242 pp.
-----. Secularism is the Will of God; An Essay in the Social Philosophy of Democracy and
Religion. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1954. 233 pp,
-----. A Study of Liberty. Yellow Springs, OH: The Antioch Press, 1959. 151 pp.
-----. What I Believe and Why— Maybe. New York, NY: Horizon Press, 1971. 207 pp.
-----. Why Religion? New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927. 316 pp.
Secondary Sources
Gilbert, James. Redeeming Culture: American Religion in an Age of Science. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1997
Hook, Sidney, and Milton R. Konvitz, eds. Freedom and Experience; Essays Presented to
Horace M. Kallen. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1947. 347 pp.
Pianko, Noam. “The True Liberalism of Zionism”: Horace Kallen, Jewish nationalism, and the
limits of American pluralism. American Jewish History (December 1, 2008).
Ratner, Sidney. “Horace M. Kallen and Cultural Pluralism.” Modern Judaism 4, 2 (1984): 185200.
Ratner, Sidney, ed. Vision and Action; Essays in Honor of Horace M. Kallen. New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953. 277pp.
Toll, William. “Horace M. Kallen: pluralism and American Jewish identity.” American Jewish
History (March 1, 1997).
Jewish Humanist Movement
The Jewish Humanist movement emerged in the 1960s among a group of rabbis who desired to
combine the religious life, their affirmation of their Jewishness and a Humanist perspective.
Leading the way was Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine (1928–2007) who in 1963 founded the
Birmingham Temple in suburban Detroit. He was soon joined by Rabbi Daniel Friedman who
had led Congregation Beth Or in Deerfield, Illinois, to adopt humanistic thought and practice.
Together, they led in the formation of the Society for Humanistic Judaism and the Association
for Humanistic Rabbis in 1969. Secular Humanistic Judaism grew into an international
movement, and the global umbrella organization, the International Federation of Secular
Humanistic Jews, was established in 1986 in Detroit, Michigan.
Humanistic Jews value their Jewish identity but offers a non-theistic approach to the celebration
of Jewishness. While appreciating the Jewish past, they attempt to present it in ways consistent
with the best insights of modern scholarship. They value rationality, personal autonomy,
feminism, the celebration of human strength and power, and the development of a pluralistic
world with mutual understanding and cooperation among all religions and philosophies of life.
Ethics and morality are deemed to rest upon a human foundation. Each individual must be
responsible for ethical decisions and their consequences.
The Society for Humanistic Judaism (SHJ) 29 affiliated congregations and groups (2008) in the
United States and Canada, and additional affiliates in Israel, Australia, Belgium, France, Italy,
Mexico, Russia, and Uruguay. It cooperates with the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations
in sponsoring the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, with centers in
Jerusalem and Michigan, which functions as the rabbinic seminary for Humanistic Judaism. The
Sherman T. Wine Papers have been deposited with University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical
Library.
Sources
Arnold, Abraham. Judaism: Myth, Legend, History and Custom from the Religious to the
Secular. Montreal, PQ: Robert Davies Press, 1995. 300 pp.
Chalom, Adam, Introduction to Secular Humanistic Judaism: Part 1 - Jewish History, New
York: Society for Humanistic Judaism, 2002.
Cohen, Edmund D, and Sherwin T. Wine. The Mind of the Bible-Believer. Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books 1988.
Cohn-Sherbok, Dan, Harry T. Cook, and Marilyn Rowens., comp. A Life of Courage: Sherwin
Wine and Humanistic Judaism. Farmington Hills, MI: The International Institute for Secular
Humanistic Judaism. 2003. 318 pp.
Feldman, Ruth. “Beth Or Offers Alternative Form of Judaism, Maintains Low Profile, Earns
Activists’ Scorn.” North Shore 2, no. 1 (January/February 1979): 56–59.
Friedman, Daniel. Jews Without Judaism: Conversations With an Unconventional Rabbi.
Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books (March 2002. 108 pp.
Goodman, Saul N. The Faith of Secular Jews. New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1976.
Ibry, David. Exodus to Humanism: Jewish Identity without Religion. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus
Books, 1999. 143 pp.
Kogel, Renee and Zev Katz, eds., Judaism in a Secular Age: An Anthology of Secular Jewish
Thought, NYC, KTAV Publishing House, 1995.
Malkin, Yaakov. Secular Judaism: Faith, Values, and Spirituality. Portland, OR: Mitchell
Vallentine & Company 2003. 150 pp.
-----. What Do Secular Jews Believe?, N.p.: Milan Press, 1998
Schweitzer, Peter. The Guide for a Humanistic Bar/Bat Mitzvah. New York: The City
Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, 2003.
-----. The Liberated Haggadah: A Passover Celebration for Cultural, Secular and Humanistic
Jews. New York: The Center for Cultural Judaism, 2006),
-----. A Modern Lamentation: A Memorial to 9/11. New York: The City Congregation for
Humanistic Judaism, 2002.
Shavit, Yaakov. Athens in Jerusalem: Classical Antiquity and Hellenism in the Making of the
Modern Secular Jew. Oxford, UK: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1999
Weisman, Sidney M. “From Orthodox Judaism to Humanism.” The Humanist 39, 3 (May/June
1979): 32–35.
Wine, Sherwin T. Celebration: A Ceremonial and Philosophical Guide for Humanists and
Humanistic Jews. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003. 439 pp.
-----. The Humanist Haggadah. Birmingham, MI: Society for Humanistic Judaism, 1979. 24 pp.
-----. Humanistic Judaism. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1978. 123 pp.
-----. Judaism Beyond God: a Radical New Way to Be Jewish. Farmington Hills, MI: Society for
Humanistic Judaism 1985. 286 pp. Rpt. New York: Ktav Publishing House 1995.
-----. “The Roots of Secular Humanistic Judaism.” Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility
(June 2000 ). Posted at http://culturaljudaism.org/ccj/articles/27.
-----. Staying Sane in a Crazy World: a Guide to Rational Living. Birmingham, MI: Center for
New Thinking, 2005.
Atheism in North America—Post World War II
Madalyn Murray O’Hair (1919-1995) and American Atheists
The most flamboyant, and in many ways tragic, figures of modern atheism was Madalyn Murray
O’Hair (1919–1995). A controversialist who attracted media, she brought atheism to the
attention of a mass audience, while at the same time embarrassing and angering many already
committed to the cause who rejected her often acerbic style.
In 1963, O’Hair founded what became American Atheists, Inc., originally based in Honolulu but
soon moved to Austin, Texas. The organization became the largest of the several Atheist
organization formed during the century, with many supporting her lawsuits to stop mandatory
prayer and bible reading in America’s public schools and to end tax-exempt status for religious
property. American Atheists became the umbrella for a set of related organizations—the
International Free Thought Association of America, the Society of Separationists, and the
Charles E. Stevens American Atheist Library and Archives. O’Hair was both staunchly nontheistic and actively antireligious. She specifically rejected Christian beliefs in the authority of
the bible, the historicity of Jesus, a life after death, and the authority of the Bible.
Murray met a violent end. In 1995, she and her two children, Jon Garth Murray and Robin
Murray O’Hair, were kidnapped and murdered in a robbery scheme. Their bodies were not
discovered until 2001. In the wake of Murray’s disappearance, the organization relocated to New
Jersey and has continued. Ellen Johnson became the new president of American Atheists, a post
she held until disagreements with the board led to her resignation in 2008. She was succeeded by
the current president Frank Zindler.
The several thousand members of American Atheists are found in local chapters scattered across
the United States. The organization may be contacted at PO Box 5733, Parsippany, NJ 070546733, or through its webpage at http://atheists.org.
Primary Sources
Murray, Jon. Essays on American Atheism. Austin, TX: American Atheist Press, 1986. 284 pp.
-----, and Madalyn Murray O’Hair. All the Questions You Ever Wanted to Ask American Atheists
with All the Answers. Austin, TX: American Atheist Press, 1983. 359 pp.
Murray, William J. My Life without God. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1982. 252
pp. Rev. ed. Harvest House Publishers, 2000. 336 pp.
The autobiographical account of one of O’Hair’s sons who converted to Christianity.
O’Hair, Madalyn Murray. All about Atheists. Austin, Texas: American Atheist Press, 1987. 407
pp.
-----. All the Questions You Ever Wanted to Ask American Atheists With All the Answers.
Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 1986. 248 pp.
-----. An Atheist Epic: Bill Murray, the Bible and the Baltimore Board of Education. Austin, TX:
American Atheist Press, 1970. 313 pp. Rpt as: An Atheist Epic: The Complete Unexpurgated
Story of How Bible and Prayers Were Removed from the Public Schools of the United States.
Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 1989.
-----. Atheist Heroes and Heroines. Parsippany, NJ: American Atheist Press, 1991. 338 pp.
-----. An Atheist Primer. Austin, TX: American Atheist Press, 1978. 30 pp.
-----. The Atheist World. Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 1991. 358 pp.
-----. Atheists: The Last Minority. Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 1990. 24 pp.
-----. Freedom Under Siege: the Impact of Organized Religion on Your Liberty and Your
Pocketbook. Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1974. 278 pp.
-----. James Lick American Atheist. Austin, TX: Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 1983. 33
pp.
-----. Sixty-Five Press Interviews with Robert G. Ingersoll. Cranford, NJ: American Atheist
Press, 1989.
-----. What On Earth Is An Atheist! Austin, TX: American Atheist Press, 1969. 288 pp. Rev. ed.:
Parsippany, NJ: American Atheist Press, 2004. 333 pp.
-----. Why I am an Atheist. Austin, TX: American Atheists, Inc./Society of Separationists, 1976.
rev. ed. as Why I am an Atheist Including a History of Materialism. Austin, Texas: American
Atheist Press, 1980. 56 pp.
Secondary Sources
Conrad, Jane Kathryn. Mad Madalyn. Brighton, OH: Author, 1983.
Dracos, Ted. Ungodly: The Passions, Torments, and Murder of Atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair.
New York: Simon and Schuster. 2003. 304pp.
Jenkins, Siarlys. Who’s Afraid of Madalyn Murray O’Hair? Princeton, NJ: Xlibris Corporation.
2005. 272pp.
LeBeau, Bryan F. The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O’Hair. New York: New York University
Press. 2003. 387pp.
Lewis, Joseph. American Atheist Heritage. Ed. by Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Austin: American
Atheist Press, 1981. 55 pp. Compiles Lewis’ writing on Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln, and Luther
Burbank.
Rapoport, Jon. Madalyn Murray O’Hair: Most Hated Woman in America. San Diego: Truth
Seeker, 1998. 170 pp.
Seaman, Ann Rowe. America’s Most Hated Woman: The Life and Gruesome Death of Madalyn
Murray O’Hair. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. 2006. 352pp.
Wright, Lawrence. Saints and Sinners. New York: Random House, 1993.
Zindler, Frank R. “Madalyn Murray O’Hair” In S. T. Joshi, ed. Icons of Unbelief: Atheists,
Agnostics, and Secularists. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2008. 463 pp.
African American Unbelief
In the wake of a generation of attention to African American religion, attention has finally been
directed to Unbelief in the African American community. While some scholars have been asking
why people of color did not turn away from religion because of its support of racism., Humanist
and atheist scholars have responding by pointing to the many that did abandon any reference to
faith, and a growing body of literature has appeared documenting that turn.
Sources
Allen, Norm R. African American Humanism: An Anthology. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books,
1991. 286 pp.
-----. The Black Humanist Experience: An Alternative to Religion. Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books, 2002. 275 pp.
Barbera, Don. Black and Not Baptist: Nonbelief and Freethought in the Black Community.
Lincoln, NB: iUniverse, 2003. 278 pp.
DuBois, William Edward Burghardt. Du Bois on Religion. Ed. by Phil Zuckerman. Lanham,
MD: Rowman Altamira, 2000. 209 pp.
Harold Cruse, “Jews and Negroes in the Communist Party, “ in The Crisis of the Negro
Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership. New York: William
Morrow and Company/Quill, 1984,
Harrison, Hubert. A Hubert Harrison Reader. Ed. by Jeffrey B. Perry. Middletown, CT:
Wesleyan University Press, 2001. 505 pp.
Floyd-Thomas, Jaun M. The Origins of Black Humanism in America: Reverend Ethelred Brown
and the Unitarian Church. New York: Macmillan, 2008. 288 pp.
Forman, James. The Making of Black Revolutionaries. Washington, DC: Open Hand Publishing.
1985.
Green, Karen. The Woman of Reason: Feminism, Humanism and Political Thought. Malden,
MA: Polity Press, 1995. 224 pp.
Jackson, John G. Hubert Henry Harrison: The Black Socrates. Austin, TX: American Atheist
Press, 1987. 7 pp.
Kelley, Robin D. G. “Comrades, Praise Gawd for Lenin and Them!: Ideology and Culture
Among Black Communists in Alabama, 1930-1935, “ Science and Society 52, 1 (Spring 1988):
61-62.
Lackey, Michael. African American Atheists and Political Liberation: A Study of the
Sociocultural Dynamics of Faith. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2008. 183 pp.
Long, Charles. “Perspectives for a Study of Afro-American Religion in the United States,”
History of Religions 11, 1 (August 1971), 55.
Miller, R. Baxter. Black American Literature and Humanism. Lexington: University Press of
Kentucky, 1981. 128 pp.
Morrison-Reed, Mark D. Black Pioneers in a White Denomination. 3rd ed. Boston: Skinner
House Books, 1994. 280 pp.
Nell Irvin Painter, The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.
Pinn, Anthony. African American Humanist Principles: Living and Thinking Like the Children of
Nimrod. ----------Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 176 pp.
-----. “Anybody There? Reflections on African American Humanism.” Religious Humanism 31,
3 & 4 (Summer/Fall 1997): 61-78. Posted at http://www.huumanists.org/publications/journal/.
-----. By These Hands: A Documentary History of African American Humanism. New York:
NYU Press, 2001. 360 pp.
-----. “Rethinking the Nature and Tasks of African American Theology: A Pragmatic
Perspective. American Journal of Theology & Philosophy 19, 2 (May 1998). Posted at
http://www.mamiwata.com/hoodoo4.html.
-----. The Varieties of African American Religious Experience: A Theological Introduction
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1998). 242 pp.
Scott, Jacqueline, and A. Todd Franklin, eds. Critical Affinities: Nietzsche and African American
Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Yeldell, Jason Scott. A Call to Sanity: The Collision Between the Existence of God and the NonExistence of God from a Rational Atheistic Perspective. Trafford Publishing, 2006. 325 pp.
W. E. B. DuBois (1868–1963)
African American activist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, a professor of economics and
history, was born at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on February 23, 1868, He attended Fisk
University but later earned his several degrees from Harvard, completing his Ph.D. in 1895. Du
Bois was a cofounder (1905) of the Niagara Movement, which evolved into the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In response to the passing of the
Jim Crow laws, Du Bois demanded full and immediate civil and political equality for African
Americans. He coined the concept of the “talented tenth,” those elite African Americans who
should accept the responsibility of assisting their less fortunate brothers and sisters.
In 1910, after thirteen years at Atlanta University, Du Bois became editor of Crisis, the
periodical of the NAACP, and where he would remain for the next quarter of a century. He
returned to Atlanta University in 1934. Over the years he became alienated from the direction
taken by many of his colleagues who called for racial integration and gradually emerged as a
separationist. His position was manifest in his later life with his retirement from the university
(1944), his joining the American Communist party (1961) and in the end, his renouncing his
American citizenship. He spent the last year of his life in Ghana, where he died in 1963.
For a more complete listing of Du Bois’ writings, see Paul G. Partington’s two compilations: W.
E. B. Du Bois: A Bibliography of His Published Writings. (Whittier, CA: the Author, 1979), and
W. E. B. Du Bois: A Bibliography of His Published Writings—Supplement (Whittier, CA: the
Author, 1984).
Primary Sources
Du Bois W. E. B. Autobiography of W.E.B. Dubois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the
Last Decade of Its First Century. Ed. by Herbert Aptheker. International Publishers, 1968. 448
pp.
-----. The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois: Selections, 1877-1934. Ed. by Herbert Aptheker.
Amherst, MA; University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. 510 pp.
-----. Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept. 1940. Rpt.: New
York: Schocken Books, 1968.
-----. In Battle for Peace: The Story of My 83rd Birthday (1952).
-----. The Negro Church. 1903. Rpt. with introduction by Phil Zuckerman, Sandra L. Barnes, and
Daniel Cady. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2003.
-----. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press,
1899. Rpt., with introduction by Elijah Anderson. 1996.
------. Report of the Industrial Commission on Education. Washington, D. C: United States
Industrial Commission Reports, #172, 1901.
-----. W. E. B. Du Bois: A Reader. Ed. by David Levering Lewis. New York: Henry Holt & Co.,
1995. 801 pp.
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Dawn. Ed. by Nathan I. Huggins. New York: Library of America, 1986.
Secondary Sources
Aptheker, Herbert. The Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois. Volume Selections, 1877–1934
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1973.
Baker, Lee D. From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896–1954.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Blum, Edward J. W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2007, 288 pp.
Fredrickson, George M. The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American
Character and Destiny, 1817–1914. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1971, 1987.
Green, Dan S., and Edwin D. Driver. W.E.B. Du Bois: On Sociology and the Black Community.
Griffin, Farah Jasmine. The Souls of Black Folk ([1903] 2003) New York: Barnes & Noble
Classics.
Haller John S. Jr. Outcasts from Evolution: Scientific Attitudes of Racial Inferiority, 1859–1900
([1971] 1995) Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995.
Hoffman Frederick L. Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro. New York:
MacMillan, 1896.
Lewis, David Levering. W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919. New York: Henry
Holt and Co., 1993. 752 pp.
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Henry Holt and Co., 2000. 608 pp.
Orsi Robert A. “Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion.” In David D. Hall, ed. Lived
Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997,
pp. 3–21.
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Study Them. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.
Rudwick, Elliott M. “W. E. B. Du Bois and the Atlanta University Studies on the Negro.”
Journal of Negro Education 26, 4 (1957): 466–476.
-----. W. E. B. Du Bois: Propagandist of the Negro Protest. New York: Atheneum, 1969.
Savage Barbara Dianne. “Biblical and Historical Imperatives: Towards a History of Ideas about
the Political Role of Black Churches.” In: Vincent L. Wimbush, ed. African Americans and the
Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Texture. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group
2000, pp. 367–388.
Savage, Barbara Dianne. “W. E. B. Du Bois and ‘the Negro Church.” Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science 568 (2003):235–249.
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West, Cornel. “W. E. B. Du Bois: An Interpretation.” In Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry
Louis Gates, eds. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience.
New York: Basic Books, 1999, pp. 1967–1982.
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Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007.
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Hubert H. Harrison (1883-1927)
Hubert H. Harrison, African American activist and agnostic, is little known outside the african
American community, but one of the important voices of the Harlem Renaissance of the early
twentieth century. He was born in on St. Croix, in what was then the Danish West Indies and
moved to New York in 1900, and emerged as part of intellectual circle of independent Black
thinkers and developed a radical political position informed by his racial consciousness. He
opposed American capitalism which he saw as dependent on white supremacy. As a socialist, he
participated in the Marcus Garvey movement, one of the early movements with an international
scope.
Harrison worked as a black organizer and theoretician in the Socialist Party of New York,
founded the Liberty League) and edited the militant periodical The Voice, which he founded, and
later the Negro World. Less known are his activities as a pioneer in the Freethought and birth
control movements. He died at the relative young age of 44.
A collection of his papers are now housed at Columbia University.
Primary Sources
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Wesleyan University Press, 2001. 505 pp.
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-----. When Africa Awakes: The Inside Story of the Stirrings and Strivings of the New Negro in
the Western World. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1997. 152 pp.
Secondary Sources
Jackson, John G. Hubert Henry Harrison: The Black Socrates. Austin TX: American Atheist
Press, 1987. 7 pp.
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Columbia University Press, 2008. 624 pp.
Rogers, J. A. “Hubert Harrison: Intellectual Giant and Free-Lance Educator (1883-1927).” In J.
A. Rogers, World’s Great Men of Color. Ed. by John Henrik Clarke, 2 vols. (1947. Rpt. New
York: Collier Books, 1972, pp. 2: 432-442.
Humanism—North America
By Humanism, we are referring to that new non-theistic movement that emerged primarily
within among Unitarians in the early twentieth century, though sharing roots with the nineteenth
century Freethought. It had an early center in the University of Chicago where a variety of
scholars were creating the field of comparative religions (or History of religions) and theologians
at the Divinity school were exploring non-theistic perspectives. As originally developed,
Humanism was pro-religious and found a home among the Unitarians, Universalists and various
liberal (and congregationally organized) Christian churches (including the Disciples of Christ).
The movement found an early focus in the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 (available online at
http://www.americanhumanist.org/who_we_are/about_humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_I),
which argued for a naturalistic approach to life in an uncreated universe. It specifically branded
as outdated theism, deism, modernism (then a popular perspective in many of America’s largest
churches), and the several varieties of “new thought” (a popular perspective in a spectrum of
metaphysical churches). It proposed a Religious Humanism that looked to the “complete
realization of human personality” as a sufficient goal of the spiritual life. More than half of the
signers were Unitarians.
Further manifestos representing the continued evolving of the movement in rapidly changing
times would be issued in 1973 (available online at
http://www.americanhumanist.org/Who_We_Are/About_Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_II),
1980 (available online at
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=main&page=manifesto), 2002 (available
online at http://www.iheu.org/amsterdamdeclaration), 2003 (available online at
http://www.americanhumanist.org/who_we_are/about_humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_III), and
2010 (available online at http://paulkurtz.net/).
The new movement would find its primary organization representation in the American
Humanist Association, which would come to have a number of fraternally related groups around
the world. The internationalization of the movement, and its recognized alignment with the
Ethical culture movement, led to the formation of the International Humanist and Ethical Union
(IHEU) in 1952. In 2002, at its fiftieth anniversary gathering, the IHEU issued the Amsterdam
Declaration 2002 as a statement of the fundamental principles of modern Humanism.
Humanists have argued about the role of religion in human life, some deriding it, some
appreciating its contributions, and some attempting to articulate a was to be religious without
God. Though at time conversations have been acrimonious, as a whole, the movement has been
able to hold together and a full spectrum of perspectives are present in the IHEU. This issue
became focused in the late 1970s when Paul Kurtz, a prominent Humanist intellectual withdrew
from the American Humanist Association and formed the Council for Secular Humanism. The
Council attempted to articulate a specifically non-religious form of Humanism. Kurtz had been
important in creating the network that signed the 1973 Humanist Manifesto II and creating the
new anti-pseudoscience movement. The Council would go on to become a national organization
that would take its place beside the American ethical union and the American Humanist
Association a major Humanist community. It associated Prometheus Press would grow into
North America’s major publisher of Humanist, atheist, and skeptical literature. Meanwhile, those
Humanists who remained within the Unitarian and Universalist churches formed the Fellowship
of Religious Humanists, which evolved into The Friends of Religious Humanism, and most
recently the Humanists.
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Bragg, Raymond. “An Historical Note.” The Humanist 13, 2 (March/April 1953): 62-63.
Dewey, John. Reconstruction in Philosophy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920.
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1941.
Dietrich, John H. Humanism. Boston: American Unitarian Association,1943.
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Fellowship of Religious Humanists, 1989.
Einstein, Albert. Essays in Humanism. New York: Philosophical Library, 1950, 1983
Ericson, Edward L. The Humanist Way: An Introduction to Ethical Humanist Religion. New
York: Continuum, 1988.
Firkins, Oscar. “The Two Humanisms: A Discrimination.” The Humanist 4, 3 (March/April
1931): 1-9.
Foerster, Norman, ed. Humanism and America. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., 1930.
Foster, George Burman. The Function of Religion in Man’s Struggle for Existence. Chicago, IL:
Frothingham, Richard. “John H. Dietrich: From Humanism to Theism,” Unitarian Universalist
Christian 42, 1 (Spring 1987): 25-34.
Goicoechea, David, John Luik, and Tim Madigan, eds. The Question of Humanism: Challenges
and Possibilities. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991.
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Hutcheon, Robert J. Frankness in Religion. New York, NY: The Macmillan Company, 1929.
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Huxley, Julian. Religion Without Revelation. 1928. Rpt.: New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957.
Kent, Gordon. Humanism: Religion of the Post War World. Denver, CO: the Author, 1944.
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45 pp.
Lamont, Corliss. Humanism as a Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library, 1949.
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Lippmann, Walter. A Preface to Morals. New York: MacMillan, 1929.
Mondale, R. Lester. Three Unitarian Philosophies of Religion. Boston: Beacon Press, 1946.
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Morain, Lloyd and Mary Morain. Humanism as the Next Step: An Introduction for Liberal
Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Boston: Beacon Press, 1954.
Olds, Mason. American Religious Humanism. Fellowship of Religious Humanists, 1996.
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Press of America, 1977.
Otto, M. C. Natural Laws and Human Hopes. New York: Henry Holt, 1926.
Potter, Charles Francis. The Addresses of Charles Francis Potter. New York: First Humanist
Society of New York, 1930.
-----. The Faiths Men Live By. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentiss-Hall, 1955. Rpt. New York: Ace
Star 1955. 256 pp.
-----. Humanism: A New Religion. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930.
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-----. The Story of Religion - As Told in the Lives of Its Leaders - With Special Reference to
Atavisms, Common Elements, and Parallel Customs in the Religions of the World. Garden City,
NY: Garden City Publishing Company, 1929. 627 pp.
Randall, John Herman, Jr. The Making of the Modern Mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company/Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1920. 653 pp.
-----. Nature and Historical Experience: Essays in Naturalism and in The Theory of History.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1958. 326pp.
-----. Philosophy After Darwin. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. 352 pp.
-----. The Philosophy of Power; or, What To Live For. New York: Dodge Publishing Co., 1917.
339 pp.
-----. With Soul on Fire. New York: Brentano’s, 1919. 324 pp.
Reese, Cutis W. Humanism. LaSalle, IL: The Open Court Publishing Co., 1926.
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Integrative Principles From Science, Religion, and Art. Cambridge MA: Schenkman, 1966. 576
pp.
-----. Cosmic Humanism and World Unity. Interface NY: Gordon and Breach, 1975. 274 pp.
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from Puritanism to world Humanism. Pittsburgh, PA: Boxwood Press 1961.
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van Praag, J.P. Foundations of Humanism. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1982.
Walker, Joseph. Humanism as a Way of Life. New York, NY: The Macmillan Company, 1932.
Webber, R. E. Secular Humanism: Threat and Challenge. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1982.
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Schuler, Michael Anthony. Religious Humanism in Twentieth-Century American Thought.
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Humanism 33, 3-4 (Summer-Fall 1999): 42-61.
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The Humanist Manifestos
The early years of the Humanist movement was marked by the publication of the Humansit
Manifesto in 1933. Thirty-four of the leading spokespersons of the movement endorsed the
statement. Forty years later, during with the issues at the center of the movements had shifted
and the movement itself grown and developed signicantly, a new manifesto with an even larger
set of endorsements was widely circulated. During the next forty years, the movement continued
to grow, its primary organizational expressions developed an international cooperative
organization, and it futher split along ideological lines.
In the years after the second manifesto, philosopher Paul Kurtz raised the issue of religion and
left the American humanist Association to found the Council for Secular Humanism, the latter
organization rejecting the idea that humanism was another religious option. In 1980, he issued a
third manifesto, a declaration of Humanism as a secular ideology. In 2000 Kurtz released a book,
Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call for New Planetary Humanism, a full length exposition of the
basic points of the previous manifesto.
In 2002, the International Humanist and Ethical Union issued the Amsterdam Declaration, the
event coinciding with its fiftieth anniversary. The brief statement now serves as a handy
definitional summary of the Humanist consensus. The following year, the American Humanist
Association, on what would be the seventieth anni8versary of the original Manifesto, issued its
updated version of Manifestos I and II.
Most recently (2010), Paul Kurtz developed a set of disagreements with his board over what is
termed the New Atheism. The differences led to his resignation from a set of organizations he
had established over the last thirty years, founded a new organization, the Institute for Science
and Human Values, and issued a new “Neo-Humanist Statement of Secular Principles and
Values: Personal, Progressive, and Planetary.”
Together, these manifestos offer a quick overview of the movement, the notables who supported
it, and the issues that have given it its focus.
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International Publications, n.d. [1970]. 38 pp.
“A Humanist Manifesto.” The New Humanist 6 (May/June 1933): 1-5.
Copy with signatures available online
“Humanist Manifesto II.” The Humanist 33 (Sept./Oct. 1973): 4-9.
Hall, Marshall. The Humanist Manifesto: Reflections by your next president. Miami, FL: Cypress
House, 1971. 108 pp.
Kurtz, Paul. Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call for New Planetary Humanism. Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books 2000. 76 pp.
-----. “Neo-Humanist Statement of Secular Principles and values: Personal, Progressive, and
Planetary.”
-----, and Edwin H. Wilson, eds. Humanist Manifestos I and II. Amherst, NY: Anmerican
humanist Associatioon, 1978. 10 pp..
Schulz, William F. “Making the Manifesto.” Religious Humanism 17 (Spring 1983): 88-97, 102.
-----. Making the Manifesto: A History of Early Religious Humanism. Chicago, IL:
Meadville/Lombard Theological School, D.Min. dissertation, 1975.
“A Secular Humanist Declaration.” Free Inquiry 1 (Winter 1980/1981): 3-7.
Sellars, Roy Wood. “In Defense of the Manifesto.” The New Humanist 6, 6 (May/June 1933):712.
Snyder, Lawrence W. “The Humanist Manifesto as Confession: Humanism and the Quest for
Universal Religion, 1920-1933.” Paper read at the annual meeting of the American Society of
Church History, University of Miami, Coral Gabels, Florida, April 1995.
“A Symposium—A Look at the Humanist Manifesto Twenty Years After.” 1953. The Humanist
13, 2 (March/April 1953): 58-71.
“A Symposium—Comments on the Humanist Manifesto.” 1953. The Humanist 13, 3 (May/June
1953):136-41.
Urken, Maddy. “Humanism and Its Aspirations.” Posted online
Wilson, Edwin H. The Genesis of a Humanist Manifesto, edited by Teresa Maciocha. Amherst,
NY: Humanist Press, 1995. Posted online
John Dewey (1859-1952)
John Dewey, a major figure in American religious history made significant contributions in
psychology and education, but is best remembered for his pragmatic philosophy. He was also a
dedicated Humanist, active in the gathering of endorsement for the first Humanist manifesto in
1933, who tarined a number of students that went on to assume leadership roles in the American
Humanist community.
He attended the Universty of Vermont and later earned his Ph.D. at John Hopkins University. He
taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago before beginning a quarter of
a century as a professor of philosophy at Columbia University (1904-1930). His most active
years as a Humanist came in the decades following his retirement. He sat on the advisory board
of First Humanist Society of New York, one of the first such institutions in the United States,
headed by Charles Francis Potter. In 1936, he was elected an honorary member of the Humanist
Press Association (1936).
He also worked for academic freedom. In 1940 he joined fellow Humanist Horace M. Kallen to
produce a series of articles concerning the denial of a teaching position to philosopher Bertrand
Russell.
Dewey wrote voluminously. By the end of his life, Dewey wrote several hundred books. While
he was still active, Milton Halsey Thomas and Herbert Wallace Schneider prepared A
Bibliography of John Dewey (New York: Columbia University Press, 1929) later expanded by
Thomas as John Dewey: a Centennial Bibliography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1962). Currently the most helpful bibliographies are Barbara Levine, Works about John Dewey,
1886-1995 (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), the most complete listing
of secondary sources. The most complete list of Dewey’s writings is included in The Philosophy
of John Dewey, edited by John McDermott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981).
Primary Sources
Dewey, John. The Collected Works of John Dewey. 37 vols. Ed. by Jo Ann Boydston.
Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967-90.
-----. The Early Works, 1882–1898. Ed. by J. A. Boydston. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
-----. The Essential Dewey. Ed. by L. Hickman and T. M. Alexander. Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press.
-----. The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1910.
-----. The Later Works, 1925–1953. Ed. by J. A. Boydston . Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
-----. The Middle Works, 1899–1924. Ed. by J. A. Boydston. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
-----. The Moral Writings of John Dewey. Ed. by J. Gouinlock. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books,
1994.
-----. Reconstruction in Philosophy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920.
-----. A Common Faith. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1934.
-----. The Quest for Certainty. New York: Minton, Balch, 1929.
-----. “What Humanism Means to Me,” Thinker 2 (1930).
Dewey, John, and Horace M. Kallen. The Bertrand Russell Case. New York: The Viking Press,
1941.
Secondary Sources
Axtelle, George E. “John Dewey’s Concept of ‘The Religious.’” Religious Humanism 1, 2
(Summer 1967): 65-8.
Fesmire, S. John Dewey and Moral Imagination: Pragmatism in Ethics, Bloomington: Indiana
Garrison, J. W., ed. The New Scholarship on Dewey. Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic,
1995.
Grean, Stanley. “Elements of Transcendence in Dewey’s Naturalistic Humanism.” Journal of the
American Academy of Religion 52 (June 1984): 263-288.
Gouinlock, J. John Dewey’s Philosophy of Value. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press,
1972.
Gouinlock, J. Excellence in Public Discourse: John Stuart Mill, John Dewey, and Social
Intelligence. New York: Teachers College Press, 1986.
Hickman, L Reading Dewey: Interpretations for a Postmodern Generation. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1998.
Kurtz, Paul. John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait. New York: John Day Co., 1939.
Lamont, Corliss. John Dewey and the American Humanist Association. American Humanist
Association, 1960. Reprint of from an article from The Humanist (20, 1, [1960]).
Pappas, G. John Dewey’s Ethics: Democracy as Experience. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2008.
Rockefeller, Steven C. John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1991. 683 pp.
Ryan, A. John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism. New York: W. W. Norton,
1995.
Shea, William M. “Qualitative Wholes: Aesthetic and Religious Experience in the Work of John
Dewey.” Journal of Religion 60 (January) 1980, 32-50.
Tapp. Robert B. “Religious and Secular Effects of Pragmatism.” In Monica Merutiu, Bogdan A.
Dicher, Adrian Ludusan, eds. Philosophy of Pragmatism: Religious Premises, Moral Issues, and
Historical Impact. Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Editura Fundaliei pentru Studii Europene, 2007, pp.
115-34.
Tiles, J., ed. John Dewey: Critical Assessments. London New York: Routledge, 1992.
Welchman, J. Dewey’s Ethical Thought. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Weldon, Stephen Prugh, The Humanist Enterprise from John Dewey to Carl Sagan. Madison,
W: University of Wisconsin, Ph.D. dissertation, 1997.
Westbrook, R. B. John Dewey and American Democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1991.
Sidney Hook
The son of Austrian-Jewish immigrants, Hook later attended the City College of New York and
Columbia University (Ph.D., 1927), where he studied philosophy with John Dewey. He then
joined the faculty at New York University, where he remained until his retirement in 1972. He
was a Marxist in his early years but was critical of Stalin especially after the denouncement of
Leon Trotsky. In 1939, he formed the Committee for Cultural Freedom, to oppose
"totalitarianism" on both ends of the political spectrum. After the war, he cooperated with the
CIA in efforts to dissuade Americans intellectuals from supporting the Soviet Union.
Hook moved further to the right in the decades after World War II. He opposed the New Leftists
who supported a broad range of social change. Hios more controversial position found him in
support of the Vietnam War and support of the Vietnam War and defending then California
Governor Ronald Reagan in his effort to remove African American Marxist feminist Angela
Davis as a professor at UCLA. Davis was a member of the Communist Party. He finished his
career as a fellow of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford
University.
For a more complete bibliography on Hook, Barbara Levine’s Sidney Hook: A Checklist of
Writings (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 1989).
Primary Sources
Hook, Sidney. Education for Modern Man, New York: Dial Press, 1946.
-----. From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx, New York:
John Day Co., 1936.
-----. Heresy, Yes – Conspiracy, No, New York: American Committee for Cultural Freedom,
1952. 30 pp.
-----. The Hero in History, New York: John Day Co., 1943. 188 pp.
-----. In Defence of Academic Freedom. New York: Pegasus, 1971. 217 pp.
-----. John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait, New York: John Day Co., 1939. 242 pp.
-----. ed. The Meaning of Marx. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1934. 88 pp. A [Symposium
with contributions by Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Morris R. Cohen, Sherwood Eddy, and
Sidney Hook.
-----. The Metaphysics of Pragmatism, Chicago: Open Court Pub. Co., 1927. 144 pp.
-----. Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century, New York: Harper & Row, 1987. 630 pp.
-----. Paradoxes of Freedom, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962. 152 pp.
-----. “Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life,” Commentary 30 (1960), pp 139-149.
-----. Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life. New York Basic Books ,1974. 224pp.
-----. The Quest for ‘Being,’ New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1961. 254 pp.
-----. Sidney Hook on Pragmatism, Democracy, and Freedom: The Essential Essays. Ed. by
Robert B. Talisse and Robert Tempio. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002. 420 pp.
-----. Toward the Understanding of Karl Marx: A Revolutionary Interpretation, New York: John
Day Co., 1933.
-----. Paul Kurtz and Miro Todorovich (ed.), The Philosophy of the Curriculum, Buffalo:
Secondary Sources
Cotter, Mathew J., ed. Sidney Hook Reconsidered. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2004.
Kurtz, Paul. Sidney Hook and the Contemporary World. New York: John Day, 1966.
-----, ed. Sidney Hook: Philosopher of Democracy and Humanism. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus
Books, 1983.
Morrison, M. [Pseudonym of Meyer Shapiro]. “Sidney Hook’s Attack on Trotskyism.” Fourth
International 4, 7 (1943). Posted at
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/goldman/1943/07/hook.htm.
Phelps, Christopher. Sidney Hook Reconsidered.
-----. Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1997. 2nd
ed.: Lansing, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
Phelps, Christopher, “Foreword.” In Sidney Hook. From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the
Intellectual Development of Karl Marx. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962, pp. 111.
Postel, Danny, “Sidney Hook, an Intellectual Street Fighter, Reconsidered,” The Chronicle of
Higher Education 49, 11 (2002). Posted at http://chronicle.com/article/Sidney-Hook-anIntellectual/34421.
Ryan, Alan. “Foreword.” In Sidney Hook. Sidney Hook on Pragmatism, Democracy, and
Freedom: The Essential Essays. Ed. by Robert B. Talisse and Robert Tempio. Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books, 2002, pp. 9-10.
Sidorsky, David. “Charting the Intellectual Career of Sidney Hook: Five Major Steps.” Partisan
Review 70, 2 (2003): 324-342. [An edited version of the essay appeared as the “Introduction” to
Matthew J. Cotter’s Sidney Hook Reconsidered.]
Dicher, and Adrian Ludusan, eds. Philosophy of Pragmatism: Religious Premises, Moral Issues,
and Historical Impact. Cluj-Napoca, Romania: Editura Fundaliei pentru Studii Europene, 2007,
pp. 115-34.
Corliss Lamont (1902-1995)
Corliss Lamont, a socialist and Humanist philosopher, was born into a wealthy family in New
Jersey. He attended Harvard University and received his Ph.D. from Columbia where he studied
philosophy with John Dewey. His dedicatuion to various minority causes led him to the
American Civil Liberties Union, which he directed for more than twenty years (1932–1954). He
also chaired National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, which successfully challenged
Senator Joseph McCarthy‘s senate subcommittee. Atone point Lamont was cited for contempt of
Congress, but the appeals court overturned the indictment.
In later life, after he inherited his parent’s wealth, he used the money to make large gifts to severl
schools. He ensowed a chair in civil liberties at Harvard. His gifts to Harvard allowed the
construction of the Corliss Lamont Rare Book Reading Room at Columbia University. The
Room houses among its collections the Corliss Lamont Papers.
Sources
Lamont, Corliss. Freedom is as Freedom Does: Civil Liberties in America. New York:
Continuum Pub Group, 1990. 326 pp.
-----. Freedom of Choice Affirmed. New York: Continuum-Half-Moon Foundation,.1990. 214 pp.
-----. Humanism as a Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library, 1949. 368 pp.
-----. A Humanist Funeral Service. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books 1977. 48 pp.
-----. A Humanist Wedding Service. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, Publishers 1970. 29 pp.
-----, The Illusion of Immortality. New York F. Ungar Publishing Co., 1965. 303 pp.
-----. A Lifetime of Dissent. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. 1988. 414pp.
-----. The Philosophy of Humanism. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1949.
Rev. ed.: New York, Philosophical Library, 1957. 243 pp. Posted at http://www.corlisslamont.org/philos8.htm.
-----. Voice in the Wilderness: Collected Essays of Corliss Lamont. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus
Books, 1975. 344 pp.
-----. Yes to Life—Memoirs of Corliss Lamont. New York: Horizon Press, 1981. 221 pp.Posted at
http://www.corliss-lamont.org/books.htm#memoirs.
Wittenberg, Philip, ed. The Lamont Case: History of a Congressional Investigation, Corliss
Lamont and the McCarthy Hearings. New York: Horizon Press, 1957.
Paul Kurtz (b. 1925)
Paul Kurtz, a Professor Emeritus in the department of Philosophy of the State University of New
York at Buffalo, emerged step-by-step as the leading apologist for Secular Humanism through
the last three decades of the 20th century. After receiving his Ph.D. from Colombia University,
he taught as several schools before landing at Buffalo. He drifted from the Marxism of his early
years toward Humanism and affiliated with the American humanist Association. In 1969 he
founded Prometheus Books, a press that published a number of books on Humanism and related
topics.
In the 1970s Kurtz helped author Humanist Manifesto II (1973). He also created a network of
scientists and others to attack the growing presence of astrology that led the next year to the
founding of the Scientific Committee to Investigate the Claims of the Paranormal (now the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). This work gave the longstanding effort to counter
pseudoscience in the public arena a new foundation.
Then toward the end of the 1970s, Kurtz developed a spectrum of issues with the American
Humanist Association, among them a desire to establish Humanism not as a non-theistic religion,
but as a totally secular cause. He assumed the designation “Secular humanism,” used as a
popular derogatory term by conservative Christians, and hailed it as the perspective of the future.
He founded the Council on Secular Humanism, from which a number of related organizations
were subsequently created. All the while, Kurtz was writing books and Prometheus Press was
steadily building its list of publications.
As the head of a “secular humanist” movement, Kurtz attempted to build a movement that was
not religious, but open to working with liberal religious people to reach common goals. In the
new century, he ran into the Neo-Atheist movement which took an oppositional stance to all
religion, about which it had nothing positive to say. The division within the Council and its
several auxiliary organizations over the Neo-Atheist perspective led to Kurtz’s being stripped of
his power and eventually to his resigning and beginning a new organization, the Institute for
Science and Human Values.
Through his long career, Kurtz has been a most productive scholar and defeneder of the
Humanist cause. A more complete list of his writings can be found in Ranjit Sandhu and
Matthew J. Cravatta’s Media-graphy: A Bibliography of the Works of Paul Kurtz, Fifty-one
Years, 1952-2003. (Amherst, NY: Center for Inquiry, International, 2004).
Primary Sources
Kurtz, Paul. Affirmations: Joyful and Creative Exuberance. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books
2004. 127 pp.
-----. “Breaking with the Old Humanism.” Free Inquiry 8, 1 (1987): 5.
------ et al. Challenges to the Enlightenment: In Defense of Reason and Science. Amherst, NY:
-----. The Courage to Become. Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood, 1997. 138 pp.
-----. Embracing the Power of Humanism, 2000, Rowman & Littlefield
-----. Exuberance: An Affirmative Philosophy of Life. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1978.
-----. Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Humanism. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988.
-----. “Homer Duncan’s Crusade against Secular Humanism.” Free Inquiry 6, 1 (1985): 37-42.
-----. “Humanism.” In Gordon Stein, ed. The Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Vol. 1. Buffalo, NY:
-----, ed. The Humanist Alternative. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1973. Rpt.: London:
Pemberton Press, 1973.
-----. Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call for New Planetary Humanism. Amherst, NY:
Prometheus, 2000. 76 pp.
-----. In Defense of Secular Humanism. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1983. 273pp.
-----. Living Without Religion: Eupraxophy Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994. 159 pp.
-----. “A Secular Humanist Declaration.” Free Inquiry 1, 1 (1980): 3-6.
-----. Sidney Hook and the Contemporary World. New York: John Day, 1966.
-----, ed. Sidney Hook: Philosopher of Democracy and Humanism. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus
Books, 1983.
-----. “The Two Humanisms in Conflict: Religious vs. Secular.” Free Inquiry 11 (Fall 1991): 4951.
-----. What Is Secular Humanism? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books 2007. 42 pp.
-----. “‘Why I Am a Skeptic About Religious Claims.” Free Inquiry 26 (2006), p. 30f.
Secondary Sources
Madigan, Tim. Toward a New Enlightenment: The Philosophy of Paul Kurtz. New Brunswick,
NJ: Transaction, 1994.
Dicher, Adrian Ludu§an, eds. Philosophy of Pragmatism: Religious Premises, Moral Issues, and
Historical Impact. Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Editura Fundaliei pentru Studii Europene, 2007, pp.
115-34.
The Chicago School
In the early twentieth century, the University of Chicago became the meeting place of a number
of scholars who were among the most liberal and radical in the country, some, like James Luther
Adams being Unitarians and some like Edward Scribner Ames being members of more
mainstream churches. Their radical explorations of religion led them to Humanism and related
non-theistic perspectives.
Sources
Adams, James Luther. The Essential James Luther Adams: Selected Essays and Addresses.
Edited with introduction by George Kimmich Beach. Boston: Skinner House Books, 1998.
------. An Examined Faith: Social Context and Religious Commitment. Edited with introduction
by George K. Beach. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.
-----. Not Without Dust and Heat: A Memoir. Chicago: Exploration Press, 1995.
-----. On Being Human Religiously: Selected Essays on Religion and Society. Edited with
introduction by Max L. Stackhouse. Boston: Beacon Press, 1976.
Ames, Edward Scribner, “Humanism Fulfilled.” Christian Century 54, 35 (Sept. 1, 1937): 1075f.
Review of Charles Hartshorne’s Beyond Humanism.
-----. Beyond Theology The Autobiography of Edward Scribner Ames. Ed. by Van Meter Ames.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959. 223 pp.
Letters to God and the Devil. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1933
-----. The Psychology of Religious Experience. Boston Houghton Mifflin 1910. 490 pp.
-----. Religion. New York: Henry Holt,, 1929. 324 pp.
Ames, Van Meter. Prayers and Meditations of Edward Scribner Ames. Chicago: The Disciples
Divinity House 1970. 144 p
Arnold, Charles Harvey. Near the Edge of Battle: A Short History of the Divinity School and the
Chicago School of Theology, 1866-1966. Chicago: Divinity School Association, University of
Chicago, 1966.
-----. “A School That Walks the Earth: Edward Scribner Ames and the Chicago School of
Theology.” Encounter 30 (Fall 1969): 314-339.
Garrison, Winfred E. Faith of the Free. Chicago: Willett, Clark, 1940.
A volume of essays in honor of Edward Scribner Ames.
“Edward Scribner Ames.” The Scroll 49.4 (Spring 1958): 1-30.
Special issue devoted to Ames, containing many tributes to him.
Hartshorne, Charles. Beyond Humanism: Essays in the New Philosophy of Nature. Chicago
Willett, Clark & Company, 1937. Rpt.: Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press/Bison Books,
1968.
Minor, William S., ed. Directives from Charles Hartshorne and Henry Nelson Wieman Critically
Analyzed. Philosophy of Creativity Monograph Series, Vol. I. Carbondale: The Foundation for
Creative Philosophy, Inc., 1969.
Peden, W. Creighton, and Jerome Arthur Stone. The Chicago School of Theology: Pioneers in
Religious Inquiry. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1996.
Rich, Charles M. Henry Nelson Wieman’s Functional Theism as Transcending Event. Chicago:
University of Chicago, Ph.D. dissertation, 1963.
Southworth, Bruce. At Home in Creativity: The Naturalistic Theology of Henry Nelson Wieman.
Boston, 1995.
Stone, Jerome Arthur. Religious Naturalism Today: The Rebirth of a Forgotten Alternative.
Albany, NY: State University of New York, 2008.
Toogood, Henry. A Comparative Analysis of Two Contemporary Philosophers of Religion,
Edward Scribner Ames and Arthur Campbell Garnett, Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College, S.T.M.
Thesis, 1949.
Wieman, Henry Nelson. The Directive in History: Ayer Lectures, 1948. Boston: Beacon Press,
1949.
-----. Intellectual Foundation of Faith. New York: Philosophical Library, 1961. 212 pp.
-----. Is There a God? A Conversation [with Douglas Clyde MacIntosh and Max Carl Otto].
Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1932. 328 pp.
-----. Man’s Ultimate Commitment. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991. 330 pp.
-----. Religious Experience and Scientific Method. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press
1954 387pp.
-----. Seeking a Faith for a New Age: Essays on the Interdependence of Religion, Science and
Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 1975.
-----. Source of Human Good. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964.
Wilcox, John R., Taking Time Seriously: James Luther Adams. Washington, D.C.: University
Press of America. 1978. 214pp
Canada
While strongly interacting with Humanism and atheism in the united States, the Freethought
tradition has a separate and independent, if under-studied, tradition in Canada. In addition,
Unitarianism was established in Canada in the early nineteenth century. Today, the community is
focused in two national organizations-- the Humanist Association of Canada and the Freethought
Association of Canada—and a number of local groups.
Sources
Adams, Robert (1839-1882). Evolution. New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1883.
-----. Good without God. New York: Peter Eckler, 1902.
-----. Lectures on Rationalism. New York: Truth Seeker Company, 1889.
-----. Pioneer Pith. Truth Seeker Co., New York, 1889.
-----. Travels in Faith from Tradition to Reason. Truth Seeker Co., New York. 1884.
Gauvin, Marshall J. Fundamentals of Freethought. New York Peter Eckler Publishing 1923. 216
pp.
Gray, James H. “Canada’s Anti-Christ.” Canadian Forum (1935). On Marshall Jerome Gauvin.
Hardie, Glenn. “Brock Chisholm: Canadian Humanist.” Humanist in Canada 107 (Winter 199394).
Hewett, Philip. Unitarians in Canada: How the Unitarians Have Exerted a Powerful Influence
on Canadian Life for Over 150 Years. Don Mills, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1978. 390 pp.
Howard-Snyder, Daniel. “The Argument from Divine Hiddenness,” Canadian Journal of
Philosophy 26 (1996): 433-453
McKillop, A. Brian. A Disciplined Intelligence: Critical Inquiry in Canadian Thought in the
Victorian Era. Montreal: Queen’s University Press, 1979.
J. L. Schellenberg, J. L. Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1993.
-----. “Response to Howard-Snyder,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (1996): 455-462.
“Unbelief in Canada.” In Gordon Stein. The Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Buffalo, NY:
Stein, Gordon. “Freethought in Canada.” In Freethought in the United Kingdom and the
Commonwealth. 1981.
-----. Freethought in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. 1981. See Appendix II,
“Freethought in Canada.”
Unitarianism in Canada: A Decade of Growth. Toronto: Canadian Unitarian Council, 1963.
Watts, Heather, ed. Guide to the Records of the Canadian Unitarian and Universalist Churches,
Fellowships and Other Related Organizations. [Halifax, Nova Scotia?]: Archives Committee,
1990. 301 pp.
Watts, Kate Eunice. Christianity Defective and Unnecessary. Toronto: Secular Thought Office,
1900.
------. Reasons for not Accepting Christianity. London: Watts, 1877.
******************************************************************************
Science and Pseudoscience
1800-1960
The emerging sciences of geology, evolutionary biology, and sociology combined in the middle
of the nineteenth-century to challenge the worldview of Protestantism in the English-speaking
West. Geological observations of volcanic processes and fossils suggested that the earth was far
older than the six thousand years offered by a literal reading of the biblical records. Evolutionary
theories provided an alternate explanation of the many species and genera, and tied humankind
to the animal world in a way that suggested humans were not the special unique creation of god.
Sociology offered mundane explanation of human social ills and offered human ways of
reorganizing society to correct such ills.
Adding to the impact of the new sciences were intellectual corollaries in biblical textual
criticism, Social Darwinism, and socialist utopianism. One school of German biblical criticism
offered a compelling picture of the editorial process by which a set of texts were put together to
make the present five books of Moses, whose traditional authorship of Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy was also challenged. Social Darwinism applied the laws
of natural selection to the human society underpinning laissez-faire capitalism and the extremes
of a free market. Socialism pushed in the opposite direction for a state-controlled economy with
the promise of the benefits of a non-competitive utopia. Neither Social Darwinists nor socialists
had any use for a distracting church ideology and the clergy who led it.
Traditional religionists and the new realms of intellectual speculation set the stage for what
Henry Dickson White would term the warfare between science and religion. It would take
several generations for the leadership in the Christian Church to produce a modern form of
religion that engaged the new sciences but by the early twentieth century a spectrum from
separatist fundamentalism to Unitarianism would emerge, with the largest blocks being formed
by the neo-evangelicals and the post-modernists liberals, the later distinguished by their
acceptance of biblical historical criticism, taking an accommodationist stance toward biological
evolution, and the development of a social gospel.
Through the twentieth century, non-theists have considered science their natural ally while
Christian polemicists have moved from denouncing science to using it in their apologetic
treatises. In the scientific phase of atheist vs. Christian polemics, evolution has paid a key role.
After the significant defeat many religionists felt following the monkey trial in Tennessee in the
1920s, a variety of new approaches to science developed among the more conservative
fundamentalist and evangelical movements, usually referred to as creation science, Christians
differing among themselves regarding new earth (less than ten thousand years) versus old earth
approaches. The former received the most attention as several of its advocates such as the Bible
Creation Society in San Diego produced a plethora of materials and attempted to affect public
school curricula. Responding to creation science has been a major focus of atheist works on
science.
Sources
Barbour, Ian G. Religion and Science. London: SCM Press, 1998.
Brooke, J. H., Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge
Cannon, Walter F. “The Normative Role of Science in Early Victorian Thoughts.” Journal of the
History of Ideas 25 (1964): 487-502.
Caudill, Edward, ed. Darwinism in the Press: The Evolution of an Idea. Hillsdale, N.J., 1989.
-----. “The Bishop-Eaters: The Publicity Campaign for Darwin and On the Origin of Species.”
Journal of the History of Ideas 55 (1994): 441-60.
Clayton, Philip, and Zachary Simpson, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Cramp, Arthur J. Nostrums and Quackery: Articles on the nostrum Evil, Quackery and allied
Matters Affecting the Public Health. Chicago: Press of the American Medical Association, 1921.
832 pp.
Dampier, Sir William. A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy and Religion.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948. 514 pp.
Dewey, John. The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy. New York: Henry holt and Co., 1910.
Draper, William. History of the Conflict between Religion and Science. New York:Appleton,
1874. London: H. S. King, 1874. Posted at: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/draper00.htm.
Eisen, Sydney, and Bernard Lightman, Victorian Science and Religion: A Bibliography with
Emphasis on Evolution, Belief, and Unbelief, Comprised of Works Published from c. 1900-1975.
Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1984. 696 pp.
Ellegard, Alvar. “Darwin's Theory and Nineteenth-Century Philosophies of Science.” Journal of
the History of Ideas 18 (June 1957): 362-93.
Fishbein, Morris. Fads and Quackery in Healing. New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1932. 382 pp.
Fleming, Donald Harnish. John William Draper and the Religion of Science. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950.
Gardner, Martin. In the Name of Science. 1932. 2nd rev. and expanded ed. as.: As Fads and
Fallacies in the Name of Science. New York: Dover Books, 1957. 363 pp.
Gilley, Sheridan, and Ann Loades. "Thomas Henry Huxley: The War between Science and
Religion.” The Journal of Religion 61 (1981): 285-308.
Gillispie, Charles C. Genesis and Geology: A Study in the Relations of Scientific Thought,
Natural Theology, and Social Opinion in Great Britain, 1790-1850. N. Y. 1951.
Harding, T. Swann. The Popular Practice of Fraud. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1935.
376 pp.
Hodgson, Richard, et al. “Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Phenomena
Connected with the Theosophical Society.” Proceeding, Society for Psychical Research III
(1887): 201-400.
Kim, Stephen Shin. Fragments of Faith: John Tyndall's Transcendental Materialism and the
Victorian Conflict Between Religion and Science. Ph.D. diss., Drew University, 1988.
Knight, David M. The Nature of Science: The History of Science in Western Culture since 1600.
London: Andre Deutsch, 1976. 215 pp.
-----. The Age of Science: The Scientific World-View in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Basil
Blackwell, 1986. 251 pp.
-----. Sources for the History of Science, 1660-1914. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1975. 192 pp.
Lack, David, F.R.S. “The Conflict between Evolutionary Theory and Christian Belief.” Nature
#4732 (July 9, 1960): 98-100.
Lamb, Ruth Deforest Lamb. American Chamber of Horrors: The Truth about Food and Drugs.
New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1936. 418 pp.
Lichtman, Bernard. “Christian Evolutionists in the United States, 1860-1900.” Journal of
Cambridge Studies 4, 4 (December 2009): 14-22.
-----. “Darwin and the Popularization of Evolution.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society 64,
1 (March 2010): 5-24
-----, ed. Evolutionary Naturalism in Victorian Britain: The ‘Darwinians’ and Their Critics.
Burlington, VT/Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2009.
-----, ed. Victorian Popularizers of Science: Designing Nature for New Audiences. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2007. 545 pp.
-----, and Sydney Eisen. Victorian Science and Religion: A Bibliography with Emphasis on
Evolution, Belief and Unbelief, Comprised of Works Published from c. 1900-1975. Hamden, CT.:
Shoe String Press/Archon Books, 1984. 696 pp.
McGrath, Alister E. Science & Religion: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
Reingold, Nathan, ed. Science in Nineteenth-Century America, a Documentary History. New
York: Hill & Wang, 1964. 339 pp.
-----. Science in America: a Documentary History, 1900-1939. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1981. 497 pp.
Simpson, James Y. Landmarks in the Struggle between Science and Religion. New York: George
H. Dolan Company, n.d.
White, Harry Dickson. History of the Warfare between Religion and Science. 1896.
Wilson, D. B. “Victorian Science and Religion.” History of Science 15 (1977): 52-67.
Darwin, Evolution, and Creationism
The struggle of the discipline of biology (and the related field of paleontology) to establish itself
in the public school curriculum came to a head in 1925 in Dayton Tennessee following the
passing of a law by the state legislature against teaching biological evolution. John Scopes, a
high school teacher, allowed himself to become the focus of a test case of the Tennessee law
which had originally been championed by Texas fundamentalist Baptist minister William Bell
Riley who presided over the Worlds Christian Fundamentals Association was instrumental in
recruiting former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan to take the case for the
prosecution while agnostic lawyer Clarence Darrow spoke for the defense. Though Bryan won
the case, the court of public opinion favored Darrow.
Many felt that the creationist cause has been defeated once and for all, but it slowly rebuilt its
support and in its various forms now claims a substantial portion of the religious community,
both Christian and otherwise. In the last generation it found a new expression in what was
termed intelligent design, which argued for God as the intelligence that was the best explanation
for the design found throughout nature. In the 1990s, it briefly replaced creation science as the
best alternative for having some form of anti-evolutionary ideology replace evolution as the
model for the study of biological sciences in the American public schools. It was largely
dismissed by the 2005 court case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District which found
intelligent design to be a religious ideology not a scientific theory.
Sources
Ames, Robert and Philip Siegelman, eds. The Idea of Evolution: Readings in Evolutionary
Theory and Its Influence. Minneapolis: Meyers Publishing Company, 1961. 362 pp.
Appleton, Philip. Darwin. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.
Allen, Warren. Background of the Scopes Trial at Dayton, Tennessee. Knoxville, TN: University
of Tennessee, Ph.D. dissertation, 1959.
Atran, Scott. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, Evolution and
Cognition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Bailey, Kenneth K. The Enactment of Tennessee's Anti-evolution Law. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt
Barlow, Nora, ed. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin. (1809-1882). New York: W. W.
Norton, 1969.
Bates, V. L. Christian Fundamentalism and the Theory of Evolution in Public School Education:
A Study of the Creation Science Movement. Davis, CA: University of California—Davis, Ph.D.
dissertation, 1976.
Bernabo, Lawrence Mark. The Scopes Myth: The Scopes Trial in Rhetorical Perspective. Iowa
City, IA: University of Iowa, Ph.D. dissertation, 1990.
Betts, Edward G. The Argument of the Century: The Ontario Press Coverage of the Scopes Trial
and the Death of William Jennings Bryan. Kingston. ON: M.A., Queen's University, M.A. thesis,
1992.
Bowler, Peter. Evolution: The History of an Idea. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
2009. 496 pp.
-----. The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades around
1900. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. 312 pp.
-----. Fossils and Progress: Paleontology and the Idea of Progressive Evolution in the
Nineteenth Century. New York: Science History, 1976. 191 pp.
-----. Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent
Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. 272 pp.
-----. The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpretation of a Historical Myth. Baltimore, MD:
-----. Theories of Human Evolution: A Century of Debate, 1844-1944. Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1986. 336 pp.
-----, and David Knight. Charles Darwin: The Man and his Influence. Cambridge, UK:
Brown, Andrew. The Darwin Wars: The Scientific Battle for the Soul of Man. London:
Touchstone, 2000.
Caudill, Charles Edward. The Evolution of an Idea: Darwin in the American Press, 1860-1925.
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, Ph.D. dissertation, 1986.
Dennett, Daniel Clement. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New
York: London: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Eisley, Loren. Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It. New York: Anchor
Books, 1961.
Gillispie, Charles Coulston. Genesis and Geology: A Study of the Relations of Scientific Thought,
Natural Theology, and Social Opinion in Great Britain, 1790-1850. New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1959.
Ginger, Ray. Six Days or Forever?: Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes. Boston : Beacon, 1959.
Glass, Bentley, Owesei Temkin, and William L. Strauss, Jr., eds. Forerunners of Darwin: 17451859. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968.
Gould, S. J. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York: Ballantine,
1999.
Greene, John C. The Death of Adam: Evolution and Its Impact on Western Thought. Ames, IA:
Iowa State University Press, 1959. 388 pp. Rpt.: New York: Mentor/New American Library
1961. 382 pp.
Grossbach, Barry Leonard. The Scopes Trial: A Turning Point in American Thought?
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, Ph. D. dissertation, 1964.
Hull, David L. Darwin and his Critics: The Reception of Darwin's Theory of Evolution by the
Scientific Community. Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press, 1983.
-----. Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development
of Science. Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press, 1988.
-----. The Metaphysics of Evolution. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989.
Irvine, William. Apes, Angels, and Victorians: The Story of Darwin, Huxley and Evolution.
Lanham, MD: University Pres of America, 1955. 520 pp.
Johnson, Frank W. C. Rhetorical Criticism of the Speaking of William Jennings Bryan and
Clarence Seward Darrow at the Scopes Trial. Cleveland, OH: Case Western Reserve University
, Ph.D. dissertation, 1961.
Kelly, A. The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany 1860-1914.
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1981. 196 pp.
Klaaren, E. M. Religious Origins of Modern Science: belief in creation in seventeenth- century
thought. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1977.
La Follette, M. C. Creationism, Science and the Law: The Arkansas Case. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1983.
Larson, Edward J. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate
Over Science and Religion. New York: Harper, 1997.
Larson, Julie Marie. A Narrative Analysis of The Scopes Trial. Los Angeles: University Of
Southern California, Ph.D. dissertation, 1995.
Levine, Lawrence W. Defender of the Faith—William Jennings Bryan: the Last Decade 19151925. New York: Columbia University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1962.
McMahon, Thomas J. Protestant Fundamentalism: Public Education and the Politics Of
Regression. Manhattan, KS: Kansas State University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1987.
Mandalbaum, Maurice. “Darwin’s Religious Views.” Journal of the History of Ideas 19 (1958):
363-378.
Midgley, Mary. Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears. Rev. ed. London:
Routledge, 2002.
Moore, James R. The Post-Darwinian Controversies: A Study of the Protestant Struggle to Come
to Terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America 1870-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge
Morgan, Jeffery P. The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Bedford
Books, 2002. 230 pp.
Nash, J. V. “The Religious Evolution of Darwin.” Open Court 42 (1928): 449-63.
Numbers, Ronald. The Creationists. New York: Alferd A. Knopf, 1992.
Ospovat, Dov. The Development of Darwin's Theory: Natural History, Natural Theology, and
Natural Selection, 1838-1859. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981. 320 pp.
Pfeifer, Edward J. The Reception of Darwinism in the United States, 1859-1880. Providence, RI:
Brown University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1957.
Roberts, Jon H. Darwinism and the Divine in America: Protestant Intellectuals and Organic
Evolution, 1859-1900. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988.
Roberts, Windsor Hall. The Reaction of the American Protestant Churches to the Darwinian
Philosophy, 1860-1900. Chicago: University of Chicago, Ph.D. dissertation, 1936.
Ruse, Michael. Can a Darwinian Be a Christian?: The Relationship between Science and
Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
-----. Darwinism Defended: A Guide to the Evolution Controversies. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley, 1982.
Scopes, John. World's Most Famous Court Trial: State of Tennessee vs. John T. Scopes. New
York: DaCapo, 1971.
Shermer, Michael. In Darwin’s Shadow: A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History.
-----. Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design. New York: Times Books, 2006.
224 pp.
Smout, Kary D. Terminology Battles: Word Meanings as Rhetorical Tools in the Creation /
Evolution Controversy. Durham, NC: Duke University , Ph.D. dissertation, 1991.
Victorian England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974. 304 pp.
-----. “The Victorian Conflict between Science and Religion: A Professional Dimension.” Isis 69
(1978): 356-76.
Wilson, David Sloan. Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society.
Witham, Larry A. Where Darwin Meets the Bible: Creationists and Evolutionists in America.
1960-Present
While the issues between religious and scientific cosmologies persisted, a new concern arose
over the appearance of bad science with its subversion of scientific methodology in a world
where the love of science apart from any understanding of the rules by which it operates
(scientism) has popping up in a multitude of settings. In the post-Enlightenment nineteenth
century, a variety of attempts were made to substantiate a number of religious and metaphysical
ideas by claiming scientific credentials for them. Among the first were the claims of Franz Anton
Mesmer and his students of a universal cosmic power that undergirded and enlivened the
cosmos. Reference to Mesmer’s fluid became the basis of a variety of alternative healing claims
as well as the revival of magic. Spiritualists claimed to demonstrate scientifically the picture of
survival into the afterlife they advocated. In the twentieth century scientific claims would be
made for yoga, transcendental meditation, and telepathic contact with alien life.
In the late nineteenth century, the discipline of psychical research attempted to find a scientific
basis of the claims of Spiritualism which as a movement offered to demonstrate scientifically the
individual survival of bodily death. Many of those who flocked to the field were clergymen who
had lost their faith or the children of clergymen who wished to attain the faith of their parents.
Psychical research was victimized to the widespread fraud that permeated Spiritualism and
would be replaced by parapsychology which attempted to bring psychic phenomena into the
laboratory.
As science became the domain of highly trained scientists, hope dwindled for the amateur to
make a real contribution, while the few successes by amateurs motivated a wide variety of
people to go looking for neglected areas of research especially some that would have a
significant payoff to the person who succeeded when all around him/her said that they were on a
fool’s pathway. From the hope of finding a new species of monstrous proportions, fields like
cryptozoology emerged. Ancient astronauts proposed alternative ways of interpreting
archeological remains. A variety of healing treatments of questionable values continue to offer
hope to those with terminal illnesses.
In the 1970s, a new movement formed to focus concern on the whole realm of flawed science
from scientific endeavors marred by weak methodologies and fraudulent endeavors in the
scientific community, to religion passing itself off as science, Skeptics made shining the light of
rationality upon what was termed “pseudoscience” their goal.
Humanist Paul Kurtz spearheaded the new movement and launched it by calling together the
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (or CSICOP), now the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. CSICOP called the public to back an initial broadside against
the growing popularity of astrology, a statement against any claims to scientific truth by
astrologers signed by a number of prominent scientists. While the attack upon astrology proved
more difficult than originally imagined, over the years CSICOP broadened its concerns to
include a variety of phenomena of questionable scientific status, and spawned a number of
similar organizations with variant related emphases such as the Skeptical Society and the James
Randi Educational Foundation.
The pseudoscience issue has spawned a host of books and articles (see the Internet sites for the
Committee for Skeptical Inquirer or the Skeptics Society for numerous articles on the many
topics covered by the term pseudoscience). The list below is representative of the philosophical
stance of the skeptical movement and the issues that have swirled around it. No attempt has been
made to even sample the many topics covered nor to list the particular publications that have
most come under attack.
The skeptical movement, while based in the atheist/humanist community, has attracted a variety
of religious people who for whatever reason are committed to attacking pseudoscience, including
many conservative Christians who see the attacks upon psychic phenomena tied to the Esoteric
(or New Age) religious community and who see skeptics as an ally in their Christian apologetic
endeavor.
The skeptical movement has had mixed results and experienced some setbacks with the
emergence of cable television and the popularity of documentaries and others shows on ghosts,
UFOs, ancient astronauts, and cryptology.
Sources
Aaseng, Nathan. Science versus Pseudoscience. New York: Franklin Watts, 1994. 144 pp.
Bauer, Henry H. Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy. Urbana: University of
-----. Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phenomena, and Other
Heterodoxies. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000.
Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Human Instincts That Fashion Gods, Spirits and
Ancestors. London: Vintage, 2002.
Bridgstock, Martin. Beyond Belief: Skepticism, Science and the Paranormal. Cambridge, UK:
Bunge M. “Demarcating science from pseudoscience.” Fundamenta Scientiae 3 (1983):369-388.
Carroll, Robert T. The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing
Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions. New York: Wiley, 2003. 446 pp.
Charpak, Georges, and Henri Broch. Debunked: ESP, Telekinesis, Other Pseudoscience. Trans.
from the French by Bart K. Holland. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
Collins, H. M. and T. J. Pinch. Frames of Meaning: The Social Construction of Extraordinary
Science. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.
De Grazia, Alfred, et al. The Velikovsky Affair: Scientism vs. Science. New Hyde Park, NY:
University Books, 1966. 260 pp.
Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete? West Conshohocken, PA: John Templeton
Foundation, n.d. [2005?]. 66 pp.
Feder, Kenneth L. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in
Archaeology. New York: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998. 304 pp.
Frazier, Kendrick. Science under Siege: Defending Science, Exposing Pseudoscience. Amherst,
N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2009.
Gardner Martin. Science – Good, Bad and Bogus. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1960.
Ginenthal, Charles. Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky. Tempe, AZ: New Falcon
Publications, 1995. 448 pp.
Hansen, George P. "CSICOP and the Skeptics: An Overview." Journal of the American Society
for Psyschial Research 86 (Jan. 1992): 19-63.
Hansson, Sven Ove. "Defining pseudoscience." Philosophia naturalis 33 (1996): 169–176.
Hess, David J. Science in the New Age: The Paranormal, Its Defenders and Debunkers, and
American Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993. 256 pp.
Hick, John. The New Frontier of Religion and Science: Religious Experience, Neuroscience, and
the Transcendent. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Hines, Terence. Pseudoscience and the Paranormal: a Critical Examination of the Evidence.
Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1987. 372 pp.
Hofstadter, Douglas R. "Metamagical Themas [On CSICOPís history and activities]." Scientific
American 246 (Feb. 1982): 18, 20, 23, 24, 26.
Irwin, Harvey J. The Psychology of Paranormal Belief: A Researcher's Handbook. Hatfield,
Herts., UK: University Of Hertfordshire Press, 2009. 192 pp.
Kammann, Richard. “The True Disbelievers: Mars Effect Drives Skeptics to Irrationality.”
Zetetic Scholar 10 (December 1982).
Kelly, Lynne. The Skeptic's Guide to the Paranormal. New York: Basic Books, 2005. 272 pp.
Klass, Philip J. UFOs: the public deceived. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1983.
Kominsky, Morris. The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars. Boston: Brandon
Press, 1970. 735 pp.
Kruglyakov, Edward. “Why Is Pseudoscience Dangerous?” Skeptical Inquirer 26, 4 (July/August
2002). Posted at http://www.csicop.org/si/show/why_is_pseudoscience_dangerous/.
Kurtz, Paul. The New Skepticism: Inquiry and Reliable Knowledge. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus
Books, 1992. 272 pp.
-----, ed.Skeptical Odysseys: Personal Accounts by the World's Leading Paranormal Inquirers.
-----, ed. A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1985
-----. Skepticism and Humanism: The New Paradigm. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Publishers, 2001. 306 pp.
-----, with Barry Karr, and Ranjit Sandhu, eds. Science and Religion; Are they compatible?
Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003. 368 pp.
-----. The Transcendental Temptation: A Critique of Religion and the Paranormal. Buffalo, NY:
Lilienfeld, Scott O., Steven Jay Lynn, and Jeffrey M. Lohr, eds. Science and Pseudoscience in
Clinical Psychology. New York: Guilford Press, 2004. 474 pp.
Lippard, James. “Skeptics and the “Mars Effect”: A Chronology of Events and Publications.”
Posted at
Mooney, Chris. The Republican War on Science. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Mooney, Chris, and Sheril Kirshenbaum. 2009. Unscientific America: How scientific illiteracy
threatens our future. New York: Basic Books, 2009.
Nickel, Joe. Adventures in Paranormal Investigation. Lexington, KY: University Press of
-----. Looking for a Miracle. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998.
-----. The Mystery Chronicles: More Real-Life X-Files. Lexington, KY: University Press of
-----. Real-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,
2004. Revised illustrated edition as: Investigating the Paranormal. 2007.
Northcote, Jeremy. The Paranormal and the Politics of Truth: A Sociological Account. Exeter,
UK: Imprint Academic, 2007. 237 pp.
Persinger, Michael A. Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs. New York: Praeger, 1987.
Pigliucci, Massimo. Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. Chicago: University Of
Chicago Press, 2010. 336 pp.
Pinch T. J. and H. M. Collins. "Private Science and Public Knowledge: The Committee for the
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and its Use of the Literature." Social Studies
of Science 14 (1984): 521-546.
Playfair, Guy Lyon. “Has CSICOP Lost the Thirty Years' War?” Posted at
http://skepticalinvestigations.org/Observeskeptics/CSICOP/30yearswar1.html.
Pratkanis, Anthony R. "How to Sell a Pseudoscience." Skeptical Inquirer 19, 4 (July/August
1995)): 19–25. Posted at http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/pratkanis.htm.
Radford, Benjamin, and Joe Nickels. Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most
Elusive Creatures. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2006. 208 pp.
Rawlins, Dennis. “Starbaby.” Fate Magazine 34 (October 1981):67-98. Posted online with
associated articles at http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html.
Sagan, Carl. The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God. Ed.
by Abb Druyan. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. 284 pp.
Sheaffer, Robert. The UFO verdict: examining the evidence. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books,
1986.
Shermer, Michael. The Believing Brain. From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies--How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths. New York: Times Books, 2011. 400
pp.
-----. The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2002. 368 pp.
-----. Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?
Expanded Edition: Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009. 360 pp.
-----, ed. The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio,
2002. 903 pp.
-----. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of
Our Time. New York: W. H. Freeman & Company, 1997. 306 pp.
Smith, Jonathan C. Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A Critical
Thinker's Toolkit. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. 432 pp.
Still, Arthur, and Windy Dryden. “The Social Psychology of ‘Pseudoscience’: A Brief History.”
Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 34, 3 (September 2004): 265-290.
Ward, Keith. Pascal's Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding. Oxford: One World,
2006, chapter 11.
Waterman, Philip F. The Story of Superstition. New York: AMS Press, 1970.
Williams, William F., ed. Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. New York: Facts on File, 2000. 448
pp.
Wilson F. The Logic and Methodology of Science and Pseudoscience. Toronto: Canadian
Scholars Press, 2000.
Wilson, Robert Anton. The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science.
Scottsdale, AZ: New Falcon Publications, 1986.
Wynn, Charles M., and Arthur Wiggins. Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real
Science Ends . . . and Pseudoscience Begins. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2001.
The Magicians: Houdini to Randi
Spiritualism attracted a variety of people, including a set of would-be mediums that made it their
business to convince people of Spiritualism’s teachings by presenting stage magic as real psychic
phenomena. The tricks ranged over a wide field from various ways to fake clairvoyance and
telepathy to elaborate materialization séances. Beginning with Harry Houdini, magicians have
taken offense at people who practice stage magic but pass it off as something supernatural.
A few such as Milbourne Christopher and James Randi have actively opposed such magic tricks
on ethical grounds and have joined in efforts to expose them. Randi became convinced that fraud
lay behind much parapsychology and regularly called for trained magicians to be part of any
teams doing psychical research. Though regularly overstating the extent of fraud, he found
enough fraud in unexpected places, including the world of popular healing evangelists, to
provide substance to his attacks upon the paranormal in general. Most recently, the popular team
of Penn and Teller has taken up the attack upon paranormal fraud.
Sources
Brandon, Ruth. The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini. New York: Random House, 1993.
-----. The Spiritualists. The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983.
Christopher, Milbourne. Mediums, Mystics and the Occult. New York: Crowell, 1975.
-----. Panorama of Magic. New York: Dover, 1962.
Citron, Gabriel. The Houdini-Price Correspondence. London: Legerdemain, 1998.
Cohen, Patricia. "Poof! You’re a Skeptic: The Amazing Randi’s Vanishing Humbug." The New
York Times (February 17, 2001). Posted
at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/17/arts/17RAND.html.
Ernst, Bernard M. L. Houdini and Conan Doyle: The Story of a Strange Friendship. New York:
Albert & Charles Boni, 1932.
Houdini, Harry A Magician among the Spirits. New York: Arno Press, 1972.
-----. "Margery" the Medium Exposed. New York: Adams, 1924.
-----. Miracle Mongers and Their Methods. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1920
Jillette, Penn. God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales. New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. 256 pp.
Kalush, William. The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero. New
York: Atria, 2007. 608 pp.
McLuhan, Robert. Randi’s Prize: What sceptics say about the paranormal, why they are wrong
and why it matters. Leicester, UK: Troubador Publishing, 2010.
Moore, R. Laurence. In Search of White Crows. Spiritualism, Parapsychology, and American
Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Nardi, Peter M. “Magic, Skepticism & Belief.” Skeptic Magazine 15, 3 (2010): 58-64.
Nickel, Joe, and James Randi. The Mystery Chronicles: More Real-Life X-Files. Lexington, KY:
University Press of Kentucky, 2004. 384 pp.
Polidoro, Massimo. "Houdini and Conan Doyle: The Story of a Strange Friendship." Skeptical
Inquirer 22:2 March/April 1998: 40-47.
Randi, James. An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995. 336 pp.
-----. The Faith Healers, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989. 318 pp.
-----. "Fakers and Innocents". Skeptical Inquirer 29, 4 (July 2005).
-----. Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus
Books, 1982. 342 pp.
-----. Houdini, His Life and Art. New york: Grosset & Dunlap, 1976. 191 pp.
-----. James Randi: Psychic Investigator. London: Boxtree, 1991. 192 pp.,
-----. Test Your ESP Potential. New York: Dover Publications, 1982.
-----. The Magic of Uri Geller. New York: Ballantine Books, 1975. 308 pp. Rpt. as The Truth
About Uri Geller. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1982. 234 pp.
-----. The Magic World of the Amazing Randi. Avon, MA: Adams Media Corporation, 1989. 161
pp.
-----. The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World's Most Famous Seer. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990. 256 pp.
Rinn, Joseph F. Sixty Years of Psychical Research. New York: Truth Seeker Co., 1950,
Stashower, Daniel. "The Medium & the Magician." American History August 1999: 38-46.
Sullivan", Walter. "Water That Has a Memory? Skeptics Win Second Round." The New York
Times (July 27, 1988). Posted at: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/27/us/water-that-has-amemory-skeptics-win-second-round.html.
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Contemporary Unbelief
Current Advocates
As the twenty-first century begins, non-theistic perspectives on the world and engagement with
the larger culture in the western world as become a pervasive element in the struggles of
individuals to create a viable worldview and the debates in society over the spectrum of issues
which will determine the shape of the community for the next generation. Atheist literature now
runs the gamut from outspoken atheists’ forceful presentations of the rationale for a non-theistic,
non-religious life, to people who happen to be atheists writing their opinions on various issues
without mentioning their views relative to a deity, religious beliefs and practices. One could with
relative ease construct a book-length bibliography of materials written by atheists just since the
beginning of 2000 and just in English. Below are some of the more important and relatively
available items that convey the present state of discourse on the atheism vs. theism issue.
Sources
Baggini, Julian. Atheism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 136
pp.
Berlinerblau, Jacques. Why Unbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously. Cambridge: Cambridge
Blackford, Russell, and , Udo Schuklenk, eds. 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists. New
York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. 256 pp.
Cady, Linell E., and, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd. 2010. Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age.
Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 302 pp.
Carrier, Richard. Sense and Goodness without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism.
Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2005. 444 pp.
Comte-Sponville, André. The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality. New York: Viking, 2007. 212
pp.
Converse, Raymond W. Atheism as a Positive Social Force. New York: Algora Publishing,
2003. 244 pp.
Goldberg, Michelle. Kingdom Coming: The rise of Christian nationalism. New York: W.W.
Norton & Co., 2006. 272 pp.
-----. The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World. New York: Penguin,
2009. 272 pp.
Grayling, A. C. Against All Gods. London: Oberon Books, 2007.
Harrison, Guy P. 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God. Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books, 2008. 354 pp.
Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation
from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson. New York: HarperOne,
2004. 576 pp.
Herrick, Jim. Humanism: An Introduction. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005. 105 pp.
Joshi, S. T., ed. The Agnostic Reader. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007. 286 pp.
-----. Atheism: A Reader. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2000. 346 pp.
-----. Atheists, Agnostics, and Secularists. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008. 463 pp.
-----. The Unbelievers: The Evolution of Modern Atheism. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books,
2011. 304 pp.
Loftus, John W. The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books,
2010). 422 pp.
Martin, Michael. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press; 1 edition (October 30, 2006. 352 pp.
-----, and Ricki Monnier. The Impossibility of God. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2003. 425 pp.
Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism.
Berkelye, CA: Ulysses Press, 2006. 272 pp.
Mooney, Chris. 2005. The Republican War on Science. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Mooney, Chris, and Sheril Kirshenbaum.. Unscientific America: How scientific illiteracy
threatens our future. New York: Basic Books, 2009.
Shermer, Michael. How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science. New York:
Freeman, 2000. 302 pp.
Shook, John R. Dewey's Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality. The Vanderbilt Library of
American Philosophy. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000.
-----. Pragmatic Naturalism & Realism. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2003.
-----, and André De Tienne. The Cambridge School of Pragmatism. The Foundations of
Pragmatism in American Thought. London ; New York: Thoemmes Continuum, 2006.
-----, and Joseph Margolis. A Companion to Pragmatism. Blackwell Companions to Philosophy.
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
Vaughn, Lewis, and Austin Dacey. The Case for Humanism: An Introduction. Lanham, Md.:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
Warner, Michael, Jonathan Van Antwerpen, and, Craig Calhoun, eds. Varieties of Secularism in
a Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
The Death of God Movement
The Death of God Movement burst on the Christian community suddenly in the spring of 1966
when Time Magazine featured a cover story on the small group of theological radicals who
largely in reaction to (1) the problem of evil posed by the Jewish Holocaust and/or (2) the secular
world in which they lived suggested to their religious colleagues that a non-theistic form of faith
was necessary. The movement prompted both a reactionary response by theologians offended by
the audacity of the pronouncement of God’s death, a phrase borrowed from German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche and drawing inspiration from the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and
a more tempered response by theologians who rejected the conclusion but were sympathetic to
the issued the Death of God theologians raised. The phrase also drew directly from some of the
more radical pronouncements of two mid-twentieth century theologians, Karl Barth and Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, who had separated the concepts of religion and Christianity and hinted at a religionless form of faith. The movement lasted only a few years but placed the issue of contemporary
secularization clearly on the theological agenda.
Among the voices of the movement, the single Jewish voice, Richard Rubenstein continued to
exercise an influential voice in the decades since the Death of God movement expired. He
continued to reflect on the meaning of the Holocaust and secularization, defended Israel’s right
to take possession of a homeland, and developed a long-term relationship with the Rev. Sun
Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church.
Primary Sources
Altizer, Thomas J. J. The Gospel of Christian Atheism. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966.
-----. Living the Death of God: A Theological Memoir. Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2006.
-----. New Gospel of Christian Atheism. Aurora, CO: Davies Group, 2002.
-----, ed. Toward A New Christianity: Readings in the Death of God. New York: Harcourt, Brace
& World, 1967.
----- and William Hamilton. Radical Theology and the Death of God. Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1966. 202 pp.
Altizer, Thomas J. J. and John Warwick Montgomery The Altizer-Montgomery Dialogue: a
Chapter in the God is Dead Controversy. Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1970.
Hamilton, William. The New Essence of Christianity. New York: Association Press, 1966. 159
pp.
-----. On Taking God out of the Dictionary. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1974. 255 pp.
-----. A Quest for the Post-Historical Jesus. London, New York: Continuum International
Publishing Group, 1994.
-----. Shakespeare, God, and Me. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2000. 168 pp.
Rubenstein, Richard J. After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism.
Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966. 287 pp
----. "God after the Death of God." In After Auschwitz: History, Theology, and Contemporary
Judaism. 2nd. ed. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992, pp. 293-306.
-----. Modernization: The Humanist Response to Its Promise & Problems. New York: Paragon
House Publishers, 1986. 353 pp.
Rubenstein, Richard L., and John K. Roth. Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its
Legacy. 2nd edition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. 512 pp.
Vahanian, Gabriel. Anonymous God: An Essay on Not Dreading Words. Aurora, CO: Davies
Group, 2002.
-----. The Death of God: The Culture of Our Post-Christian Era. New York: George Braziller,
1961.
-----. Wait Without Idols. New York: George Braziller, 1964.
-----. No Other God. New York: George Braziller, 1966.
Van Buren, Paul M. The Secular Meaning of the Gospel Based on an Analysis of Its Language.
New York: Macmillan, 1966.
Secondary Sources
Bruce, Steve. God is Dead: Secularization in the West. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002. 288 pp.
Caputo, John D., and Gianni Vattimo. After the Death of God. Ed. by Jeffrey W. Robbins. New
York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
Glynn, Patrick. “Beyond The Death of God” National Review (May 6, 1996): 28-32. Posted at
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles8/Glynn-Beyond-the-Death-of-God.php.
Hamilton, Kenneth. God is Dead: The anatomy of a slogan. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1966.
86 pp.
Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Princeton: Princeton
Lyas, Colin. "On the Coherence of Christian Atheism." The Journal of the Royal Institute of
Philosophy 45, 171 (1970).
Montgomery, John. The `Is God Dead?' Controversy. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1966.
Munro, Howard. A Re-Evaluation of the Death of God Theology. Southport, Queensland, Aust.:
Griffith University, Ph.D. dissertation, 2000.
Murchland, Bernard, ed. The Meaning of the Death of God. New York: Random House, 1967.
Ogden, Schubert M. The Reality of God and Other Essays. Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist
Ogletree, Thomas W. The Death of God Controversy. New York: Abingdon Press, 1966.
Roberts, Tyler T. Contesting Spirit: Nietzsche, Affirmation, Religion. Princeton: Princeton
Stauffer, Jill, and Bettina Bergo, eds. Nietzsche and Levinas: After the Death of a Certain God.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Van Til, Cornelius. Is God Dead? Philipsburg, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing,
1966.
Neo-Atheism
Neo-Atheism, a term coined by journalist Gary Wolf in 2006, burst on the scene in the middle of
the first decade of the new century as a new aggressive form of atheist thought, characterized
most notably by the willingness of their proponents to attack religion as a harmful delusion and
their anger that conservative advocates of what they saw as anti-scientific opinions were gaining
power. Adding to their motivation were public surveys showing the persistence of antievolutionary perspective among conservative Christians, opinions shared by many conservative
Muslims.
While particularly targeting Conservative Evangelical Christians, Neo-atheists also included all
religious believers in their attacks, and in so doing found themselves at odds with proponents of
non-theistic religions (especially proponents of religious humanism and Ethical Culture). Their
critique also called into question the idea of making common cause with people holding liberal
religious perspectives on issues such as separation of church and state, public funding of private
religious schools, and the teaching of biological science in the public schools.
Neo-Atheism has been built upon the successful books of its major exponents, beginning with
British biologist Richard Dawkins. In the United States, author Christopher Hitchens, has been
joined by Sam Harris (with a Ph.D. in neuroscience), philosopher Daniel Dennett, and physicist
Victor J. Stenger in leading the charge for a more public role for atheists. They have become
frequent guests on television talk shows and made themselves available to the press. While
energizing the core of atheist unbelievers, it is yet to be seen whether their efforts will
substantively enlarge the support for non-theism in the larger population. The movement has,
however, provoked a massive reaction among Christian scholars and polemicists, most notably
Anglican theologians and converts from atheism, Aleister McGrath, and a veritable flood of antiNeo-Atheism books have begun to flow from the Christian press, both Protestant and Catholic.
Humanist and atheist critics of Neo-Atheism have argued that the content of Neo-Atheism is not
new, only restated in a new aggressive manner. They are also seen as destroying coalitions which
atheists need to accomplish many of their goals, since, especially in the United States, they
remain a minority in an overwhelming religious environment. The internal debates within the
atheist community have already led to battles for control of various atheist organizations, most
notably the Council for Secular Humanism and its associated Centers for Inquiry scattered across
North America.
Major Exponents
Sources
Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. 496
pp.
-----. A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love. New York: Mariner
Books, 2004. 272 pp.
-----. The God Delusion. New York: Mariner Books, 2008. 464 pp.
-----. The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Free Press, 2009. 480 pp.
-----. The Selfish Gene. 30th anniversary ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
-----. Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder. New York:
Mariner Books, 2000. 352 pp.
Dennett, Daniel. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Penguin,
2006.
-----. Consciousness Explained. New York: Back Bay Books, 1992. 528 pp.
-----. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1996. 586 pp.
-----. Freedom Evolves. New York: Penguin, 2004. 328 pp.
Grothe, D. J. “Taking a Stand for the New Atheists: A Discussion with Victor J. Stenger.” Free
Inquiry 30, 3 (April/May 2010): 6, 43.
Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York: W.W.
Norton & Co., 2004.
-----. Letter to a Christian Nation. London: Bantam, 2007.
-----. The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. New york: Free Press,
2010. 304 pp.
Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: The Case against Religion. London: Atlantic Books,
2007.
-----. Hitch-22: A Memoir. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2010. 448 pp.
-----, ed. The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever. Cambridge, MA: Da
Capo Press, 2007. 528 pp.
Kick, Russ, ed. Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to
Religion. New York: The Disinformation Company, 2007. 388 pp.
Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism.
Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press, 2006. 272 pp.
Stewart, Robert B., ed. The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in
Dialogue. Minneaplis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008.
Stenger, Victor J. The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason. Amherst, NY:
Welleman, CJ. God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (Revised
International Edition). Dangerous Little Books, 2009. 302 pp.
New Atheism and the Community of Unbelief
Sources
Amarasingam, Amarnath, ed. Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical Appraisal. Leiden: Brill,
2009.
-----. “What is the New Atheism? A Thematic Overview.” in Amarath Amarasingam ed. Religion
and the New Atheism: A Critical Appraisal. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
Arcaro, Tom. “The Stigma of Being an Atheist: An Empirical Study on the
New Atheist Movement and its Consequences.” Skeptic Magazine 15, 4 (2010).
Borer, Michael. “The New Atheism and the Secularization Thesis.” In Amarath Amarasingam
ed. Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical Appraisal. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
Brook, Andrew, and Don Ross. Daniel Dennett. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2002, 320 pp.
Bullivant, Stephen. “The New Atheism and Sociology: Why Here? Why Now? What Next?” In
Amarath Amarasingam ed. Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical Appraisal. Leiden: Brill,
2009.
Flynn, Tom. “Why I Don’t Believe in the New Atheism.” Free Inquiry 30, 3 (April/May 2010):
7, 43.
Hedges, Chris. I Don't Believe in Atheists. New York: Free Press, 2008
Stahl, William. “One-Dimensional Rage: The Social Epistemology of the New Atheism and
Fundamentalism.” In Amarath Amarasingam, ed. Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical
Appraisal. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
Wood, James. “God in the Quad,” The New Yorker (August 31, 2009): 75.
Muslim Critiques of Neo-Atheism
Sources
Whitehouse, Bill. Sam Harris and the End Of Faith: A Muslim's Critical Response. CreateSpace,
2009. 178 pp.
Christian Critiques of Neo-Atheism
Sources
Aikman, David. The Delusion of Disbelief: Why the New Atheism is a Threat to Your Life,
Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2008. 256 pp.
Beattie, Tina. The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and the War on Religion. Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books, 2008. 209 pp.
Brown, Andrew. "Dawkins the Dogmatist." Prospect Magazine 127 (2006).
Cornwell, John. Darwin's Angel: A Seraphic Response to 'the God Delusion'. London: Profile,
2007.
Dalrymple,Theodore “What the New Atheists Don’t See.” City Journal (Autumn 2007). Posted
at http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_oh_to_be.html.
David, Andrew, Christopher J. Keller, Jon Stanley, eds. God Is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good
Myself: Theological Engagements with the New Atheism. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2005.
Eagleton, Terry. "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching." The London Review of Books 28, 20
(October 2006).
Fergusson, David. Faith and Its Critics: A Conversation. New York: Oxford University Press,
2009. 176 pp.
Goetz, Stewart, and Charles Taliaferro. Naturalism (Interventions). Grand Rapids, MI: William.
B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008. 132 pp.
Hahn, Scott, and Benjamin Wiker. Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case
against God. Stubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2008. 151 pp.
Haught, John F. God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and
Hitchens. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007. 156 pp.
McGrath, Alister. The Dawkins Delusion. London: SPCK, 2007.
-----. Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
McGrath, Alister, The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World.
New York: Doubleday, 2004.
Marshall, David. The Truth Behind the New Atheism: Responding to the Emerging Challenges to
God and Christianity. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2007. 240 pp.
Vetter, Herbert F. Is God Necessary? No! and Yes! Cambridge, MA: Harvard Square Library,
2007.
Ward, Keith. Is Religion Dangerous? Oxford: Lion, 2006.
-----. Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins. Oxford: Lion UK (April 1,
2009. 160 pp.
Wolf, Gary. “The Church of the Non-Believers.” Wired (November 2006).
Wood, James. “God in the Quad,” The New Yorker (August 31, 2009): 75.
Global Perspectives
Contemporary atheism traces its beginnings to Europe and the sixteenth century critique of
Christianity. Beginning in the nineteenth century, it has spread globally, primarily through
Marxism, but took different forms as it encountered different host cultures. With the rise of an
outspoken secularism in post-World War II Europe (somewhat countered by the fall of the Berlin
Wall and the end of the Cultural Revolution in China), the state of atheism in both its Marxist
and non-Marxist forms has become a continuing topic of interest. The essays in Atheism and
Secularity, Phil Zuckerman’s two volume anthology, summarize most of what is currently
known about the global atheist community.
While this bibliography concentrates on atheism in North America and Western Europe
(especially the United Kingdom, Germany, and France) that topic naturally leads into the more
global perspectives. The Atheist Alliance International, an international coalition of Atheist
organizations was founded in 1991 by mostly North American Atheist organizations, but though
still dominated by American groups, now includes representative groups from Europe, Asia,
Africa, South America, and Australia. In like measure, the International Humanist and Ethical
Union has grown to include representative groups from more than 40 nations.
Sources
Eller, Jack David. “Atheism and Secularism in the Arab World.” In Phil Zuckerman, ed. Atheism
and Secularity. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009.
Hiorth, Finngeir. Atheism in India (1998), in English.
-----. Secularism in Germany (1997), published in English.
-----. Secularism in Holland, Belgium, and Luxemburg (2000), in English.
-----. Secularism in Sweden. Oslo, Norway: Human-Etisk Forbund, 1995
Narisetti, Innaiah. “Atheism and Secularity in India.” in Phil Zuckerman, ed. Atheism and
Secularity. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009.
Patrikios, Stratos. “Religious Deprivatisation in Modern Greece.” Journal of Contemporary
Religion 24, 3 (2009): 357-362.
Roemer, Michael K. “Atheism and Secularity in Modern Japan” In Phil Zuckerman, ed. Atheism
Tong, Liang. “Atheism and Secularity in China.” In Phil Zuckerman, ed. Atheism and Secularity.
2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009.
Yirenkyi, Kwasi, and Baffour K. Taylor. “Some Insights into Atheism and Secularity in Ghana.”
In Phil Zuckerman, ed. Atheism and Secularity. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009.
Unbelief—Sociological and Demographic Studies
Sociology began as a discipline that was decidedly secular and like psychology spawned several
generations of scholars who not only believed that religion was declining and on its last legs, but
looked forward to a society without religion. As religion continued to grow through the twentieth
century, especially in North America, a new sub-discipline of the field, the sociology of religion,
emerged and through the last half of the twentieth century created a mass of material on religion,
offered a critique of secularization theories, and has attempted to explain the counter intuitive
success of religion globally.
Sociologists of religion neglected the study of atheism, a topic that did not immediately yield to
their analysis, but since the 1990s, that lacunae in the study of the place of religion in the modern
world is beginning to be filled. An ever growing body of social science literature has developed
on Non-belief, much attempting to measure the present size of the non-believing community,
with additional studies attempting to understand the nature of people who choose to be atheists,
partially an attempt to correct opinions about the irreligious spread by religious polemicists.
The material cited below has been selected from the growing abundance of social science
observations of the atheist community and that element of the population which expresses no
support for religion and/or belief in a deity, primarily in North America and Western Europe.
Emerging with a leading role in producing and nurturing such studies is the Institute for the
Study of Secularism in Society and Culture (ISSSC) at Trinity College in Hartford,
Connecticut. ISSSC, established in 2005 by Barry Kosmin, attempts to understand the role of
secular values and the parallel process of secularization in society and culture. Also, most
recently (2011), Sociologist Phil Zuckerman has established a unique interdisciplinary degree
program in secularism at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.
Sources
Acquaviva, Sabino. “Some Reflections on the Parallel Decline of Religious Experience and
Religious Practice.” In Eileen Barker, James A. Beckford and Karel Dobbelaere,
eds. Secularization, Rationalism and Religious Practice: Essays in Honour of Bryan R. Wilson.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, pp. 47-58.
Altemeyer, Bob. “Non-Belief and Secularity in North America.” In Phil Zuckerman, ed. Atheism
Bainbridge, William Sims. “Atheism.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 1, 1
(2005): 1-24.
-----. “Atheism.” in Peter Clarke, ed. The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 319-35
-----. Across the Secular Abyss: From Faith to Wisdom. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007.
Bellah, Robert N. "The Historical Background of Unbelief." In Rocco Caporale and Antonio
Grumelli, eds., The Culture of Unbelief, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 39-42.
-----, "Religion and Secularization in Modern Societies." Papers in Comparative Studies, 3,
Religion in the Modern World, Columbus, OH: Center for Comparative Studies in the
Humanities, The Ohio State University, 1984, pp. 7-22.
Berger, Peter L., ed. The Desecularization of the World. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999.
Bruce, Steve. God is Dead: Secularisation in the West, Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.
-----, ed. Religion and Modernisation: Sociologists and Historians Debate the Secularization
Thesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Bullivant, Stephen. “Introducing Irreligious Experiences.” Implicit Religion 11, 1, (2008): 7-24.
-----. “Sociology and the Study of Atheism.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 23, 3 (2008): 1631
Campbell, Colin. "Humanism in Britain: The Formation of a Secular Value-oriented Movement."
In David Martin, ed. A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain, Vol. 2. London: SCM
Press, 1969, pp. 157-172.
-----. Toward a Sociology of Irreligion. New York: Herder and Herder, 1972.
Cary, Linell. “Secularism, Secularizing, and Secularization: Reflections on Stout's Democracy
and Tradition.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 27, 3 (2005): 871-85.
Chaves, M. “Secularization As Declining Religious Authority.” Social Forces 72, 3 (1994):
749–74.
Crockett, A., and D. Voas. “Generations of Decline: Religious Change in 20th-Century Britain.”
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45, 4, (2006): 567-84.
Dobbelaere, Karel. “Some Trends in European Sociology of Religion: The Secularization
Debate.” Sociological Analysis 48 (1987): 107–137.
Ecklund, E. H., and J. Z. Park. “Conflict between Science and Religion among Academic
Scientists?” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48, 2 (2009): 276-92a.
Edgell, Penny, Joseph Gerteis, and Douglas Hartmann. “Atheists as ‘Other’: Moral Boundaries
and Cultural Membership in American Society.” American Sociological Review 71, 2 (2006):
211-34.
Fahey, Tony. “Is Atheism Increasing? Ireland and Europe Compared.” In E. G. Cassidy, ed.
Measuring Ireland: Discerning Values and Beliefs. Dublin: Veritas, 2002, pp. 46-66
Farias, m., and M. Lalljee. “Holistic individualism in the Age of Aquarius: Measuring
individualism/collectivism in New Age, Catholic and atheist/agnostic groups.” Journal for the
Scientific Study of Religion 47, 2 (2008): 277-289.
Froese, Paul, and Steven Pfaff. “Bringing Demand into the Supply-Side Model of Religion: State
Regulation, Atheism and Causes of Secularization.” Social Forces 2 (2001): 481–507
-----. “Explaining a Religious Anomaly: A Historical Analysis of Secularization in Eastern
Germany.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44, 4, (2005) 397-422.
Glickman, Allen. “A Mighty Fortress is Our Atheism: Defining the Nature of Religiousness in
the Elderly.” Journal of Religious Gerontology 14, 1 (2002): 69-83
Greeley, Andrew M. Religion in Europe at the End of the Second Millennium. New Brunswick:
Transaction, 2003.
---. Unsecular Man: The Persistence of Religion. New York: Schocken, 1972.
Hale, J. Russell. The Unchurched: Who They Are and Why They Stay That Way. San Francisco:
Harper & Row, 1980.
Halman, L., and V. Drulans. “How Secular is Europe?” British Journal of Sociology 57, 2,
(2006): 263-88.
Hout, Michael, and Claude S. Fischer. “Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference.”
American Sociological Review 67, 2 (2002): 165-90.
Hunsberger, Bruce E., and Bob Altemeyer. Atheists: A Groundbreaking Study of America’s
Nonbelievers. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, 2006. 159 pp.
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Beyond: Relationships, Stability, and Searching for Answers.” Journal of Scientific Study of
Religion 41, 2 (2002): 255-66.
Hunter, James Davison. "‘America's Fourth Faith’: A Sociological Perspective on Secular
Humanism." This World 19, (Fall 1987): 101-110.
Iannaccone, L. R., and M. D. Makowsky. “Accidental Atheists? Agent-Based Explanations for
the Persistence of Religious Regionalism.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 46, 1
(2007): 1-16.
Jones, Kenneth. “Toward a Sociology of Irreligion: The Culture of Unbelief.” Sociology 7 (May
1973): 289-291.
Kosmin, Barry A., and Ariela Keysar. Religion in a Free Market. Religious and Non-Religious
Americans Who, What, Why, Where. Ithaca, NY: Paramount Market Publishing, 2006. 320 pp.
-----, eds. Secularism and Secularity: Contemporary International Perspectives. Hartford, CT:
Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society & Culture, 2007.
Krieger, Andrew Robert. Structural Ambiguity in a Social Movement Organization: A Case
Study of the American Humanist Association. Washington, DC: Georgetown University, Ph.D.
dissertation, 1983.
Lee, Lois. The “Secular” Individual in Britain: Toward a Sociology of (Ir)religion. Cambridge:
University of Cambridge, M.Phil. dissertation, 2006.
Llera Blanes, Ruy. “The Atheist Anthropologist: Believers and Non-Believers in
Anthropological Fieldwork.” Social Anthropology 14, 2 (2006): 223-34.
Lynn, Richard, John Harvey, and Helmuth Nyborg. “Average Intelligence Predicts Atheism
Rates Across 137 Nations.” Intelligence 37, 1 (2009): 11-15.
Martin, David. A General Theory of Secularization. Oxford: Blackwell, 1978.
-----. "The Secularization Issue: Prospect and Retrospect." British Journal of Sociology 42/3
(1991): 465-74.
Morrison, John Lee. A History of American Catholic Opinion on the Theory of Evolution, 18591950. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri, Ph.D. Dissertation, 1951.
Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
O’Brian Baker, Joseph, and Buster Smith. “None Too Simple: Examining Issues of Religious
Nonbelief and Nonbelonging in the United States.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
48, 4 (2009): 719-733.
Pasquale, Frank I. “A Portrait of Secular Group Affiliates.” In Phil Zuckerman, ed. Atheism and
Secularity. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009.
-----. “Unbelief and Irreligion, Empirical Study and Neglect of.” In Tom Flynn, ed. The New
Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2007, pp. 760-6.
Paul, Gregory. “The Chronic Dependence of Popular Religiosity upon Dysfunctional
Psychosocial Conditions.” Evolutionary Psychology 7, 3 (2009): 398-441.
-----. “The Evolution of Popular Religiosity and Secularism: How 1st World Statistics Reveal
Why Religion Exists, Why It Has Been Popular, and Why the Most Successful Democracies Are
the Most Secular.” Phil Zuckerman, ed. Atheism and Secularity. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA:
Praeger, 2009.
Riley, J., S. Best, and B. G. Charlton. “Religious Believers and Strong Atheists may both be less
depressed than existentially-uncertain people.” QJM: An International Journal of Medicine 98,
11 (2005): 840.
Shariff, Azim F. A., Adam B. Cohen, and Ara Anorenzayan. “The Devil's Advocate: Secular
Arguments Diminish both Implicit and Explicit Religious Belief.” Journal of Cognition and
Culture 8, 3-4 (2008): 417-423.
Sherkat, Darren E. “Beyond Belief: Atheism, Agnosticism, and Theistic Certainty in the United
States.” Sociological Spectrum 28, 5 (2008): 438-59.
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Unbelief (Religious Skepticism, Atheism, Humanism, Naturalism

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