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Free Religious Association
The Free Religious Association (FRA) was an American freethought organization that opposed organized religion and aimed to form in its place a universal rational religion free of dogma or theology, based on evolutionary science.Parsons, Gerald. (1988). ''Religion in Victorian Britain, Volume 2''. Manchester University Press. pp. 304-305. History The Free Religious Association was formed in 1867 in part by David Atwood Wasson, Lucretia Mott, and Reverend William J. Potter. to be, in Potter's words, a "spiritual anti-slavery society" to "emancipate religion from the dogmatic traditions it had been previously bound to". It was opposed not only to organized religion, but also to any supernaturalism in an attempt to affirm the supremacy of individual conscience and individual reason. The FRA carried a message of the perfectibility of humanity, democratic faith in the worth of each individual, the importance of natural rights and the affirmation of the efficacy of reason. The firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Index 1870
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the Most common words in English, most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spiritualists
Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) became most known as a social religious movement according to which the laws of nature and of God include "the continuity of consciousness after the transition of death" and "the possibility of communication between those living on Earth and those who have made the transition". The afterlife, or the " spirit world", is seen by spiritualists not as a static place, but as one in which spirits continue to evolve. These two beliefs—that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans—lead spiritualists to a third belief: that spirits are capable of providing useful insight regarding moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God. Some spiritualists will speak of a concept which they refer to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey. Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh; instead, he helped to investigate marine invertebrates. His studies at the University of Cambridge's Christ's Col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humanists UK
Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs" in the United Kingdom by campaigning on issues relating to humanism, secularism, and human rights. It seeks to act as a representative body for non-religious people in the UK. The charity also supports humanist and non-religious ceremonies in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Crown dependencies and maintains a national network of accredited celebrants for humanist funeral ceremonies, weddings, and baby namings, in addition to a network of volunteers who provide like-minded support and comfort to non-religious people in hospitals and prisons. Its other charitable activities include providing free educational resources to teachers, parents, and institutions; a peer-to-peer support service for people who face difficulti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moncure Conway
Moncure Daniel Conway (March 17, 1832 – November 15, 1907) was an American abolitionist minister and radical writer. At various times Methodist, Unitarian, and a Freethinker, he descended from patriotic and patrician families of Virginia and Maryland but spent most of the final four decades of his life abroad in England and France, where he wrote biographies of Edmund Randolph, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thomas Paine and his own autobiography. He led freethinkers in London's South Place Chapel, now Conway Hall. Family Conway's parents descended from the First Families of Virginia. His father, Walter Peyton Conway, was a wealthy slave-holding gentleman farmer, county judge, and state representative; his home, known as the Conway House, still stands at 305 King Street (also known as River Road), along the Rappahannock River. Conway's mother, Margaret Stone Daniel Conway, was the granddaughter of Thomas Stone of Maryland (a signer of the Declaration of Independence), and in addi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Felix Adler (professor)
Felix Adler (August 13, 1851 – April 24, 1933) was a German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, influential lecturer on euthanasia, religious leader and social reformer who founded the Ethical Culture movement. Early life Felix Adler was born in Alzey, Rhenish Hesse, Grand Duchy of Hesse, Germany, the son of a rabbi, Samuel Adler, a leading figure in European Reform Judaism, and Henrietta Frankfurter. The family immigrated to the United States from Germany when Felix was six years old so that his father could accept the appointment as head rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in New York. Adler attended Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School and graduated from Columbia University in 1870 with honors. He continued at Heidelberg University } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public university, public resea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secular Humanism
Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system or life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision making. Secular humanism posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or belief in a deity. It does not, however, assume that humans are either inherently good or evil, nor does it present humans as being superior to nature. Rather, the humanist life stance emphasizes the unique responsibility facing humanity and the ethical consequences of human decisions. Fundamental to the concept of secular humanism is the strongly held viewpoint that ideology—be it religious or political—must be thoroughly examined by each individual and not simply accepted or rejected on faith. Along with this, an essential part of secular humanism is a continually adapting search for truth, primarily through scien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave. It was in response to this disbelief that Douglass wrote his first autobiography. Douglass wrote three autobiographies, describing his experiences as a slave in his ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'' (1845), which became a bestseller and was influential in promoting t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Ellingwood Abbot
Francis Ellingwood Abbot (November 6, 1836 – October 23, 1903) was an American philosopher and theologian who sought to reconstruct theology in accord with scientific method. His lifelong romance with his wife Katharine Fearing Loring forms the subject of '' If Ever Two Were One'', a collection of his correspondence and diary entries. Biography Abbot was born to Joseph Hale Abbot and Fanny Ellingwood Larcom on November 6, 1836 in Boston, Massachusetts. He married Katherine Fearing on August 3, 1859 in Nashua, New Hampshire. The couple had three children; Everett Vergnies, Fanny Larcom, and Edward Stanley Abbot. As a spokesman for "free religion", he asserted that Christianity, understood as based on the lordship of Christ, is no longer tenable. He rejected all dogma and reliance on Scriptures or creeds, teaching the truth is open to every individual. Abbot graduated from Harvard University and the Meadville Theological School. He served Unitarian churches in Dover, N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Eliot Norton
Charles Eliot Norton (November 16, 1827 – October 21, 1908) was an American author, social critic, and Harvard professor of art based in New England. He was a progressive social reformer and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States. He was from the same notable Eliot family as the 20th-century poet T. S. Eliot, who made his career in the United Kingdom. Early life Norton was born in 1827 at Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father, Andrews Norton (1786–1853), was a Unitarian theologian, and Dexter professor of sacred literature at Harvard; his mother was Catherine Eliot, a daughter of the merchant Samuel Eliot. Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard, was his cousin. Norton graduated from Harvard in 1846, where he was a member of the Hasty Pudding, and started in business with an East Indian trading firm in Boston, travelling to India in 1849. After a tour in Europe, where he was influenced by John Ruskin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (December 22, 1823May 9, 1911) was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, politician, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism. He was a member of the Secret Six who supported John Brown. During the Civil War, he served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized black regiment, from 1862 to 1864. Following the war, he wrote about his experiences with African American soldiers and devoted much of the rest of his life to fighting for the rights of freed people, women, and other disfranchised peoples. Early life and education Higginson was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 22, 1823. He was a descendant of Francis Higginson, a Puritan minister and immigrant to the colony of Massachusetts Bay. His father, Stephen Higginson (born in Salem, Massachusetts, November 20, 1770; died in Camb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. It is a member of the Ivy League. Chartered by the Connecticut Colony, the Collegiate School was established in 1701 by clergy to educate Congregational ministers before moving to New Haven in 1716. Originally restricted to theology and sacred languages, the curriculum began to incorporate humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the college expanded into graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first PhD in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale's faculty and student populations grew after 1890 with rapid expansion of the physical campus and scientific research. Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools: the original undergraduate col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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