My Path to Atheism

My Path to Atheism
Author: Annie Besant
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2015-11-29
Genre:
ISBN: 9781519599360

"My Path to Atheism" from Annie Besant. British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self-rule (1847 - 1933).

My Path to Atheism

My Path to Atheism
Author: Annie Wood Besant
Publisher: Forgotten Books
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2015-06-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781440099649

Written by Annie Besant, My Path to Atheism is one of the most well known works of this notable British writer and women's rights activist. In this collection of essays written over a five-year period, Besant traces her path to atheism while simultaneously outlining her theosophist philosophies. The first essay presented in this collection, On the Deity of Jesus of Nazareth was written before Besant had officially parted with the Church of England. It is a signpost marking the author's final split with Christianity, and is an appropriate first essay in this book. The essay relies heavily on the author's knowledge of the stories of The Bible, as she displays what she interprets as weaknesses in the story of Jesus. Many of the essays in this collection are written in a similar vein to the first. Besant was clearly a scholar of the Bible, and she is thus able to form compelling arguments against many of the stories and theories of Christianity. Later essays see Besant writing persuasively against religious education and blind faith in a set of religious values. On the Nature and the Existence of God is perhaps the most important essay of the collection, in which the author most clearly outlines her argument for atheism. "We know nothing beyond Nature," Besant states, "We judge of the future by the present and the past." My Path to Atheism is an essential work by one of the most noted atheists of the early twentieth century. Those willing to invest time and effort into this collection will undoubtedly be influenced in one direction or another by its arguments. This is a worthwhile read for both believers and atheists alike, and is thus highly recommended. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Annie Besant

Annie Besant
Author: Annie Besant
Publisher:
Total Pages: 420
Release: 1908
Genre: Theosophists
ISBN:

Crisis of Doubt

Crisis of Doubt
Author: Timothy Larsen
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2006-11-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191537055

The Victorian crisis of faith has dominated discussions of religion and the Victorians. Stories are frequently told of prominent Victorians such as George Eliot losing their faith. This crisis is presented as demonstrating the intellectual weakness of Christianity as it was assaulted by new lines of thought such as Darwinism and biblical criticism. This study serves as a corrective to that narrative. It focuses on freethinking and Secularist leaders who came to faith. As sceptics, they had imbibed all the latest ideas that seemed to undermine faith; nevertheless, they went on to experience a crisis of doubt, and then to defend in their writings and lectures the intellectual cogency of Christianity. The Victorian crisis of doubt was surprisingly large. Telling this story serves to restore its true proportion and to reveal the intellectual strength of faith in the nineteenth century.

Atheism and Agnosticism

Atheism and Agnosticism
Author: Peter A. Huff
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2021-09-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

An overview essay and approximately 50 alphabetically arranged reference entries explore the background and significance of atheism and agnosticism in modern society. This is the age of atheism and agnosticism. The number of people living without religious belief and practice is quickly and dramatically rising. Some experts call nonreligion, after Christianity and Islam, the third largest "religion" in the world today. Understanding the origins, history, variations, and impact of atheism and agnosticism is crucial to getting a grasp of the meaning of the present and gaining a glimpse of the future. Exploring some of the most extraordinary people, events, and ideas of all time, this book provides a fair, comprehensive, and engaging survey of all aspects of contemporary atheism and agnosticism. An overview essay discusses the background and social and political contexts of unbelief, while a timeline highlights key events. Some 50 alphabetically arranged reference entries follow, with each providing fundamental, objective information about particular topics along with cross-references and suggestions for further reading. The volume closes with an annotated bibliography of the most important resources on atheism and agnosticism.

A People of One Book

A People of One Book
Author: Timothy Larsen
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2011-01-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191614335

Although the Victorians were awash in texts, the Bible was such a pervasive and dominant presence that they may fittingly be thought of as 'a people of one book'. They habitually read the Bible, quoted it, adopted its phraseology as their own, thought in its categories, and viewed their own lives and experiences through a scriptural lens. This astonishingly deep, relentless, and resonant engagement with the Bible was true across the religious spectrum from Catholics to Unitarians and beyond. The scripture-saturated culture of nineteenth-century England is displayed by Timothy Larsen in a series of lively case studies of representative figures ranging from the Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry to the liberal Anglican pioneer of nursing Florence Nightingale to the Baptist preacher C. H. Spurgeon to the Jewish author Grace Aguilar. Even the agnostic man of science T. H. Huxley and the atheist leaders Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant were thoroughly and profoundly preoccupied with the Bible. Serving as a tour of the diversity and variety of nineteenth-century views, Larsen's study presents the distinctive beliefs and practices of all the major Victorian religious and sceptical traditions from Anglo-Catholics to the Salvation Army to Spiritualism, while simultaneously drawing out their common, shared culture as a people of one book.