Download or read book Freethought on the American Frontier written by Fred Whitehead and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stirring anthology that documents, in poetry, song, stories, memoirs, and essays, the breadth and scope of secularism from the early 19th century to the present. Included are pieces by the notables--Twain, Dreiser, Lindsay, Service, Sandburg, Hughes, Masters, et al.--as well as grassroots contributions. Also included are photographs of authors, historical sites, and The Truth seeker cartoons of Watson Hedges. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Freethinkers written by Susan Jacoby and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2005-01-07 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative history of the vital role of secularist thinkers and activists in the United States, from a writer of "fierce intelligence and nimble, unfettered imagination" (The New York Times) At a time when the separation of church and state is under attack as never before, Freethinkers offers a powerful defense of the secularist heritage that gave Americans the first government in the world founded not on the authority of religion but on the bedrock of human reason. In impassioned, elegant prose, celebrated author Susan Jacoby paints a striking portrait of more than two hundred years of secularist activism, beginning with the fierce debate over the omission of God from the Constitution. Moving from nineteenth-century abolitionism and suffragism through the twentieth century's civil liberties, civil rights, and feminist movements, Freethinkers illuminates the neglected accomplishments of secularists who, allied with liberal and tolerant religious believers, have stood at the forefront of the battle for reforms opposed by reactionary forces in the past and today. Rich with such iconic figures as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Clarence Darrow—as well as once-famous secularists such as Robert Green Ingersoll, "the Great Agnostic"—Freethinkers restores to history generations of dedicated humanists. It is they, Jacoby shows, who have led the struggle to uphold the combination of secular government and religious liberty that is the glory of the American system.

Download or read book The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism written by Stephen P. Weldon and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of how prominent liberal intellectuals reshaped American religious and secular institutions to promote a more democratic, science-centered society. Recent polls show that a quarter of Americans claim to have no religious affiliation, identifying instead as atheists, agnostics, or "nothing in particular." A century ago, a small group of American intellectuals who dubbed themselves humanists tread this same path, turning to science as a major source of spiritual sustenance. In The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism, Stephen P. Weldon tells the fascinating story of this group as it developed over the twentieth century, following the fortunes of a few generations of radical ministers, academic philosophers, and prominent scientists who sought to replace traditional religion with a modern, liberal, scientific outlook. Weldon explores humanism through the networks of friendships and institutional relationships that underlay it, from philosophers preaching in synagogues and ministers editing articles of Nobel laureates to magicians invoking the scientific method. Examining the development of an increasingly antagonistic engagement between religious conservatives and the secular culture of the academy, Weldon explains how this conflict has shaped the discussion of science and religion in American culture. He also uncovers a less known—but equally influential—story about the conflict within humanism itself between two very different visions of science: an aspirational, democratic outlook held by the followers of John Dewey on the one hand, and a skeptical, combative view influenced by logical positivism on the other. Putting America's distinctive science talk into historical perspective, Weldon shows how events such as the Pugwash movement for nuclear disarmament, the ongoing evolution controversies, the debunking of pseudo-science, and the selection of scientists and popularizers like Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov as humanist figureheads all fit a distinctly American ethos. Weldon maintains that this secular ethos gained much of its influence by tapping into the idealism found in the American radical religious tradition that includes the deism of Thomas Paine, nineteenth-century rationalism and free thought, Protestant modernism, and most important, Unitarianism. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and a thorough study of the main humanist publications, The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism reveals a new level of detail about the personal and institutional forces that have shaped major trends in American secular culture. Significantly, the book shows why special attention to American liberal religiosity remains critical to a clear understanding of the scientific spirit in American culture.

Download or read book John Emerson Roberts written by Ellen Roberts Young and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Emerson Roberts (1853 - 1942) was a Kansas City, Missouri, success story. Arriving in 1881 as a Baptist minister, his developing ideas led him to abandon the idea of hell and become a Unitarian. Soon that became too limited for him and he decided to preach on his own as a freethinker. The local press eagerly followed his progress. While his intellectual journey was common in his generation, he was unique in creating a "Church" of freethought. His sermons and lectures show a mixture of original thinking and conventional ideas typical of his time. As an admirer of Robert Ingersoll, the nineteenth century agnostic, and a friend of Clarence Darrow, the twentieth century atheist, Roberts's career spans an era of significant change in both cultural and intellectual history. This pioneering study restores to memory the life and work of a once noted and popular religious leader, who went from Baptist pastor to Unitarian minister, and finally to an independent role in the Freethought movement. Informed by profound scholarship and a warmly humanist style, this book is a major contribution to the intellectual history of the Midwest. Fred Whitehead, author of Freethought on the American Frontier. This biography of the author's great-grandfather evokes vividly the now largely forgotten world of the heyday of liberal religion, free thought, and the urban lecture hall in an age when religion was fiercely competitive in the burgeoning cities of the Midwest. Peter Williams, Distinguished Professor of Comparative Religion and American Studies, Miami University.

Download or read book Gladstone s Influence in America written by Stephen J. Peterson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the end of the nineteenth century, William Gladstone was arguably the most popular statesman in America since Lincoln. How did a British prime minister achieve such fame in an era of troubled Anglo-American relations? And what do press reactions to Gladstone’s policies and published writings reveal about American society? Tracing Gladstone’s growing fame in the United States, beginning with his first term as prime minister in 1868 until his death in 1898, this volume focuses on periodicals of the era to illuminate how Americans responded to modern influences in religion and politics. His forays into religious controversy highlight the extent to which faith influenced the American cult of Gladstone. Coverage of Gladstone’s involvement in issues such as church disestablishment, papal infallibility, Christian orthodoxy, atheism and agnosticism, faith and science, and liberal theology reveal deepening religious and cultural rifts in American society. Gladstone’s Influence in America offers the most comprehensive picture to date of the statesman’s reputation in the United States.

Download or read book The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief written by Tom Flynn and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2007-04-30 with total page 911 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Successor to the highly acclaimed Encyclopedia of Unbelief (1985), edited by the late Gordon Stein, the New Encyclopedia of Unbelief is a comprehensive reference work on the history, beliefs, and thinking of America''s fastest growing minority: those who live without religion. All-new articles by the field''s foremost scholars describe and explain every aspect of atheism, agnosticism, secular humanism, secularism, and religious skepticism. Topics include morality without religion, unbelief in the historicity of Jesus, critiques of intelligent design theory, unbelief and sexual values, and summaries of the state of unbelief around the world.In addition to covering developments since the publication of the original edition, the New Encyclopedia of Unbelief includes a larger number of biographical entries and much-expanded coverage of the linkages between unbelief and social reform movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, including the labor movement, woman suffrage, anarchism, sex radicalism, and second-wave feminism.More than 130 respected scholars and activists worldwide served on the editorial board and over 100 authoritative contributors have written in excess of 500 entries. The distinguished advisors and contributors--philosophers, scientists, scholars, and Nobel Prize laureates--include Joe Barnhart, David Berman, Sir Hermann Bondi, Vern L. Bullough, Daniel Dennett, Taner Edis, the late Paul Edwards, Antony Flew, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Peter Hare, Van Harvey, R. Joseph Hoffmann, Susan Jacoby, Paul Kurtz, Gerd Lüdemann, Michael Martin, Kai Nielsen, Robert M. Price, Peter Singer, Victor Stenger, Ibn Warraq, George A. Wells, David Tribe, Sherwin Wine, and many others. With a foreword by evolutionary biologist and best-selling author Richard Dawkins, this unparalleled reference work provides comprehensive knowledge about unbelief in its many varieties and manifestations.

Download or read book John Emerson Roberts written by Ellen Roberts Young and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biography of a Kansas City minister who arrived in 1881 as a Baptist, became a Unitarian, and then preached on his own as a freethinker, admirer of agnostic Robert Ingersoll and friend of atheist Clarence Darrow.

Download or read book The Battle for Christian Britain written by Callum G. Brown and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exposes the mechanisms by which conservative Christianity dominated British culture during 1945-65 and their subsequent collapse.

Download or read book Fiat Flux written by William D. Lindsey and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wilson R. Bachelor was a Tennessee native who moved with his family to Franklin County, Arkansas, in 1870. A country doctor and natural philosopher, Bachelor was impelled to chronicle his life from 1870 to 1902, documenting the family's move to Arkansas, their settling a farm in Franklin County, and Bachelor's medical practice. Bachelor was an avid reader with wide-ranging interests in literature, science, nature, politics, and religion, and he became a self-professed freethinker in the 1870s. He was driven by a concept he called "fiat flux," an awareness of the "rapid flight of time" that motivated him to treat the people around him and the world itself as precious and fleeting. He wrote occasional pieces for a local newspaper, bringing his unusually enlightened perspectives to the subjects of women's rights, capital punishment, the role of religion in politics, and the domination of the American political system by economic elite in the 1890s. These essays, along with family letters and the original diary entries, are included here for an uncommon glimpse into the life of a country doctor in nineteenth-century Arkansas.

Download or read book Sex Radicals and the Quest for Women s Equality written by Joanne Ellen Passet and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Passet shows that the majority of correspondents who participated in the sex radical movement resided in the Midwest and the Great Plains states, where ideas of individual freedom and sovereignty resonated particularly strongly.".

Download or read book Free Speech Yearbook Volume 31 1993 written by Dale A. Herbeck and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this latest issue of the award-winning Free Speech Yearbook, Nadine Strossen writes on "Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Accommodating Free Speech and Gender Equality Values"; Trevor Parry-Giles discusses "Parliament, Puritans, and Protestors: The Ideological Development of the British Commitment to ‘Free Speech’"; Marouf Hasian, Jr., considers "The Rhetorical Turn in First Amendment Scholarship: A Case Study of Holmes and the ‘Marketplace of Ideas’"; Hosoon Chang investigates "The First Amendment During the Cold War: Newspaper Reaction to the Trial of the Communist Party Leaders under the Smith Act"; Linda Lumsden offers "Playing with Fire: A Legal Analysis of Cross Burning in R.A.V. v. St. Paul"; Juliet Dee presents "Heavy Metal, Rap, and the First Amendment"; Ann M. Gill writes about "Revising Campus Speech Codes"; Paul Siegel asks "Does the First Amendment Require the Legal Access Act? The Battle of the First Amendment Clauses"; and Kyu Ho Youm concludes with "Freedom of Expression and the Supreme Court: The Case of the Republic of Korea." In the first article of the resources section, Paul Siegel outlines "The Supreme Court and the First Amendment: 1991–1992." Darren Schwiebert completes this section with the "Freedom of Speech Bibliography: January 1992–December 1992." In the reviews section Richard A. Parker evaluates Revolutionary Sparks: Freedom of Expression in Modern America, by Margaret A. Blanchard; Dal M. Herring looks at Images of a Free Press, by Lee C. Bollinger; Kathleen M. Farrell critiques Metaphor and Reason in Judicial Opinions, by Haig Bosmajian; John Zelezny considers Essential Liberty: First Amendment Battles for a Free Press; Martin D. Sommerness discusses "Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.": The Story of a Landmark Libel Case, by Elmer Gertz; Peter E. Kane treats Freedom of Speech for Me—But not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other, by Nat Hentoff; Melinda D. Hawley performs a coincidental turnabout with her review of Kane’s revised edition of Murder, Courts, and the Press: Issues in Free Press/Fair Trial; Stephen A. Smith examines The Cost of Free Speech, by Simon Lee; Juliet Dee looks at Privacy as a Constitutional Right: Sex, Drugs, and the Right to Life, by Darian A. McWhirter; Nicholas F. Burnett evaluates Freedom of Speech in the United States, by Thomas L. Tedford; and Daniel Ross Chandler ends the section with his discussion of Freethought on the American Frontier, edited by Fred Whitehead and Verle Muhrer.

Download or read book There Before Us written by Lundin and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2007-01-02 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the crucial importance of religion in American life, the place of religion in literary studies continues to take a backseat to trendier academic causes. This book helps remedy this deficiency by exploring the place of faith in the lives of writers beginning with Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Download or read book Missing Links written by Jeremy Rich and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeremy Rich uses the eccentric life of R. L. Garner (1848–1920) to examine the commercial networks that brought the first apes to America during the Progressive Era, a critical time in the development of ideas about African wildlife, race, and evolution. Garner was a self-taught zoologist and atheist from southwest Virginia. Starting in 1892, he lived on and off in the French colony of Gabon, studying primates and trying to engage U.S. academics with his theories. Most prominently, Garner claimed that he could teach apes to speak human languages and that he could speak the languages of primates. Garner brought some of the first live primates to America, launching a traveling demonstration in which he claimed to communicate with a chimpanzee named Susie. He was often mocked by the increasingly professionalized scientific community, who were wary of his colorful escapades, such as his ill-fated plan to make a New York City socialite the queen of southern Gabon, and his efforts to convince Thomas Edison to finance him in Africa. Yet Garner did influence evolutionary debates, and as with many of his era, race dominated his thinking. Garner's arguments—for example, that chimpanzees were more loving than Africans, or that colonialism constituted a threat to the separation of the races—offer a fascinating perspective on the thinking and attitudes of his times. Missing Links explores the impact of colonialism on Africans, the complicated politics of buying and selling primates, and the popularization of biological racism.

Download or read book From Praha to Prague written by Philip D. Smith and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2017-10-12 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of Czechs left their homelands in Bohemia and Moravia and came to the United States. While many settled in major American cities, others headed to rural areas out west where they could claim their own land for farming. In From Praha to Prague, Philip D. Smith examines how the Czechs who founded and settled in Prague, Oklahoma, embraced the economic and cultural activities of their American hometown while maintaining their ethnic identity. According to Smith, the Czechs of Prague began as a clannish group of farmers who participated in the 1891 land run and settled in east-central Oklahoma. After the town’s incorporation in 1902, settlers from other ethnic backgrounds swiftly joined the fledgling community, and soon the original Czech immigrants found themselves in the minority. By 1930, the Prague Czechs had reached a unique cultural, social, and economic duality in their community. They strove to become reliable, patriotic citizens of their adopted country—joining churches, playing sports, and supporting the Allied effort in World War II—but they also maintained their identity as Czechs through local traditions such as participating in the Bohemian Hall society, burying their dead in the town’s Czech National Cemetery, and holding the annual Kolache Festival, a lively celebration that still draws visitors from around the world. As a result, Smith notes, succeeding generations of Prague Czechs have proudly considered themselves Czech Americans: firmly assimilated to mainstream American culture but holding to an equally strong sense of belonging to a singular ethnic group. As he analyzes the Czech experience in farm-town Oklahoma, Smith explores several intriguing questions: Was it easier or more difficult for Czechs living in a rural town to sustain their ethnic identity and culture than for Czechs living in large urban areas such as Chicago? How did the tactics used by Prague Czechs to preserve their group identity differ from those used in rural areas where immigrant populations were the majority? In addressing these and other questions, From Praha to Prague reveals the unique path that Prague Czechs took toward Americanization.

Download or read book Not in My Library written by Sanford Berman and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2013-07-30 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword by Mitch Freedman, a reprinted Counterpoise interview and 45 of Sanford Berman's U*L columns dealing with book-burning, genocide, government secrecy and repression, cataloging, indexing, classism, self-censorship and free speech for library staff (et cetera!). Index by Chris Dodge.

Download or read book Dictionary of Midwestern Literature Volume Two written by Philip A. Greasley and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-08 with total page 1074 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Midwest has produced a robust literary heritage. Its authors have won half of the nation's Nobel Prizes for Literature plus a significant number of Pulitzer Prizes. This volume explores the rich racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the region. It also contains entries on 35 pivotal Midwestern literary works, literary genres, literary, cultural, historical, and social movements, state and city literatures, literary journals and magazines, as well as entries on science fiction, film, comic strips, graphic novels, and environmental writing. Prepared by a team of scholars, this second volume of the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature is a comprehensive resource that demonstrates the Midwest's continuing cultural vitality and the stature and distinctiveness of its literature.

Download or read book Dictionary of Midwestern Literature Volume 1 written by Philip A. Greasley and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2001-05-30 with total page 980 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume One, surveys the lives and writings of nearly 400 Midwestern authors and identifies some of the most important criticism of their writings. The Dictionary is based on the belief that the literature of any region simultaneously captures the experience and influences the worldview of its people, reflecting as well as shaping the evolving sense of individual and collective identity, meaning, and values. Volume One presents individual lives and literary orientations and offers a broad survey of the Midwestern experience as expressed by its many diverse peoples over time.Philip A. Greasley's introduction fills in background information and describes the philosophy, focus, methodology, content, and layout of entries, as well as criteria for their inclusion. An extended lead-essay, "The Origins and Development of the Literature of the Midwest," by David D. Anderson, provides a historical, cultural, and literary context in which the lives and writings of individual authors can be considered.This volume is the first of an ambitious three-volume series sponsored by the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature and created by its members. Volume Two will provide similar coverage of non-author entries, such as sites, centers, movements, influences, themes, and genres. Volume Three will be a literary history of the Midwest. One goal of the series is to build understanding of the nature, importance, and influence of Midwestern writers and literature. Another is to provide information on writers from the early years of the Midwestern experience, as well as those now emerging, who are typically absent from existing reference works.