The Enlightenment and Religion

The Enlightenment and Religion PDF Author: S. J. Barnett
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719067419
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This publication offers a critical survey of religious change and its causes in 18th-century Europe. Focusing on the Enlightenment in Italy, France and England, the text illustrates how the canonical view of 18th-century religious change has in reality been constructed upon scant evidence and assumption.

The Enlightenment and Religion

The Enlightenment and Religion PDF Author: S. J. Barnett
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719067419
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book Here

Book Description
This publication offers a critical survey of religious change and its causes in 18th-century Europe. Focusing on the Enlightenment in Italy, France and England, the text illustrates how the canonical view of 18th-century religious change has in reality been constructed upon scant evidence and assumption.

The Faiths of the Founding Fathers

The Faiths of the Founding Fathers PDF Author: David L. Holmes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199740968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
It is not uncommon to hear Christians argue that America was founded as a Christian nation. But how true is this claim? In this compact book, David L. Holmes offers a clear, concise and illuminating look at the spiritual beliefs of our founding fathers. He begins with an informative account of the religious culture of the late colonial era, surveying the religious groups in each colony. In particular, he sheds light on the various forms of Deism that flourished in America, highlighting the profound influence this intellectual movement had on the founding generation. Holmes then examines the individual beliefs of a variety of men and women who loom large in our national history. He finds that some, like Martha Washington, Samuel Adams, John Jay, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson's daughters, held orthodox Christian views. But many of the most influential figures, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John and Abigail Adams, Jefferson, James and Dolley Madison, and James Monroe, were believers of a different stripe. Respectful of Christianity, they admired the ethics of Jesus, and believed that religion could play a beneficial role in society. But they tended to deny the divinity of Christ, and a few seem to have been agnostic about the very existence of God. Although the founding fathers were religious men, Holmes shows that it was a faith quite unlike the Christianity of today's evangelicals. Holmes concludes by examining the role of religion in the lives of the presidents since World War II and by reflecting on the evangelical resurgence that helped fuel the reelection of George W. Bush. An intriguing look at a neglected aspect of our history, the book will appeal to American history buffs as well as to anyone concerned about the role of religion in American culture.

Deism in Enlightenment England

Deism in Enlightenment England PDF Author: Jeffrey R Wigelsworth
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 184779730X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
This is the first complete study of English deists as a group in several decades and it argues for a new interpretation of deism in the English Enlightenment. While there have been many recent studies of the deist John Toland, the writings of other contemporary deists have been forgotten. With extensive analysis of lesser known figures such as Anthony Collins, Matthew Tindal, Thomas Chub, and Thomas Morgan, in addition to unique insights into Toland, Deism in Enlightenment England offers a much broader assessment of what deism entailed in the eighteenth century. Readers will see how previous interpretations of English deists, which place these figures on an irreligious trajectory leading towards modernity, need to be revised. This book uses deists to address a number of topics and themes and theme in English history and will be of particular interest to scholars of Enlightenment history, history of science, theology and politics, and the early modern era.

Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic

Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic PDF Author: Matthew Stewart
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393244318
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
Longlisted for the National Book Award. Where did the ideas come from that became the cornerstone of American democracy? America’s founders intended to liberate us not just from one king but from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion. Drawing deeply on the study of European philosophy, Matthew Stewart brilliantly tracks the ancient, pagan, and continental ideas from which America’s revolutionaries drew their inspiration. In the writings of Spinoza, Lucretius, and other great philosophers, Stewart recovers the true meanings of “Nature’s God,” “the pursuit of happiness,” and the radical political theory with which the American experiment in self-government began.

Did America Have a Christian Founding?

Did America Have a Christian Founding? PDF Author: Mark David Hall
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
ISBN: 1400211115
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
A distinguished professor debunks the assertion that America's Founders were deists who desired the strict separation of church and state and instead shows that their political ideas were profoundly influenced by their Christian convictions. In 2010, David Mark Hall gave a lecture at the Heritage Foundation entitled "Did America Have a Christian Founding?" His balanced and thoughtful approach to this controversial question caused a sensation. C-SPAN televised his talk, and an essay based on it has been downloaded more than 300,000 times. In this book, Hall expands upon this essay, making the airtight case that America's Founders were not deists. He explains why and how the Founders' views are absolutely relevant today, showing that they did not create a "godless" Constitution; that even Jefferson and Madison did not want a high wall separating church and state; that most Founders believed the government should encourage Christianity; and that they embraced a robust understanding of religious liberty for biblical and theological reasons. This compelling and utterly persuasive book will convince skeptics and equip believers and conservatives to defend the idea that Christian thought was crucial to the nation's founding--and that this benefits all of us, whatever our faith (or lack of faith).

Scripture and Deism

Scripture and Deism PDF Author: Diego Lucci
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039112548
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This book deals with the British deists' biblical hermeneutics, its roots, and its effects on European culture and society. Deist thinkers such as John Toland, Anthony Collins and Matthew Tindal pointed out the historical and anthropological origins of positive religions. Focusing on the human roots of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Ancient Paganism, they advocated tolerance and freedom of thought. In the context of the deists' research on the history of positive religions, the study of the Scriptures played a key role. Deists and freethinkers fought against the influence of Christian doctrine on political and social life. They denied the supernatural foundations of Christianity and of Christian institutions, and analyzed the Bible with the aim to promote the free search for truth. This book thus stresses the significance of the deists' biblical criticism for the development of Enlightenment views of religion and for the secularization of Europe.

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Thomas S. Kidd
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300228147
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
A major new biography, illuminating the great mystery of Benjamin Franklin’s faith Renowned as a printer, scientist, and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin also published more works on religious topics than any other eighteenth-century American layperson. Born to Boston Puritans, by his teenage years Franklin had abandoned the exclusive Christian faith of his family and embraced deism. But Franklin, as a man of faith, was far more complex than the “thorough deist” who emerges in his autobiography. As Thomas Kidd reveals, deist writers influenced Franklin’s beliefs, to be sure, but devout Christians in his life—including George Whitefield, the era’s greatest evangelical preacher; his parents; and his beloved sister Jane—kept him tethered to the Calvinist creed of his Puritan upbringing. Based on rigorous research into Franklin’s voluminous correspondence, essays, and almanacs, this fresh assessment of a well-known figure unpacks the contradictions and conundrums faith presented in Franklin’s life.

The English Deists

The English Deists PDF Author: Wayne Hudson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317316339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Interprets the works of an important group of writers known as 'the English deists'. This title argues that this interpretation reads Romantic conceptions of religious identity into a period in which it was lacking. It contextualizes these writers within the early Enlightenment, which was multivocal, plural and in search of self definition.

Lessing and the Enlightenment

Lessing and the Enlightenment PDF Author: Henry E. Allison
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438468032
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
A comprehensive study of Lessing’s religious thought. Although only one aspect of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s diverse oeuvre, his religious thought had a significant influence on thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and present-day liberal Protestant theologians. His thought is particularly difficult to assess, however, because it is found largely in a series of essays, reviews, critical studies, polemical writings, and commentary on theological texts. Beyond these, his correspondence, and a few fragmentary essays unpublished during his lifetime, we have his famous drama of religious toleration, Nathan the Wise, and his philosophical-historical sketch, The Education of the Human Race. In these scattered texts, Lessing challenged the full range of theological views in the Enlightenment, from Protestant orthodoxy, with its belief in Biblical inerrancy, to a radical naturalism, which rejected both the concept of a divine revelation and the historically based claims of Christianity to be one, as well as virtually everything in between. Since he refused to identify himself with any of these parties, Lessing was an enigmatic figure, and a central question from his time to today is where he stood on the issue of the truth of the Christian religion. Now back in print, and with the addition of two supplementary essays, Henry E. Allison’s book argues that, despite appearances, Lessing was not merely an eclectic thinker or intellectual provocateur, but a serious philosopher of religion, who combined a basically Spinozistic conception of God with a sophisticated pluralistic conception of religious truth inspired by Leibniz.

Voltaire on Religion: Selected Writings

Voltaire on Religion: Selected Writings PDF Author: Voltaire
Publisher: New York : F. Ungar Publishing Company
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description