An interesting glimpse in to secular history by Nathan Alexander. Another secular leader who experimented with alternatives to religion was Robert Owen (1771-1858), the Welsh socialist. Owen wanted to overthrow all religions since he saw them as the chief impediment to establishing a utopian society based on a new view of human nature. As part of his utopian movement, he established Halls of Science in a number of cities in the United Kingdom where services were held each Sunday. These services included sermons on ethical or philosophical issues and hymns on virtues that Owen saw as essential for the functioning of his socialist communities, like temperance, liberty, and benevolence. Owen’s antireligious ideas influenced the British Secularist movement, led by George Holyoake (1817-1906) and later by Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891). When members of the Secularist movement expressed a desire for greater community, Holyoake adopted secular hymn books and ritual observances of marriages and burials, partially as a way to bring women and families into the fold. Bradlaugh, on the other hand, saw the movement as purely political in nature and rejected any attempts to ape religion, although his status as one of the leading atheists in Britain meant he was asked (and he reluctantly agreed) to perform many roles, like officiating at marriages, that were traditionally the jurisdiction of priests. Holyoake and Bradlaugh also clashed over the role moderate religious people should play in their movement. Holyoake maintained that the only way the movement could grow was to admit non-atheists, but Bradlaugh argued that there could be no compromise, since the aim of the movement, as he saw it, was the total elimination of Christianity. The friction between Bradlaugh and Holyoake led to the formation of rival groups, though the National Secular Society, founded by Bradlaugh, has continued up until the present.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:20:35 +0000