though we tend to think of atheists as
not only unbelieving but also hostile to
religion we should remember a tradition
of atheistic thinkers who’ve tried to
reconcile a suspicion of the
supernatural side of religion with a
deep sympathy for and interest in its
ritualistic aspects the most important
and inspirational of these was the
visionary eccentric and only
intermittently sane French 19th century
sociologist Auguste Comte court was born
into a strict Catholic family in
multiple year in southern France in 1798
as a young man he received a highly
progressive education and became
obsessed with the idea of building a new
kind of france based around science and
republicanism his family violently
disagreed and broke off relations with
him
so he went to live in Paris where he
became a student of and later secretary
to the utopian thinker or Hadassah
Seymour but court had a quarrelsome
nature and fell out with Sasi more
failed to get a university post and for
the rest of his life maintained a
precarious existence writing dense often
unreadable works about the reform of
humanity he was not entirely sane and
spent long periods in asylums and in
1827 attempted suicide by jumping off
the poor desire in Paris in 1844 he fell
deeply in love with a married woman
called Clotilde for though the
relationship was never consummated after
her premature death court made his love
for Clothilde into one of the center
pieces of his thinking on religion
though a deeply eccentric man Court did
manage to gain the trust and interest of
the important British philosopher John
Stuart Mill who admired his efforts
around religion and helped court to be
better known in Britain chords thinking
on religion had as its starting point a
characteristically blunt observation
that in the modern world thanks to the
discoveries of science it would no
longer be possible for anyone
intelligent to believe in God faith
would henceforth be limited to the
uneducated the fanatical women children
and those in the final months of
incurable diseases at the same time
quaint
recognized as many of his more rational
contemporaries did not that a secular
society devoted just to financial
accumulation and romantic love and
devoid of any sources of consolation
transcendent or or solidarity would be
prey to some untenable social and
emotional ills call solution was neither
to cling blindly to sacred traditions
nor to cast them collectively in
belligerently aside but rather to pick
out their more relevant and secular
aspects and fuse them together with
certain insights drawn from philosophy
art and science the result the outcome
of decades of thought and the summit of
courts intellectual achievement was a
new religion a religion for atheists or
as courts termed it a religion of
humanity an original creed expressly
tailored to the emotional and
intellectual demands of modern men and
women rather than the inhabitants of
Judea or northern India in 400 BC court
presented his new religion in two
volumes the summary exposition of the
universal religion and the theory of the
future of man he observed the
traditional faiths tended to cement
their authority by providing people with
daily and even hourly schedules of who
or what to think about rotors typically
pegged to the commemoration of a holy
individual or supernatural incident so
Court announced a calendar of his own
animated by pantheon of secular heroes
and ideas in the religion of humanity
every month was to be devoted to the
honouring of an important field of
endeavor for example marriage Parenthood
art science agriculture and every day to
an individual who had made a valuable
contribution within these categories
Court was impressed by the way that
traditional religions had disseminated
moral guidance for example dictating
principles for how to conduct oneself in
a marriage or fulfill one’s duties to
the community and he lamented that
modern liberal governments in their
desire to prove inoffensive to all
constituencies had settled on merely
offering factual instruction for letting
people out into the world to destroy
themselves and others through their ego
ISM and self ignorant
therefore in courts religion of humanity
there would be classes and sermons to
help inspire one to be kind spouses
patient with one’s colleagues and
compassionate towards the unfortunate
court also recognized how badly we all
need consolation and proposed that his
girlfriend Clothilde take the function
previously accorded within Catholicism
to the Virgin Mary portraits of
Clothilde were to be placed everywhere
in the new religion and when one was
down one was invited to share one
sorrows and weep in front of this vision
of kindness and sympathy because court
appreciated the role that architecture
had once played in bolstering the claims
of traditional religion he proposed the
construction of a network of secular
churches or as he called them temples
for Humanity he suggested that each one
be paid for by a banker whose bust would
appear above the door in recognition of
his generosity rather than resenting
bankers court thought it was wiser to
coax them into supporting good causes
inside the temples of humanity there
would be lectures singing celebrations
and public discussions while around the
walls sumptuous works of art would
commemorate the greatest moments and
finest men and women of history finally
above the west-facing stage there would
be a large aphorism written in golden
letters invoking the congregation to
adopt the essence of Court’s
philosophical religious worldview his
statement Kanaka port emilio a know
yourself to improve yourself
regrettably Kant’s complex thought
provoking an often deranged project was
felled by a host of practical obstacles
ridiculed by both atheists and believers
ignored by public opinion devoid of
funds court fell into despair and
self-pity he took to writing long and
frightening letters in defense of his
scheme to monarchs and industrialists
across Europe including Louie Napoleon
Queen Victoria the Crown Prince of
Denmark 300 bankers and the head of the
parish sewage system but few offered
money let alone replies without seeing
any risk proposals take hold court died
at the age of 59 in 1857 nevertheless
like Jesus court was well served by his
followers and in the decades after his
death his religion made some notable
advances
a Chappell do Luminita was opened at
Sark cudapah yen in Paris where it still
stands to this day and became a
well-known venue for secular baptisms
funeral services weddings and sermons
course religion crossed the channel
where it acquired 5000 adherents led
with rare energy by a former Oxford dawn
in 1878 with the help of a legacy from
an aunt this dawn opened the Church of
humanity in lam conduit Street in London
where secular services were held every
morning course religion had even greater
success in Brazil where it was put into
practice by some students that Cantor
taught in Paris in the 1840s a templo de
humanidad a opened in Rio in 1890 and
others followed in Sao Paulo and
Curitiba unfortunately infighting among
the leadership connected to doctrinal
squabbles about the place of Western
authors in their liturgy meant that the
movement failed to grow into a truly
popular religion and yet it acquired a
small and permanent place in Brazil
spiritual life to this day every Sunday
morning in Rio de Janeiro at 74 rua
benjamin Costa audiences who make up an
intensity what they lack for in numbers
arrived at the templo de humanidad a to
draw sustenance from the teachings of a
Parisian sociologists unusual secular
religion whatever its shortcomings
chords religion is hard to dismiss
entirely for it identified a psychic
space in atheistic society which
continues to lie fallow and to invite
resolution courts work was an attempt to
rescue some of what is beautiful
touching reasonable and wise from what
no longer seems true for these reasons and more it remains extremely timely
not only unbelieving but also hostile to
religion we should remember a tradition
of atheistic thinkers who’ve tried to
reconcile a suspicion of the
supernatural side of religion with a
deep sympathy for and interest in its
ritualistic aspects the most important
and inspirational of these was the
visionary eccentric and only
intermittently sane French 19th century
sociologist Auguste Comte court was born
into a strict Catholic family in
multiple year in southern France in 1798
as a young man he received a highly
progressive education and became
obsessed with the idea of building a new
kind of france based around science and
republicanism his family violently
disagreed and broke off relations with
him
so he went to live in Paris where he
became a student of and later secretary
to the utopian thinker or Hadassah
Seymour but court had a quarrelsome
nature and fell out with Sasi more
failed to get a university post and for
the rest of his life maintained a
precarious existence writing dense often
unreadable works about the reform of
humanity he was not entirely sane and
spent long periods in asylums and in
1827 attempted suicide by jumping off
the poor desire in Paris in 1844 he fell
deeply in love with a married woman
called Clotilde for though the
relationship was never consummated after
her premature death court made his love
for Clothilde into one of the center
pieces of his thinking on religion
though a deeply eccentric man Court did
manage to gain the trust and interest of
the important British philosopher John
Stuart Mill who admired his efforts
around religion and helped court to be
better known in Britain chords thinking
on religion had as its starting point a
characteristically blunt observation
that in the modern world thanks to the
discoveries of science it would no
longer be possible for anyone
intelligent to believe in God faith
would henceforth be limited to the
uneducated the fanatical women children
and those in the final months of
incurable diseases at the same time
quaint
recognized as many of his more rational
contemporaries did not that a secular
society devoted just to financial
accumulation and romantic love and
devoid of any sources of consolation
transcendent or or solidarity would be
prey to some untenable social and
emotional ills call solution was neither
to cling blindly to sacred traditions
nor to cast them collectively in
belligerently aside but rather to pick
out their more relevant and secular
aspects and fuse them together with
certain insights drawn from philosophy
art and science the result the outcome
of decades of thought and the summit of
courts intellectual achievement was a
new religion a religion for atheists or
as courts termed it a religion of
humanity an original creed expressly
tailored to the emotional and
intellectual demands of modern men and
women rather than the inhabitants of
Judea or northern India in 400 BC court
presented his new religion in two
volumes the summary exposition of the
universal religion and the theory of the
future of man he observed the
traditional faiths tended to cement
their authority by providing people with
daily and even hourly schedules of who
or what to think about rotors typically
pegged to the commemoration of a holy
individual or supernatural incident so
Court announced a calendar of his own
animated by pantheon of secular heroes
and ideas in the religion of humanity
every month was to be devoted to the
honouring of an important field of
endeavor for example marriage Parenthood
art science agriculture and every day to
an individual who had made a valuable
contribution within these categories
Court was impressed by the way that
traditional religions had disseminated
moral guidance for example dictating
principles for how to conduct oneself in
a marriage or fulfill one’s duties to
the community and he lamented that
modern liberal governments in their
desire to prove inoffensive to all
constituencies had settled on merely
offering factual instruction for letting
people out into the world to destroy
themselves and others through their ego
ISM and self ignorant
therefore in courts religion of humanity
there would be classes and sermons to
help inspire one to be kind spouses
patient with one’s colleagues and
compassionate towards the unfortunate
court also recognized how badly we all
need consolation and proposed that his
girlfriend Clothilde take the function
previously accorded within Catholicism
to the Virgin Mary portraits of
Clothilde were to be placed everywhere
in the new religion and when one was
down one was invited to share one
sorrows and weep in front of this vision
of kindness and sympathy because court
appreciated the role that architecture
had once played in bolstering the claims
of traditional religion he proposed the
construction of a network of secular
churches or as he called them temples
for Humanity he suggested that each one
be paid for by a banker whose bust would
appear above the door in recognition of
his generosity rather than resenting
bankers court thought it was wiser to
coax them into supporting good causes
inside the temples of humanity there
would be lectures singing celebrations
and public discussions while around the
walls sumptuous works of art would
commemorate the greatest moments and
finest men and women of history finally
above the west-facing stage there would
be a large aphorism written in golden
letters invoking the congregation to
adopt the essence of Court’s
philosophical religious worldview his
statement Kanaka port emilio a know
yourself to improve yourself
regrettably Kant’s complex thought
provoking an often deranged project was
felled by a host of practical obstacles
ridiculed by both atheists and believers
ignored by public opinion devoid of
funds court fell into despair and
self-pity he took to writing long and
frightening letters in defense of his
scheme to monarchs and industrialists
across Europe including Louie Napoleon
Queen Victoria the Crown Prince of
Denmark 300 bankers and the head of the
parish sewage system but few offered
money let alone replies without seeing
any risk proposals take hold court died
at the age of 59 in 1857 nevertheless
like Jesus court was well served by his
followers and in the decades after his
death his religion made some notable
advances
a Chappell do Luminita was opened at
Sark cudapah yen in Paris where it still
stands to this day and became a
well-known venue for secular baptisms
funeral services weddings and sermons
course religion crossed the channel
where it acquired 5000 adherents led
with rare energy by a former Oxford dawn
in 1878 with the help of a legacy from
an aunt this dawn opened the Church of
humanity in lam conduit Street in London
where secular services were held every
morning course religion had even greater
success in Brazil where it was put into
practice by some students that Cantor
taught in Paris in the 1840s a templo de
humanidad a opened in Rio in 1890 and
others followed in Sao Paulo and
Curitiba unfortunately infighting among
the leadership connected to doctrinal
squabbles about the place of Western
authors in their liturgy meant that the
movement failed to grow into a truly
popular religion and yet it acquired a
small and permanent place in Brazil
spiritual life to this day every Sunday
morning in Rio de Janeiro at 74 rua
benjamin Costa audiences who make up an
intensity what they lack for in numbers
arrived at the templo de humanidad a to
draw sustenance from the teachings of a
Parisian sociologists unusual secular
religion whatever its shortcomings
chords religion is hard to dismiss
entirely for it identified a psychic
space in atheistic society which
continues to lie fallow and to invite
resolution courts work was an attempt to
rescue some of what is beautiful
touching reasonable and wise from what
no longer seems true for these reasons and more it remains extremely timely
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