Chapman Cohen

Chapman Cohen (born September 1, 1868 in Leicester , † February 4, 1954 ) was a British free thinker and writer .

Life and activity

Cohen was a son of Enoch Cohen and his wife Deborah, b. Barnett. Since he only attended school for a short time, he trained himself largely in a self-taught manner.

Cohen developed early on into a staunch atheist , which, according to his own statements, may have been due to the fact that he did not have to endure religious instruction, which was atypical of the time. After he was drawn into a public debate with a Christian preacher in London's Victoria Park in 1889 by chance , he quickly developed into a committed atheist activist: in 1890 he joined the National Secular Society (NSS), the organization of atheists in late Victorian Great Britain, a. In 1895 he was elected vice president of that organization. Two years later began Cohen then so weekly article for the journal The Freethinker contribute , in which he set out his views and justified. As a result, he quickly became one of the most prominent atheists in Great Britain.

He is often referred to in this context as the most important atheist in Great Britain in the first half of the 20th century. Cohen himself later summarized his attitude towards religion, stating that he faced it with "relaxed contempt" ("easy-going contempt").

In 1898 Cohen became a permanent editor at The Freethinker . In 1915 he was promoted to editor-in-chief of the magazine, which he remained until 1951. His atheistic stance was u. a. influenced by the reading of authors such as Spinoza , Locke , Hume , Berkeley and Plato , while his argumentation was based primarily on materialistic philosophy and the knowledge of science , especially evolutionary theory . In addition to his contributions to The Freethinker , Cohen published a large number of atheistic pamphlets and books (some of which were collections of his journal articles) in which he championed his convictions. After his death, Cohen was cremated .

marriage and family

Cohen was married with a son, Raymond, and a daughter, Daisy. The latter died early of tuberculosis .

Fonts

• Pamphlets for the People No. 1-18, Pioneer Press, London 1916.
• Almost an Autobiography: Confessions of a Freethinker , Pioneer Press, London 1940.
• Essays in Freethinking: first series. Pioneer Press, London 1923.
• Essays in Freethinking: second series , Pioneer Press, London 1927.
• Essays in Freethinking: third series , Pioneer Press, London 1928.
• Essays in Freethinking: fourth series , Pioneer Press, London 1938.
• Essays in Freethinking: fifth series , Pioneer Press, London 1939.
• Essays in Freethinking: volume one. Reprint of essays in freethinking, first and second series. Revised edition , American Atheist Press, Austin 1987.
• Essays in Freethinking: volume two. Reprint of Essays in freethinking, third and fourth series. Revised edition , American Atheist Press, Austin 1987.
• God and the Universe: Eddington, Jeans, Huxley and Einstein , Pioneer Press, London 1931.
• A Grammar of Freethought , Pioneer Press, London 1921.
• Materialism restated , Pioneer Press, 1927.
• Materialism: Has it been Exploded? , Watts & Co., London 1928.
• Opinions, Random Reflections and Wayside Sayings , Pioneer Press, London 1931.
• Religion and Sex: Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development , TN Foulis, London 1919.
• Theism or Atheism: The Great Alternative , Pioneer Press, London 1921.
• The Other Side of Death: A Critical Examination of the Belief in a Future Life, with a Study of Spiritualism , Pioneer Press, London 1922.
• War, Civilization and the Churches , Pioneer Press, London 1930.
• Determinism Or Free Will? , 1919.

literature

• David Berman: A History of Atheism in Britain, From Hobbes to Russell , Routledge, London.
• Jim Herrick: Vision and Realism: 100 years of The Freeethinker , GW Foote & Co. Ltd, London.
• Edward Royle: "Cohen, Chapman (1868–1954)", in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Matthew Stanley, "Mysticism and Marxism: AS Eddington, Chapman Cohen, and Political Engagement through Science Popularization," in: Minerva , Vol. 46 (2), pp. 181-194.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Chapman Cohen | Humanist Heritage. Retrieved April 21, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Chapman Cohen. Retrieved April 21, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Chapman Cohen. Retrieved April 21, 2020 (UK English).