Religion of positivism

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Auguste Comte

The religion of positivism (French. Religion de l'Humanité , Portuguese . Religião da Humanidade , English. Religion of Humanity ) was a secular religion created by Auguste Comte (1798–1857), the founder of positivist philosophy in the mid-19th century. which should go beyond all known atheistic basic positions. Followers of this religion built temples to mankind in France , Great Britain , Brazil and Romania .

history

Comte created the positivist world religion in order to strengthen the cohesion of positivist societies, to offer an alternative to the rites, rituals and liturgies of traditional religious communities and to give his world and values ​​a spiritual basis.

In 1849 he developed the positivist calendar and advocated calendar reform . His calendar is still used today by Comte supporters.

Church of Humanity

Paris

France

The Positivist Church is an atheist, positivist church based on the concept of the “religion of humanity”.

The congregation in Comte's native France remained small, but was inspired by the rise of the Church of Humanity in England.

Great Britain and Ireland

Richard Congreve , a member of the London Positivist Society , co-founded the Church of England in 1878.

Although relatively small in membership, the Church had several distinguished members and alumni. Anna Haycraft grew up on the ideas of the Church of Humanity, but later converted to Catholicism.

United States

In 1854 the New York congregation was founded by the English immigrant Henry Edger , who wanted to devote himself to a "positive faith".

From 1869, David Goodman Croly was a senior member of the ward. Croly believed strongly in the religious element of Comtism , but his missionary attempts mostly failed. David Croly's son Herbert Croly (1869–1930) was raised in the Church of Humanity and baptized in New York.

In the 1870s the positivist movement in the USA led to a secession from the English mother church. The American Church continued to be atheistically oriented like its English model, but introduced sermons, readings from the book of Isaiah and sacraments into the liturgy. The American congregation was not as important as the Church in England, but it had several educated members.

Brazil

On May 11, 1881, Miguel Lemos and Raimundo Teixeira Mendes founded the Igreja Positivista do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro.

Porto Alegre

Temple of humanity

Significant members

  • Anna Haycraft (1932-2005) was an English writer who grew up with the ideas of the Church of Humanity, but later converted to Catholicism.
  • Richard Congreve (1818–1899) was a co-founder of the English Church in 1878
  • Henry Edger was the founder of the New York Congregation (1854)
  • David Goodman Croly (1829–1889) was a senior member of the New York ward from 1869
  • Herbert Croly (1869–1930) was the son of David Croly and was raised in the Church of Humanity and baptized in New York.

reviews

  • John Kells Ingram , a follower of Comte, devoted the second chapter of his volume of poetry to the Religion of Humanity, Sonnets and Other Poems .
  • John Stuart Mill insisted on a distinction between the early and the late Comte, when Mill, himself an author in the field of logic, the early Comte, the Comte of The Course in Positive Philosophy , could advocate his epistemological clarifications. The late Comte, on the other hand, was re-analyzed as a Frenchman who had a typical tendency to systematize (instead of liberal English pragmatism), and who also fell into a kind of moral coercive regime - for personal autobiographical reasons. He rejected the prayer practice suggested by Comte as irrational: “… as near an approach to actual hallucination, as is consistent with sanity.” Comte's moralism acquired pathological traits in this analysis: “M. Comte is a morality-intoxicated man "

literature

  • Raquel Capurro : Le positivisme est un culte des morts: Auguste Comte. Epel, 1998
  • Walter Dussauze : Essai sur la religion d'après Auguste Comte. L'Harmattan, 2007
  • Henri de Lubac : Le Drame de l'Humanisme athée.
  • John Edwin McGee : A Crusade for Humanity: The History of Organized Positivism in England.
  • Allen C. Guelzo : For the Union of Evangelical Christendom: The Irony of the Reformed. (Chapter 2)
  • Denis G. Paz : Nineteenth-century English Religious Traditions: Retrospect and Prospect.
  • André Thérive : Clotilde de Vaux ou La déesse morte. Albin Michel, 1957.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Où peut-on visiter un temple positivist? . Retrieved February 3, 2011.
  2. ^ France at positivists.org . Retrieved June 17, 2015.
  3. ^ Homepage of the Church of Humanity (Brazil) ( Memento of November 5, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ Denis G. Paz: Nineteenth-century English Religious Traditions: Retrospect and Prospect
  5. ↑ Allen C. Guelzo: For the Union of Evangelical Christendom - (Chapter 2: "The Church of Humanity)
  6. ^ The Church of Humanity: New York's Worshiping Positivists American Society of Church History
  7. ↑ John Kells Ingram, Sonnets and Other Poems (1900) ( Memento from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ John Stuart Mill on Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity (1865), 2/2 John Stuart Mill on Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity (2/2) ( Memento April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), on positivists.org
  9. ^ John Stuart Mill on Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity (1865), 1/2 Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity | by John Stuart Mill , on positivists.org