An Atheist Manifesto
by Joseph Lewis
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An Atheist Manifesto - By Joseph Lewis. Joseph Lewis (June 11, 1889 - 1968) was an American freethinker and atheist activist, publisher, and litigator. During the mid-twentieth century, he was one of America's most conspicuous public atheists, the other being Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. Born in Montgomery, Alabama to a Jewish family, he was forced by poverty to leave school at the age of nine to find employment. He read avidly, becoming self-educated. Lewis developed his ideas from reading, show more among others, Robert G. Ingersoll, whose published works made him aware of Thomas Paine. He later credited Paine's Age of Reason with helping him leave theism. Lewis maintained rigid control over the Freethinkers of America, leading several honorary vice presidents to resign in frustration. After his death on November 4, 1968, the organization foundered. "It had become too much an extension of Lewis himself," wrote Robert Morrell. The mid twentieth century - specifically, the period from George MacDonald's retirement as editor of The Truth Seeker in 1937 until the rise of Madalyn Murray O'Hair in 1963 - was a fallow period in American freethought. Lewis and Haldeman-Julius were essentially the only nationally visible public atheists of this period, and of those two, only Lewis was prominent not only as a publisher but as an activist. As for O'Hair, her rise to prominence was occasioned by her unexpected victory in a U. S. Supreme Court church-state case, one much like the lawsuits Lewis had repeatedly brought to far more modest success. Lewis played an important role as a bridging figure between the Golden Age of Freethought and the reappearance of atheism on the public stage in the 1960s. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Mostly a little blue book, short and easy to read. Much of the ground is familiar, but the work is well written and passionate. It's very interesting to read these works from the pre-Boomer generation, and realize that they sound nearly identical in idea, content, and form to the books written by the so-called "New Atheists" today. If this author were alive today, no doubt he would be given the modifier of "militant", though the work is anything but militant in tone or creed. It is, in fact, calling for a much kinder, gentler world. Overall, not a bad read, and only takes about an hour.
A powerful indictment of religion--Christianity in particular--but not written in a way that is likely to convert a believer to the truth.
The author just has an axe to grind against Christianity. This offers no intellectual insight into atheism at all. The alleged facts and quotes the author throws out are not documented, therefore bear no weight to me at all.
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Atheism, humanism, freethought, &c. — Best nonfiction books in favour of
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13 Works 161 Members
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- Members
- 37
- Popularity
- 778,142
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.43)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 6
