docphin5
Well-known member
Annie Besant (1847-1943) was an atheist who evolved into a very active, humanistic, spiritual advocate for women’s rights and social causes. She might serve as an example for atheists wanting to explore a spiritual side of themselves. She did it by basically rising above sectarian religion and discovered the common ethical thread within all religions.
Here are some of her more well known quotes from the following link.Quotes by Annie Besant. I think the last one is directed at her fellow atheists.
“I was a wife and mother, blameless in moral life, with a deep sense of duty and a proud self-respect; it was while I was this that doubt struck me, and while I was in the guarded circle of the home, with no dream of outside work or outside liberty, that I lost all faith in Christianity.”
“No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism.” [probably as an alternative to Christian orthodoxy, the dominant religion in England at the time.]
“Theosophy has no code of morals, being itself the embodiment of the highest morality; it presents to its students the highest moral teachings of all religions, gathering the most fragrant blossoms from the gardens of the world-faiths.”
[This ^^^^ sounds similar to Paul’s exhortation to his fellow Jews that we are no longer under the Mosaic Law (a code of supposed morals) for we now live by the Spirit within us manifest as virtues (Gal 5:22). BTW, Paul’s ethics and faith were universal in scope, iow, for all humanity: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28)]
“Man is a spiritual intelligence, who has taken flesh with the object of gaining experience in worlds below the spiritual, in order that he may be able to master and to rule them, and in later ages take his place in the creative and directing hierarchies of the universe.”
“Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.”
Here are some of her more well known quotes from the following link.Quotes by Annie Besant. I think the last one is directed at her fellow atheists.
“I was a wife and mother, blameless in moral life, with a deep sense of duty and a proud self-respect; it was while I was this that doubt struck me, and while I was in the guarded circle of the home, with no dream of outside work or outside liberty, that I lost all faith in Christianity.”
“No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism.” [probably as an alternative to Christian orthodoxy, the dominant religion in England at the time.]
“Theosophy has no code of morals, being itself the embodiment of the highest morality; it presents to its students the highest moral teachings of all religions, gathering the most fragrant blossoms from the gardens of the world-faiths.”
[This ^^^^ sounds similar to Paul’s exhortation to his fellow Jews that we are no longer under the Mosaic Law (a code of supposed morals) for we now live by the Spirit within us manifest as virtues (Gal 5:22). BTW, Paul’s ethics and faith were universal in scope, iow, for all humanity: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28)]
“Man is a spiritual intelligence, who has taken flesh with the object of gaining experience in worlds below the spiritual, in order that he may be able to master and to rule them, and in later ages take his place in the creative and directing hierarchies of the universe.”
“Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.”
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