John M. Robertson
John Mackinnon Robertson (November 14, 1856 to January 5, 1933) was a Scottish writer, scholar and self-taught journalist and politician, defender of secularism and rationalism.
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Debut
John Mackinnon Robertson was born on 14 November 1856 , at Brodick , on the Scottish island of Arran . These jobs do not prevent it, great self-taught, being a voracious reader . He plans to make the literature and is formed independently for this purpose A free-thinker Thus, the same year, joined Robertson in Edinburgh ( Scotland ), the Edinburgh Evening News team, as one of the lead authors , . But he becomes a free-thinker accomplished through a conference on Giordano Bruno delivered at Edinburgh in September 1878 . He then actively approaching the Edinburg Secular Society , the local branch of the National Secular Society and becomes leader of a group of young supporters dedicated to the defense of secularism . From 1883 , Robertson produced regular contributions for the National Reformer, the official organ of the National Secular Society which Charles Bradlaugh was then the editor . From the perspective of philosophical and sociological, Robertson is influenced by the British historian Henry Thomas Buckle , to whom he dedicated a book in 1895 . Following him, Robertson believes that the gradual spread of knowledge and reason can participate in the development of a better world . He said the discovery of the laws of evolution by Charles Darwin is one of the greatest contributions to the knowledge of his time. Taking into account developments may allow, for its explanatory potential, alleviate religious beliefs. Darwin has shown, on Robertson, the "natural" evolution. This trend can and should be stimulated but never forced. This explains that Robertson can not adhere to ideologies revolutionaries of socialism and Marxism , or the theory of Thomas Carlyle that civilization advance of crises and sudden bursts, under the influence of "great men". With this in mind that Robertson remains faithful to the liberal creed continuously . Robertson has always defended the "gospel" of consistency. For him, consistency in reasoning is the ultimate test of truth, the primary rule of intellectual life. Thus, he considers that too religious minds do not meet the necessary intellectual coherence: they apply a number of rules for their intellectual and religious thought also argue quite differently. This can be, for Robertson, a serious impediment to the progress of society . According to Robert T. And William P. Nash Gramm JM Robertson is a underconsumptionist , that is to say, a supporter of the theory that recessions and economic stagnation due to inadequate consumption relative to production. He is a philosopher pre- Keynesian who explicitly stated, since 1892 , the "paradox of thrift" that "if a company tries to save more, its total expenditure will decrease, causing the balance and real output to decline as well. When production and incomes are reduced, the company is not able to save more, just an equivalent amount (if any) " . Thus, after demonstrating that the unemployment resulting in affluent societies , a tendency towards savings too high in relation to investments , Robertson said that either the principle of parsimony is generally abandoned, and the majority of the population demands for goods and services of high quality, either the State or communities launch major public works, which has the effect to work on a massive scale and train a workforce with no experience . Robertson also opposed the reduction of public debt , a policy which he says reduces power consumption and rise in unemployment . Finally, Robertson, unlike the British economist, and socialist reformer Sidney Webb , believes that a pension system encourages consumption of workers and thus prevent the paralysis of production due to the decrease in demand . Become more politically radical in the years 1880 and 1890, Robertson reports to Parliament in 1895 under the label of "radical liberal independent", but failed to regain the former headquarters of Charles Bradlaugh in Northampton. From 1906 to 1918, he represents Tyneside , Greater North-East of England , as a Liberal member of Parliament of United Kingdom , . He is a member of the National Liberal Club , founded in 1882 to provide all the services a club in London can offer activists Liberal Party in the British context of a broader electorate. JM Robertson participates in the 25 October 1911 to 1915 the Liberal government of Prime Minister UK, Herbert Henry Asquith , as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. Robertson and the Member of Parliament to assist the Board of Trade and its President. Around 1900 , Robertson started to study the evolution of religions, especially Christianity , in its sociological aspect. It assumes that there is a general law of evolution of religions. Only the environment and social circumstances make them different. The new gods appear, delete old son and are generally referred to their predecessors. This is the case of the Israelite religion: the polytheism is still apparent under the veneer of monotheism. Robertson is one of his opponent in the person of Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare , British orientalist, professor of theology at the University of Oxford and member of the University College , who published in 1914 , a book entitled The Historical Christ to bring the conflict to JM Robertson and Arthur Drews. In literature, JM Roberstson is on, Shakespeare 's tireless advocate of the school of "disintegration" new theory that "Shakespeare would have written that part of the work traditionally ascribed to him, the other party, about half being due to contemporary playwrights, and consisting of interpolated passages that are distributed to new, re-assigned to their respective owners. He protested against the "folioltres", that is to say, against those who still believe that the Folio of 1623 contains the authentic work of the great actor-poet died seven years ago " . According to Georges Connes, in this area, "JM Robertson, who just passed away before he, alas! completed his Canon, is the kind of freelance, amateur, directories of the future will call it maybe a polygraph " . However, according to Jack L. Brammer, Thomas Stearns Eliot , poet, playwright, literary critic and U.S. naturalized British recognized that JM Robertson was for him a source of inspiration and materials for his own critical methodology . "Both writers were of significant figures in the evolution factors of literary theory with respect to the empirical science " . On the other hand, according to Arthur Maltby JM Robertson, through its analytical approach to the literary style and mannerisms of Shakespeare , has contributed to the techniques of information science today. He had particularly high capacity for extracting information related to continuous learning throughout their lives. JM Robertson died in 1933. Jacky L. Brammer said that he was a polymath autodidact. He read, wrote and spoke passionately in many areas: economics, journalism, humanism, rationalism, progressivism, liberalism, sociology, religion, literature. He spoke six languages, wrote over a hundred books, memoirs and letters, and thousands of articles (no definitive bibliography of his work still exists) . Robertson has spent much of his writings in the fight against militarism , the protectionism that he believed linked to imperialism , against the selfishness of the wealthy classes he identified with the Toryism and cons of all beliefs relgieuses . He 'never been rich and has often approached poverty, but he managed to build a library of over 20,000 volumes . 
In fall 1884 , free-thinking feminist and socialist Annie Besant , then the closest associate of Bradlaugh, convinces Robertson of moving to London ( England ) to become deputy editor of the National Reformer. Robertson then quickly integrates progressive circles in London. Close friend of the Irish playwright Bernard Shaw , it resembles a time of Fabian , socialist intellectual movement, but ultimately remains faithful to the type of liberalism radical , English meaning, championed by Charles Bradlaugh . In 1887 , Robertson wrote a pamphlet, "Why Preserve The Monarchy" ("Why keep the monarchy") in which he proposes to abolish the kingly office, arguing that it is a "great-making machine and snobs and sycophants " . He also writes articles in the form of advocacy of birth control . Robertson succeeds Charles Bradlaugh , when the latter died in 1891. The influence of the reform has already begun to decline. Robertson continued the same editorial policy as Bradlaugh. But the number of subscribers declines, leading to fears the end of the publication .
The year 1892 is, for Robertson, a year of change: first, he married at the age of thirty-six , an American of Iowa which he had a daughter , and second, he retired executive of the National Secular Society , disagreed with the use of funds allocated to the memorial of Charles Bradlaugh . In May 1893 , he officially left the Society after the Annual Conference approved the decision of the executive, the source of disagreement . On 1 October the same year, the National Reformer released their latest issue. Robertson wants a review of best quality, is already at the direction of the magazine which appears to View Free London from this moment . He stayed for two years until September 1895 , publishing the first four volumes and taking advantage of this time to advance the debate around progressive issues, social, political or religious neglected, even despised, by the established views .
In 1897 and 1898 , Robertson makes a very successful lecture tour in the United States of America . That same year 1898 , accompanied by George William Foote , Founder of The Freethinker, George Holyoake , the inventor of the word secularism and Charles Watts, Robertson cooperates with Bernard Shaw , the socialist politician Henry Hyndman and other supporters of secularism , in a "Committee for the Defence of the free press" created to protest against the continued Bedborough George, secretary of the "Legitimation League. This league was founded in 1893 in Leeds , northern England, to advocate for equal rights of illegitimate children. But in 1897 , the league focusing more on its action in defense of the free love and the abolition of the marriage treaty. A magazine, The Adult, subtitled The Journal of Sex, was launched in June this year to support the themes of freedom of the woman from her husband's divorce by mutual consent, education Child sexual. Bedborough was continued, first for selling a book by British physician and sexologist Henry Havelock Ellis and secondly, because we suspected the League to provide refuge for anarchists . Finally, and to the chagrin of his defense committee, Bedborough pleads guilty to escape imprisonment .
In 1899 , Robertson delivered at four points in The Reformer, against the war: "1. I am of the opinion that war between civilized nations is nothing but an abuse committed by the policy, given the current state of moral and social science; a) (...). b) Is business because more and more it favors the interests of professional military classes, as well as a fraction of the commercial classes, which provides the materials of war. (...) 3 The most obvious problem would be proportional disarmament (...). 4 a) I think that an international committee, (...) could shortly come to discuss projects for the practical solution of the question (...). b) In all countries, it would be important that the friends of peace agitated to obtain it is given in textbooks teaching rational about war, patriotism and military power. In almost all countries, the spirit in which history is taught to children is absolutely barbaric " .
In 1910 , Robertson founded with Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, the widow of Charles Bradlaugh , the Rationalist Peace Society . Its purpose is to "protest against the ideas and methods that are absolutely opposed to reason and the interests of social progress" in a context of growing controversy about the war, just before the First World War. Concurrently, from 1910 to 1921 , Robertson is president of the Rational Press Association . Robertson continues its efforts to free-thinker , giving lectures, 1899 to 1920 , paid by the South Place Ethical Society , an organization of free-thinking . He is president, the first time in 1920 , the National Liberal Federation , union associations liberal English and Scottish, and again from 1921 to 1923 . Robertson is also member of the Rainbow Circle , a major radical discussion group, appeared in 1893 in London and composed of Liberals, Fabians and socialists . A philosopher
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A politician
Robertson, despite his earlier pacifism and supported by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, in favor of the war, grateful, however, that Britain and other major powers have certainly made mistakes through action or omission. Following this line, Robertson and Bonner publish, in 1916 , a statement on behalf of the Committee of the Rationalist Peace Society in which they reject pacifism absolute claim that "moral appeals" are ineffective against the "ruthless barbarians" and that there are just wars, including wars of defense and independence . In August 1918 , during debates in the House of Commons , Robertson stated categorically that any peace is not possible before the militarism German was shot down: "Disarmament, general must be the consequence of the war, but we can not disarm until we get not the disarmament of Germany. Peace recommended by Lord Lansdowne has no meaning other than to bring us back to status quo ante bellum, leaving Germany in a position to continue its military organization, and all other countries bending under the burden of conscription . Precisely because I have been a pacifist all my life that I condemn the policy of pacifism : the German government will never accept disarmament before it is forced ny " . A critique of Christianity
On occasion, the gods abandoned resurface, particularly under the influence of culture hellnico-Roman. Jeshua or Jesus, the successor of Moses in the Old Testament was, according to this model, a sun god Ephraimite prior to that they worshiped in the form of lamb (the ram of the zodiac ). The Passover and circumcision are related to the god that can be related to Tammuz Babylonian and the Adonis of Syria. The common meal with twelve guests was an element of worship, as is the case in the cult of the Persian god Mithras or Thracian-Greek god Dionysus.
Further back still, the old Joshua was a deity of vegetation. It is called "Nezer" or "tsemach" in the Old Testament, that is to say the twig, branch. The sect Nazoreans is named after him. Each fall, Joshua died, and every spring, he revives. An old Persian tradition called the "son of Mirijam. He is also linked to the old tradition of ascetic or Nazirites Nazarites. In any case, Joshua, Jesus has nothing to do with the city of Nazareth , was allegedly called Nazareten. Saint Paul does not know Jesus, but the dark figure of a crucified man.
Concerning the formation of the sect, Robertson admits a possible influence of Jesus son of Panda, quoted by the Talmud, a Jewish preacher heterodox at the time of Alexander Jannaeus , who was stoned in Asia Minor on the eve of Passover and possible founder of the sect of Essenes. But the Jesus of the Gospels must be regarded as a myth in the sense of Robertson, is to tell the naturalistic sense.
The Gospels are more or less an extension of one of the many mystery cults spread throughout the world Hellenistic , like that of Osiris , Tammuz , Adonis , Attis and Dionysus , in connection with the offerings of the fall and spring. One can, for example, see Judas Iscariot 's character embodies the Jewish people in one of those theatrical dramas of mystery cults. In the eyes of the beholder, and later, the narrator, Judas becomes "the" traitor.
The existing ground parts of the Passion , performed by local churches, shows just how dramatic representation of the faith has been widespread and influential on how people understand religion. Paul himself had to be an actor from one of these representations of parts mystery, considering the claim that it bears the marks of Christ.
Since all the features biographical Jesus of the Gospels correspond to elements from mythology, it is unnecessary to assume a historical Jesus. The so-called Jesus come from a mixture of Jewish and pagan doctrines. This also applies to the Sermon on the Mount which is a compound of aphorisms Jews put into the mouth of Christ.
The Gospels have several layers generational. For Robertson, the Christian myths were formed in connection with Gnosticism and the Gospels are only Gnostic writings. Whatever their age, they are only myths controlled by events and doctrine. After their deconstruction, there are no more than propaganda and Pauline Dark Messiah crucified. A literary critic
Balance of Life
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Selected Works
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