Philosophy
The Ethical Culture movement was open to people of diverse beliefs. Ethical Culture societies were formed in the late nineteenth century in numerous cities in the United States, for instance, Philadelphia and St. Louis.
Adler developed and promoted his own vision of an essentially Kantian moral philosophy. His thought prized public works and the use of reason to develop ultimate ethical standards. Adler published such works as Creed and Deed (1878), Moral Instruction of Children (1892), Life and Destiny (1905), The Religion of Duty (1906), Essentials of Spirituality (1908), An Ethical Philosophy of Life (1918), The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal (1925), and Our Part in this World. He made use of ideas from Judaism, as well as the philosophies of Kant and Ralph Waldo Emerson, mixed with certain socialist ideas of his time. He believed that the concept of a "personal god" was unnecessary and thought that the human personality was the central force of religion. He believed that different people's interpretations of religions were to be respected as religious in themselves.
A humanistic Religious Naturalism has emerged among a few Jewish communities. Rabbi Oler of Beth Or describes his Religious Naturalism as religious humanism. He uses the teachings of the Torah, but without a supernatural aspect, to teach spiritual growth and encourage people to become better.
Read more about this topic: Felix Adler (professor)
Famous quotes containing the word philosophy:
“My position is a naturalistic one; I see philosophy not as an a priori propaedeutic or groundwork for science, but as continuous with science. I see philosophy and science as in the same boat—a boat which, to revert to Neurath’s figure as I so often do, we can rebuild only at sea while staying afloat in it. There is no external vantage point, no first philosophy.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.”
—Socrates (469–399 B.C.)
“A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)