Agnosticism is the modern variation on the ancient theme of the Greek philosopher, “All I know is that I know nothing.” Agnosticism is lack of reason, nescience rather than ignorance. Having found gnosis we cannot turn our backs on it and become agnostics, says a Master of Wisdom. The strong Agnostic assumes the negative position of knowing nothing but phenomena and refuses to believe in anything else. The weak Agnostic may be ready to entertain new ideas, but the light of Truth will always blind the religious bigot. With the exception of psychism, every other –ism is a shade of materialism — a science without a soul. Ancient pagans held far deeper views on the First Cause and its emanations than modern philosophers, whether Agnostics, Materialists or Christians. Agnostics have to choose between the Secret Doctrine of the East, and the materialistic Darwinian and Biblical Doctrines of the West. Agnosticism, Positivism, and Materialism are the worst enemies of Theosophy and Mysticism. Much of current agnostic speculation on the existence of the First Cause is little better than veiled Materialism. Between Agnostics and Catholics, the age revels at a debauch of phenomena. Brutal but frank Materialism is more honest than Janus-faced agnosticism in our days. Monism is no better than a mask concealing the void of final annihilation, even of consciousness. The Occultist would be guilty of treason, were he to demolish the old gods before he could replace them with the eternal verities that they represent. Atheists and Agnostics are thinly attracted to “godless” Buddhism, or to our highly philosophical and logical agnosticism. The “moral standard of the Theosophists” is TRUTH and this covers all. No sincere seeker of Truth can ever be found among the blind believers in the “Divine Word.” Our doctrine knows no compromises. It either affirms or denies, for it never teaches but that which it knows to be Truth.

"Of the contents of this little volume the section on Mind and Motion which forms, in accordance with a suggestion of the author's, a general introduction, was delivered at Cambridge as the Rede Lecture in 1885, and was printed in the Contemporary Review for June in that year. The chapter on The World as an Eject was published, almost as it now stands, in the Contemporary Review for July, 1886. A paper on The Fallacy of Materialism, of which Mr. Romanes incorporated the more important parts in the Essay on Monism, was contributed to the Nineteenth Century for December, 1882. The rest was left in MS. and was probably written in 1889 or 1890"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Second Edition contains nine new entries, and is an indispensable guide and reference source to the major themes, movements and topics in philosophy of religion.

This book explores the idea of religious pluralism while defending the norms of secular cosmopolitanism, which include liberty, tolerance, civility, and hospitality. The secular cosmopolitan ideal requires us to be more tolerant and more hospitable toward religious believers and non-believers from diverse traditions in our religiously pluralistic world. Some have argued that the world’s religions can be united around a common core. This book argues that it is both impossible and inadvisable either to reduce religion to one thing or to deny religion. Instead, the book affirms non reductive pluralism and seeks to understand how we should live in a pluralistic world. Building on work in the sociology of religion and philosophy of religion, the book examines the grown of religious diversity (and the spread of nonreligion) in the contemporary world. It argues that religious toleration, hospitality, and compassion must be extended in a global direction. Secular cosmopolitanism recognizes that each person has a right to his or her deepest beliefs and that the diversity of the world’s religious and non-religious traditions cannot be reduced or eliminated.

This four-volume historical resource provides new opportunities for investigating the relationship between religion, literature and society in Britain and its imperial territories by making accessible a diverse selection of harder-to-find primary sources. These include religious fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs, sermons, travel writing, religious ephemera, unpublished notebooks and pamphlet literature. Spanning the long nineteenth century (c.1789–1914), the resource departs from older models of ‘the Victorian crisis of faith’ in order to open up new ways of conceptualising religion. Volume four on ‘Disbelief and New Beliefs’ explores the transformation of the religious landscape of Britain and its imperial territories during the nineteenth century as a result of key cultural and intellectual forces.