Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner

“ Bradlaugh held a debate with Mr. Thomas Cooper, author of "The Purgatory of Suicides", and he then told his audience:
"I do not stand here to prove that there is no God. If I should undertake to prove such a proposition I should deserve the ill words of the oft-quoted Psalmist applied to those who say there is no God. I do not say there is no God, but I am an Atheist without God. To me the word 'God' conveys no idea, and it is because the word 'God' to me never expressed a clear and definite conception . . . . that I am Atheist. ”

“ In 1855-6 I was much influenced by the glimpse of the Ethics of Spinoza first presented by George Henry Lewes, and a great deal of my advocacy shows traces of this influence. For thirty-six years my position has been atheistic, and I am totally unaware of any foundation for the rumors, recently very industriously circulated, alleging modification by me of these views. My position has always been that the word 'God' is either undefined, or that the attempted definitions are self-contradictory, or incoherent. ”

“ If honorable men should for a moment accept such an argument, I would remind the Protestant that when death's shadows are darkening his eyes he must find strength to denounce Popery or he admits he is a Papist, the Catholic must abjure Islamism or he proclaims he is a follower of Mohammed, and both must express their dying detestation of Atheism else they shall be known after death as Atheists. ”

“ In all ages men have fashioned their Gods according to their want of knowledge—the more ignorant the people, the more numerous their deities, because the Gods represented their personifications of force. Men beheld phenomena beyond and independent of human ability, and they ascribed these phenomena to deities, the 'God' in each case representing their ignorance."
In a debate with the Rev. A. J. Harrison in the September of the same year Mr. Bradlaugh said:
"The position of the Atheist was that he did not affirm a universe, and outside it a God ”

“ I am essentially a Monist: to me existence is sufficient for all phænomena, and I find it difficult to appreciate the position of those who invent a second existence or plural existences, in lieu of explanation, in order to account for imperfectly comprehended phænomena. ”

“ It is also certain that men of strong mind and marked character have sometimes fallen easy victims to gracefully assisted illusions. At present, so far as I am concerned, the closest re-examination of my atheistic position does not enable me to detect any weak link in the chain, and I cannot conceive the possibility of my remaining sane and yet joining any of the many conflicting teachers of dualism. ”

“ Sometimes he is accused of grossly dishonorable conduct; sometimes people, unable to admit that they themselves have changed, tell how the considerate gentleman they knew in later years had once been a coarse and violent braggart; and sometimes—this is now the most frequent allegation—it is said that before he died my father changed his opinions and became a Christian. It is by no means unusual for persons to make these statements as though of their own personal knowledge, or as communicated to them by some one who had direct personal knowledge. ”

“ It is one of possibility. I simply cannot equally believe Muhammadanism, Vedaism, Buddhism, and Christianity, as divine religions.
"S.—And I answer your earlier question in your own words. It is not a question of safety in believing. It is one of possibility. The alleged life of Jesus is to me impossible. I simply cannot believe it."
We have here then before us Mr. Bradlaugh's opinions given actually in his own words taken from publications issued at different periods between 1859 and 1891. He fell ill on January 13th, 1891, and died on January 30th. ”

“ Amina and her dread companion dug up a dead body, and the ghoul cut off pieces of the flesh, which they ate together by the grave side. The ghouls of to-day are a different order of beings: they no longer feed upon dead men's bodies, it is dead men's reputations they dig up and devour. To right-minded people devouring dead men's reputations is an occupation scarcely less revolting than devouring dead men's flesh.
H. B. B. March, 1898.
DID CHARLES BRADLAUGH DIE AN ATHEIST? ”