Benjamin Underwood

July 6, 1839 (age 74)

New York, United States

Having enlisted at the outbreak of the Civil War in the 15th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Underwood was wounded and captured at the battle of Ball's Bluff, October 21, 1861, and was confined for some months in Libby Prison. Released through an exchange of prisoners, he returned to Massachusetts. Reenlisting, in the 5th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, he served with it for the duration of the war, being promoted to first lieutenant and commended for bravery in action. After the war he took up platform work as a freethinker. Unlike Robert Green Ingersoll, he possessed a logical rather than rhetorical type of mind and had considerable philosophic acumen. During the seventies and eighties he terrorized the churches of the East by his custom of issuing a public challenge to the clergy of the large cities to meet him in a series of debates, these series running from three to as many as thirty meetings. It was an unusual clergyman who was able to rival him in forensic ability, and gradually ministers became so wary of accepting his challenges that only the boldest ventured to enter the lists against him. The issue usually turned upon the acceptance or interpretation of the theory of evolution, of which he was one of the earliest and most zealous American supporters. Although influenced by the deism of Thomas Paine as well as by the agnosticism of Herbert Spencer, Underwood's own position approached that of orthodox materialism. During his earlier, more aggressive years he published a number of lectures and pamphlets on such topics as Darwinism (1875), The Crimes and Cruelties of Christianity (1877), Christianity and Materialism, Will the Coming Man Worship God? , Modern Scientific Materialism, Naturalism vs: Supernaturalism, Spiritualism from a Materialistic Standpoint, Paine, the Religious and Political Reformer, Woman: Her Past and Present, Her Rights and Wrongs--little materialistic tracts containing much trenchant argument. From 1880 to 1886 he edited the Boston Index; then, moving to Chicago, he edited the Open Court in 1887 and the Illustrated Graphic News in 1888; from 1893 to 1895 he was editorial writer for the Philosophical Journal; in 1893 he acted as chairman of the Congress of Evolution held in connection with the World's Columbian Exposition. He moved to Quincy, Ill. , in 1897 to assume the editorship of the Quincy Journal, a position which he held until within a year of his death. In spite of his penchant for debate, he was of a genial, kindly disposition, and during his later life he became much more reserved in the expression of his anti-religious views and seems to have modified them to a considerable extent. In 1913 he retired from active work and returned to his boyhood home in Westerly, R. I, where he died.

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Herbert Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy...

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The letters of Junius. An essay upon the authorship of these remarkable compositions

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The Underwood-Marples Debate, Commencing July 20, 1875 and Continuing Four Evenings, Between B. F. Underwood and Rev. John Marples

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Free Religious Index...

( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

The Burgess-Underwood Debate: Commencing June 29, 1875, at Aylmer, Ontario, and Continuing Four Days, Between O. A. Burgess ... and B. F. Underwood

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The Influence of Christianity on Civilization

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 edition. Excerpt: ... pp. 142-3). How evident it is that the subversion of the Roman, to which the darkness of the middle ages was so largely due, was encouraged by the policy, if not sometimes aided, by the direct efforts of the Christian Church. The asceticism which I have mentioned was frequently followed by the opposite extreme, and the greatest licentiousness prevailed. Love feasts became scenes of drunkenness and debauchery, and as such were kept #up for centuries. Commemoration of martyrs became scenes of scandalous dissipation. Thousands of the clergy while professing celibacy kept mistresses in their houses under all sorts of false but pious pretexts. Monks and virgins lived together on terms of closest intimacy, hypocritically claiming that so great was their piety that they could innocently share the same bed. Women deserted their husbands to live with new lovers. Open prostitution was common. "The world," says Hallam, "grew accustomed to dangerous alternations of extreme asceticism and gross vice, and sometimes as in the case of Antioch, it was the most vicious and luxurious cities that produced the most numerous anchorites.... Public opinion was so low that many forms of vice attracted little condemnation and punishment, while undoubted belief in the absolving efficacy of superstitious rights calmed the imagination and allayed the terrors of conscience" (Middle Ages, p. 163). An Italian bishop of the tenth century said if he were to enforce the canons against unchaste people administering the rites of the Church, that duty would be reserved for boys alone; and if he were to extend the canons against bastards, they too would be excluded. At one time the clergy almost universally kept concubines and were systematically taxed therefor. One abbot was...

Benjamin Franklin Underwood

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Background

Benjamin Franklin Underwood, the son of Raymond C. and Harriet (Booth) Underwood, was born in the city of New York.

Education

He received a slender education in the common schools and at Westerly Academy in Westerly, R. I, which he supplemented by wide reading in philosophy, science, and literature.

Career

Having enlisted at the outbreak of the Civil War in the 15th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Underwood was wounded and captured at the battle of Ball's Bluff, October 21, 1861, and was confined for some months in Libby Prison.

Released through an exchange of prisoners, he returned to Massachusetts. Reenlisting, in the 5th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, he served with it for the duration of the war, being promoted to first lieutenant and commended for bravery in action.

After the war he took up platform work as a freethinker. Unlike Robert Green Ingersoll, he possessed a logical rather than rhetorical type of mind and had considerable philosophic acumen. During the seventies and eighties he terrorized the churches of the East by his custom of issuing a public challenge to the clergy of the large cities to meet him in a series of debates, these series running from three to as many as thirty meetings. It was an unusual clergyman who was able to rival him in forensic ability, and gradually ministers became so wary of accepting his challenges that only the boldest ventured to enter the lists against him. The issue usually turned upon the acceptance or interpretation of the theory of evolution, of which he was one of the earliest and most zealous American supporters.

Although influenced by the deism of Thomas Paine as well as by the agnosticism of Herbert Spencer, Underwood's own position approached that of orthodox materialism. During his earlier, more aggressive years he published a number of lectures and pamphlets on such topics as Darwinism (1875), The Crimes and Cruelties of Christianity (1877), Christianity and Materialism, Will the Coming Man Worship God? , Modern Scientific Materialism, Naturalism vs: Supernaturalism, Spiritualism from a Materialistic Standpoint, Paine, the Religious and Political Reformer, Woman: Her Past and Present, Her Rights and Wrongs--little materialistic tracts containing much trenchant argument.

From 1880 to 1886 he edited the Boston Index; then, moving to Chicago, he edited the Open Court in 1887 and the Illustrated Graphic News in 1888; from 1893 to 1895 he was editorial writer for the Philosophical Journal; in 1893 he acted as chairman of the Congress of Evolution held in connection with the World's Columbian Exposition.

He moved to Quincy, Ill. , in 1897 to assume the editorship of the Quincy Journal, a position which he held until within a year of his death. In spite of his penchant for debate, he was of a genial, kindly disposition, and during his later life he became much more reserved in the expression of his anti-religious views and seems to have modified them to a considerable extent. In 1913 he retired from active work and returned to his boyhood home in Westerly, R. I, where he died.

Achievements

Underwood was known as a representative of free thought, lecturing throughout the United States on that subject. The most notable of his intellectual discussions on evolution and evangelical theology was one in which Prof. Asa Gray of Harvard participated, in a symposium organized by Underwood in Boston (1873). He was also the author of “Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy” (New York, 1879) and “Christianity and Civilization” (1883).

Works

$Herbert Spencer\'s Synthetic Philosophy... Herbert Spencer\'s Synthetic Philosophy...$ The letters of Junius. An essay upon the authorship of these remarkable compositions The letters of Junius. An essay upon the authorship of these remarkable compositions