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German philosopher and radical theologian David Friedrich Strauss
(1808-1874) distinguished himself as one of Europe's most
controversial biblical critics and as an intellectual martyr for
freethought. His first work, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined
(1835), which exposed the inconsistencies and contradictions in the
gospel accounts of Jesus' life, led to his dismissal from his
teaching post at the University of Tubingen. In 1839 he was elected
to a chair of theology at the University of Zurich, but the storm
of clerically organized protest prevented him from taking up the
appointment. In his final work, The Old Faith and the New (1872),
Strauss abandons Christianity altogether and turns to a critique of
theism in general: Relying on contemporary science and leading
philosophers, he rejects God as the creator of the universe and
humankind, the divinity of Christ, and the reality of miracles (the
Old Faith), thus confining religion to the domains of history,
myth, and ethics. With the Christian cosmology undermined, Strauss
constructs a new view of the universe and humanity's place in it
which is grounded in science and technology, Darwinian evolution,
and inductive reasoning (the New Faith), all of which hold out the
hope of finding true solutions to human problems.
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