The religious philosopher John Toland was born in Ardagh on the Inishowen Peninsula in northwestern Ireland on November 30, 1670.
Having formally converted from Catholicism to Protestantism at the age of 16, Toland adopted a liberal point of view influenced by the philosophy of John Locke. He was the first person called a freethinker (by Bishop Berkeley)
John Toland was one of the pioneers of the deist movement, the predominant philosophy of the Anglican Church in the late 17th and pre Wesley 18th century.
Toland's first book Christianity not Mysterious published in 1696 was also his best known tome. In his controversial work, Toland argued that God is a rational being and that the Christian mysteries are the result of clerical manipulations. Such was the public outcry in Ireland that he is forced to flee to England.
He went on to write over a hundred books in various topics but mostly dedicated to criticizing ecclesiastical institutions.
Toland was interested in the ancient pagan religion of the Druids and was in particular fascinated by the four thousand-year-old stone circles and other monuments, which he believed was built by them. In September 1717 Toland held the first known Druid revival ceremony at Primrose Hill, in London, at the Autumnal Equinox, to found the Mother Grove, what is later to become the Ancient Order of Druids (AOD). He was elected as the first Chief of the Mother Grove.
Toland died aged 51 in Putney, London on March 11, 1722.
Having formally converted from Catholicism to Protestantism at the age of 16, Toland adopted a liberal point of view influenced by the philosophy of John Locke. He was the first person called a freethinker (by Bishop Berkeley)
John Toland was one of the pioneers of the deist movement, the predominant philosophy of the Anglican Church in the late 17th and pre Wesley 18th century.
Toland's first book Christianity not Mysterious published in 1696 was also his best known tome. In his controversial work, Toland argued that God is a rational being and that the Christian mysteries are the result of clerical manipulations. Such was the public outcry in Ireland that he is forced to flee to England.
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He went on to write over a hundred books in various topics but mostly dedicated to criticizing ecclesiastical institutions.
Toland was interested in the ancient pagan religion of the Druids and was in particular fascinated by the four thousand-year-old stone circles and other monuments, which he believed was built by them. In September 1717 Toland held the first known Druid revival ceremony at Primrose Hill, in London, at the Autumnal Equinox, to found the Mother Grove, what is later to become the Ancient Order of Druids (AOD). He was elected as the first Chief of the Mother Grove.
Toland died aged 51 in Putney, London on March 11, 1722.
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