Robert Owen: On Religion

Robert Owen rejected all religions, which he concluded were based on ignorance and the imaginations of our ancestors. As a lad of 14, he embarked on a quest to find the one true religion, only to discover that all religions emanated from the same false premises. He was so distraught with his discovery that he embraced a new religion, based on universal love for the human race.

Robert Owen was extremely tolerant of the beliefs of others. He married into a very religious family, his wife being a devout Presbyterian who was allowed to raise their seven children in the faith. Although he possessed great power over the working people of New Lanark, he never used his position to influence their religious beliefs. He not only supported the church and its leaders in the quest for educational and factory reform, but they actively supported him in these endeavors, up to a point.

In 1817, when he came up with a bold plan to remake society, support from the church wavered. Faced with overwhelming opposition from both the church and the ruling elite—based, he felt, on fear and ignorance—Owen publicly denounced religion as the principal cause of all human misery. One commentator of the day speculated that if Owen had died before this public denunciation of religion, he would have been revered as one of the social, educational, and managerial innovators of all time.