Freethought & Freethinkers: What is Freethought? Who are Freethinkers?

Are all freethinkers also atheists? Is an atheist necessarily a freethinker? Where does the term 'freethought' come from and what does it mean?

Certainly one may say, 'Freedom to speak or write can be taken from us by a superior power, but never the freedom to think!' But how much, and how correctly, would we think if we did not think, as it were, in common with others, with whom we mutually communicate!

Does a man of sense run after every silly tale of hobgoblins or fairies, and canvass particularly the evidence? I never knew anyone, that examined and deliberated about nonsense who did not believe it before the end of his enquiries.

Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming... is sin!

The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.

A document of rights and principles of freethought which is geared towards freethinkers who do not follow any religion.

In this revision of an earlier essay, Jeff Lowder explores two widely-held assertions: that all nonbelievers are freethinkers and that no believers can be freethinkers or rely upon freethought.

Read Ms. Pollit's 1995 acceptance speech for the Freethought Heroine award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an organization of freethinkers striving to defend the separation of chruch and state in America.

A short but inspiring "essay" by Gerd Luedemann on religion and freethought.

Irreligion is the absence of religion or an indifference towards religion. Occasionally it might be defined more narrowly as hostility towards religion. All of the definitions of irreligion mark it as separate from both atheism and theism - both atheists and theists can be religious, both atheists and theists can be irreligious.

Infidel is defined as 'one without faith' and can refer to anyone who doubts or denies the tenets of whichever religion is most popular in their society.