2023-06-01 04:21
Same-sex marriage equality demonstration in Paris, 27 January 2013. Image: Vassil via Wikimedia Commons.Official secular states are falling like dominoes into the hands of radical religionis… Read More
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A blog version of The Freethinker - a British magazine for atheists and secularists, published continuously since 1881.
2023-05-26 04:44
Humanly Possible, by Sarah Bakewell. Image: Chatto & Windus 2023. Sarah Bakewell is what you might call a non-organised humanist. That is not to say she is disorganised (far from it), bu… Read More
2023-05-25 19:13
Thinker (2019), glass sculpture by the czech artist Martin Janecký. Image: Gabriel Urbánek, via Wikimedia CommonsThe post Image of the week: ‘Thinker’, by Martin Ja… Read More
2023-05-19 08:30
St Stephen’s Hall, Houses of Parliament, Westminster. IMage: Snapshots of the Past, via Wikimedia Commons. In the last fortnight, the National Secular Society participated in two quite… Read More
2023-05-16 03:08
Nuriyah Khan, an ex-Muslim who runs a YouTube channel. In Pakistan, religion exerts a significant influence over society. This often results in restricted freedom of expression for those wit… Read More
2023-05-12 03:17
Management consultancy is not the most obvious preparation for founding a new ethical system. But that is what Jamie Woodhouse was doing when he came upon the idea of ‘sentientism&rsqu&hell…Read More
2023-05-09 04:00
Image: Academica Press.On April 26, I returned to my alma mater, the University of Edinburgh, to attend a film screening hosted by the Edinburgh chapter of Academics for Academic Freedom. Th… Read More
2023-05-03 12:27
Shona stone sculpture, Zimbabwe. Image: Ishmael Muchena (2014) via Wikimedia Commons.The purpose of this article is to briefly discuss the absence of the concept of a deity in the Shona trad… Read More
2023-05-03 09:00
Divine right of kings? Charles I and Charles III. Image of the week: Charles I and Charles III. Plus ça change?
The portrait of Charles I, now in the National Portrait Gallery, dat… Read More
2023-04-14 05:39
Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts, by Jed Perl (Knopf, 2022). As W.H. Auden put it, ‘If the criterion of art were its power to incite to action, Goebbels would be one of the… Read More
2023-04-05 08:25
Jesus and Mo, ‘Book’, 1 March 2023. Image: Mohammed Jones.The trial of Ashfaq Masih will mean little to people in Britain today. It could be suggested that it means even less in… Read More
2023-04-03 02:00
Bertrand Russell in 1957. Image: Fotograaf Onbekend / Anefo via Wikimedia Commons.Humanists contributed immeasurably to ethical debates in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Relatively sm… Read More
2023-03-29 11:51
Steven Greer at the Oxford Institute for British Islam. Image: Declan HenryIntroduction
An expert on human rights might seem to be an unlikely target for censorship by a British universit… Read More
2023-03-26 14:10
Laboratory in the Islamic University of TEchnology, Bangladesh (2014). Image: Ibrahm Husain Meraj via Wikimedia Commons.Advancements in scientific research have been overturning clerical heg… Read More
2023-03-22 15:58
Open Door, by Freethinker cartoonist Polyp, aka Paul Fitzgerald.The post Image of the week: Back-door Theocracy appeared first on The Freethinker Read More
2023-03-20 09:16
Tylorstown, Rhondda Valley, Wales (2021). Image: ProfDEH via wikimedia Commons. When Rhodri Morgan, the former First Minister of Wales, was given a public, humanist funeral at the Welsh Parl… Read More
2023-03-10 20:06
The free speech area on the campus of Texas WomAn’s University, September 2015. Image: Michael Barera via Wikimedia Commons. I write this piece about freedom of speech from the perspec… Read More
2023-03-07 10:36
From the Freethinker cover page, January 2000. 23 years later, what has changed?Suppose it were reported that three baby girls had bled to death following Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in… Read More
2023-03-02 13:34
Doubleplusgood, by Polyp.On Puffin’s attempt to rewrite Roald Dahl: Puffin v. Dahl, by Noel Yaxley.
The post Image of the week: Doubleplusgood appeared first on The Freethinker Read More
2023-03-02 13:29
Eight Classic children’s books and one disney rewrite. Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash.‘There’s more than one way to burn a book,’ wrote Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit… Read More
2023-02-26 20:33
Watson Heston, Two Ways to Go. Originally published in The Truth Seeker and reprinted in The Freethinkers’ Pictorial Text-Book, New York: The Truth Seeker Company, 1890.The post Image… Read More
2023-02-22 02:37
John Lennox and Christopher Hitchens, ‘Is God Great?’ debate, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, 3 March 2009. Photo: stepher via Wikimedia Commons. We live in an era of st… Read More
2023-02-17 04:49
‘With you always’, by Polyp. Original here.Is Pastafarianism a parody or a religion? What is a ‘religion’ anyway? Can an internet movement originally intended as a jo… Read More
2023-02-15 04:53
Tauya ChinamaZimbabwe is a deeply religious country. According to the 2017 Inter Censal Survey by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, 10.2% of the population have no faith. The rest are… Read More
2023-02-10 04:18
Laura Dodsworth at Waterstones, Piccadilly, February 2023. Photo: E. ParkIntroduction
Until three years ago, Laura Dodsworth was a photojournalist, known for Bare Reality, a project in th… Read More
2023-02-08 04:49
Cover of Salman Rushdie’s Victory City. Published by Jonathan Cape, 9 February 2023. Image copyright Jonathan Cape.How, it might be asked, can Salman Rushdie’s new novel about a… Read More
2023-02-01 05:21
‘The glorious appearing of Jesus to the Nephites‘ (one of the four groups of settlers of the ancient Americas from Jerusalem, according to the Book of Mormon). Illustration from… Read More
2023-01-27 11:59
The Kaaba, Mecca, at the start of Haaj (2008). Image: Al Jazeera English via Wikimedia CommonsThe death sentence of Salman Rushdie imposed by the late Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 may have bee… Read More
2023-01-25 09:10
Cover of the Centenary issue of the Freethinker, May 1981, with contributions by notable humanists Harold Blackham and Margaret Knight, and Dora, the second wife of Bertrand Russell. Chapman… Read More
2023-01-20 04:49
This is an edited version of a paper originally given at Freethought in the Long Nineteenth Century: New Perspectives, a conference at Queen Mary University of London, on 9 September 2022… Read More
2023-01-15 20:27
Portrait bust of Epicurus (c. 341-270 BC), a Greek philosopher who argued that the universe was made of atoms and empty space. The gods, too, were made of atoms, and played no part in human… Read More
2023-01-13 03:13
This is the second part of my interview with Jonathan Sumption. The first part was on the pandemic and the consequences of lockdown. In this part, the discussion turns to the problems with B… Read More
2023-01-06 04:24
Ibn Rushd, Latinised as Averroes, by D. Cunego, after Raphael’s School of Athens, engraving, 1785. Credit: Wellcome Library, London, via Wikimedia Commons.Religious dogma inevitably hi… Read More
2023-01-04 05:08
Rush-die, by PolypFreethought, open enquiry and free speech – or ‘free discourse’, as it has elegantly been called – are often concerned with the critical and dispass… Read More
2023-01-03 22:27
Images from shop fronts and public spaces during the third national lockdown in England, which started two years ago this week (6 January 2021). The post Image of the week: remembering the… Read More
2022-12-22 12:47
I met Jonathan Sumption on a wet and windy November afternoon at his house in Blackheath, on the edge of Greenwich Park. We sat in the quiet of a small reception room, a fire glowing in the… Read More
2022-12-19 12:39
Jesus and Mo: Christmas cartoon, 2022. The post Jesus and Mo: Christmas cartoon 2022 appeared first on The Freethinker Read More
2022-12-19 08:00
Still from the Youtube recording of a Christian witchhunting event in Ibadan, Nigeria, 25 November 2022.Nigeria’s secularism is faltering. Sadly, it holds little hope for Africa’… Read More
2022-12-16 11:40
The Freethinker has previously discussed attempts by Pastafarians in Austria, the Netherlands and elsewhere to achieve the same rights and privileges as recognised religions – or at le… Read More
2022-12-14 10:23
At the age of 26, Inaya Folarin Iman is already an established public figure, known as an advocate for open discussion on that most contentious of issues: race. Born in London as a second-ge… Read More
2022-12-06 12:02
This is a translation of the French original, which follows below.
Supporters of the ‘final freedom’ in France. Image: Libre PenséeSince the beginning of the 2000s, whi… Read More
2022-12-01 14:11
How might the history of freethought inspire its development in the 21st century?
I was recently interviewed by Christoph De Spiegeleer via Zoom about the history of freethought and open… Read More
2022-11-23 16:23
Originally given as a paper to the Leicester Secular Society, 11 September 2022
George Jacob HOlyoake and Charles Bradlaugh when young.Introduction
Bradlaugh and Holyoake were the two… Read More
2022-11-18 06:00
I met Helen Joyce at the British Library one overcast afternoon in September. She had just come from the court hearing of Mermaids v the Charity Commission for England and Wales and LGB Alli… Read More
2022-11-17 05:00
IMage: Atheism UKAC Grayling, the newly elected Honorary President of Atheism UK, will be giving a talk on ‘Proving Atheism’ at Conway Hall, London, on Tuesday 29th November 2022… Read More
2022-11-15 15:00
The first official cremation in Italy, at the Cimitero Maggiore, Milan. L’Illustrazione Italiana 14 (1876), 212.In January 1876, an unprecedented event took place at Milan’s Cimi… Read More
2022-11-11 07:07
Entrenched, by Polyp. The post Cartoon of the week: The impasse of the culture wars appeared first on The Freethinker Read More
2022-11-11 04:58
Adam Wagner is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, London, specialising in human rights and public law. He has acted in some of the leading human rights cases arising from the pandemic… Read More
2022-11-08 05:44
Ballyhackamore gospel hall, Belfast. Image: Albert Bridge via Wikimedia CommonsOne morning I found myself at a bus stop in the suburbs of East Belfast, feeling rather disconcerted. Next to m… Read More
2022-11-07 20:19
The Artemision Bronze, thought to be Zeus or Poseidon, c. 460 BC, at the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Some gods are just cooler than others. IMage: E. ParkThe post Image of the We… Read More
2022-10-27 17:28
‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.’ (George Orwell)
The Chinese consulate-General, Manchester. Image: Eirian Evans… Read More
2022-10-26 08:40
Jesus and Mo (2022). October is Civil Liberties Month at the Freethinker.October is Civil Liberties Month at the Freethinker. We here present a guest cartoon from Mohammed Jones, the pseudon… Read More
2022-10-21 07:00
Inclusive Diverse Pride Flag. Source: Wikimedia CommonsThe new politics of marginalised identities, now marching across the West, frequently clashes with classical liberal values like freedo… Read More
2022-10-19 11:57
Neil Ferguson, 14 February 2020. Image: elifesciences.org via Wikimedia CommonsDuring the pandemic, outlets that had previously turned to me for pieces on Brexit or prorogation or the Northe… Read More
2022-10-10 09:31
Woman standing on a burning rubbish bin, waving her veil. Tehran, 1 October 2022.When news first broke out about Mahsa Amini’s murder by the so-called ‘morality police’, th… Read More
2022-10-05 14:22
Protest March in Hong Kong against the extradition Bill that would have enabled Hongkongers to be extradited to mainland China for trial, 16 June 2019. Photo provided by the authorLet’… Read More
2022-10-03 07:58
Thoughtcrime, by POlyp. October is Civil Liberties Month at the Freethinker.October is Civil Liberties Month at the Freethinker. In a spirit of open, critical enquiry and resistance to dogma… Read More
2022-10-01 08:49
The Freethinker’s themes of ‘history’ and ‘civil liberties’ this September and October provide an opportunity to reflect upon the crime which has regularly trip… Read More
2022-09-23 10:22
G.W. Foote, portrait in the SEcular Chronicle, 1878In an early Freethinker editorial, George W. Foote commented that ‘The public now-a-days is in a great hurry, you must attract its at… Read More
2022-09-20 06:00
Is the British monarchy now on life support? Cartoon by Polyp.September 2022 has brought a new Prime Minister and a new monarch to Britain. Neither of them seems, on the face of it, a likely… Read More
2022-09-16 06:00
The Funeral of Shelley by Louis Édouard Fournier (1889). The Walker Gallery, Liverpool, UK. Image: The Long VictorianIt seems fair to call Shelley an atheist. He did not believe in Go… Read More
2022-09-14 06:00
Victorian Birth Control appliances and related devices: from The Wife’s Handbook, 1887 edition. Image: Bob ForderThe people and places really responsible for fundamental political and… Read More
2022-09-09 06:00
Cartoon by Peter WElleman (2008) via Wikimedia CommonsIn December 2021 the UK government announced plans for a Bill to end conversion therapy. The plans were withdrawn in early 2022, followi… Read More
2022-09-06 07:00
On 21st July, on behalf of the Freethinker, I attended the first screening of Vivesini, a southern Indian film by Laburnum Productions. Below is an interview which I conducted via email with… Read More
2022-09-05 09:25
Front window of Leicester’s Secular Hall (opened April 1881), with Freethinker poster. Image: E. ParkSeptember is History Month at the Freethinker. We shall be publishing articles that… Read More
2022-09-02 07:00
Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570-478 BC), one of the first philosophers to challenge conventional views of the gods. Image: from Thomas Stanley, The history of philosophy (1655), via Wikimedia… Read More
2022-08-26 07:00
Marshal Pétain welcomed on the steps of the cathedral of St-Jean by Cardinal Gerlier, Lyon (21 June 1942), on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the French Christian workers&rsqu&hell…Read More
2022-08-24 07:00
Adoph Tidemand, Low Church Devotion (1848). Source: National Museum of Art, Architecture and design, Norway, via Wikimedia CommonsSome stakeholders in the world of religious education believ… Read More
2022-08-19 07:00
Atide workshop for the Tunisia Elections, October 2014. Photo: Emna Mizouni, via Wikimedia CommonsOn July 25, Tunisia approved its new constitution via referendum. 94.6 per cent of the voter… Read More
2022-08-17 07:00
First pages of the Quran copied in naskh script by Şeyh Hamdullah for Sultan Bayezid II in Istanbul in 1503-1504, with illumination by Hasan ibn ‘Abdallah. Public domain: wikimedi… Read More
2022-08-13 06:56
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses, cover page of illegal Iranian edition, undated, in a translation by ‘Roshanak Irani’ (pseudonym). Image credit: Olaf Simons, via Wikimedia Com… Read More
2022-07-29 07:14
Charity, by Maurice Schnell (1830-1902), via Wikimedia Commons.Misogyny, homophobia, child beatings and the Taliban are not causes that most people would associate with charity work. But the… Read More
2022-07-27 08:00
Pastafarians outside the Groningen courthouse, the Netherlands, July 2016, for the case of Dirk-Jan Dijkstra v. the Mayor of Emmen. Photo: Mienke de WildeWhat is it called when you really, r… Read More
2022-07-22 08:00
© the Freethinker, based on images by Chanilim714 and 10 Downing St.For thousands of years, people have dimly suspected that exposure to the natural world might be good for them. But no… Read More
2022-07-20 08:00
King James Bible with Prayer card. Photo: FreethinkerThe law on religious education and collective worship in England means that schools are at risk of breaching human rights law. But the go… Read More
2022-07-15 11:07
Pragna Patel has been a powerful advocate for women’s rights for over four decades. From 2009-2022, she was Director of Southall Black Sisters (‘SBS’), an anti-fundamentali… Read More
2022-07-12 11:58
Vivesini: Poster. Copyright Laburnum Productions 2022.Readers of the Freethinker are cordially invited to a closed private screening of Vivesini, a new rationalist film by Laburnum Productio… Read More
2022-07-08 05:11
Niko Alm’s proposed photos for his identity card and passport, with a ‘modest pasta crown’. Photo: Niko Alm (2022).Although every Western country has the freedom of religi… Read More
2022-07-07 08:56
The Freethinker presents three clerihews to mark the resignation of Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative party, and agreement to quit as Prime Minister by the autumn. Invented by Edmu… Read More
2022-07-07 08:22
‘With you always’. Copyright Paul Fitzgerald 2022.July is Pastafarian Month at the Freethinker. This picture of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, by radical cartoonist Polyp (Paul Fi… Read More
2022-07-06 06:01
Prime Minister’s statement on covid, 31 July 2020. Photo: 10 Downing Street, via Wikimedia Commons.Of all of the negative consequences of ‘lockdowns’ and associated restric… Read More
2022-07-04 06:31
Ask people, at least in the UK, who Thomas Paine was, and you will often meet with an embarrassed silence. Which is astonishing, given that his pamphlet Common Sense (1776) galvanised the Am… Read More
2022-07-01 06:10
I met Professor Richard Dawkins at his home in Oxford. An interview with him, even at the age of 81, felt very much like a tutorial with a charismatic and formidable don of the old school. H… Read More
2022-06-29 16:09
From a Home Office and Central Office of Information Leaflet, Advising the Householder on Protection against Nuclear Attack, p. 5. printed in England under the authority of Her Majesty&rsquo&hell…Read More
2022-06-23 12:55
W.J. Ramsey’s account of his imprisonmentGeorge William Foote was born in Plymouth in humble circumstances on 11 January 1850. His father died when he was young, but he had a goo… Read More
2022-06-20 11:27
The Temple Mount, Jerusalem. IMage credit: Avraham Graicer, via Wikimedia CommonsIn July, President Joe Biden is likely to visit Israel and Saudi Arabia, as the two countries draw closer tow… Read More
2022-06-17 07:05
You’d Better Believe It, part II: your correspondent for Diversity, Respect and Social Cohesion continues their deep-dive into some of the most divisive inclusive issues facing cultura… Read More
2022-06-14 17:09
The storming of the US capitol, 6 January 2021, by Tyler MerblerIn the United States we are experiencing not a culture war, but something more like a culture Armageddon. I need not illustrat… Read More
2022-06-12 13:52
Patrick J. Corbeil, Empire and Progress in the Victorian Secularist Movement: Imagining a Secular World (Palgrave Macmillan) • 2 December 2021 • pp 198
Image provided by Palgrav… Read More
2022-06-07 21:07
Image by E. Park, with icon by David VignoniJune is Blasphemy Month at the Freethinker. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines blasphemy as ‘profane talk of something supposed t… Read More
2022-06-06 08:12
June is Blasphemy Month at the Freethinker. This article contains a detailed account of the trial of Mubarak Bala, the President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, for blasphemy in Kano… Read More
2022-06-03 05:58
‘Equal Justice Under Law’: the US Supreme court, Washington DC. Credit: Jeff Kubina, Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_states_supreme_court_buildi… Read More
2022-06-02 05:46
The Coronation of H.M. Queen Elizabeth II, 2 June 1953, by Terence Cuneo. Source: Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Royal_Coronation_of_H.M._Queen_Elizabe… Read More
2022-06-01 12:52
The National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association (now Humanists UK) have had a mixed relationship over the last century and a quarter. Some people have been members or suppo… Read More
2022-05-26 10:30
Humanist Month at the Freethinker continues with an article by Madeleine Goodall, Humanist Heritage Coordinator at Humanists UK.
Image credit: Humanists UKNearly three years ago, Humanist… Read More
2022-05-20 15:23
Professor Russell Sandberg at CArdiff University. Photo Credit: R. SandbergReform of human rights law is coming. Although the rationale behind the proposed new Bill of Rights does not direct… Read More
2022-05-10 19:54
Continuing with this month’s theme of humanism, the following is an interview with Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK and President of Humanists International.
I met Co… Read More
2022-05-02 14:19
May is Humanism Month at the Freethinker. We will be exploring different conceptions of humanism, past and present.
In 1986, the literary scholar Ian MacKillop published The British Ethic… Read More
2022-04-28 21:54
‘Western governments are increasingly reaching into areas in which the interests of religious freedom and the rights of conscience were long thought no business of government.’ S… Read More
2022-04-27 16:20
Jean Miélot in his scriptorium, By Jean Le Tavernier, 15th century. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74516 ‘Would you be an atheist without the… Read More
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