Category Archives: History

Famous Freethinkers- Armstrong, Karen

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“A God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God who interfered with human freedom and creativity was tyrant. If God is seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect, “he” becomes a being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all-knowing tyrant is not so different from earthly dictators who make everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism that rejects such a God is amply justified.” Read on…

Historical Humanists- Annet, Peter

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“[The Free Inquirer had ridiculed Scripture and tried to show] that the prophet Moses was an impostor, the sacred truths and miracles recorded and set forth in the Pentateuch were impositions and false inventions, and thereby to infuse and propagate irrelegious and diabolical opinions in the minds of his majesty’s subjects and to shake the foundation of the civil and ecclesiastical government established in this kingdom.”
— From the blasphemy charges against Peter Annet Read on…

Historical Humanists- Avicenna

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“The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.”
— Avicenna (Ibn Saud) Read on…

Famous Unbelievers- Allen, Woody

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“If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank. ”

“Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends.”

“To you I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the Loyal Opposition. ”

— Woody Allen Read on…

Historical Humanists- Allen, Colonel Ethan

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There is not any thing, which has contributed so much to delude mankind in religious matters, as mistaken apprehensions concerning supernatural inspiration or revelation; not considering that all true religion originates from reason, and can not otherwise be understood, but by the exercise and improvement of it.”
— Ethan Allen
Read on…

Historical Humanists- Beauvoir, Simone de

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“I cannot be angry at God, in whom I do not believe.”

“Christianity gave eroticism its savor of sin and legend when it endowed the human female with a soul.”

— Simone de Beauvoir Read on…

Famous Freethinkers- Adams, Douglas Noel

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AMERICAN ATHEISTS: Mr. Adams, you have been described as a “radical Atheist.” Is this accurate? DOUGLAS ADAMS: I think I use the term radical rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “Atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘Agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean Atheist.”…I really do mean Atheist. I really do not believe that there is a god – in fact I am convinced that there is not a god (a … Read on…

Historical Humanists- Thomas Aikenhead

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Thomas Aikenhead was a Scottish student from Edinburgh, who was prosecuted and executed on a charge of blasphemy. Aikenhead was indicted in December 1696. The indictment read: “That … the prisoner had repeatedly maintained, in conversation, that theology was a rhapsody of ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the moral doctrines of philosophers, and partly of poetical fictions and extravagant chimeras: That he ridiculed the holy scriptures, calling the Old Testament Ezra’s fables, in profane allusion to Esop’s Fables; That … Read on…

America’s Most Hated Woman: Remembering Madalyn Murray O’Hair

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I would recommend, for those who have not yet read it, a biography of Madalyn Murray O’Hair: Ann Rowe Seaman’s America’s Most Hated Woman. O’Hair herself reveled in that appellation and used it to portray herself as the ultimate Outsider, a communist, freethinking female and victim of a capitalistic Christian empire. By doing so she made both money and history. O’Hair was apparently born to be a maverick. Her mother Lena had tried to induce a miscarriage, when she found … Read on…