Editing Freethought (section)

==Definition==
Atheist author Adam Lee defines free thought as thinking which is independent of revelation, tradition, established belief, and [[argument from authority|authority]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2010/02/what-is-freethought/|title=What Is Freethought?|work=Daylight Atheism|access-date=12 June 2015|date=2010-02-26|archive-date=2015-04-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402094929/http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2010/02/what-is-freethought/|url-status=live}}</ref> and considers it as a "broader umbrella" than atheism "that embraces a rainbow of unorthodoxy, religious dissent, skepticism, and unconventional thinking."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bigthink.com/daylight-atheism/9-great-freethinkers-and-religious-dissenters-in-history|title=9 Great Freethinkers and Religious Dissenters in History|author=Adam Lee|work=Big Think|access-date=12 June 2015|date=October 2012|archive-date=8 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150908201016/http://bigthink.com/daylight-atheism/9-great-freethinkers-and-religious-dissenters-in-history|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Bogdan |editor1-first=H. |editor2-last=Snoek |editor2-first=J. |chapter=Freemasonry and the Eighteenth-Century European Enlightenment |title=Handbook of Freemasonry |publisher=Brill |date=2014 |pages=321–335}}</ref>

The basic summarizing statement of the essay ''The Ethics of Belief'' by the 19th-century British mathematician and philosopher [[William Kingdon Clifford]] is: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gxLdO3NTiQLhUc5K1XWIa8nIM5YnXgFG/view?usp=sharing|title=Philosophy of Western Religions|chapter=5. The Ethics of Belief|last=Clifford|first=William K.|editor-last=Levin|editor-first=Noah|publisher=N.G.E. Far Press|orig-date=1st pub. 1877|pages=18–21|access-date=2022-01-31|archive-date=2022-01-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220131133534/https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gxLdO3NTiQLhUc5K1XWIa8nIM5YnXgFG/view?usp=sharing|url-status=live}}</ref> The essay became a rallying cry for freethinkers when published in the 1870s, and has been described as a point when freethinkers grabbed the moral high ground.<ref>{{cite book |last=Becker |first=Lawrence and Charlotte |date=2013 |title=Encyclopedia of Ethics (article on "agnosticism") |publisher=Routledge |page=44 |isbn=9781135350963 }}</ref> Clifford was himself an organizer of free thought gatherings, the driving force behind the Congress of Liberal Thinkers held in 1878.

Regarding [[religion]], freethinkers typically hold that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of [[supernatural]] phenomena.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hastings|first=James|title=Encyclopedia of Religion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZAwwaxdKMNAC|isbn=9780766136830|date=2003-01-01|publisher=Kessinger }}</ref> According to the [[Freedom from Religion Foundation]], "No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, [[creed]], or [[messiah]]. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth." and "Freethinkers are convinced that religious claims have not withstood the tests of reason. Not only is there nothing to be gained by believing an untruth, but there is everything to lose when we sacrifice the indispensable tool of reason on the altar of superstition. Most freethinkers consider religion to be not only untrue, but harmful."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ffrf.org/faq/feeds/item/18391-what-is-a-freethinker|title=What is a Freethinker? - Freedom From Religion Foundation|access-date=12 June 2015|archive-date=15 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150715021218/http://ffrf.org/faq/feeds/item/18391-what-is-a-freethinker|url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[File:Bust Of Bertrand Russell-Red Lion Square-London.jpg|thumb|upright|Bust of [[Bertrand Russell]] in London]]
However, philosopher [[Bertrand Russell]] wrote the following in his 1944 essay ''The Value of Free Thought'':<ref>{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zsC2cQAACAAJ |title=The Value of Free Thought: How to Become a Truth-seeker and Break the Chains of Mental Slavery |date=1944 |publisher=Haldeman-Julius Publications |language=en |access-date=2023-04-30 |archive-date=2023-04-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230429160059/https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Value_of_Free_Thought.html?id=zsC2cQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y |url-status=live }}</ref>

{{Quote |text=What makes a freethinker is not his beliefs but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought he finds a balance of evidence in their favour, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem. |author= |title= |source=}}

A freethinker, according to Russell, is not necessarily an atheist or an agnostic, as long as he or she satisfies this definition:

{{Quote |text=The person who is free in any respect is free ''from'' something; what is the free thinker free from? To be worthy of the name, he must be free of two things: the force of tradition, and the tyranny of his own passions. No one is ''completely'' free from either, but in the measure of a man's emancipation he deserves to be called a free thinker. |author= |title= |source=}}

[[Fred Edwords]], former executive of the [[American Humanist Association]], suggests that by Russell's definition, [[liberal religion]]ists who have challenged established orthodoxies can be considered freethinkers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://americanhumanist.org/humanism/Saga_of_Freethought_and_Its_Pioneers |title=Saga Of Freethought And Its Pioneers |work=American Humanist Association |access-date=12 June 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150715023327/http://americanhumanist.org/humanism/Saga_of_Freethought_and_Its_Pioneers |archive-date=15 July 2015}}</ref>

On the other hand, according to [[Bertrand Russell]], atheists and/or agnostics are not necessarily freethinkers. As an example, he mentions [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]], whom he compares to a "[[pope]]":

{{Quote |text=what I am concerned with is the doctrine of the modern Communistic Party, and of the Russian Government to which it owes allegiance. According to this doctrine, the world develops on the lines of a Plan called [[Dialectical Materialism]], first discovered by [[Karl Marx]], embodied in the practice of a great state by [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]], and now expounded from day to day by a Church of which Stalin is the Pope. […] Free discussion is to be prevented wherever the power to do so exists; […] If this doctrine and this organization prevail, free inquiry will become as impossible as it was in the middle ages, and the world will relapse into bigotry and obscurantism. |author= |title=}}

In the 18th and 19th century, many thinkers regarded as freethinkers were [[deists]], arguing that [[Outline of Christian theology|the nature of God]] can only be known from a study of nature rather than from religious revelation. In the 18th century, "deism" was as much of a 'dirty word' as "atheism", and deists were often stigmatized as either atheists or at least as freethinkers by their Christian opponents.<ref>James E. Force, Introduction (1990) to An Account of the Growth of Deism in England (1696) by William Stephens</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04679b.htm |title=Deism |encyclopedia=The Catholic Encyclopedia |editor-first=Francis |editor-last=Aveling |year=1908 |quote=The deists were what nowadays would be called freethinkers, a name, indeed, by which they were not infrequently known; and they can only be classed together wholly in the main attitude that they adopted, viz. in agreeing to cast off the trammels of authoritative religious teaching in favour of a free and purely rationalistic speculation.... Deism, in its every manifestation was opposed to the current and traditional teaching of revealed religion. |access-date=2012-10-10 |archive-date=2012-10-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121012112353/http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04679b.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> Deists today regard themselves as freethinkers, but are now arguably less prominent in the free thought movement than atheists.