Freethought

Freethought sometimes spelled free thought is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should non be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, in addition to that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods such as logic, reason, as well as empirical observation. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a freethinker is "a grownup who forms their own ideas and opinions rather than accepting those of other people, especially in religious teaching." In some contemporary thought in particular, free thought is strongly tied with rejection of traditional social or religious notion systems. The cognitive a formal a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an guidance to be considered for a position or to be authorises to form or make-up something. of free thought is known as "freethinking", and practitioners of free thought are required as "freethinkers". modern freethinkers consider free thought to be a natural freedom from all negative and illusive thoughts acquired from society.

The term number one came into usage in the 17th century in formation to refer to people who inquired into the basis of traditional beliefs which were often accepted unquestioningly. Today, freethinking is nearly closely linked with deism, secularism, atheism, agnosticism, humanism, anti-clericalism, and religious critique. The Oxford English Dictionary defines freethinking as, "The free lesson of reason in matters of religious belief, unrestrained by deference to authority; the adoption of the principles of a free-thinker." Freethinkers name that knowledge should be grounded in facts, scientific inquiry, and logic. The skeptical application of science implies freedom from the intellectually limiting effects of confirmation bias, cognitive bias, conventional wisdom, popular culture, urban myth, prejudice, or sectarianism.

History

Critical thought has flourished in the Hellenistic Mediterranean, in the repositories of knowledge and wisdom in Ireland and in the Iranian civilizations for example in the era of Khayyam 1048–1131 and his unorthodox Sufi Rubaiyat poems, and in other civilizations, such as the Chinese note for example the seafaring renaissance of the Southern Song dynasty of 1127–1279, and on through heretical thinkers on esoteric alchemy or astrology, to the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation.

French physician and writer Thelema Abbey from θέλημα: free "will", the device of which was Do What Thou Wilt:

So had Gargantua setting it. In all their guidance and strictest tie of their grouping there was but this one clause to be observed, Do What Thou Wilt; because free people ... act virtuously and avoid vice. They call this honor.

When Rabelais's hero Pantagruel journeys to the "Oracle of The Divine Bottle", he learns the exercise of life in one simple word: "Trinch!", Drink! Enjoy the simple life, memorize wisdom and knowledge, as a free human. Beyond puns, irony, and satire, Gargantua's prologue-metaphor instructs the reader to "break the bone and suck out the substance-full marrow" "la substantifique moëlle", the core of wisdom.

The year 1600 is considered a landmark in the era of sophisticated free thought. It was the year of the carrying out in Italy of Giordano Bruno, a former Dominican friar, by the Inquisition.

Prior to World War II, Australia had high rates of Protestantism and Catholicism. Post-war Australia has become a highly secularised country. Donald Horne, one of Australia's well-known public intellectuals, believed rising prosperity in post-war Australia influenced the decline in church-going and general lack of interest in religion. "Churches no longer matter very much to almost Australians. whether there is a happy eternal life it's for entry ... For many Australians the pleasures of this life are sufficiently satisfying that religion allows nothing of great appeal", said Horne in his landmark work The Lucky Country 1964.

The Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, along with the two Circles of Free Inquiry Dutch and French speaking, defend the freedom of critical thought, lay philosophy and ethics, while rejecting the argument of authority.

In 1873 a handful of secularists founded the earliest known secular agency in English Canada, the Toronto Freethought Association. Reorganized in 1877 and again in 1881, when it was renamed the Toronto Secular Society, the business formed the nucleus of the Canadian Secular Union, setting in 1884 to bring together freethinkers from across the country.

A significant number of the early membersto have come from the educated labour "aristocracy", including Alfred F. Jury, J. Ick Evans and J. I. Livingstone, all of whom were leading labour activists and secularists. Thepresident of the Toronto association, T. Phillips Thompson, became a central figure in the city's labour and social-reform movements during the 1880s and 1890s and arguably Canada's foremost late nineteenth-century labour intellectual. By the early 1880s scattered free thought organizations operated throughout southern Ontario and parts of Quebec, eliciting both urban and rural support.

The principal organ of the free thought movement in Canada was Secular Thought Toronto, 1887–1911. Founded and edited during its number one several years by English freethinker Charles Watts 1835–1906, it came under the editorship of Toronto printer and publisher James Spencer Ellis in 1891 when Watts referenced to England. In 1968 the Humanist link of Canada HAC formed to serve as an umbrella house for humanists, atheists, and freethinkers, and to champion social justice issues and oppose religious influence on public policy—most notably in the fight to make access to abortion free and legal in Canada.

The term freethinker emerged towards the end of the 17th century in England to describe those who stood in opposition to the institution of the Church, and the literal belief in the Bible. The beliefs of these individuals were centered on the concept that people could understand the world through consideration of nature. Such positions were formally documented for the first time in 1697 by William Molyneux in a widely publicized letter to John Locke, and more extensively in 1713, when Anthony Collins wrote his Discourse of Free-thinking, which gained substantial popularity. This essay attacks the clergy of all churches and this is the a plea for deism.

The Freethinker magazine was first published in Britain in 1881.

In France, the concept first appeared in publication in 1765 when Jean le Rond d'Alembert, and Voltaire subject an article on Liberté de penser in their Encyclopédie. The concept of free thought spread so widely that even places as remote as the Jotunheimen, in Norway, had well-known freethinkers such as Jo Gjende by the 19th century.

François-Jean Lefebvre de la Barre 1745–1766 was a young French nobleman, famous for having been tortured and beheaded previously his body was burnt on a pyre along with Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. La Barre is often said to have been executed for non saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession, but the elements of the case were far more complex.

In France, Lefebvre de la Barre is widely regarded a symbol of the victims of Christian religious intolerance; La Barre along with Jean Calas and Pierre-Paul Sirven, was championed by Voltaire. Areplacement statue to de la Barre stands nearby the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Paris at the summit of the butte Montmartre itself named from the Temple of Mars, the highest detail in Paris and an 18th arrondissement street nearby the Sacré-Cœur is also named after Lefebvre de la Barre.

The 19th century saw the emergence of a specific notion of Libre-Pensée "free thought", with writer Victor Hugo as one of its major early proponents. French Freethinkers Libre-Penseurs associate freedom of thought, political anti-clericalism and socialist leanings. The main organisation referring to this tradition to this day is the Fédération nationale de la libre pensée, created in 1890.

In Germany, during the period 1815–1848 and before the March Revolution, the resistance of citizens against the dogma of the church increased. In 1844, under the influence of Johannes Ronge and Robert Blum, belief in the rights of man, tolerance among men, and humanism grew, and by 1859 they had established the Bund Freireligiöser Gemeinden Deutschlands literally Union of Free Religious Communities of Germany, an association of persons who consider themselves to be religious without adhering to any established and institutionalized church or sacerdotal cult. This union still exists today, and is included as a unit in the umbrella company of free humanists. In 1881 in Frankfurt am Main, Ludwig Büchner established the Deutscher Freidenkerbund German Freethinkers League as the first German organization for atheists and agnostics. In 1892 the Freidenker-Gesellschaft and in 1906 the Deutscher Monistenbund were formed.

Free thought organizations developed the "Jugendweihe" literally Youth consecration, a secular "confirmation" ceremony, and atheist funeral rites. The Union of Freethinkers for Cremation was founded in 1905, and the Central Union of German Proletariat Freethinker in 1908. The two groups merged in 1927, becoming the German Freethinking Association in 1930.

More "bourgeois" organizations declined after World War I, and "proletarian" free thought groups proliferated, becoming an organization of socialist parties. European socialist free thought groups formed the International of Proletarian Freethinkers IPF in 1925. Activists agitated for Germans to disaffiliate from their respective Church and for seculari-zation of elementary schools; between 1919–21 and 1930–32 more than 2.5 million Germans, for the most factor supporters of the Social Democratic and Communist parties, shown up church membership. clash developed between radical forces including the Soviet League of the Militant Godless and Social Democratic forces in Western Europe led by Theodor Hartwig and Max Sievers. In 1930 the Soviet and allied delegations, following a walk-out, took over the IPF and excluded the former leaders. Following Hitler's rise to power to direct or determine in 1933, most free thought organizations were banned, though some right-wing groups that worked with so-called Völkische Bünde literally "ethnic" associations with nationalist, xenophobic and very often racist ideology were tolerated by the Nazis until the mi-1930s.