Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on secular, naturalistic considerations. It is most commonly defined as the separation of religion from civic affairs and the state — which in accordance with religious pluralism defines secularism as neutrality on issues of religion as opposed to total opposition of religion in the public square as a whole — while other views may broaden it to a position concerning the need to remove or minimalize the role of religion in any public sphere. The term has a broad range of meanings, and in the most schematic, may encapsulate any stance that promotes the secular in any given context. It may connote anticlericalism, atheism, antitheism, naturalism, non-sectarianism, secularity, neutrality on topics of religion, or the (complete) removal of religious symbols from public institutions.
Robert Green Ingersoll was an American lawyer, writer, and orator during the Golden Age of Free Thought, who campaigned in defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed "The Great Agnostic".
Freethought is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods such as logic, reason, and empirical observation. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a freethinker is "a person 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 belief systems. The cognitive application of free thought is known as "freethinking", and practitioners of free thought are known as "freethinkers". Modern freethinkers consider free thought to be a natural freedom from all negative and illusive thoughts acquired from society.
The National Secular Society (NSS) is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism and the separation of church and state. It holds that no one should gain advantage or disadvantage because of their religion or lack of it. It was founded by Charles Bradlaugh in 1866.
Little Blue Books are a series of small staple-bound books published from 1919 through 1978 by the Haldeman-Julius Publishing Company of Girard, Kansas. They were extremely popular, and achieved a total of 300-500 million booklets sold over the series' lifetime. A Big Blue Book range was also published.
Ernestine Louise Rose was a suffragist, abolitionist, and freethinker who has been called the “first Jewish feminist.” Her career spanned from the 1830s to the 1870s, making her a contemporary to the more famous suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Largely forgotten in contemporary discussions of the American women's rights movement, she was one of its major intellectual forces in nineteenth-century America. Her relationship with Judaism is a debated motivation for her advocacy. Although less well remembered than her fellow suffragists and abolitionists, in 1996, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, and in 1998 the Ernestine Rose Society was founded to “revive the legacy of this important early nineteenth century reformer by recognizing her pioneering role in the first wave of feminism.”
Charles Knowlton was an American physician and writer. He was an atheist.
Joseph Lewis was an American freethinker and atheist activist, publisher, and litigator. During the mid-twentieth century, he was one of America's most conspicuous public atheists, the other being Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. Born in Montgomery, Alabama to a Jewish family, he was forced by poverty to leave school at the age of nine to find employment. He read avidly, becoming self-educated. Lewis developed his ideas from reading, among others, Robert G. Ingersoll, whose published works made him aware of Thomas Paine. He was first impressed by the idea to become an atheist after having read a large volume of lectures of Ingersoll devoted to his idol Paine, which was brought to their house by his older brother. He later credited Paine's The Age of Reason with helping him leave theism.
Gramercy Park Hotel is a luxury hotel located at 2 Lexington Avenue, in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, adjacent to the park of the same name. It is known for its rich history.
Susan Jacoby is an American author. Her 2008 book about American anti-intellectualism, The Age of American Unreason, was a New York Times best seller. She is an atheist and a secularist. Jacoby graduated from Michigan State University in 1965. She lives in New York City.
Thomas W. Flynn was an American author, journalist, novelist, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, and editor of its journal Free Inquiry. He was also director of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum and the Freethought Trail.
Agnostic atheism is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, and are agnostic because they claim that the existence of a demiurgic entity or entities is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact.
Robert Ingersoll Birthplace, also known as Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum, is a historic home located at Dresden in Yates County, New York. It is a Federal-style structure that consists of a two-story, three-bay, gable-roofed central block with a two-part, 1+1⁄2-story saltbox ell on the west side. The central block and the front portion of the ell were built separately and joined sometime before they were moved to their present location prior to 1833. The rear portion of the ell was added on-site at the current location at an unknown date.
Viktor Emanuel Lennstrand was a Swedish Freethought activist and writer.
Charles Watts was an English writer, lecturer and publisher, who was prominent in the secularist and freethought movements in both Britain and Canada.
Harriet Teresa Law was a leading British freethinker in 19th-century London.
The Truth Seeker is an American periodical published since 1873. It was considered the most influential Freethought publication during the period following the Civil War into the first decades of the 20th century, known as the Golden Age of Freethought. Though there were other influential Freethought periodicals, Truth Seeker was the only one with a national circulation. The headquarters is in San Diego, California. The Truth Seeker is the world’s oldest freethought publication, and one of the oldest periodicals in America. Among general-readership titles, only Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, Scientific American, and The Nation are older.
Maud Ingersoll Probasco was an American suffragist and animal rights activist.
Eva Parker Ingersoll was an American freethinker, activist, and the wife of Robert G. Ingersoll, said to have been a significant influence on the development of her husband's own humanism.
The Freethought Publishing Company was established in 1877 by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh to publish books and pamphlets to promote the cause of secularism, social reform and freedom of thought. Their publications were printed initially at 28 Stonecutter Street, London E.C and then at 63 Fleet Street, London E.C.
