Freethought is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and should instead be reached by other methods such as logic, reason, and empirical observation.
The Secular Student Alliance (SSA) is an American educational nonprofit organization whose purpose is to educate high school and college students about the value of scientific reason and the intellectual basis of secularism in its atheistic and humanistic manifestations. The SSA also offers these students and their organizations a variety of resources, including leadership training and support, guest speakers, discounted literature and conference tickets, and online articles and opinions.
Humanists International is an international non-governmental organisation championing secularism and human rights, motivated by secular humanist values. Founded in Amsterdam in 1952, it is an umbrella organisation made up of more than 160 secular humanist, atheist, rationalist, agnostic, skeptic, freethought and Ethical Culture organisations from over 80 countries.
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a U.S. nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal and to fight the influence of religion in government.
The Godless Americans March on Washington (GAMOW) occurred on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on November 2, 2002, with the participation of many atheists, freethinkers, agnostics and humanists. The public cable network C-SPAN documented the event on video.
Edwin Frederick Kagin was an attorney at law in Union, Kentucky, and a founder of Camp Quest, the first secular summer camp in the United States for the children of secularists, atheists, agnostics, brights, skeptics, naturalists and freethinkers. He served as the National Legal Director of American Atheists from 2006 until his death in 2014.
The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF) is a community for atheists and freethinkers in the military, both within the United States and from around the world. The MAAF can assist U.S. military members to respond to illegal and insensitive religious proselytizing on military bases. It is an independent 501(c)(3) organization building community for freethinkers and other nontheists in the military. The MAAF supports constitutional separation of church and state and First Amendment rights for all service members. It also educates and trains both the military and civilian community about atheism and Freethought in the military.
Atheist Alliance International (AAI) is a non-profit advocacy organization committed to raising awareness and educating the public about atheism. It does this by supporting atheist and freethought organizations around the world through promoting local campaigns, raising awareness of related issues, sponsoring secular education projects and facilitating interaction among secular groups and individuals.
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is a division of Center for Inquiry (CFI) founded by British biologist Richard Dawkins in 2006 to promote scientific literacy and secularism.
Clark Davis Adams was a prominent American freethought leader and activist.
Margaret Downey is a nontheist activist who is a former President of Atheist Alliance International and founder and president of the Freethought Society. She also founded the Anti-Discrimination Support Network, which reports and helps deal with discrimination against atheists.
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.
According to sociologists as of 2022, "the proportion of atheists in the US has held steady at 3% to 4% for more than 80 years." According to the Pew Research Center in a 2014 survey, self-identified atheists make up 3.1% of the US population, even though 9% of Americans agreed with the statement "Do not believe in God" while 2% agreed with the statement "Do not know if they believe in God".
The United Coalition of Reason, or UnitedCoR for short, is a national organization in the United States that works to raise the visibility of local groups in the community of reason. Nationally this is done by conducting campaigns that highlight the fact that nontheists live in every community across America. Locally this is done by organizing and nurturing local groups to communicate with each other and hold events and other outreach activities.
David Niose is an attorney, author, and activist who has served as president of the American Humanist Association and the Secular Coalition for America. In these positions he has pursued legal and advocacy efforts on behalf of secularism.
The secular movement refers to a social and political trend in the United States, beginning in the early years of the 20th century, with the founding of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism in 1925 and the American Humanist Association in 1941, in which atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, freethinkers, and other nonreligious and nontheistic Americans have grown in both numbers and visibility. There has been a sharp increase in the number of Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated, from under 10 percent in the 1990s to 20 percent in 2013. The trend is especially pronounced among young people, with about one in three Americans younger than 30 identifying as religiously unaffiliated, a figure that has nearly tripled since the 1990s.
Mandisa Lateefah Thomas is the founder and president of Black Nonbelievers Inc. She has spoken at secular conferences and events, and has promoted the group's agenda in media outlets.
The Congressional Freethought Caucus is a membership organization in the United States House of Representatives established to promote policy solutions based on reason and science, and to defend the secular character of government. Representatives Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin have co-chaired the caucus since it formed in April 2018.
