We are a group of citizens who are bringing our talents together to promote freethought. We are concerned about the level of gullibility, intellectual carelessness, and intolerance of dissenting views often displayed in our society in matters related to the supernatural and the occult. We promote a healthy level of skepticism about religion and all other supernatural claims. No sacred cows.
A freethinker is someone who forms beliefs about religion and the super-natural through conscientious reflection, not based on authority, tradition, or fear. No one is a freethinker who holds beliefs about the supernatural but has not critically examined these beliefs.
One is not a freethinker because he or she holds certain beliefs. Freethinking is a method of arriving at conclusions, not a set of beliefs. Most freethinkers are atheists, agnostics, or deists. Some famous US freethinkers include: George Washington, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Ethan Allen, Abraham Lincoln, and many others. They were deists and rejected orthodox, revealed religion.
Here are other famous freethinkers from around the world: Mark Twain, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Robert G. Ingersoll, Amrose Bierce, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Edison, Luther Burbank, George Bernard Shaw, Sigmund Freud, Clarence Darrow, W.E.B. Du Bois, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, H.L. Menken, Margaret Sanger, Langston Hughes, Ayn Rand, Jean-Paul Sartre, Isaac Asimov, Gene Roddenberry, Steve Allen, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Carl Sagan, Penn and Teller, George Carlin, Richard Dawkins, Gore Vidal, Harlan Ellison, Gloria Steinem, Thomas S. Vernon, Woody Allen, Katherine Hepburn, Peter Ustinov, Bob Keeshan, Gov. Jesse Ventura, and many more.
Because we promote a healthy skepticism we challenge all supernatural claims. We test psychics who want to demonstrate their alleged powers. We debate the existence of god. We insist on keeping church and state separate. We promote science. We provide resources and contacts to promote freethought, and we hold meetings in the Fayetteville area.
To find out about our next meeting e-mail Freethought Headquarters at:
The Perfect Mirror? The Question of Bible Perfection, by Darrel Henschell
$16 postpaid, available from:
Fayetteville Freethinkers
2367-1 Greenacres Rd.
PMB 127
Fayetteville, AR 72703
What is Atheism? A Short Introduction, by Douglas E. Krueger
A hard hitting book on the virtues of godlessness.