Freethinkers

Last September I read a book called What’s God Got to Do With It? that introduced me to the life and writings of Robert Ingersoll, a famous politician and orator of the late 1800s who was an advocate of secular government and a leader among those who described themselves as Freethinkers.

I enjoyed that book very much, and started searching for more on the same subject matter. Ingersoll left a voluminous written legacy, and I considered digging more deeply into his works. But my searching led to to a broader view of the subject that appealed to me, Freethinkers; A History of American Secularism.

Everywhere you look in America today, the religious-right is working to inject religion into government. George’s Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and efforts to teach “Intelligent Design” in classrooms, are but a few examples.

Frequently, proponents of such change argue that attempts to separate church and state go much farther than our founding father’s originally intended. Freethinkers is a fascinating history of that reveals what a monumental accomplishment it was for America’s founders too succeed at creating a secular government, and traces the role of freethought through wartime, the woman’s and civil rights movements, and up to the present day, that I heartily recommend to anyone.