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‘You have to know your own mind’ – interview with Laura Dodsworth
Laura Dodsworth at Waterstones, Piccadilly, February 2023. Photo: E. Park Introduction Until three years ago, Laura Dodsworth was a photojournalist, known for Bare Reality, a project in three series...
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Christopher Hitchens and the value of heterodoxy
John Lennox and Christopher Hitchens, ‘Is God Great?’ debate, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, 3 March 2009. Photo: stepher via Wikimedia Commons. We live in an era of steadily proliferating...
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Free speech at universities: where do we go from here?
The free speech area on the campus of Texas WomAn’s University, September 2015. Image: Michael Barera via Wikimedia Commons. I write this piece about freedom of speech from the perspective of someone...
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British Islam and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in universities: interview with...
Steven Greer at the Oxford Institute for British Islam. Image: Declan Henry Introduction An expert on human rights might seem to be an unlikely target for censorship by a British university. Yet this...
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Can art be independent of politics?
Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts, by Jed Perl (Knopf, 2022). As W.H. Auden put it, ‘If the criterion of art were its power to incite to action, Goebbels would be one of the greatest...
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Breaking the silence: Pakistani ex-Muslims find a voice on social media
Nuriyah Khan, an ex-Muslim who runs a YouTube channel. In Pakistan, religion exerts a significant influence over society. This often results in restricted freedom of expression for those with...
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‘The real beauty comes from contemplating the universe’: humanism with Sarah...
Humanly Possible, by Sarah Bakewell. Image: Chatto & Windus 2023. Sarah Bakewell is what you might call a non-organised humanist. That is not to say she is disorganised (far from it), but that she...
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In the fight against authoritarianism, the culture wars are a distraction
Hong Kong riot police, 7 September 2019. taken in front of the Tung Chung MTR station during the 7 September airport protest. photo and context by: Tauno Tõhk. Photo under licence via wikimedia...
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The return of blasphemy in Ireland
The last film censor’s certificate signed by James Montgomery (1939), the first film censor of independent Ireland, who objected in particular to ‘partial nudity, stage-Irishness, drunkenness,...
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Image of the week: Redacted
Redacted: Speech and Thought in jail, by Polyp (Paul Fitzgerald). For a bibliography of our articles on free speech and free thought, see Free Speech in the Freethinker. Enjoy this cartoon? Subscribe...
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Milton’s ‘Areopagitica’: liberty and licensing
Front page of Milton’s Areopagitica, published in late 1644 without a licence. Image: US Library of Congress, via Wikimedia commons. In June 1643, amidst the furnace heat of civil war, Parliament...
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‘When the chips are down, the philosophers turn out to have been bluffing’
Image: Professor Alex Byrne in his office at MIT. Introduction Alex Byrne is not necessarily the sort of person whom you would have expected to become involved in the ‘culture wars’. After an initial...
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Year in review: 2023
‘Two journalists discuss freedom of speech’, Image generated by Dall-E from a prompt by E. Park, December 2023. 2023 has been an eventful year for free thought, humanism and secularism. Below, Emma...
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South Asia’s silenced feminists
women in a National Campaign on the prevention of violence against women, India Gate, New Delhi, 2 October 2009. Image: Ministry of Women and Child Development, India, via Wikimedia Commons. On 26...
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On sex, gender and their consequences: interview with Louise Antony
Louise Antony Introduction At the Freethinker, one of our aims has always been to foster a culture of free speech and open debate. It was from this perspective that, as editor in 2022, I first became...
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Secularism is a feminist issue
The following article is adapted from a talk given to the Leicester Secular Society on 3 March 2024. Women’s march 2018, Seneca Falls, USA. Image: Marc Nozell via Wikimedia Commons. In 1877, a woman...
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Faith Watch, March 2024
Faith Watch is an idiosyncratically compiled monthly round-up of the errors, disasters and absurdities following in the wake of religions around the world, by our assistant editor, Daniel James Sharp....
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From Satan to the Hate Monster
Images: from a ‘History of witches and Wizards’ (1760) via wikimedia commons; screen grab from the police Scotland video via Youtube. Since their earliest origins, Christian cultures have been...
View ArticleThree years on, the lessons of Batley are yet to be learned
In March 2021, fearing for his life and his family, a religious studies teacher at Batley Grammar School fled his job and home. A campaign of threats and intimidation was underway, instigated by...
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Is the spirit of liberty dead in Scotland?
It looks like there’s trouble brewing north of the wall. A giant ginger beast that has lain dormant for the past three years has awoken, possibly the illegitimate love child of Ed Sheeran and Nicola...
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