“When a religion is good,” wrote Franklin, “I conceive it will support itself; and when ... its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”

“When a religion is good,” wrote Franklin, “I conceive it will support itself; and when ... its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”

"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions."

Don Juan was described by a contemporary as "a school of Atheism." Tartuffe so stirred up the clergy that some clerics wanted the playwright burned as a heretic! Instead, he was excommunicated.

This is more than just a calendar of events or mini-biographies – it’s a roll-call look into our Freethought history that shows not just who came before us, but that we as freethinkers are not alone in the world, no matter how isolated and alone we may feel at times.

Six weeks before her death, Rose gave a copy of a speech, "In Defense of Atheism," to the London Freethinker. An Atheist to the last, Rose said there was nothing in it to alter.

"My personal position is simple. I have no living sense of commerce with a God," said James. "Religion, in short, is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism."

Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest... is worth enquiring into.

"I cannot be angry at God, in whom I do not believe," De Beauvoir said.

"I cannot be angry at God, in whom I do not believe," De Beauvoir said.