What is a freethinker and why does it matter?(HUMANISM 101)

The Humanist | March 1, 2006| | Copyright

IN HIS 1957 ESSAY, "The Value of Free Thought" Bertrand Russell writes: 

 
   What makes a freethinker is not his beliefs but 
   the way in which he holds them. If he holds them 
   because his elders told him they were true when 
   he was young, or if he holds them because if he did 
   not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; 
   but if he holds them because, after careful thought 
   he finds a balance of evidence in their favor, then 
   his thought is free, however odd his conclusions 
   may seem.

By this definition, a wide range of people have been freethinkers: ...

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