Posts Tagged ‘ The Freethinker ’

We’re allowed

Nov 22nd, 2015 12:28 pm | By

Here’s my column in The Freethinker.

It’s about all this inquisitioning going on.

Remember the Inquisition? Those were fun times.

Being alive now is being subject to a roving freelance Inquisition that can grab us at any time, as if we were 13th century Cathars. I feel pretty safe where I am, but with a freelance Inquisition one just never knows. If they did pounce, and pause to question me as opposed to opening fire on sight, I would be guilty on so many charges. Everyone I know would be. We all break the rules of obedience and submission every minute of every day.

Those people in Paris broke so many of those rules. They were out in public

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New Atheists since 1881

Jun 7th, 2012 3:45 pm | By

Also – I have a new gig. I get to be a columnist for The Freethinker.

Cutting”, “abrasive”, “sarcastic”, “offensive” … These are just some of the words used to describe the Freethinker magazine, which was launched in Britain in 1881 and has continued publishing without a break ever since. But it was the word “blasphemous”, dropped from the lips of a hostile judge, that that got its founder and first editor G.W. Foote into serious trouble. As a result mainly of irreligious cartoons published in the Christmas, 1882, edition, the judge declared the issue “blasphemous” and Foote was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment with hard labour.

But the magazine, under caretaker editor Edward E Aveling, kept rolling off

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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