Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds opinions should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism, rather than authority, tradition, or other dogmas.
Vonnegut was born on August 8, 1855 in Indianapolis, Indiana to Freethinker German-American parents Katarina Blank, a homemaker, and Clemens Vonnegut Sr. (1824–1906), a powerful nineteenth-century German-American businessmen in Indianapolis and founder of the Vonnegut Hardware Company.
He was raised Roman Catholic but rejected organized religion, claiming at one point to be an atheist and later a freethinker.
Freethought, a philosophical viewpoint asserting that beliefs should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or any dogma
While anarcho-pacifism is most commonly associated with religious anarchism such as Tolstoyan Christian anarchism and Buddhist anarchism, irreligious or even anti-religious tendencies have emerged such as the French individualist anarchist anarcho-pacifist tendency exemplified by authors and activists such as Charles-Auguste Bontemps, André Arru and Gérard de Lacaze-Duthiers which aligned itself with atheism and freethought.
Charles Lee Smith (1887 – 1964 in San Diego, California) was an atheist and Freethought activist in the United States, and editor of The Truth Seeker Freethought magazine in New York from 1937 until his death.
A few noted speakers were Frank Zindler, editor of the American Atheist magazine, Margaret Downey of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia and Ed Buckner, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, etc.
Irreligion, which may include atheism, agnosticism, ignosticism, antireligion, skepticism, freethought, antitheism, apatheism, non-belief, secular humanism, and deism, varies in the different countries around the world.
He was a teacher for 15 years, a superintendent of public instruction in Atchison County, Kansas for four years, then a writer and lecturer in support of free thought, his lectures being translated into German, French, Bohemian, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Bengali and Singalese.
Perennial topics included conspiracy theories (typically aimed at Freemasons, socialists, communists, freethinkers, or any combination thereof), conservative Roman Catholic dogma, the domination of Quebec by English Canada, and the subversive effects of the Boy Scout movement.
The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies, or the AHS as it is more commonly known, is a national umbrella organisation for free-thinking, atheist, humanist and secular student societies in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
In 1983, two friends involved in the southern California atheist and freethought movements, Al Seckel and John Edwards, co-created the Darwin fish design, which was first used on a freethought leaflet entitled "Darwin's Views on Religion" for Atheists United in 1984.
In 1887 he established a Journal of Freethought in San Francisco.