One of our flea-market gnomes came into the shop a few days ago with an incredible find -- an 1898 edition of The Freethinkers' Pictorial Text-Book. Freethought is a philosophy that rejects authority and dogma -- most notably that of organized religion -- in favor of conclusions reached by rationality and science.

We love this collection of prints and explanatory texts not because we believe the Church should go the way of the dinosaur, but because it is a 110-year-old artifact calling for separation of Church and State using artwork and terms that still read so thoroughly modern. The line drawings bring to mind the work of 1960s cartoonist Robert Crumb, and the arguments are just as fresh as any you'd find on today's op-ed pages.

A botanical note: The symbol of the Freethought movement is the pansy, whose name is a derivation of the French word pensée, or "thought." Pansies are thought to resemble the human face, and in the summertime they nod their heads forward as if they were thinking deep thoughts!

Labels: botanical prints, cartoons, Freethinkers, Freethought, pansies, religion, Robert Crumb, The Church, The Language of Flowers

Archive for September, 2009NEWS: First International Blasphemy DaySeptember 29, 2009 September 30, 2009, will mark, for many freethinkers, the first international Blasphemy Day. The new holiday–or unholyday–is being promoted by the Center for Free Inquiry (CFI). It will be inaugurated by an art exhibit in Washington DC, a soap-box style “speaker’s corner” in Toronto, and a Blasphemy-Fest! film-viewing in LA, all held at CFI centers.The date September 30 was chosen to commemorate the controversial 2005 publication of cartoon images of the prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Though intentionally provocative and probably offensive to many, the event’s purpose is not, organizers insist, meant to promote hate or violence, nor is it “about getting enjoyment out of ridiculing and insulting others.” Rather, CFI organizers argue, it is about promoting and defending free speech. “The event was created,” CFI’s website explains, “as a reaction against those who would seek to take away the right to satirize and criticize a particular set of beliefs given a privileged status over other beliefs. Criticism and dissent towards opposing views is the only way in which any nation with any modicum of freedom can exist.” More specifically, it is a reaction to recent UN resolutions that condemn defamation of religion.For more information see this article at Religious News Service and this post at CFI’s website.