Freethought Across the Centuries

Synopsis    

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Table of Contents

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Synopsis

Throughout human history there have been those who by challenging accepted concepts have inaugurated new investigations into beliefs, life patterns and the human understanding of the self. In some periods, challengers were recognized and honored as innovators; more often they were persecuted, imprisoned and put to death. Nevertheless, so important was the critical and innovative thinking they introduced that their ideas grew and expanded after their death bringing changes in human understanding of the cosmos and of the place of humans within the vastness of the universe. New evidence and critical evaluations of documents and systems of government that were commonly assumed to be divinely given or endorsed brought about the changes that were ultimately to lead to a free, democratic society.

In this book, Larue provides an overview of the ways in which inquiring human minds have challenged notions accepted as facts-that-were-not-to-be-questioned. He urges students, educators, parents, and society in general to become involved in critical thinking, to not hesitate to indulge in independent reasoning, and to keep open the doors of free inquiry. Larue stresses that critical and evaluative processes have not ceased and insists that they not be stifled, for they provide the basis for a new age of enlightenment for the 21st century.

Gerald A. Larue is an Emeritus Professor of Biblical History and Archaeology and an Adjunct Professor of Gerontology at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California. He is a world traveler and has lectured widely in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia. The American Humanist Association honored him as Humanist of the Year in 1989. He is a Humanist Laureate and a member of the prestigious international Academy of Humanism (Academie D’Humanisme) established in 1983—a date which marked the 500th anniversary of the Inquisition and the 350th anniversary of the trial of Galileo. He lives in Huntington Beach, California.

Reviews

Steve Allen

The average American has almost no conception of the debt owed to freethinkers of the past 200 years of American history, not to mention those Europeans who distinguished themselves for their courage and clarity of thought.

Once the specific evidence is brought to our attention we can, with the gift of hindsight, perceive the importance of those thinkers who moved bravely against the current of their time. In those times, sad to say, they often paid dearly for taking advantage of that freedom of thought and expression that are so honored by the rest of us, at least as abstractions.

Gerald Larue has produced a volume that can enlighten everyone, believers as well as non-believers.

Prof. Joseph E. Barnhart, Department of Philosophy, North Texas State University

Dr. Gerald Larue’s book, Freethought Across the Centuries, is an adventure epic of human mortals struggling to increase their liberty, including the freedom to think creatively and critically. It is also the account of tyrants and others whose fear of freedom of thought led them to employ violent tactics of repression.

In fascinating chapters, Larue demonstrates that many cultural streams around the world have fed into the vast river of freethought. As an author, he belongs to the noble tradition of humanists who find human heroism behind views and traditions sharply different from their own.

His book shows in detail how we as a species have struggled to solve problems and to make sense of the universe that gave us birth. Upon reading the closing chapter, we cannot help feeling deeper kinship with fellow humans who lived before us.

Larue helps us understand that ours is the responsibility of conserving, generously transmitting, and perhaps rectifying the vast heritage into which we have all in various ways been immersed and by which we have been made into a fearsome and wondrous species.

In Freethought Across the Centuries, Gerald Larue knocks religion off its pedestal and places it squarely into the arena of inquiry. Larue presents rational skeptics throughout history who questioned and criticized religious dogma and who often died because they questioned.

The book reminds us that, if we fail to question religion as we question all other fields of human knowledge, then we risk forfeiting the sacred balance between church and state.

I urge educators in all disciplines to read Prof. Larue’s book, and to bring its resources into their classrooms.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Chapter 1. Concerning Freethought 1

The Gods of Babylon 43

The Gods of Egypt 46

Polytheism, Monolatry, Monotheism. 50

Eastern versus Western Christianity .204

Freethought Across the Centuries is published by the Humanist Press.  You can purchase this 516-page book for $19.95 from Amazon Books.  Click this link http://www.amazon.com and search books for Gerald Larue.