Define Freedom
(Top Posts - Philosophy (General) - 123100)

Quotes:

"Freedom is the distance between church and state."
-John Boston

"To no form of religion is woman indebted for one impulse
of freedom..."
-Susan B. Anthony

"Freedom of religion also implies the right not to have or
profess a religion. This is sometimes overlooked. It is a
sad commentary on religion that religionists, probably
quite well-meaning at times, have throughout history tried
to force fellow human beings into a required religious
mold. Apart from the very wrong theological assumptions
involved, this is a flagrant violation of the dignity of the
human person. Coerced religion is demeaning and of little
value."
-Bert B. Beach, Bright Candle of Courage, 1989, pp. 14-15,
from 'The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom'

"Those who take refuge behind theological barbed wire
fences, quite often wish they could have more freedom
of thought, but fear the change to the great ocean of
scientific truth as they would a cold bath plunge."
-Luther Burbank, "Why I Am an Infidel," 1926

"Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought."
-Graham Greene, 1981

"Whether the Bible is true or false, is of no consequence
in comparison with the mental freedom of the race."
-Robert G. Ingersoll, 'The Gods', 1872

"... my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness,
and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who
gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain -for the
freedom of labor and thought -to those who fell on the
fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons
bound with chains -to those who proudly mounted
scaffold's stairs -to those whose bones were crushed,
whose flesh was scarred and torn -to those by fire
consumed -to all the wise, the good, the brave of every
land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to
the sons of men. And I vowed to grasp the torch that
they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer
darkness still."
-Robert G. Ingersoll, 'Why Am I An Agnostic?', 1896

"Mental slavery is mental death and every man who has
given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of
his dead soul."
-Robert G. Ingersoll, 'Individuality', 1873

"We did not get our freedom from the church. The great
truth, that all men are by nature free, was never told on
Sinai's barren crags, nor by the lonely shores of Galilee."
-Robert G. Ingersoll, 'The Christian Religion' Part III,
The Ingersoll - Black Debate, 1881

"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural
-- that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered
into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood,
the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom."
Robert G. Ingersoll, 'Why I Am An Agnostic', 1896

"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry.
There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist
is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt
any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any
errors."
-J. Robert Oppenheimer, Life, 10 October 1949

"As long as men are free to ask what they must, free
to say what they think, free to think what they will,
freedom can never be lost, and science can never
regress."
-J. Robert Oppenheimer, Life, 10 October 1949