Freethought and Freedom

by George H Smith

Overview

Liberty of conscience and freedom of thought are twin, core components of modern life in societies across the world. The ability to pursue one's vision of the right and the good, coupled with liberty to pursue individual reason and enlightenment, helped produce so much of modern life that we may be apt to forget that libertarian philosophy was not dictated by Nature. Freethought and Freedom surveys the long history of religious and intellectual liberty, exploring their key ideas along the way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781944424374
Publisher:	Cato Institute
Publication date:	07/18/2017
Series:	Essays of George H. Smith , #2
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.73(d)

About the Author

George H. Smith writes a weekly column for Libertarianism. org. He is the author of four books, including The System of Liberty: Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism, published by Cambridge University Press, and is the editor of Individualism: A Reader and Critics of State Education: A Reader.

Table of Contents

1. Augustine’s Case for Righteous Persecution . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2. The Problem of Heresy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3. Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin on Persecution . 19

4. Shaftesbury on the Value of Ridicule . 29

5. How Freethinkers Attempted to Avoid Persecution . . . . . . . . . 39

6. The English Deists . . 49

7. Deism, The Age of Reason, and Richard Carlile . . 59

8. Miracles and Edward Gibbon . . 69

9. John Toland and the Nature of Reason . 83

10. The Politics of Deism . . 97

11. Skepticism . . 107

12. Francis Bacon and the Rise of Secularism . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

13. Benedict Spinoza . 129

14. Spinoza on the Bible . 141

15. Spinoza on Freedom of Religion and Speech . 151

16. Spinoza’s Political Theory . 161

vi

Freetho ught an d Free dom

17. A Critique of Spinoza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

18. Jean Meslier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

19. Jean Meslier and the Catholic Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

20. Jean Meslier and Christian Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

21. The Political Theory of Jean Meslier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

22. Jean Meslier on Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

23. The Christian Theory of Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

24. Early Christianity and the Modern Libertarian Movement . . . . 243

25. The Secularization of Private Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

26. Private Property and Natural Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

27. John Locke on Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291