Latest Articles
Image of the week: A papal plague
As the conclave to elect a new pope gets underway, I thought it appropriate to share a good,…
Verses of Life: A Review of ‘Woman Life Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution’, edited by Bänoo Zan and Cy Strom
Are poets really ‘the unacknowledged legislators of the world’, as Percy Bysshe Shelley put it in 1821? This…
Can there be peace in the culture wars? Interview with A.C. Grayling
On 15 April 2025, I spoke with the philosopher A.C. Grayling about his new book Discriminations: Making Peace…
Some Brief Reflections on the Death of a Pope
Here we go again. Another round of swooning, gushing, and utterly emetic media coverage for a deceased pontiff.…
Freethought History Webinar #2: Freethought and Evolution—and Darwinian Erasure? With Eoin Carter (15 April)
The second in our Freethought History Webinar series.
Freethought History Webinar Series Introduction and #1: What does H. G. Wells offer today? With Bill Cooke
A new webinar series from the Freethinker featuring experts on freethought history and its enduring relevance. First up: Bill Cooke…
The Freethinker: Some History and Themes (With a Dundonian Addendum)
Editor’s Introduction On 10 February 2025, I spoke to the Dundee Humanist Group about some of the history…
Image of the week: the first issue of the Freethinker—to mark the opening of our digital archive
After three years, every print issue of the Freethinker published between 1881 and 2014 is now available to…
10 February: Talk to the Dundee Humanist Group
On 10 February at 7 pm, I’ll be giving a talk to the Dundee Humanist Group about the Freethinker…
Bring on the British Republic – Graham Smith’s ‘Abolish the Monarchy’, reviewed
'Our monarchs seem to have spent more time secretly lobbying for tax exemptions than standing up for liberty.'
From the archive: ‘Secularism contains the real elements of a progressive civilisation’, by Charles Watts
An evergreen article from 1894.
Image of the week: The Parker Solar Probe, touching the face of God and outdoing faith
2025 has not, it must be admitted, gotten off to anything like a good start. Donald Trump returned…
10 years since the Charlie Hebdo attack: a message from the Freethinker
A decade ago, on 7 January 2015, twelve people were slaughtered in Paris. Why? Because they were contributors…
Year in review: 2024
Both the world at large and the Freethinker itself have been through some pretty big changes this past…
Image of the week: ‘Moses Getting a Back View’ (1882)
Published in the Freethinker’s 1882 Christmas special, this cartoon was one of the blasphemous images that landed our…
The Right to Die: The Freethinker and the Assisted Dying Debate Over the Years
With the passage of the second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in the…
Protecting liberal values: National Secular Society 2024 conference
On 19 October, I was one of many speakers at the National Secular Society’s (NSS) 2024 conference on…
October events
Dates for your diary.
Against the ‘New Theism’
Note: this is a very slightly revised version of a piece originally written for my personal Substack and…
The radical atheism of the American revolutions: interview with Matthew Stewart
Scroll down for the video of the interview itself. One of the stereotypes of America is that it…