a very good book addressing the history of free thought and of secularism in American history, with a strong emphasis on some of the major moral and social issues of the past few centuries.
while this is by no means an attack on religion, she is concerned with addressing “the sentimentality that breeds forgetting”–that is, our tendency to forget the history of mainstream religions in America and those same issues, particularly abolition, civil rights, the various stages of women’s movement and feminism, and other matters of civil and social rights, as we allow those stories to be rewritten as predominantly if not exclusively histories of religious activism.
but she is not playing any blame game; rather, much of the focus is on where the religious and non-religious can come together in strengthening the wall between church and state envisioned by the framers of the Constitution–for all our sakes.
an additional goal of hers–one that is gaining momentum presently–is the call for secularists, humanists, and religious and non-religious persons alike to speak up on behalf of reason and freethought–stressing *free* and *thought* here–in our country instead of standing aside as the more energetic and more organized elements of religious conservatism and extremism continue to fight against reason and tarnish the significant–and certainly praiseworthy–history of secularism in this country.
Tags: book review, Freethought, quotes, Secularism, Susan Jacoby
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