THE CREED OF THE FREETHINKERS
Source: Hlas Jednoty Svobodomyslných (Voice of the Free Thinkers Union), Iowa City, Iowa, June 3, 1872.
1. We see, believe and comprehend that everything that exists, grows and lives is directed by certain laws or intelligence.
2. We see, believe and comprehend that in all diversity things are mutually related through natural law.
3. We see, believe and comprehend that this mutuality is graduated, as lower organisms combine and create higher ones.
4. We see, believe and comprehend that the most complex and hence most perfect culmination of this development is the human being.
5. We see, believe and comprehend that man’s higher emanation is his spirit, that is his mind and will, which is called “I”.
6. We see, believe and comprehend that man by himself is powerless and incomplete, and individuals are called upon to combine their minds and their wills into higher entities, first into small communities, then into larger ones, and ultimately into a unity of all mankind; we call this self‐conscious entity Great Mankind, whom all should serve as the only Lord on earth.
7. We see, believe and comprehend that the earth is but one member of a higher unit, the solar system.
8. We surmise, that this solar system is also but a member of a still higher unit, and that any other possible units form one body, which we call the universe.
9. We believe that every creature has a purpose as a member of the universe, and this purpose is called universality.
10. We believe and comprehend that everything has an awareness of this universality, and we term this religion.
11. We believe and comprehend that unconscious creatures fulfill their purpose by existing, growth and life and we term this natural religion.
12. We feel, believe and comprehend that conscious creatures are liberated through their consciousness, hence they should voluntarily fulfill their purpose, and that is conscious or free religion.
13. We call the greatness of the universe harmony, the laws of the universe as the objects of cognizance truth . . . .
14. The devotion of one member of the universe to another is love, its conscious exercise is justice; the process of learning about the laws of the universe is science, and the imitation of universal harmony is art.”