Talk:Freedom of thought

Freedom of conscience
Just like freedom of speech, freedom of thought is different from, and should not be confused with freedom of conscience. If freedom of thought is the right to hold a conviction, and freedom of speech is the right to express it, freedom of conscience is the right to follow it.

This is relevant for e.g. the right to (military) conscientious objection. Another example: In Sweden, where i live, there is a huge debate about introducing freedom of conscience for health care staff. We do not discuss the right to hold the moral objections per se (even though one has heard the opinion that dissenting medical personnel should be suspended). Norway and Denmark has got a freedom of conscience clause in their abortion laws, which grants the midwives the right not to participate on moral grounds, referring to article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I also note that our language Wikipedia has got different articles on the two concepts: see samvetsfrihet (freedom of conscience) and åsiktsfrihet (freedom of thought).

I claim additional support from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states them separately: "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion" and major dictionary definitions, such as this one: Oxford English Dictionary: Freedom of conscience. ––St.nerol (talk) 00:12, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. The introduction describes freedom of thought as the freedom to hold an opinion, whereas the overview quotes the First Amendment prohibiting any law that interferes with the free exercise of religion. Just like the Swedish version, German Wikipedia has separate articles on Gedankenfreiheit (freedom of thought) and on Gewissensfreiheit (freedom of conscience); and the German folk song Die Gedanken sind frei – popular with the opposition in East Germany but actually much older – stresses that even if freedom to act is denied, one is still free to think what one will. GroupCohomologist (talk) 14:01, 2 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I would agree that the freedom to conceive of a right does not guarantee you the right of action or "follow through". As an example; if your religion states you must exclude people in the course of running a business for arbitrary reasons, or must kill people if they are apostates, then I think "freedom of conscience" runs smack into the brick wall of the rule of law. Idasod (talk) 15:47, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Please don't use this page as a soapbox for you homosexual understanding of global universal freedoms to be that someone should be forced to bake a homosexual wedding cake when it is against their religion. Only other homosexuals seem to agree with you there, this is a contentious issue and everyone else who isn't your fellow homosexual tends to agree it is a violation of civil rights and human rights to force someone to act against their religion, in fact it is usually seen as religious persecution on the part of you homosexuals (I think it's safe to assume you are a homo) 172.56.34.248 (talk) 21:03, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Please don't use this page to pretend that "religion/conscience" or whatever term makes it palatable is a caveat to treat other people however you wish. Freedom of thought or conscience doesn't equate to freedom of action. In the United States at least this is well established with the decision in Reynolds v. United States (1879) where the court found "Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices." So the Supreme court of the United States agrees with me. So does anyone who thinks it should be illegal to kill apostates. This isn't about homosexuality, it's about a litany of things that religions can't possibly hope to actually practice in a secular society. So you may have your belief, but you can't break the law and stand on religion (most especially when the religious texts don't support your position to begin with). The list is far to long to exhaust here. Moreover, no one is being "forced" to bake a cake. If you wish to run a bakery in a secular society where it's the law of the land that you serve the public without discrimination you are free to follow your conscience and close shop. As to the Ad-hom bigotry, no I'm not a homosexual. It does seem clear though how you think about other human beings. Idasod (talk) 17:27, 1 July 2015 (UTC)


 * St.nerol - I agree, Freedom of conscience is a related but different and larger topic Conscientious objection which is predominantly tied to government-compelled military service.  It also shows as Conscience clause (medical) Conscience clause (education) and conscience code or professional organizations.   I think WP lacks an article for Conscience rights topic, but perhaps a redirect to Human_rights would suit.  Markbassett (talk) 01:51, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Mmph, on second look, a simple redirect doesn't seem so good a match for Conscience rights. In the US it seems tied to the bill of rights 1st amendment Free Exercise Clause to not prohibit the free exercise of religion, specifically whether the government can compel people to perform abortions or homosexual marriage.  In the world though it is tied to the genera form of government compelling behavior, including military service or other acts against one's moral values.  That seems at least a disambiguation page ... Markbassett (talk) 01:45, 13 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I would like to bump this topic. In my opinion "Freedom of conscience" is different from "Freedom of thought" as it enables someone to act on that thought. Here in Norway medical doctors may refuse to assist in abortions, but GP's may not refuse to send their patients to an abortion clinic. One doctor (Katarzyna Jachimowicz) were fired for not complying, and she sued claiming to be a "conscientous objector". She lost at first but won in supreme court. Another issue is circumcision, where both atheists and christians object to take part in a service provided by the public health-services, claiming it to be harmful. Vets may object to animal testing, journalists can object to cover certain cases, and there are also other issues where conscience is not related to religion but to moral and/or political view. Having a moral view is covered by freedom of thought, while being able to act according to that view is freedom of conscience. The latter is much more controversial, and mixing them toghether make us loose the distiction. Markuswestermoen (talk) 14:12, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Nine years after discussion start: Freedom of conscience is now a stub. Please help make it better. Two solid book resources, which might help, are in the references section! -St.nerol (talk) 11:27, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Genocide denial
The article claims:
 * Examples of effective campaigns against freedom of expression are the Soviet suppression of genetics research in favor of a theory known as Lysenkoism, the book-burning campaigns of Nazi Germany, the Slovak law to sentence anyone who denies Armenian Genocide up to five years in prison,[8] laws against holocaust denial in Germany, France, Austria, Poland, Hungary and Romania, the radical anti-intellectualism enforced in Cambodia under Pol Pot, the strict limits on freedom of expression imposed by the Communist governments of the Peoples Republic of China and Cuba or by right-wing authoritarian dictatorships such as those of Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Francisco Franco in Spain.

I find it somewhat insidious for Wikipedia to be equating laws against genocide denial in European democracies with Nazi book-burning or Pol Pot's campaign of terror against intellectuals and free-thinkers… By neatly sandwiching democracies' laws against the propagation of lies between dictatorships' acts against free thought, this Wikipedia article places them all on the same level. That would seem evidently wrong. Aridd (talk) 11:08, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

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“Fascism has always been product of the left”
Quoting the current text of the article:

“Examples of effective campaigns against freedom of expression [include] (...) the strict limits on freedom of expression imposed by (...) left-wing authoritarian dictatorships such as those of Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Francisco Franco in Spain. Fascism has always been product of the left though it is falsely thought to be product of the right when it is erroneous to suggest so as illustrated by Ayn Rand.”

While Rand’s views deserve to be mentioned, it should be noted that her writings challenged multiple mainstream philosophical traditions; her point of view should hardly be presented as a simple fact in this way. (Furthermore, there is no source given for how exactly Rand illustrated the erroneousness of the suggestion.) – Jippe (talk) 10:19, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

This page is a bit of a shitshow
I see that it's flagged as reading like a personal essay and I can see why!

I know editors don't like people swooping in and changing everything but I'd be happy to translate the French version and publish it here.

I should have some free time when I'm done hanging up posters of my left-wing heroes Pinochet & Franco. Ritom7 (talk) 02:20, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Um...wow...Do. Not. Feed. The. Trolls.

Floss with them, thus:

Anyone who thinks it is cool to try this adolescent provocateur stuff on the Freedom of Conscience wikipedia page - 1) the higher genera of competition here would be cooperation, which you clearly cannot handle, 2) Who cares about "the French version" when you can just read the Cardozo decision? 3) Hang up all the posters of your heroes you like, you will never be better than them, or whatever point your humanity got off on the short bus to doing the Ayn Rand Institute's work for them - you know that third-rate author is dead, right? 4) If I had the PPP monies the Ayn Rand Institute "received", well then, on strictly utilitarian terms, I would be more productive getting things done with more people than you, because instead of trying to pimp them into whatever you think you are, apparatchik to Capital and slave to the authoritarianism, people would like me more; I am fun and care more about their needs than mine - what are you? 5) Some agent of economies of death who thinks they are entitled to their own facts, when the world keeps telling you otherwise - who is your soulmate, someone whose mind is as colonized as yours by a piss-poor set of institutional arrangements that have no necessity in nature, man, or god? 6) Fantasize all you want about to being able to hang with the best and the brightest, you know you will never be as real as anyone who volunteered for the International Brigades - including the one from the U.S., the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. So.........C'mon Mighty Whitey, let's hear your defense of the "status" quod? [sic, you bright beautiful flower just waiting to bloom!] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.37.189.147 (talk) 03:20, 18 October 2020 (UTC)