The mission of the Stiefel Freethought Foundation is to secure humanity’s future by ensuring public policy decisions are based on love and reason rather than bias and dogma.

Strategies:

Increase the influence of people who base their decisions on love and reason

  • End false stereotypes by helping people become openly secular
  • End the stigma against nonreligious government officials and candidates
  • Build a reason-based voting bloc actively courted by political candidates
  • Encourage secular communities to do good deeds demonstrating how ethics do not require religion or a deity
  • Contrast fundamentalist values with secular values
  • Grow communities for the nonreligious

Promote rational thinking

  • Invest in resources for those questioning their beliefs
  • Educate how sacred texts are factually and morally imperfect
  • Bolster teaching comparative religions through the historical-critical method
  • Improve the critical thinking and skepticism skills of the population
  • Counter science-denialism on issues like global warming and evolution
  • Push for evidence-based medicine over “alternative” medicine
  • Help the population overcome bias and misinformation when acquiring information and forming opinions
  • Oppose illogical excuses to invalidate ideas and silence others, such as ad hominem attacks, claiming hurt feelings or taking offense

Support organizations that work to secularize American public policy

  • Weaken the influence of the American fundamentalist “Religious Right”
  • Raise awareness about laws based primarily on religious grounds, such as “blue laws” and anti-LGBT legislation
  • End legal privileges given to religious groups and individuals that are not given to secular groups and individuals
  • Ban all tax dollars going to and strip tax exemptions from groups that discriminate in services or employment
  • Stop efforts to allow religious free exercise to be used as an excuse to discriminate and violate the rights of others
  • Make sure officials have religious free exercise when acting as individuals but not when acting on behalf of the government
  • Stop the diversion of tax dollars from public schools to religious schools

Encourage foreign policy that helps create a world where reason can thrive

  • Endorse countering militant, tyrannical and tribalistic political ideologies, including autocracy, theocracy and nationalism
  • Support ending censorship of speech, internet and news media around the world
  • Promote economic penalties for foreign governments that deprive their people of civil liberties
  • Work for the end of blasphemy and apostasy laws
  • Advocate for policies that free women globally from the shackles of religious-based misogyny
  • Push for a global alliance against holy war, genocide and terrorism

Reform systemic problems undermining American democracy to ensure freethought is able to flourish at home

  • Educate on the legalized corruption of campaign money buying influence over and access to government officials
  • Endorse countering gerrymandering and other efforts allowing elected officials to select their voters rather than voters selecting them
  • Support curbing foreign influence campaigns such as lobbying, online propaganda and funding of non-profits to spread religious and political ideologies
  • Advocate for limiting autocratic decree by having tighter limits on presidential executive orders
  • Promote changes to primary and presidential nomination systems so they are less biased towards the extremist candidates from political parties

Values

The values promoted by the Stiefel Freethought Foundation include:

Love

  • Fellowship

  • Friendliness

  • Benevolence

  • Harmony

  • Enthusiasm

Reason

  • Inquiry

  • Science

  • Knowledge

  • Education

  • Empiricism

Integrity

  • Honesty

  • Fairness

  • Morality

  • Responsibility

  • Tolerance

Freedom

  • Democracy

  • Equality

  • Liberty

  • Capitalism

  • Justice

Vision

We envision a peaceful world where science and freedom flourish.