A philosophical viewpoint that opinions or beliefs of reality should be based on science, logic and reason. Ideas should not be derived from religion, authority, governments or dogmas.
A free thinker should not reject nor accept any proposed truths of organized religion, established norms, media, etc. They should determine if the belief is valid based on their own knowledge, intuition, research and reason. Just because other people believe in it, doesn't mean it's right! Use your own judgment and think critically!
a) One who relies solely on themselves to make judgments based on their own perception of the world rather than blindly accepting what is told or implied by an outside influence, which is usually some kind of authoritarian figure.
Very few people in this world have realized that they have access to and the ability to perform independent thought. While everyone has the ability, only the free thinker uses it, because he knows what he wants.
Someone who thinks that they have "unique" or "interesting" opinions, while in reality simply regurgitating whatever they hear from others. Peolple who call themselves this typically have very little critical thinking skills and fail to actually challenge their own beleifs because they live in an echo chamber of "SJW OWNED" and other denominations of cringe surface level right wing commentary. The name is actually a misknowmer because they should be more accuratly called people who are "Free of thinking".
Person 1: Bro I had to sit next to some "free thinker" in my social studies class, he kept arguing with the teacher about stuff that no one cares about
Person 2: Guess you won't be cheating off your neigbor this semester.
A word meaning someone who doesn't necessarily base their opinions on any particular creed or system of ideas, but based on their own intuition and perception of reality.
Also, a word hijacked by the Militant Atheist movement to mean, well, an atheist, with the obvious (but baseless) implication that free thought would never bring anyone to believe in a higher power.
Years of misuse has reduced the term to a self-branded label for pretentiousadolescents who have only just realized that the universe isn't what their parents/guardians lead them to believe like most rational individuals who reach this epiphany at the age of 6 but for lack of better word and/or urge to sound like pretentious adolescents who have only just realized that the universe isn't what their parents/guardians lead them to believe is used to describe anything from the classical definition of open-mindedness to being-like-the-rest-of-us-who-are-different-to-you.
a: "What religion are you?"
b: "I'm a free thinker"
a: "What?"
b: "I'm not really sure whether god exists"
a: "So you're agnostic?"
b: "No, I'm a free thinker"
a: "That's a little vague; you could be a free thinking atheist or free thinking agnostic but saying free thinker doesn't tell anyone what you believe in"
b: "But I'm a free thinker"
a: "Do you even know what that means?"
b: "My friends are free thinkers"