SAV
But we’ve given you multiple definitions to the word freethinker, including links. You’re actually arguing that your browser’s spell-check is more reliable than multiple dictionaries.
Normally, I’d just suspect someone was being obtuse in an attempt to get our goat (no, not literally, Blake); but with you, I think it’s quite likely that you really don’t understand how stupid your position is.

But it’s par for the course when Blake is involved. He insists that scientists don’t know how scientists use terminology and then insists that freethinkers don’t know that “freethinkers” is a real word. And in both cases, he pokes fun at the people he‘s wrong about.

DAR
My spell checker doesn’t. Lot’s of freethinkers aren’t atheists.

BLK: “made-up words that will make it into the dictionary”>>

DAR
Will make it? Blake should read a little about his nation’s history and get up to speed. This might be a start:

Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism.

The word “freethinker” would have been in the dictionary back when they invented dictionaries.

D.
—————–
Short version:

freethinkers
Related: Philosophy

“Those who arrive at conclusions, particularly in questions of religion, by employing the rules of reason while rejecting supernatural authority or ecclesiastical tradition. The freethinkers believe that independence of thought from such authority leads all men to essentially identical conclusions concerning morality and religion. The name came into general use in the 18th cent. after the publication (1713) of Anthony Collins’s Discourse of Freethinking Occasioned by the Rise and Growth of a Sect Called Freethinkers. The movement took different forms in different countries. In England it was intimately connected with deism but did not break completely with traditional Christianity. It took a more radical form in France. Voltaire renounced all connection with Christianity, and the Encyclopedists broke with religion altogether. Freethinking also has an important social side and influenced the philosophies of the Freemasons and, in France, the Culte de l’Être Suprême. In the United States the organizations established to further freethinking include the American Rationalist Association, the American Secular Union, and the Freethinkers of America. The International Order for Ethics and Culture, organized at Bern in 1908, is designed to investigate the ethical factors in society without theological or metaphysical bias.”

Columbia Encyclopedia.

SAV
Darrel, when beliefs can be defended forthrightly, with honesty and intelligence, those beliefs usually aren’t neoconservative. Perhaps if modern Republicans realized this, they’d be measurably respectable.

SAV
You keep up with these claims, but you haven’t shown that they’re true. Quite the contrary, actually.

BLAKE
We know better.

SAV
No, you certainly don’t. Would you like examples?

Unless… wait, is it supposed to be funny to put breaks in the middle of words? Is Blake trying to make a funny?

Is it funny to say Blake is a “Car penter?”

This is the state of conservative discourse today?

Some day I hope to find a conservative with the courage and ability to stand up and defend their beliefs forthrightly, with honesty and intelligence.

D.

SAV
What’s wrong, Blake? You’re jealous because we have standards, or you don’t know what a standard is?

BLAKE
we present you with facts,

SAV
Not reliably. You get your butt kicked on your balderdash all the time.

BLAKE
Please try to stay with us in reality, please.

SAV
Blake, I’ve been begging you to do this. Does this mean that you’ll be starting soon? You know, where “Obama” means “Obama” and not “Frank” or “Franks” or “Gramm”?

BLAKE
Oh- I say free thinker- see the space?

SAV
I do, which makes it obvious that you’re still incapable of both using a dictionary and reading what is posted for you.

free·think·er
one who forms opinions on the basis of reason independently of authority ; especially : one who doubts or denies religious dogma

It seems your mechanism for dealing with what you consider difficult big words like “freethinker” is to split them up. Hey, it works for second graders.
We’re beginning to get a better idea of Blake’s capacity: fifth grade science level, second grade reading level, first grade problem solving skills… Who’d have thought that his science knowledge could be considered “advanced” compared to other areas?