George Holyoake

George Holyoake was a writer, lecturer, and social reformer from England. He is known for his work in the late 1800s to promote the philosophy of Secularism. Secularism is the belief that governments and societies should not be influenced by any one religion or belief system but instead should be guided by facts and evidence. In Holyoake’s view, people should have the right to believe whatever religion they wanted and to live their lives in a way that was right for them, as long as it didn’t hurt anyone else. Holyoake wrote about his beliefs, gave lectures around the world, and even helped make Secularism an official belief system in many countries. He believed that our government and laws should be based on facts and reason, not beliefs from any one religion.