FAMOUS FREETHINKERS P to S

Below, you will find just a part of my lengthy list of freethinkers, which include agnostics, atheists, brights, deists, humanists, materialists, milesians, pantheists, rationalists, skeptics and other champions of church and state separation.

There are obviously many more names I could add, but in order to keep the list manageable, I listed the names I thought the average educated person might recognize.

See also:

FREETHINKERS A to E

FREETHINKERS F to J

FREETHINKERS K to O

FREETHINKERS T to Z

Thomas Paine (revolutionary, pamphleteer)

Sara Paretsky (writer)

Dorothy Parker (writer)

Linus Pauling (scientist, Nobel Peace Prize winner)

Sean Penn (actor)

Penn and Teller (comedic illusionists)

Joaquin Phoenix (actor)

Allan Pinkerton (detective)

Harold Pinter (playwright, director)

Camille Pissaro (artist)

Brad Pitt (actor)

William Pitt (British statesman)

Edgar Allen Poe (writer)

Roman Polanski (director)

Alexander Pope (writer)

Cole Porter (composer, songwriter)

Natalie Portman (actor)

Joseph Priestly (chemist)

Marcel Proust (writer)

Ayn Rand (writer)

Tony Randall (actor)

James Randi (The Amazing Randi, illusionist)

Ron Reagan (radio host, son of Ronald Reagan)

Keanu Reaves (actor)

Robert Redford (actor)

Carl Reiner (actor/director)

Christopher Reeve (actor)

Paul Robeson (singer)

Gene Roddenberry (writer)

Tom Robbins (writer)

Auguste Rodin (artist)

Richard Rodgers (composer)

Ray Romano (actor)

Andy Rooney (TV commentator, writer)

Jane Rule (writer)

Salman Rushdie (writer)

Bertrand Russell (philosopher)

Carl Sagan (astronomer, writer)

Jonas Salk (physician best known for development of polio vaccine)

George Sand (writer)

Carl Sandberg (writer)

Margaret Sanger (birth control activist)

George Santayana (philosopher, writer)

Susan Sarandon (actor)

Jean-Paul Sartre (philosopher, writer)

Charles Schultz (cartoonist)

Seneca (orator, writer)

Omar Sharif (actor)

William Shatner (actor)

George Bernard Shaw (writer)

Mary Shelley (writer)

Percy Shelley (writer)

Sarah Silverman (comedian)

Neil Simon (playwright)

Frank Sinatra (singer)

Upton Sinclair (writer)

B. F. Skinner (psychologist, writer)

Steven Soderbergh (screenwriter, producer, director)

Stephen Sondheim (composer, lyricist)

Susan Sontag (writer, activist)

Annika Sorenstam (athlete)

Mira Sorvino (actor)

Baruch Spinoza (philosopher)

Joseph Stalin (world leader)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (social activist)

Rod Steiger (actor)

Gertrude Stein (writer)

Gloria Steinem (feminist, journalist)

John Steinbeck (writer)

Howard Stern (radio personality)

Robert Louis Stevenson (writer)

Richard Strauss (composer)

Meryl Streep (actor)

Donald Sutherland (actor)

Julia Sweeney (actor)

I welcome additions to this list.

Please leave additional names in comments.

I will be updating it frequently.

See also:

FREETHINKERS A to E

FREETHINKERS F to J

FREETHINKERS K to O

FREETHINKERS T to Z