On this date in 1964, Nils Gösta Christer Sturmark — secular humanist, tech entrepreneur, author and publisher — was born in Danderyd, Sweden. Details online of his early years are scarce. He left a master’s degree program in computer science at Uppsala University, the nation’s largest and oldest, before finishing. As a young adult, his interest in computers had been inspired by Douglas Hofstadter, an American cognitive scientist whose book “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid” won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, and they would later collaborate.
“My teenage hero was David Bowie, a charismatic and intellectual genius. When I was 15 years old, I discovered another hero: Bertrand Russell. I was mesmerized by his role as both a philosopher and an activist. He is still my hero today.” (The New Statesman, May 18, 2022)
Sturmark started his computer education company Datamedia in 1989 to publish instruction books for personal computers. His book “Internet@Sverige” was released in 1994 as the so-called dotcom boom took hold and he started Cell Network, an e-commerce consulting firm, and Cell Ventures, a business incubator. His columns about the emerging information society began receiving notice.
With the bursting of the dotcom bubble in early 2000, he shifted his attention. “I felt that now that I have the opportunity, I want to return to my youthful interests. Science, philosophy and books.” He and Björn Ulvaeus of the musical group ABBA, who is an atheist, founded the publishing house Fri Tanke in 2007. Sturmark’s humanist credentials are sterling. He was president from 2005-18 of the Swedish Humanist Association (Humanisterna). His publications include the principles of science, history of atheism and humanism, religion and the Swedish state and analysis of historical and modern religious movements.
In a blog titled “I am a seeker!” (Aug. 4, 2005), he wrote: “I am also an atheist. I believe that almost everyone is an atheist. The world’s religions have created many gods. Hinduism is said to have millions. Most people I have encountered who call themselves Christians are atheists in relation to all of these gods, except one.”
In 2016, Julia Kronlid, a member of a right-wing party who espoused “young earth” creationism claiming the world is only 6,000 years old was elected to the second-highest position in the Swedish Riksdag. As a member of a Pentecostal church, she also vehemently opposed abortion. Sturmark and Humanisterna successfully lobbied for a secular ceremony to be included on the official program in addition to the one attended by the prime minister in Stockholm Cathedral to mark the parliamentary opening: “Democracy is not religious, it is secular. And this is a day of celebrating democracy. Most Swedes consider themselves non-Christian, nonreligious.” (Radio Sweden, Sept. 13, 2016)
“A politician who is willing to opt out of scientific evidence that fits his own worldview is a dangerous politician,” Sturmark wrote in a 2022 op-ed in the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter (News of the Day).
He and his former wife Gunilla Backman (b. 1965), a singer and actress, have a son Leo. After divorcing, he married novelist Victoria Larm (b. 1984) when Leo was 12. Sturmark was interviewed from Stockholm for FFRF’s Freethought Radio program (May 1, 2025) about his new book “The Flame of Reason: Clear Thinking for the Twenty-First Century” (with contributor Douglas Hofstadter).
Answering a question about the “pathway to a new Enlightenment,” he said a goal of the book is to “explain and show how much destruction religion creates, in different contexts in different parts of the world, from the Catholic Church to sharia law to Christian extremism and so on.”
PHOTO: Sturmark at the Göteborg Book Fair in 2024; photo by Johan Jönsson under CC 4-0.
