Being A Free Thinker.

[PureX]

You could have a point there.

While I think that the majority of the Bible happened, my views as to the mechanisms get me branded as anything but spiritual. And I am waiting for the supreme beings in 2003, Rama, and the Foundation Trilogy to come for a visit. I think that most organized religions honestly seek to confine and limit God by the way they frame the Creator in their actions and in their arcane rules. Islam would be included, though I love it. By limiting the Creator, they seek to become Gods unto themselves thus guaranteeing Hell Fire for themselves. By their own conduct they show that the God they talk of does not exist.

When people confuse religion, with God, they tend to make a god of their religion. And this sort of confusion rarely produces positive results.

 

[leroy]

The path for a free thinker is bothersome at times. I'm not sure why some try so hard to get you to conform to the rules of another group? Does being a spiritual Flower Child somehow make some others uncomfortable as if I am devaluing their beliefs?

I personally find funny and ironic that many "free thinkers" deny "free will"

*Being free will the hability to make choices

 

[LuisDantas]

The path for a free thinker is bothersome at times. I'm not sure why some try so hard to get you to conform to the rules of another group?

Uncertainty is very unconfortable. There is a lot of appeal in knowing what to expect from others.

Does being a spiritual Flower Child somehow make some others uncomfortable as if I am devaluing their beliefs?

Yes, it usually does. Many people have learned to sacrifice a considerable part of their sincerity, freedom and honesty in order to be accepted. It can be offensive to point out that there are alternatives.

 

[LuisDantas]

I personally find funny and ironic that many "free thinkers" deny "free will"

*Being free will the hability to make choices

They are two unrelated concepts.

Free thinking, imperfect a moniker as it is, still has the meaning of "free from established religious doctrines".

Free will is... just not very clear a concept beyond being the presented reason why an omnipotent god does not actually act omnipotent.

 

[youknowme]

I like the irony of thread about Free Thinkers that is littered with quotes and memes made by other people.

 

[sealchan]

But what if we switch on Star Trek?

 

[sealchan]

Uncertainty is very unconfortable. There is a lot of appeal in knowing what to expect from others.



Yes, it usually does. Many people have learned to sacrifice a considerable part of their sincerity, freedom and honesty in order to be accepted. It can be offensive to point out that there are alternatives.

I believe that there is something of a growing divide in America between those willing to accept change due to a sense of entitlement to the lifestyles and attitudes and beliefs of their forefathers and those who are willing to educate themselves to the changes that are coming. Indeed change is coming so fast that we really are raising expectations for the average person as to what social norms we are to expect.

My current boss in my IT job came from a rural, blue collar timber industry background. He took advantage of the worker retraining program that the Clinton administration created to learn a whole new career. He was razzed by his peers. Now he is purchasing off road vehicles and dirt bikes and other "redneck" toys with the substantial income he gets for his new career. My parents voted for Trump and I see him as a cancer on our democracy. Education is a divide and those who forego opening up to a wider world of experience than their own traditional background are, more and more, creating an unfortunate drag effect against the changes we need to make to preserve much of what they naively hold dear.

 

[sealchan]

For some education is best given when dire personal need presents itself. If a person sees an alternative to an "old" way that will help them avoid a very real danger that they perceive happening to some of their peers, the reticence of changing one's ways vanishes very quickly.

 

[David T]

There is another type of cognitive dissonance. Its when you are actually attempting to see a wide swath of perspectives that all appear different but in reality are a single perspective articulated in a wide spectrum of agreement and disagreement. We call that collective "normal".

"i believe" i dont believe" "i am agnostic" is a singular way of understanding not three separate ways of understanding.They All agree on the base fundemental, what they think determines, they only disagree on the details is all. Thus they debate minute details.

That is a very very hard thing to convey to them. We are brainwashed early to think like that and it is a CULT-ure issue we all are born into.

 

[Ellen Brown]

There is another type of cognitive dissonance. Its when you are actually attempting to see a wide swath of perspectives that all appear different but in reality are a single perspective articulated in a wide spectrum of agreement and disagreement. We call that collective "normal".

"i believe" i dont believe" "i am agnostic" is a singular way of understanding not three separate ways of understanding.They All agree on the base fundemental, what they think determines, they only disagree on the details is all. Thus they debate minute details.

That is a very very hard thing to convey to them. We are brainwashed early to think like that and it is a CULT-ure issue we all are born into.

I don't know why I still believe in God, because believers seem to do their best to prove he does not exist. Something in me will not give up.

 

[David T]

I don't know why I still believe in God, because believers seem to do their best to prove he does not exist. Something in me will not give up.

Its not a matter of belief its a something in how we experience. The muddle is we think our articulations about those experiences are those experiences. False. The nicene creed is muddled at the intro "we believe" cut and paste the bible. Its nonsense but it dominates.

Hidegard debingen said "we cannot live in an interpreted world for an interpreted world is not home" seems to be nearly immpossible for most folks to remotetly understand. It mught as well have been written by an alien..

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I like the description on the left. The one on the right is far too value-laden, imho.

 

[viole]

I personally find funny and ironic that many "free thinkers" deny "free will"

*Being free will the hability to make choices

Good point. I don’t see how I am a free thinker, since I cannot possibly think in any other way.

Incidentally, do you think that will, any will, begins to exist?

Ciao

- viole