I found the quoted passages at the Freedom From Religion Foundation website;
I agree with all of this wholeheartedly, but I would like to know whether by “faith”, they mean “accepting blindly what others tell you” or “accepting that which, by definition, cannot be proven”.
No problem, yet.
This is where I run into problems. I find this definition of “reality” far too strict, small-minded and simplistic.
No problem here, either, except I cannot accept that there is nothing in this cosmos that is not beyond this type of scrutiny.
I agree wholeheartedly.
My religion has nothing to do with “blind obedience, unexamined ultimatums” or concepts of heaven and hell. I do not believe in either.
I believe in evolution and the Big Bang. Does believing in the existance of a Divine mean that I automatically believe It was the “Designer”? If it does, I would an explanation as to why.
Since when does being religious mean that I have no reasoning faculty?
**
I agree!
My religion was never one of them.
I believe such seperation is essential.
Is atheism/humanism a religion?
Freethinkers apply the term religion to belief systems which include a supernatural realm, deity, faith in “holy” writings and conformity to an absolute creed.
Secular humanism has no god, bible or savior. It is based on natural rational principles. It is flexible and relativistic–it is not a religion. **
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I have no Bible (no holy “inspired” writings), no Saviour, no absolute creed.
My God demands no prostration, only kindness to others. My God has never provided “revelations” to anyone. And I think that “blind maintenance” is something to be ashamed of.
So what is the verdict, freethinkers? Am I too religious for you admirable fellows, yet not religious enough for the fundies et al?
If you require approval, perhaps this freethinking is less absolute than you desire. That which you seem above all to decry is sometimes called the tyranny of the majority. So long as the freedoms of the Bill of rights are protected, you have the freedom to be as free from that as your personal courage allows. Best wishes in that endeavor.
Tris
“I taught that boy everything he knows. . . and I am very sorry.”
I’m not looking for “approval”, I just want to make sure that I am being consistent. I respect the people on this board and I need their objectivity to help me assess the appropriateness of my choices, because I am having trouble being objective.
The reason I posted so many things I agreed with was because I hoped that those things could be weighed against the things I disagree with.
I don’t want to mislead anyone; a Protestant shouldn’t go around calling themselves a Catholic, and I don’t want to misrepresent myself as a freethinker if I do not qualify.
First (apparently) very / honest / real / sincere …
I used apparently because one of the things I really enjoy about this type of forum is that it allows for illusion (Reality / Sanity is so overrated).
Second I dislike labels You / I are what we know ourselves to be; the convient shorthand of labels is somewhat lazy / dishonest/ inaccurate… except in the most limited and objective terms.
Third based on what you posted (no approval intended) you are a freethinker … not because of what others think.
I do agree however that other’s views are very helpful in assuring one’s integrity…
I agree with other posters that by questioning the “freethinkers” who wrote that pamplet, you are perhaps more a free thinker than they. I personally found it ironic that they establish this set of rules for what a freethinker “must” be.
So criticisms of my own…I personally believe it would be possible to critically evaluate religion and actually find something to it.
They ask the childish question “Who made god”…this question is childish in that is assumes any “divine being” exists in the same temporal/linear fashion as we do. Humans are used to existing on a clearly defined time scale and are uncomfortable with things that don’t. The universe itself may have no beginning per se.
On that note the “big bang”, unlike evolution which actually has a lot of good evidence to support it, is still a pretty rusty theory, for which is evidence to support it is marginal at best (there is some, but hardly conclusive).
Speaking as one involved in science, science actually is little better at providing answers as is religion. Sure science talks all this great talk about being objective, but in reality it is not (it simply is not human nature to be objective). Scientists have their pet theories, which they will fit evidence to conform with. Science is general does not encourage creativity or divergent viewpoints…and in this respect it is very similar to religion.
PErsonally I do not view science and religion as necessarily being dimetrically opposed. Perhaps by discovering physical laws we are not disproving “god” but gaining a clearer understanding of the mechanisms by whihc he/she/it works.
I do agree that many if not most organized religions are a bit unrealisitic, but science also should not be accepted blindly without a critical eye.
Ultimately I think the writer of this pamphlet wants to feel like a freethinker, and lists a whole bunch of qualities that by some happy coinkeedink, happen to describe him/herself. My own personal feeling is that a freethinker would never write such a pamphlet. But I may be wrong.
I also wanted to note the incorrect definition of “parsinonious” mentioned by the freethinkers. A lot of scientists in fact get this one wrong:
Parsimony does not refer to the simplest theory with the fewest assumptions. Parsimony suggests that if you have two competing theories which EXPLAIN THE PHENOMENON EQUALLY WELL (this is the part that always gets left out), the one which is simplest with fewest assumptions is most likely correct. The march of science toward more complex theories hasn’t been real friendly to parsimony, but it still sounds good.
Consider in psychology you have two theories, one that the human mind is capable of directing behaviour in an autonomous fashion, perhaps influenced moderately by biology and environment or two: human behaviour is solely the produce of genes and environment and there is no such thing as the human mind. Choice two is more parsimonious, but actually does a horrible job of explaining behaviour (you’ll hear a lot of those “psychologists found the gene for depression” or whatnot, but when you actually look at their experiement, the gene accounts for 2% of the variance in depression).
I probably should have mentioned in the OP that I believe the same thing.
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that part of the pamphlet, but if I had known, I would have said the same thing.
This is why I love that man who won the Nobel prize and wrote “Dancing Naked In The Mind Field”; he combines Science with Art in the most elegant way. He lives such a creative life, and sees no conflict with his calling to be a scientist.
While I happen to agree with the basic conclusions that the FFRF believes in, I think that their approach to the definition of “freethinker” is a bit, well, dogmatic. It not only describes what methods one must use, but also what conclusions one must reach, which is its fatal flaw IMO. After all, plenty of people are reasonable who have reached different conclusions than I on the issues of theism and the supernatural. I happen to think it’s all a bunch of hoo-hah, but if JC appeared before me or if I were regularly given glimpses of the future, maybe I would think otherwise, despite the lack of objective evidence I could present to another skeptic.
FWIW, were I to try to craft a statement of what I think a “freethinker” is, it would be thus:
Believe in that which is indicated by the evidence beyond reasonable doubt, but remember that the case is never closed. Credible evidence demands examination and evaluation.
Personal revelation/experiences are valid only for that person. In other words, if I regularly play pinochle with the IPU, I can’t expect you to take my word for it, nor should you expect me to take yours.
Question everything, and look for hidden assumptions, especially in your own beliefs.
Remember that teachers, scientists, priests, and you are all human beings. Perception, motivation, and memory are all subject to some degree of doubt.
I would qualify that by saying it is not their validity that we should doubt, but their meaning.
But then my heart has a tendency to bleed quite a bit.
I would qualify that by saying it is not their validity that we should doubt, but their meaning.
But then my heart has a tendency to bleed quite a bit.
I would agree with avalon. For a group that denounces creeds, this seems like an awefully long set of “guidelines”.
I’d also like to point out that while many religions oppose and argue with others (sometime to the point of war), none of them declare in their creeds to need to do so, nor denounce other sets of belief.
I think this group has awefully big chip on their shoulder, and that they make too broad of generalizations and assumptions.
No offense, Sweet_Lotus, but after reading your posts in GD, I think your messages are a bit too well thought out and free thinking to confine yourself to such a narrow-focused group. (I say narrow FOCUSED, not narrow minded, because they do seem to be fairly intelligent folks. Just a bit too set on debunking something not in their sphere of knowledge.)
At a certain point in a person’s life, we must all decide what we believe about God, the Bible, the origins of man, etc. No person, denomination, or wearisome explanation can make our minds up for us. For example: I do not believe in evolution and do not credit the evolutionist’s research as facts. I accept the Creation account given in Genesis chapter 1. However, the average evolutionist would probably not agree with the findings of a Creationist scientist because they choose to believe in evolution. We are all free thinkers, and sometimes it doesn’t matter what anyone says or how much evidence they have obtained. We simply will not be persuaded. So, whether you agree with the Freedom From Religion Foundation website or not, you’re still a free thinker because you choose if you believe it.
…choose you this day whom ye will serve…
Joshua 24:14
…Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
Romans 14:5
BTW, you don’t have to be a fundamentalist to be a Christian.
Okay, I absolutely have to dissent here. Anyone who makes up their mind about something and then ignores all evidence to the contrary is in no way a free thinker, no matter which side of whatever debate you come down on. “It doesn’t matter what anyone says or how much evidence they have obtained,” is dogmatism, not free thinking.
At a certain level, everyone has to “Review everything you’ve been taught. Discard any thing that’s an insult to your soul. And begin again.” In other words, you have to look at what you believe, and truly believe it not because you’ve been told to, or because it’s the most expedient, or because it’s part of a comforting belief system, but really because it makes sense in your very soul. I do this constantly, to the point where it becomes a reflex. And of course, since I do it constantly, I escape from the inflexible dogmatism that Ptahlis rightly objects to.
I have faith that what I believe is true; otherwise I would believe something else, or simply reserve my judgment. However, I am never certain that any given thing I believe is true, simply because I am a human being and it is not given to us to know the Truth, if such an item exists. I am awfully darn sure, which is good enough for all practical purposes, but never dead-set.
We have to separate the term “freethinker” from the phrase “free thinker”. Given that the term “freethinker” was coined in the 17th Century when religious institutions violently controlled the expression of ideas in conflict with religious dogma, it is not unreasonable to conclude that they were relatively free.
Given the historical usage of the term, it is reasonable that groups that might be described as “atheistic rational empricists” would continue to apply it to themselves. The pamphlet mentioned in the OP merely repeats the definition of the term “freethinker” not the definition of “free thinker”. Being myself an “atheistic rational empiricist”, I think I’m qualified to discuss points of view common to other “freethinkers”; while I don’t (naturally) speak for anyone except myself, I have certainly interacted with other people with similar philosophies.
Generally speaking, Deist and Unitarians are considered “freethinkers” even by those of us who are strictly atheist. Such religionists do not generalize their faith to matters of fact or science. They may claim faith, but they do not claim that their faith grants them any knowlege in the scientific sense. Additionally, they hold to no extrinsic dogma that restricts or compels their behavior.
Of course, a freethinker is usually also a proponent of free thinking as well. If a person freely chooses to accept an extrinsic dogma, and alter their lifestyle and behavior accordingly, good for them! They are no freethinker by the strict definition of the word, but they are thinking as freely as anyone can. It is only those who attempt to impose their religious dogma on others by force of law or arms that find enmity from the ranks of both freethinkers and most free thinkers as well.
To directly answer the OP…
A charitable interpretation would hold that they claim “revelation and faith are invalid” as a means of gaining scientific knowlege. I would disagree if further exploration were to find that they intrinsically deprecate revelation and faith.
Can you make a statement about reality about which sane people will generally agree that does not rely on direct perception and/or the exercise of reason? The above quotation really establishes rational empiricism: the claim that we cannot aquire knowlege of reality except through the evidence of our senses or through rational deduction from that direct evidence.
What you can or cannot accept is a matter of belief. However, I have yet to find a method other than the scientific method that can consistently separate true and false statements.
No it doesn’t. If you claim to believe that the Divine did not “design” the Universe (or, at least, did not design it to pander to our mortal sensibilities), then I have no reason to disbelieve you.
Again, the FFRF quote can be charitably interpreted as “religious claims” to scientific knowlege.
I would venture to guess, Sweet Lotus, that you’re either a Deist or a Unitarian, and you share membership in the realm of freethinkers with such luminaries as, IIRC, Jefferson and Franklin as well as strict atheists such as myself.