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Author | Topic: What Does Critical Thinking Mean To You? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tangle Member Posts: 9489 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Faith writes: Meanwhile the spirits are laughing their heads off at your stubborn refusal to consider at all the only evidence there is. They've got you in their grip but you won't know it until it's too late. This is the critical thinking thread Faith. I can't hear anybody laughing and I can't feel any grip. When I apply the full might of critical thought, I come to the conclusion that there's no spirit laughing or gripping. What do you conclude from the same evidence?Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Phat Member Posts: 18262 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
ringo writes: Good question. God is more popular, it seems. Many people claim to talk to Him. Long John Silver is more concretely described and is in but one book. God is not only in 66 books Biblewise, but is also described differently by other religions. What would be the difference (critically-thinking-wise) between imagining Long John Silver and imagining God? Taking it to a personal level, I seem to imagine God based on shared experience within a faith community. I also believe that this God whom I imagine...knowable through His son, Jesus, imagined me long before I was even born. Thus, my idea of God is tied directly through a complex and abstract belief, whereas Long John Silver is pretty cut and dried...he is a character in a book. In conclusion, I might say that God is a character in my book as observed by others, whereas I believe that I am a character in HisGood Book. (Whosoever) It is a sort of communion. One could say that we create each other. I believe that He created me first...obviously I could never prove that fact...at least so far.
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ringo Member (Idle past 412 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
So, critically-thinking-wise, how do you choose one "image" of God over the many others?
God is not only in 66 books Biblewise, but is also described differently by other religions.
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2578 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 6.8
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ringo asks:
What would be the difference (critically-thinking-wise) between imagining Long John Silver and imagining God? One albeit minor difference is that the porn industry would not have created a character named Long Dong Silver, which became a national name thanks to the Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court Justice nominee hearings. This in turn became a meme that got me - by now known for very long songs on the open mike circuit - to get the nickname Long Song Smith. No one yet has come forward to suggest that I be nicknamed something like Plod Trod Smith....- xongsmith, 5.7d
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Phat Member Posts: 18262 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
ringo writes: I would choose the one whom I am most familiar with, based on the worldview that I grew up in. The subjective feeling that I have of Him being in me...communing with me...does not imply that He is who I see Him as. Had I grown up in India, I would likely have a different picture of who He should be, but again, my idea of who He is and of the reality of who He is are likely different. (Wow...this sounds like jars GOD, God, and god analogy! ) To add to this, I already did choose the one whom I am familiar with...thats when I noticed a major change in my life...in 1994. One could argue that confirmation bias and shared anecdotes with like minded believers reinforced the character of my belief. As I have said before, it is hard to totally throw my belief away in the name of critical thinking, but i'm doing the best that I can.
So, critically-thinking-wise, how do you choose one "image" of God over the many others?
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ringo Member (Idle past 412 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
Doesn't critical thinking require you to get familiar with the other options before making a choice?
I would choose the one whom I am most familiar with, based on the worldview that I grew up in.
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Phat Member Posts: 18262 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
My short answer is no, but I'll have to think about this. Some choices are made based on the impact of the moment...what some would call the unction of the Spirit. If God is one, regardless of all of the other variations, I don't see it as necessary to intellectually know the other variations before making a choice. Too much critical thought prevents one from accepting anything. They simply don't choose.
In my opinion, anyway.
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frako Member (Idle past 305 days) Posts: 2932 From: slovenija Joined:
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If there IS no evidence but stories, it's stupid to dismiss the stories, it's all you've got. Now if a spirit should happen to decide to give you a fright sometime, all you'll have is YOUR story and nobody will listen to YOU either. So i guess all those alien abductions are true also, the ones where they take them on their ship and probe their anuses. we have the same evidence for those as spirits. What about the chupacabra the being that sucks the blood out of goats we have stories of him to so he must be real. Where do you draw the line and say these are just stories of people whos minds played tricks on them. Christianity, One woman's lie about an affair that got seriously out of hand What are the Christians gonna do to me ..... Forgive me, good luck with that.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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If there IS no evidence but stories, it's stupid to dismiss the stories, it's all you've got. And all you've got is anecdotal evidence at best, untested subjective personal experience (which could be hallucination). At best suggesting a line of inquiry or investigation before committing to an opinion. Critical thinking demands skepticism in an absence of transferable evidence. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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ramoss Member (Idle past 612 days) Posts: 3228 Joined:
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Oh no, we do have more than stories. We have the weight of our experiences. People do not walk on water. Dead corpses that are starting to stink because of being rotten don't rise from the dead. Human virgins do not get pregnant. .. there has to be some guys sperm involved somehow.
Those pieces of evidence and experiences counter act the stories.
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ramoss Member (Idle past 612 days) Posts: 3228 Joined:
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If the account violates what we know about life and living, then yes. .. not unless there is independent verification, and sometimes not even then.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I didn't say stories prove something is real. They may or may not be evidence of something real.
If all you've got is people's accounts then you have to apply your Critical Thinking to those accounts to decide whether you find them credible or not. That could involve extensive interviews, comparisons with other accounts and so on. What's interesting about the reactions here to accounts of phenomena they haven't themselves witnessed is that they discount them out of hand on the basis of what they're ABOUT, not any actual evidence. Pure prejudice. Yet they seem to think this amounts to Critical Thinking. Seems to me it's a perfect case of NOT thinking. Where do you draw the line? It's different in every case I suppose, depending on the credibility of the person who had the experience, others who had the same or similar experience, the details given, etc. etc. etc. Not just what was described that you would dismiss because you never experienced it. That way you'll never learn anything about things you know nothing about from your own experience. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
If there IS no evidence but stories, it's stupid to dismiss the stories, it's all you've got. Yesterday I saw a flying pig. This story is the only evidence you have for flying pigs. Is it therefore stupid to dismiss it?
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
See above.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
When I was making the transition from atheist to Christian I read many Hindu stories in particular, which described a lot of phenomena of the kind often called Paranormal. Projecting the mind to a great distance and knowing things going on at that distance, even appearing to others at that distance as if physically there. It's been years and I don't remember a lot but I think it was a book by Paramahansa Yogananda that reported most of this kind of phenomena. These things could presumably be tested if you could find someone who claimed to do them and was willing to be tested.
These were experiences that occurred in the context of Hindu spiritual practices and disciplines, meditation and so on. I don't remember the details but I think food and sleep deprivation may have been a part of it, at least at times. I know from someone who practiced Zen that at a certain point in the training there may be a period in which they sit as a group on their meditation cushions in meditation posture ("lotus position") for days on end without food or sleep or even bathroom breaks. The Roshi (Master, Guide) keeps them from nodding off by prodding or even hitting them with a stick of some sort. Because of these deprivations it would seem reasonable to conclude or at least consider seriously that whatever strange phenomena occurred was due to mental breakdown of some sort. And I consider that to be a reasonable hypothesis. But if you get a lot of people insisting on the reality of experiences that are independent but very similar, it might be reasonable to consider they aren't merely hallucinating. Edited by Faith, : syntax
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