JR's Freethought page Flashcards
Capitalising on widespread ignorance and credulity
New Age pseudoscientific drivel
It’s scandalous and deplorable that more people believe in astrology than they do evolution
Efficacy of prayer
Chronicle - record a series of events in a detailed and factual way
Solutions emerge from the judicious study of discernible reality.
There is a need for the acceptance of a mind independent reality that exists regardless of our beliefs, a fundamental premise of every scientific enterprise
Humans are a credulous lot with a propensity to belief and conformity, accompanied by a low tolerance for doubt.
People are sheep in credulity and wolves in conformity. This is fortunate for those in positions of power and unfortunate for the future of freedom, justice and the democratic process.
Many people have been unwittingly exposed to a process of indoctrination, and subsequently robbed of their intellectual autonomy, often making it virtually impossible to expose their beliefs to critical inquiry.
As the philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes noted, the mind tends to effortlessly and automatically take in ideas and information without intellectual filters.
The philosopher Richard Paul, an expert in logic and critical thought, describes three kinds of cognitive dispositions:
(1) vulgar believers, who employ slogans and platitudes to browbeat those holding different points of view into accepting their views;
(browbeat - intimidate with stern or abusive words; hector, bully)
(2) sophisticated believers, who are skilled at using rhetoric and sophistry to provide arguments for what they already believe; and
(3) critical believers, who reason their way to conclusions, are willing to expose their beliefs to skeptical scrutiny and listen to divergent points of view.
Critical thinking is an invaluable skill in today’s world in which we are continually bombarded by useless data, bias and seriously flawed logic.
One of the series of satires etched by the Spanish painter Goya is entitled “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters”. Goya believed that many of the follies of mankind resulted from the “sleep of reason”.
Convictions are infectious, and people can make others convinced of almost anything. We are typically ready to believe that our ways, our beliefs, our religion, our politics are better than theirs, or that our God-given rights trump theirs or that our interests require defensive or pre-emptive strikes against them.
In the end, it is ideas for which people kill each other.
Most religious entities and pronouncements are no more plausible or intelligible than my claim that there are invisible green goblins hiding out in my back yard or that pigs can fly.
Learning to think critically is a matter of self-respect and intellectual integrity. We are diminished intellectually when we allow others to do our thinking for us and when we are incapable of uncovering logical flaws in another’s arguments.
Without these logical skills we leave ourselves vulnerable to becoming slaves to the ideas and values of others.
There are positive actions you can take to reduce your vulnerability to the authority, influence and dogma of power structures and privileged elites.
