Why Freethinkers are Superior to Conservative Christians

A freethinker is often described as one who rejects tradition and dogma. However, that is a negative description as freethinkers tend to be a rather optimistic, positive, and forward looking. A better description might be one who’s thoughts are not bound by tradition or dogma.

A characteristic of a freethinker is the rejection of religion at an early age. It isn’t that a freethinker child is subjected to a counter argument but rather once the child reaches that age where he begins to have rational thoughts – somewhere around age 4-5-6 the freethinker begins to see religious stories in the same vein as Santa Claus and Peter Cottontail and the idea of a god that created everything as rather absurd. It is not just religion and childhood stories as freethinkers aren’t influenced by marketing efforts or popular fads like the general population is.

Another characteristic of freethinkers is their habit of self-educating. It is an outgrowth of an insatiable need to know everything about the world around us. While a Conservative Christian is content that god-did-it, freethinkers want to know how the world really works. Schools often aren’t adequate to the needs of a freethinker. While most freethinkers do pursue a college education many do not. In any case, it is typical of a freethinker to be a lifelong learner. It should come as no surprise that those with high IQs are far more likely to be a freethinker than not.

In America, freethinkers may be the most hated group. It is not that freethinkers are in in the habit of doing bad things but rather the hatred is a result of the meanness of religious thought. There is something in the religious psyche that the act of worshiping a deity requires one to also have another to hate. Freethinkers are often cast into a bad light, in not a small part because every religious peddler knows the freethinker is the one that is going to point out the fraud that religious instruction represents.

However, freethinkers, as a group, as individuals have done more to improve the human condition and move humans into a more technological future than any other group. This is even more profound when one considers that freethinkers make up a very small portion of the population, not more than a couple of percent.

Medicine

The world of medicine is a prime example. Religious thought make the human body sacred ground. As such, investigations into the working of the human body had long been taboo. Much of the early understanding of the workings of the human body came about as curious freethinkers secretly acquired dead people, took them to hidden locations, and dissected them. Religious thought has long claimed that disease is a result of sin, or of not worshiping enough. It was freethinkers, who rejected those silly notions, who discovered the pathogen explanation for disease. Cancer, like other disease that have tormented humans is on the verge of being entirely curable in all its forms. Again, not by prayer but by investigations by freethinkers. DNA was discovered by freethinkers as were both the discoverers of evolution – the rejection of god-did-it in favor of investigation into how nature actually works.

Electricity

Electricity and all the modern conveniences that it provides, lighting, refrigeration, washing machines, and the computer revolution came about because of freethinkers. From the discovery of the “electric flow” to the invention of the light bulb, electric motors, the transistor, recorded music, moving pictures, the computer and the smart phone, all have come out of the efforts primarily of freethinkers.

Energy

The only ones that deny global warming are conservative Christians – mostly out of their inability to look forward and the fact that they tend to be easily duped. It was freethinkers who alerted the world to the fact that the burning of fossil fuels was warming the planet. There will come a time when gasoline becomes obsolete. But it will not be the end of the world because there are freethinkers, as I speak, out there developing the technology that will replace the gasoline economy and solve the problem of global warming.

Morality

Talk to a conservative Christian and he/she will tell you that they are the most moral people on the planet. <<MOD EDIT - Rule 7 - Removed inflammatory statement aimed at a religious group>> Christian charity work is typically rife with profiteering. When one looks into the activities of those preachers that are always out their preaching the lord&#8217;s word, raising money for their charitable works, is gaining wealth in the process. Typically, they live in large mansion sized houses, wear gold jewelry, drive around in luxury cars, fly in private jets&#8230; Even Mother Theresa lived in the lap of luxury.

Compare this to when a freethinker does charity work. Bob Geldolf (who played the starring role in Pink Floyd&#8217;s movie, The Wall) organized Live Aid &#8211; a dual concert in both England and the US with some of the top rock acts to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. All the bands covered their own expenses so that every dollar raised would go to the cause at hand. So much so the Geldolf, whose personal fortune sat at around $2 million when he started the venture, spent all his money and had to declare personal bankruptcy.

All the while conservative preachers across America were complaining that Geldolf&#8217;s efforts lacked a religious message, so therefor must be evil or demonic. In many ways, it was little more than the rehashing of those same preachers, and those who preceded them, who had been long demonstrating their racist, ignorant hatred by calling all of Rock-n-Roll, devil music.

Another prime example of the difference between freethinkers and conservative Christians is in the way billionaires spend their money. Bill Gates, both a freethinker and the wealthiest man in America has been using his money to help eradicate disease around the world, to help bring technology to those who can&#8217;t afford it, and thus risk being left behind in an ever-changing world, and has thrown his money behind the development of the technologies that will replace the dirty fossil fuels. Compare this to the Koch brothers who have been using their money to fund right wing think tanks &#8211; like the Heritage Foundation &#8211; that feed the misinformation that American conservatives are so infamous for.

Much of the problem with morality is that morals are natural. Religious thought twist those natural inclinations towards morality into worship for a deity. Being as deities only exist in the minds of those who have been led to believe those deities exists, worship of such deities denigrates into dogmatic actions that do no one any good.

For as long as polls have been taken they have shown consistently the more religious and the more conservative one is the more likely one is to support war and the death penalty and possess some of the most racists, homophobic, and misogynist attitudes of anyone. Just look to the current efforts at protecting so-called religious freedom. It centers around the right to discriminate against homosexuals and to block the use of contraceptives. Not exactly things that makes one more moral.

 

Not all conservatives are Christian/religious. I consider myself a conservative (note: different from Republican) but I am agnostic.

 

"(everyone) knows that Christians are ignorant, hate-filled, liars".

This post seems a bit biased and filled with only personal opinion.

 

I will defer to George Carlin to respond to the OP............

 

Good for you. But Is not the Belief in God one of the four pillars of conservatism? Confused? One of the characteristics of these wonderful bright blue oases that dot the US is the low rate of religiousness.

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So we are in agreement then.

 

A true free thinker considers all possibilities and is not closed minded to even Christianity. What the OP has described is a religious bigot.

 

And yet you cannot disprove the fact that liberals, and many of them the freethinker variety are the ones that move the world forward. Do I have to remind you that it was liberals who created the computer and the internet that make this conversation possible. And it is those same freethinking liberals that make states like California, Oregon, and Washington the liberal states that they are.

 

Thread # 6235234135236234213421352154 on why liberals are better than you.

 

Where did you get the idea that the belief in God is one of the requirements to be a conservative?

Please do not talk down to me by calling me "confused".

 

So does that mean that you are open to unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters, and teapots from outer space? Some things are just too silly to take serious. It is not like there is a god that exists outside of your imagination. If there is prove it.

 

Thats right, they are (*)(*)(*)(*)ing better than you:


[video=youtube;7e0u-xXKZXQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0u-xXKZXQ[/video]

Hahahaha!

 

So you are not a free thinker. Period. If someone cannot consider possibilities then they are 1)closed minded and if someone thinks people who do consider possibilities are silly then they are 2) arrogant.

This is not free thinking. It is bigotry.

 

Take a good hard look at England's NHS to see what that "free thinking" got them.

 

I'm one of the few religious conservative people who have a problem with dissecting dead bodies and autopsies; though I am not a Christian thank God.
To me it is immoral to cut open or dissect a dead body. Human beings are not animals, and even in death the human body deserves respect and should be shrouded and buried in a nice grave with due care. For this reason I'm obviously also opposed to cremation.

You state that religious thought is diametrically opposed to scientific and medical explanations for disease (religion says sickness is brought on by sin and science says the cause is pathogens). But this is exactly the kind of binary thinking that so called freethinkers often express in their woefully inadequate critique of religion. One would think that with such a pretentious and ambitious title as "freethinkers" these people would dig a bit deeper and try to understand religion more accurately. They fail to understand that positing a cause for something does not necessitate denial of another cause. There can be multiple causes or agents for the occurrence of something like illness...more precisely, there can be a string of causes that results in illness or any other human calamity. For example it is not illogical to say that an earthquake is caused by the anger of God while simultaneously affirming the scientific fact that earthquakes are caused by the movement of tectonic plates. From a religious point of view, it will be reconciled by understanding that God is the original cause that sets into motion a string of causes, like a domino effect.

 

I actually read quite a bit. It is like an addiction. I devour the printed word voraciously.
In those readings time and time again the idea of the pillars of conservatism comes up, and in every case one of the so called pillars in the belief in god.

Here is an example from a conservative source:

https://home.isi.org/pillars-modern-american-conservatism


Ever since the loss of the fairness doctrine and the lifting of the restrictions on radio, television, and newspaper ownership there has been a proliferation of mis-information, primarily form right-wing sources. It gets kind of funny at times. There are conservatives out there who actually believe that Republicans represent the people - even though their every action has been to the benefit to those at the top while screwing over everyone else.

Confused? Get back to me once Trump finds you that new job you think he was promising you.

 

First the liberals will try to take away the republic, which is ruled by laws--known as the U.S. Constitution.

If they succeed, then they rule by democracy, which will ultimately collapse when the greedy socialist majority take away all the resources from the producers and redistribute them to the non-producers.

Then their socialist state will collapse into chaos and anarchy will reign with no rule of law.

Then the people will revolt from lack of rules and cry for help from those able to consolidate power and provide order.

Finally the powerful will establish with an oligarchy of some form and prop up some sock puppet who he and his backers will rule with an iron boot.

 

I've heard the "flying spaghetti monster" argument from atheists quite frequently. In my mind, this argument is quite immature and shows a lack of critical thinking on the one who invokes it as a standard reply to religion - or more specifically, monotheistic religions.

There is a reason that pagan/polytheistic religions have historically died out or lose their dynamism as opposed to the endurance of monotheism. If there is a God (And I definitely believe there is) He is not an anthropomorphic god that has been made in our image (or made by our imagination). This is why I reject the pagan "gods" Zeus, Odin, Thor, Osiris, Vishnu, and even Jesus. All of these so called "gods" are too anthropomorphic, having a physical form and image. In some cases they are actually human beings or even animals. Worshiping such gods is an example of primitive spirituality. But the monotheism of Elohism from which Judaism and Islam have been derived, is quite distinct in that it posits a God that is transcendent without any form or image that can be comprehended or imagined. This is why our God cannot be imagined or depicted; He is simply too beyond human imagination and comprehension. If there is a God who created the universe it must be this God that He beyond human comprehension and beyond petty anthropomorphic imagery and description, in other words a transcendent God that is omnipresent. But the pagan gods are not omnipresent, they possess limiting forms and bodies, created in the image of man or animals. The Bible says God created man in His image, but pagan religions and conceptions of god are that man created God in his image.

 

If you would have asked a "freethinker" 300 years ago about man flying to the moon, I would wager that said "freethinker" would say

. Lack of knowledge and the closed mindedness of undiscovered possibilities is what disqualifies one as a "freethinker".

 

Equating a free thinker with atheism flies in the face of many scientists, physicists, who were more intelligent than your average free thinker and yet were not atheists. Nice try though.

The thing also about thinking is that the thought process itself is based upon memory. For you cannot think of something which is not in some way contained already in memory. What is contained in memory, whether you are 7 or 70, even with free thinkers is not an original thought. It is second hand knowledge. Someone else got into your memory banks. And you are parroting what others said, with little of it being original.

So, I am not sure there are really many free thinkers, if any. All are slaves to knowledge that preceded them, which you may as well call tradition.

BTW the first human mind that came up with a singular god in a polytheistic world was......a free thinker. For he or she created a new idea.

 

Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet. Gore was a Christian whose wife tried to fight a war against Satanic lyrics in rock music.

 

Once again, closed minded thinking, not free thinking. A free thinker would actually consider the republican or conservative positions on the merits. You are quick to dismiss them and claim you are "superior".....lolz!

 

The left thinks they're the only ones who matter. Everyone else should get in line.

 

I guess you missed this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-e2NDSTuE

 

I am by no means a religious person, but if my history serves me correctly, most, if not all of the major civilizations throughout history were started based upon a religion as a commonality. This being the case I would say that religions have advanced the world forward more, since without the major cities throughout history there could be no advancement in sciences. Science is hard to do on the move.

Albeit some were false religions. (worshiping Egyptian Pharaohs for example)

 

I noticed that you have not presented an argument that counters any of the points I made in the OP. Why is that?