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Freethinkers, think!
Freethinkers claim to base their beliefs on logic and science and have taken an active
stance against religion—in particular Christianity—and holds that practitioners of any orthodox religious
beliefs are not freethinkers. Although it can be agreed upon that science has not provided
answers to many critical questions within anyone’s given lifetime—or for the history
of science, for that matter—freethinkers still maintain that their methods of arriving
at truth are the best ones yet.
It is rational to move from one’s known territory to an unknown territory or from
the familiar to the unfamiliar. Even logic begins with rules or axioms and traverses
a sequence of statements to either accept or reject anything initially assumed to be
true. To reject religion from the outset goes against all forms of rationality.
Freethinkers propagate that all theists are harmful and destructive. Moderate theists
are pitted against fundamentalists. They advocate that theists aren’t willing to have their
beliefs critiqued, when, in reality, many of them respond in an irrational manner after
having their beliefs challenged. Freethinkers, however, solicit the inclusion of all atheists,
agnostics, and rationalists, although all these groups do not necessarily cling to their
worldview.
Critical thinking involves assessing and evaluating the data or information one receives and making
a sound judgment as to its plausibility, reliability, and correctness to either question or confirm
one’s belief. Critical thinking does not require an abstract suspension of one’s
belief nor does it imply the rejection of the inclusion as evidence arguments that support
or contradict one’s viewpoint.
The practice of freethought, or ‘freethinking,’ is not synonymous with critical thinking.
Since it rejects all other religious beliefs in favor of logic, which has never disproved
supernatural experiences, and science, which by no means addresses supernatural questions,
‘freethinking’ is not ‘free.’ It is biased, like any other form of thinking, while
sporting the hypocritical visage of being free from it.
It is clear that freethinkers lack the discipline of ‘truly’ thinking and that freethinking
is far from ‘free.’ Critical thinkers, irregardless of belief, should distance themselves
from a sugarcoated, deceptive, and misleading movement such as that of freethinkers.
Freethinkers, think�