Did Jesus encourage or discourage critical thinking? Can you give me an example?
2007-04-27 04:38:24 · 9 answers · asked by ppigworm 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Jesus always encouraged his disciples and others to think for themselves, and to use reasoning.
He used illustrations, parables, and always asked questions to see what others were thinking on certain matters.
Read Matthew chapters 19 & 20.
2007-04-27 04:44:12 · answer #1 · answered by ♥LadyC♥ 6 · 1⤊ 2⤋
Nowadays?
The Church has been at the vanguard of ignorance for the entire span of its existence. The "Dark Ages" were dark because the Christians burned all the books and destroyed all the centers of so-called "pagan" learning! It wasn't until the Renaissance that we began to recover - with the reintroduction of texts and disciplines that had been condemned and forbidden by the Church for centuries. But even then, we saw the Church persecute would-be pioneers like Copernicus and Galileo for daring to suggest that the Biblical cosmology might be inconvenient - not even "incorrect!" - for astronomers. Today we have Young Earth and Intelligent Design and so on - simply the continuation of the tradition of keeping the masses ignorant and complacent, because the advance of learning is threatening to an institution built on fraud and falsehood.
I'm not anti-"spirituality" - although I regret having to use such an unfortunately loaded term - and I do understand that "spiritual" Truth is trans-rational, and cannot be apprehended by such a feeble instrument as the human intellect. But that doesn't mean that spirituality should involve making oneself an intellectual imbecile. People who think it's a point of religion to force themselves to believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old, etc, are simply backwards troglodytes, unable to comprehend intellectual OR spiritual truth.
"Jesus" is supposed to have said "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's" - this is basically another way of saying "Don't confuse the planes." Rational truth is appropriate to the intellect; spiritual truth is appropriate to that trans-rational faculty in man that science has yet to analyze and name.
2007-04-27 11:41:34 · answer #2 · answered by jonjon418 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I'd like to point out that our entire society discourages critical thinking, but yes I believe members of some religions do so more emphatically.
2007-04-27 11:42:35 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
No less so than our contemporary culture. Modern culture is rabidly anti-intellectual. It tries to refuse labels, but without labels we cannot really know something (they tell us what something "is"). It wants to deconstruct everything and make it ever more experiential.
I could go on, but our culture is anti-intellectual, and in general, considers critical thinking something useful only in business deals and whatnot. You shouldn't be surprised at all that it has a religious expression. :(
2007-04-27 11:45:12 · answer #4 · answered by Innokent 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes. Jesus told us we must have the faith of a child.
Children don't think critically
2007-04-27 11:41:27 · answer #5 · answered by Cindy Lou Who --P3D-- 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Of course it does... it produces propaganda, states it as Fact without any kind of evidence other than "well, I said so".
"Test the spirits"... seems to me that this means to check it out for yourself before you accept something as Fact or Truthful. But often that one is used to "prove" how "evil" another is because they supposedly "tested the spirits" (online of all places)
2007-04-27 12:06:44 · answer #6 · answered by Kithy 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
eh! hasn't it always, never, encouraged anything critical!
2007-04-27 11:42:37 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
Because you might figure out that it's all a sham.
2007-04-27 11:41:12 · answer #8 · answered by Resident Heretic 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
They have to, otherwise they'll lose their memebership and ALL THAT DOUGH!
2007-04-27 11:43:17 · answer #9 · answered by Irreverend 6 · 2⤊ 1⤋