How arrogant is it to believe your mind is free, just because you call yourself a free thinker?

Question

Your mind is, in reality, not free. It is bound by the information put into it. Initially, it has no way of knowing whether that information is false or true. It is limited in proportion to the amount of false information it has. It cannot grasp many concepts. Otherwise, it would always cause you to get straight A's in school, and comprehend every concept right away. It doesn't. So what special gifts do you "free thinkers" possess, that your mind is different than anyone else's on the earth? And what gives you the intellectual authority to tell others to "free their minds?"

So, you ***-ume that because I'm Christian, I am not free to think anything or any way I want? That's decidedly outsider thinking, and couldn't be more ridiculous.

Answer 1

You are correct. What goes into the mind is really important. It must be of high quality. Garbage in, garbage out applies.

As Paul writes to the Philippians in ch. 1:9, we need "accurate knowledge with full discernment". How do we get this?

By following the example of the Beroeans in Acts 17:11. They heard Paul's words with great eagerness,BUT, they CAREFULLY EXAMINED THE SCRIPTURES DAILY to see if these words were true. They did not just accept anything they were told. They checked and verified all they were told.

Answer 2

it's a mis-nomer really. Because as soon as you think, you've set the stage for perimeters.

I would love to be getting straight A's, being 100 percent accomplished in anything that I put my mind too. But as I'm learning.

That's exactly my problem. I have an average mind. B student. Even less at times, and you have it right. It doesn't grasp every concept right away. Not like I'd like it too.

Here's the thing that I twists all that reality of the human bound up in narrow margins is that there is an "I" underneath all that.

Underneath the realization that I'm limited compacity physically and mindfully is the strong desire to experience things beyond that anyway, and to constantly push that margin out. (and what IS that?) In psychology I'm told that we have many layers of our mind to explore.

Through life experience.

It's also releasing judgement on anything that's in my life and to let go of definitions as soon as possible. Defining things also narrow's your margin. Now realizing that and constantly putting that into practice is not automatic. IT has to be chosen and exercised. Like a machine. A well oiled machine.

So, a free-thinker I am not. Only when I don't think, can I maintain a sense of freedom and absorb more expansively.

See, I'm not thinking about this as I'm saying it either.
But I do like this question.

Any sort of hostility, tends to block true intent of information coming in, and becomes a matter of interpretation and as you pointed out, that when we interpret information it very easily can just solidfy what we think we already know. Not necessarily what was actually being said.

Arrogance is not a selective problem. It can be acted upon at any given time by anyone. It doesn't even have to be a constant with an individual.

Something to watch out for...

Freeing your mind is not a matter of intellect. It's a matter of taking in more information and broadening your perimeter. This would never stop, would it?

Answer 3

The consciousnes, not the Mind, is bound by delusional preconceptions not by the information put into it, it is exactly this information which is put into it, by our senses which our consciousness disregards.

A simple example may help to explain....

We see a beautiful flower. We acknowledge the beauty of the flower in the moment of recognition of the sight..We generally say to ourselves.."Oh, what a beautiful flower.." Do we not..?

We see the same flower a week later, it has faded...we generally say to ourselves.."Oh, how sad the flower has faded.." Is this not so..?

What has happened is that we have seen the flower's beauty, yet we have placed a preconceived condition on the flower's beauty. The preconceived condition we have placed on this beauty is Permanence. In our consciousness we consider that the beauty of the flower is Permanent.

The problem is the flowers beauty is Impermanent and our own eyes see it as such, yet this information is disregarded. As well as this, we have made a false decision about this faded beauty, we have decided that the sight of the faded flower, a natural condition, is Sad.

Freeing the Mind, allows the sight of the faded flower to be regarded as NOT SAD. A truth. The sight of the faded flower is natural, the flower is supposed to fade.

There is no special gift in freeing the Mind. The gift is a freed Mind itself.

There is no intellectual authority required, all that is required is to see the true nature of things and let the conscious Mind experience these things as they are, Not as it presupposes things are.

A perspective on the Mind and cognisant reality...

From a Buddhist....

Answer 4

Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logical principles and not be compromised by authority, tradition, or any other dogma. The cognitive application of freethought is known as freethinking, and practitioners of freethought are known as freethinkers.

A freethinker is simply someone who, for example, does not adhere to Christian doctrine, because he or she realizes that it is faith without evidence, and belief by indoctrination, and furthermore, ridiculous.

A freethinker is someone who has come to realization of this philosophy; they are not necessarily someone free from bias, although they would love to escape it. Once everyone in the world is disillusioned from the same, groundless religion like Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and the like will disappear, and we will attain something very close to the ideology of 'world peace'.

Answer 5

Grace (not law) unto you, and peace (not division),
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus -> Christ.

For Christ's sake ppl: AD->only goes one way, to the end.

Know-ing the truth makes you free of Believe-ing the lies.
For the biblical objective isn't to "believe", but to "know".
Devils "believe": James 2:19. So "believe not": Mt 24.

Reason: for TAKE HEED 101, is not to get deceived,
by many shall come... TO DECEIVE
false Christs shall arise...TO DECEIVE
false prophets shall arise...TO DECEIVE

Perhaps resurrection APPEARANCES can be DECEIVING
Perhaps there should only be one resurrection, and for all,
all them vs them should be raised up the way a child shld go:
go ye & learn what meaneth "I will have mercy, not sacrifice";
Allegorically meaneth I will have all grace, and no law at all.

That God is light(only) declared the END from the beginning:
Let there be LIGHT(ONLY)--->and there was LIGHT(ONLY):

The GRACE(ONLY) of our Lord Jesus->Christ with you->all. Amen.

Answer 6

Free thinkers tend to cull their information from a variety of sources. They'll watch CNN *and* Fox News, or they'll read the Bible *and* a critical assessment of it, etc.

Your tone indicates you're either frightened by the concept of free thought, or you are simply incapable of it yourself.

Answer 7

I freed myself from the mind.

A free thinker is really an oxymoron...you are never free within the mind.

~ Eric Putkonen

Answer 8

And what is the alternative? To believe someone Else's conviction on what God is about. I will let God show me and tell me about himself and not some Jewish people who think they know who God is. Blind obedience to the bible is beyond foolishness, it is a complete slap in the face of the one true God sir, any questions?

Answer 9

Wow. Does language often mess you up like this?

You know terms are often representative? Such as "back door man" doesn't mean they literally have to only use the back door. It goes on and on like that. It's fasinating!

Answer 10

You're going on the blank slate theory which has been disproven in psychology.