(June 28, 2011 at 2:59 am)LastPoet Wrote: Funny, I never considered atheists and freethinkers the same thing, I think freethinkers can be atheists or theists. It may intersect people in both of these groups, although the nature of religion really puts alot of theists out of freethought, but its hard for them to admit it.
If you believe an unsupported claim and try to wrap your worldview around it, you are limiting your thought, simple as that.
But in the end no one is really a freethinker in an absolute way, people are influenced by others, by books, by education, by all the 'bumps' along the way.
My problem with using freethinker as a synonym for atheist is that there are a lot of dumbass atheists out there that haven't thought a day in their life. You know the ones, they're only atheist because it feels anti authoritarian and cool to rebel, but they've never justified their position with actual thought.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
