I Find It Offensive; How About You

[Judas BentHer]

Well done Anymouse. Well done. Mommy lawyer elitist believer gained an education she sorely needed. Bravo! And great news that the coffee shop is flourishing.

That's the irksome thing about the insecure and religious, which are attributes not often mutually exclusive. They espouse freedom as their vehicle for promoting their belief system and then contravene those same rights to those in opposition to them.

[Anymouse]

Well done Anymouse. Well done. Mommy lawyer elitist believer gained an education she sorely needed. Bravo! And great news that the coffee shop is flourishing.

That's the irksome thing about the insecure and religious, which are attributes not often mutually exclusive. They espouse freedom as their vehicle for promoting their belief system and then contravene those same rights to those in opposition to them.

Thanks.

How did you get your neat signature pic? I've seen the instructions on the default ones here, and they don't apply to me, and the instructions on self-made ones, and they go over my puny little education. And I don't belong to sites such as Flickr.

[TheologicalThinker1]

It's the work of a think called 'porn sites' and a reason why you shouldn't be fast and loose on the internet

Very funny. It was actually a pop up that disguised itself as a Window Update. Normally, these updates appear at least once a week and they're safe, so I allowed it to make changes to my computer, then it turned out to be a virus.

Anyways, I know see what all of you mean, now. Still, I find the term ridiculous when it's applied to religion or lack of religion. Can't you just call yourselves Atheists? Why do you have to call yourselves 'free thinkers'. To me, it seems like a word you apply to yourselves exclusively just so you can try to show everyone that you're better than all of the religious people out there. Just my opinion.

[Minimalist]

Freethinker is a self-imposed title. Never take those seriously.

Also frequently used by those who cannot/will not think as a term of abuse.

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Min:while I think of it:here we say and write the slang for anus as 'arsehole'. Of course if one wants to sound less vulgar,one uses 'sphincter' as an acceptable approximation.i

Thanks, Pad but I'll stick with using "asshole." There are a couple of people around here who that fits perfectly.

[Epimethean]

Confucius say, Goldfish in bowl think itself free swimming.

[Darth]

All sorts of woo-iphiles can still honestly claim to be atheists as all it means is lacking belief in a god or gods OR believing that not god or gods exist. Raelians are atheists. 'Skeptics' is being taken over by the climate nut-jobs and has the drawback of seeming to exclude the second type of atheist. What else are we to all ourselves?

*So are Buddhists technically if I recall correctly. So are believers in homeopathy, astrology... so long as they don't believe in a god.

I see 'freethinkers' (Or 'rationalist', which has the same 'problems' you describe) as an attempt to further and more accurately define a group of people who don't buy into nonsense of any variety, not just gods, but all nonsense, spiritual shenanigans, claptrap and hogwash.

Atheist =/= freethinker, though there is a high correlation =)

[Judas BentHer]

How did you get your neat signature pic? I've seen the instructions on the default ones here, and they don't apply to me, and the instructions on self-made ones, and they go over my puny little education. And I don't belong to sites such as Flickr.

You're welcome.

I made the signature image using my MS paint program. I don't like member registration photo upload sites, so I did a search on Wikipedia for the keywords, List of photo sharing websites , and ultimately found my way tod Image Venue.
Then just go into "edit profile" linked on your User CP and insert it where you edit the signature, once you get the URL code from Image Venue. It should work.

[Statler Waldorf]

That Christians, and anyone who isn't an Atheist for that matter, is not a 'Free' Thinker. I may believe in Christianity, but that doesn't mean I'm not a free thinker! I made a choice to be a Christian which means I freely chose to be one. I was not forced to be one. Even as a Christian I can freely think. Can someone explain to me how the term 'Free' Thinker only applies to Atheists?

Free thinkers are a myth. Atheists are no freer in their thinking than Christians or the next guy. We all adopt presuppositions and interpret the world according to this framework. Anyone who tries to tell you that they are neutral is straight up lying to you, don't forget that my friend.

[Judas BentHer]

Still, I find the term ridiculous when it's applied to religion or lack of religion. Can't you just call yourselves Atheists? Why do you have to call yourselves 'free thinkers'. To me, it seems like a word you apply to yourselves exclusively just so you can try to show everyone that you're better than all of the religious people out there. Just my opinion.

I think it's unfair to condemn the term freethinker as a word that holds no merit or, worse yet, is used so as to imply a superior status of an individual calling themselves a free thinker intends to imply they are then superior to Theists.

Freethinker isn't a new term created so as to piss off Theists by implication. It has a long history that dates back to the 1800's. Free thought is the intellectual stimulus that helped evolve humanity out of the Dark Ages. No term such as that need be applied at a time when exclusivist, elitist, repressive coercive intolerant theocratic agendas exercised in concert between the orthodoxy and the monarchy sought to manifest a conformist society. However, what became the term "freethinker" encapsulates what was inspiration for emancipation. Many things contributed to the evolution of a secular society. However, what is at issue here is that aspect that was contained and thus ruled by an establishment that sought to exploit the illiteracy, the poverty, the fear, desperation and superstitions of the impoverished peasantry as well as the members of the elite noble houses, so as to insure a slave conformist community amid the former population and a compliant entitled yet just as easily expendable community amid the later.

However, what helped to evolve that conformist united doctrine enforced by church and crown, was the free thought that rationalized in part that a benevolent god would not require his created children to be enslaved by ignorance and fear under the machinations of orthodoxy and crown authority, using the words of that god that were often contained in holy books but which the church authority deemed was not to be read by the lesser mortals that were any and all outside of the confines of church and crown.
Certainly a term; free thought, freethinker, was not the vehicle that manifest that minute inspiration to societal evolution and exodus from orthodoxy and repressive doctrines. It's simply a term that compartmentalizes what was the inspiration to dare to think outside the box that was constructed by orthodoxy to preclude any point of view save that which was said to be approved by the will of a god as interpreted by inspiration gleaned by the clergy and pronounced official by the crown.

So, with regard to that your interpretation of freethinker bears an interesting perspective. To imagine people who exercise rational thought think themselves better than those who may indeed be capable of rational thought yet exercise their personal free will and choose to set aside that intellect and assume for themselves an irrational philosophy as a way of life.

"Blasphemy is entirely a matter of opinion. What is blasphemy in one country is piety in another. Progress tends to reduce it from a crime to an affair of taste'. " George William Foote

[Epimethean]

What does a christian need to "think" about? With faith, EVERYTHING is free.