http://www.bnfree.com/i-pea-freely/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-pea-freely Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:43:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.bnfree.com/i-pea-freely/comment-page-1/#comment-219 Happy Skeptic Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:55:31 +0000 http://www.bnfree.com/?p=362#comment-219 "They hate us for our Freedom!" Do you really need me to tell you who said it? Sorry, nice post and here is a present for you. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/affect-versus-effect.aspx “They hate us for our Freedom!” Do you really need me to tell you who said it?
Sorry, nice post and here is a present for you. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/affect-versus-effect.aspx

]]> http://www.bnfree.com/i-pea-freely/comment-page-1/#comment-205 ken Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:04:52 +0000 http://www.bnfree.com/?p=362#comment-205 I don't believe "free" is a quality of thought. The word "freethought" is quite misleading. Thought is essentially memory conditioned by knowledge, experience and the past, all of which are fragmentary and incomplete. Thought is nothing more than a tool, it doesn't possess consciousness, insight, and never operates "freely" unless the person using thought is psychologically free to begin with. Good luck finding such a specimen. The simplest observation is largely a conditioned one, colored by dozens of unexamined biases and conclusions. So it isn't a question of thinking freely, which I think is fallacious. The problem is the nature of psychological conditioning and whether is is possible to understand it and be free of it. A skeptic may reject organized religion and yet carry around a carload's worth of other stupidities and prejudices. The skeptic may be free of Christianity. But is he free of nationalism and all the violence and war it leads to? Not necessarily. Does he pursue recognition and the flattery of his ego. Obviously. Can he exploit others in the name of family or self interest? Undoubtedly. Is he or she free of these things? Unlikely. I don’t believe “free” is a quality of thought. The word “freethought” is quite misleading. Thought is essentially memory conditioned by knowledge, experience and the past, all of which are fragmentary and incomplete. Thought is nothing more than a tool, it doesn’t possess consciousness, insight, and never operates “freely” unless the person using thought is psychologically free to begin with. Good luck finding such a specimen. The simplest observation is largely a conditioned one, colored by dozens of unexamined biases and conclusions. So it isn’t a question of thinking freely, which I think is fallacious. The problem is the nature of psychological conditioning and whether is is possible to understand it and be free of it. A skeptic may reject organized religion and yet carry around a carload’s worth of other stupidities and prejudices. The skeptic may be free of Christianity. But is he free of nationalism and all the violence and war it leads to? Not necessarily. Does he pursue recognition and the flattery of his ego. Obviously. Can he exploit others in the name of family or self interest? Undoubtedly. Is he or she free of these things? Unlikely.

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