Rusting Car Bumper

I think in this day and age its hard to say a freethinker can be a believer.

Freethinking does not mean that I'm free to think anything I please. I believe freethinking implies behavior of thought in accordance with facts and reason. Thinking in the context of freethought, thinking, I believe, implies the use of acceptable rules just as many activities require governing rules. In this case, the acceptable rules are defined by reason.

DC

Rusting Car Bumper

Simply because one was a calss of thing in the past does not mean that a thing of similar traits today could be thought of the same.

Word meanings change over time and further the conditions by which judge if a thing is a particular thing change as well.

DC

Godless Dave

In that case, I look forward to your answer to the question I posed here.

Eudaimonist

Free thinkers are free of dogmatic constraints to their thinking processes. They are more likely to start with observations and build up to conclusions, than to start with conclusions (such as religious dogma) and then come up with apologetics.

Amos

That would be true if you ignore the reality of being a Freethinker, who in my view can go by intuition and have the faculty of reason placed subservient to intuition (in varying degrees, I may add).

From this 'lofty' position Aquinas could be an apologist and send the flock in the right direction where whatever was fed to them in the form of religious instruction was based on reality and could later find its freedom in understanding=bring peace through understanding=at rest in nature.

Augustine was much the same but he was much less of a scholar and could never have prepared the church to reach the hights it did.

Unlike Aquinas, Luther send his flock in the wrong direction and that is why it has been dividing ever since=chaos brings division=no harmony with nature.

Rusting Car Bumper

I'm not sure what "ignore the reality of being a freethinker" is suppossed to mean other than a bland assertion.

I could just as well claim "you ignore the reality of being a Freethinker" and claim my views correct and we haven't really gotten anywhere.

I think "in reality" one cannot be a freethinker and be a believer. (except *possibly* a deist who is a naturalist and I'm not even sure that is possible.) Why? To believe is to abandon or not follow the implicit rules of thinking which that of reason. You say, "my view can go by intuition" but this means you aren't thinking any longer.

This is all irrelevant. What is a freethinker and what is it today?

DC

Amos

But I agree and that is why I made the distinction between a "free thinker" and a "Freethinker."

Because the position of Freethinker is real the meaning of the word Freethinker will never change. Our interpretation of it may change but that only means that we do not recognize the posititon held by a Freethinker and from here it is just matter of you accepting it or not.

It is also true that a Freethinker is a naturalist but maybe not your version of a naturalist because he would go by intuition and uses reason to evaluate the options presented by intuition.

Some Loser

This is not a free will argument. The question "I can't think freely?" is very vague and seems as if it could be referring to determinism vs. free will. You need to be a bit more specific. I have half a feeling that you are hoping someone will say, "No, you can't" so that you can say, "Yes, I can. I can choose to think whatever I want to think" and then it might appear to some as if you have won the argument. But realize that free will vs. determinism is an entirely separate issue and it would be best that you make it clear that you are not referring to such a thing.

A better question would have been, "Do I form philosophical beliefs on reason alone as opposed to accepting whatever it is that most other people believe without at least some initial skepticism?" But then I suppose the sarcastic element of your question would be lost and the answer to your question would be significantly less obvious.

livius drusus

Some Loser, that was a fanfuckingtastic post. Welcome to the II, you fine specimen of a misnomer.

Defiant Heretic

Freethinker can apply to theists, so long as their beliefs are a result of an honest evaluation of the evidence available to them. Quite a few deists could be categorized as freethinkers, and so could some people of other religions. The important thing isn’t what they believe; it’s why they believe it.