Heathen Dawn

Good retort. The irony of it is that the firing of those quotes is nothing but an act of preaching.

trendkill

Is that all? A few of those do indeed look like endorsements of freethought. However, at least one of them looks like an incitement to deception, and some others appear to actually be attacks on freethought. Very odd that they should be chosen as guides for critical thinking.

Evoken

Well there are many more but I am not here to discuss Christianity so if you think it is not enough or you don't agree with them it is another matter. Now I answered your question, so please tell me what promotes freethought? What are the characterists that something must have to promote freethought?

trendkill

You keep saying that, but it's either nonsense or your topic is disingenuous. Discussion of whether a Christian freethinker is an oxymoron cannot be carried out without reference to Christianity.

I thought the matter was whether a Christian or skeptic freethinker is an oxymoron. If you want to declare it is all a matter of opinion, then again I see no basis for discussion.


No JDLongmire answered my question, and Biff answered yours. So both questions have been answered. If you don't want the discussion to continue on from there, that is your call.

Evoken

I keep saying that not because it is nonsense or that I am being disingenuous. I do it because the aim of this topic is not to discuss Christianity and The Bible but to determine why or why not a Christian freethinker/skeptic is an oxymoron. I don't want this discussion to turn into a debate over Christianity and start to argue over the fact that you don't agree with it and I agree with it. There is an entire forum for that.

Oh but that is the matter, the intention of the topic was to be simple and straight forward, we discuss about what is a freethinker and skeptic then we see why this is often held in contrast to Christians.

Is it all a matter of opinion? In this issue I guess it is and like I said I am not here to try and change neither your view nor the one of any other members of the board. I am here just to discuss and to learn.

Well as I see how things are developing so far, to you and other of the participants freethinking is synonymous of atheism. To me freethinking in the context that I see that is used here makes an oxymoron no matter to what word it is applied to.

Biff the unclean

Okay, let me try this again. Christianity is a religion. A religion is a specific system of belief. When a person adopts a presubscribed system of what they are to believe they relinquish their option to freethought. They may have used freethought to pick the system but once they accept the system freethought is no longer an option without abandoning the belief.
Atheism is not a religion, it is only the lack of one. An Atheist has no option except freethought as they have no system of beliefs to fall back on.

You can have your cake or you can eat it. We cannot discuss the freethought of Christians if we cannot discuss Christian thought and it's guidelines.

No, it's a matter of definitions.
What is skepticism vs. what is faith. What is belief vs. what is doubt

Learning means changing your views.

Then I suggest that you are mistaken about what it means to be an Atheist.

Evoken

Sure, I agree with you on that. The only thing is that I see no problem with it. I accepted the system by first using freethought. As for freethought not being an option inside the system, I think that applies to close minded people or fundamentalist, there are people that investigate their own system of belief in order to either increase their understanding of it or to clear any doubt they may have about it and by doing this they must not necessary forsake their system.

I know that. The only disagreement I have with you on this is that the atheist does has a system to fall back on, just because it is not a religion it does not makes it any less of a system than what religion is.

I think we can discuss what freethinking is without falling into a mindless debate over the Christian doctrine.

Of course but to me it seems that you think faith and reason are contrary to each other. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive but are faces of the same coin.

And I did..and that is why I became Christian.

Well I apologize for misrepresenting your view.

Biff the unclean

All people who belong to a religion have closed their minds to a degree. You don't have to be a zealot. Faith is the suspension of free thought.

A person who questions their belief system and is prepared to follow whatever their conclusions may be is using free thought. A person who questions their belief system with the intent of strengthening their faith is using structured/guided thinking.

Then you do not know what Atheism is. The absence of a belief system is not a belief system.

A Christian cannot have free thought for the simple reason that they subscribe to a doctrine.

Absolutely.

Having been raised as a Roman Catholic and having spent the last three or four decades as a working scientist I can tell you that you could not be more incorrect.

That's nice. But when you became a Christian you rely on belief and the structure of the Christian system prevents free thought.

I think the problem is that you like the word "Free." Home of the brave, land of the Free and all that. It sounds like good stuff. But in this case free only means undirected, unstructured.
A religion direct thoughts, it has a structured belief system.

Maybe you would be happier if "free thought" was called "loose canon thinking" (misspelling pun intended). "Free thinker" is only a term like the short-lived "Brights." An attempt to give Atheists a name that did not inspire Theists to immediately want us dead.

Buffman

The basis of the claim that a Christian freethinker/skeptic is an oxymoron is anchored in the premise that truth can be accurately known based on faith beliefs alone. That is the sales pitch of most religions. If Christianity is a religion, then its believers have chosen to cease questioning anything that places that faith belief in jeopardy.

You claim that there are absolute truths and use human biological needs for survival as your example. OK! How do ghosts survive? They don't eat or drink, do they? My point is that humans survive in a "natural" world and are subject to the evolutionary dictates of that world. These dictates can be tested and verified. However, for the individual who has accepted a faith belief in the supernatural world, there are no dictates to be measured and verified. There, ghosts (miracles) exist without question. Freethinkers/skeptics question the existence of miracles because they require evidence that can be verified/validated/proven. Faith believers do not require the same level of evidence. Thus, they have chosen to put aside in depth free inquiry into the matters and basis of faith beliefs...just as you are doing when you claim that you do not wish to discuss (not necessarily debate) your Christian faith beliefs.

Christians accept statements based on faith. Freethinkers/skeptics seek verifiable facts. (That's why I provided you with the scientific definitions of "Fact" and "Theory.") Perhaps that is the answer you seek. A Christian freethinker/skeptic is an oxymoron because a belief in the supernatural does not require verifiable evidence... merely faith that there are absolute truths for every unknown.

No, it isn't simply a matter of individual opinion. It is a matter of what is fact and what is fiction. What is evidence and what is not. What is proof and what is not. If a human does not eat or drink, they die. There is more than ample natural world, verifiable evidence, to prove that. For an individual to claim that they do not die if they don't eat or drink, is an extraordinary claim. Only in a supernatural world faith belief can such a claim take root...and only if freethinking skepticism is placed in abeyance. Religious faith beliefs place freethinking skepticism in abeyance.

I have elected to go a step further. I maintain that belief in the supernatural causes the individual to forfeit a claim to be a freethinkler/skeptic concerning faith beliefs...and why a Christian freethinker/skeptic is an oxymoron. Isn't that what you asked us to consider/answer?

Evoken

We all close our minds to a degree.

Sure, but who decides when one is doing one or the other?

Those who don't subscribe to a doctrine belong to the group of those who don't subscribe to a doctrine and follow a pattern they just think they don't.

Well I don't have the same age as you and I am not so far down the road yet but so far based on my current knowledge this is where I stand, if it is going to change then I guess time will tell.

Well I disagree and arrived at a different conclusion.

Nah..free thinker is just a phrase, what matters is the connection it implies. It is not that I want or like the phrase (in fact I think it is stupid and contradictory) and want to find a justification to use it. But my aim in this topic was to try and understand what is the context in which the atheists use it(or people puts it on them).

So it is possible that "Free Thinker" is nothing but a phrase used to label atheists(think marketing strategy) or maybe it is a phrase used by some atheists as some sort of ego-booting to try to feel superior to the others, very much like how people of religions like Christians use the word "saved".