What sort of professional help? To fix my car? To get this stain out of the rug? You are really going to need to be more clear with your helpful suggestions. I don't know what you are talking about.

Again, just an observation, but it appears that you allow yourself to become offended and upset by every unreasonable things.

For example, if someone offers their opinion that an ancient doctrine is nothing more than the writings of men, you get all bent out of shape screaming personal insult.

That’s not healthy or normal.

People have every right to express their views on the historical aspects of humanity.

There is absolutely no sane reason why anyone should get themselves in an emotional state of being distraught over the beliefs of other people.

I think you should go to a professional psychologist and ask them if it’s considered normal behavior to become angry with people who disagree with your beliefs and to accuse them of personally insulting you when all they are doing is expressing their own views about human history.

While you’re there ask them if it’s normal for you to believe that you speak for an entire religion and to demand that only your interpretation of the Bible is the only possible correct interpretation.

The New Matrix

Addicted to our paradigms
We worship gods and nursery rhymes
And wander in the dark of night
Thinking we are right.

As these realities are sold
We will watch new dreams unfold
having lived with the false facade
That we knew something of God.

But some have discovered reality
Is not at all what most think it to be.
but more a matrix or a dream
Of some intelligence unseen.

As wholeness and the implicate order
Now cross over this new border
Some will see the truth unfold
And watch new dreams take hold.

Copyright
Gloria Jean
Jeannie

Abracadabra,

"it makes me think that you have no reasoning ability at all"

"No thinking mind of your own."

"you are a blind sheep making excuses for an illogical religion. "

Those are personal insults. They have nothing to do with Christianity in particular, they are directed at me. I'm not sure why you believe I am upset about insults to Christianity, those insults are directly aimed at me.

Oh yeah, I just thought I should add, I'm not mad at Jeanniebean. If I were angry, I would have reported the posts to the moderators. I'm not upset, I'm simply asking her to debate the topic without insulting me. I don't think that position is unreasonable. Do you really think it's unreasonable to ask someone to stop insulting you?

I agree...personal insults are not good for anything except bad feelngs...the insults were personal. Christians are not blind sheep nor or we programmed. We all have minds and free will. We also have feelings and emotions.

Why anyone would choose to "be insulted" by what I think is beyond me. Everyone has free will. Unfortunately not everyone uses it. They simply believe what they are told and they follow the leader. I am not directing this remark to Christians either. All people do this.

It takes a strong individual to break away from the group mind and question the logic of what they have been taught by a powerful authority. This fact has been proven in scientific experiments.

You can read about the experiments in a book called "Obedience to Authority, an experimental view" by Stanley Milgram 1974 put out by Yale University. The implications of these experiments is shocking and revealing of how the group mind works and how it obeys an authority without question even if it goes against their moral judgements.

I will continue to always say what I think. I may be wrong in what I think. But I have good reasons to think what I think. I know what I know. My opinions are my opinions. You can give them weight and be offended or you can dismiss them. That is up to the individual.

I want people to be free. I want people to learn to think for themselves and break out of the group mind and break away from the authority of others. You are your own final authority. You make the decisions. Be free as you were meant to be.

Jeannie

"Why anyone would choose to "be insulted" by what I think is beyond me. Everyone has free will. Unfortunately not everyone uses it. They simply believe what they are told and they follow the leader. I am not directing this remark to Christians either. All people do this.

It takes a strong individual to break away from the group mind and question the logic of what they have been taught by a powerful authority. This fact has been proven in scientific experiments.

You can read about the experiments in a book called "Obedience to Authority, an experimental view" by Stanley Milgram 1974 put out by Yale University. The implications of these experiments is shocking and revealing of how the group mind works and how it obeys an authority without question even if it goes against their moral judgements.

I will continue to always say what I think. I may be wrong in what I think. But I have good reasons to think what I think. I know what I know. My opinions are my opinions. You can give them weight and be offended or you can dismiss them. That is up to the individual.

I want people to be free. I want people to learn to think for themselves and break out of the group mind and break away from the authority of others. You are your own final authority. You make the decisions. Be free as you were meant to be."

Jeannie




My question then would be how do you differentiate between a free thinker and a group thinker. People can have free forming thoughts that agree with other people, or vice versa someone could tell something to another person. That person thinks about what they were told and decides that really makes sense to them and that they choose to believe it. Does that make them a group thinker just because they decided to agree with a group?

We all have to be free thinkers to decide what we want to believe. Even from what we were told from a young age. For example, I was raised Catholic, I was always told this is the way things are. About the time I turned 14 and was finally starting to think for myself I decided that the things I was being told didn't make sense to me. So I went out I did research and I found what fit and from the time I was 14 I have considered myself Wiccan. Now I believe in my religion and I will defend it as adamantly as anyone else but does that mean that because I believe in the Wiccan religion and other members of the Wiccan religion I am now a group thinker? I would think that because of the fact I took it upon myself to do the research and find what fits best for me it would make me a free thinker but I still belong to and think like another group.

It just seems to me that the whole line between a free thinker and a group thinker is a tad too narrow. I don't think I have ever met or talked to anyone in my life that I would consider a total group thinker. Even someone like Spider. From his posts I have read I would not classify him as a group thinker at all. He has free forming thoughts and opinions that he defends to the best of his ability despite the fact that he seems to rub people the wrong way. (Spider if I am incorrect in my assessment I am sorry)

"To me he seems like a person who will say what he thinks, He may be wrong in what he thinks but I am sure he has good reasons to think what he thinks. His opinions are his opinions."

He may think differently than all of us but thats what seperates him and the rest of us from the group mindset.

Here is the difference between a free thinker and one who is bound by "group think."

If you have committed to a specific doctrine because it fits you well and you agree with everything within that doctrine at the heart of your core beliefs an feel good with it, you can still be a free thinker as long as you do not turn away from new information. Even if the new information conflicts with your core belief.

It must be new information, not some old re-hashed dogma. It is new information to you anyway. It is new thing to consider.

A free thinker considers all new information. He does not reject it because it goes against his chosen "authority" whatever that authority is. For Christians it is the Bible and the doctrine they are involved with that they have accepted.

A free thinker looks at everything. They have no need to join a group or to take sides.

A free thinker adjusts their core belief system as new information is absorbed and/or discarded.

A free thinker listens to his own conscience in deciding what is right or wrong. He does not listen (take as gospel)to others to make these decisions. He makes his own decisions.

He listens to his true self within. His higher self.

A free thinker does not let himself be manipulated by guilt laid upon him by others. If he feels guilty it is only because his own deep inner being is telling him something.

A group thinker, goes along with the group whether or not it makes sense to him or not.

A group thinker obeys his authority...or disobeys it an feels bad or guilty or takes his punishment.

A group thinker will do things under the command of his authority that his conscience tells him is wrong.

A group thinker will hold things in his thought that goes against his deeper feelings if he is told to by his authority.

A free thinker is free to leave the group without feeling that he is doomed.

A free thinker does not need the group.

It is sometimes lonely to be a free thinker but you have freedom and peace.

It is not easy to be a free thinker. A free thinker has to take full and complete responsibility for everything in his or her reality, and guard against being pulled back into the group think and the programing they are subjected to day in and day out from media, other people etc.

Jeannie

getting back to Loving types of Religion - I believe that the concept of Love in Judaism is about as good as it gets. This is embodied in the doctrine of g'milut chasadim (usually translated as "acts of lovingkindness")which is considered to be the essence of a pure, holy and just life.

I believe that Christians also accept this as did Jesus who strove to live a perfect Jewish life. This concept does not seem to be understood very well by most. I found a reference discussing Love and Brotherhood in Judaism here:

http://www.jewfaq.org/brother.htm

Cptnjacksparrow6,

Thank you for your kind words. I agree with you completely on free-thinking group-think. I am a self-educated Christian. I started learning the Bible on my own a little over a year ago. I have found that many of my beliefs, which I have developed through personal study, are identical to the beliefs of the majority of protestants. I feel that someone can, through self study, come to the same conclusions as an existing group of people. This doesn't indicate a blind sheep mentality, it shows that similar information results in similar conclusions.

That's a great read, thanks for sharing. Judaism is such a beautiful religion, I think it's unfortunate that more Christians don't seek to learn from our Jewish brothers and sisters.

Not a problem Spider, Even though I have not been posting much I have been circulating around these forums and have come to enjoy many of your posts and questions you raise. Especially the debates that go on between you and Abra and from what I have seen I couldn't agree that you would fall under a group thinker label.

On that note, I understand the position that Jeannie is coming from especially after her very detailed break down of what the difference between a free thinker and a group thinker is. Although like I said earlier I think that that line is a little to narrow to be able to distinguish who is what.

For example.

"A group thinker, goes along with the group whether or not it makes sense to him or not.

A group thinker obeys his authority...or disobeys it an feels bad or guilty or takes his punishment.

A group thinker will do things under the command of his authority that his conscience tells him is wrong.

A group thinker will hold things in his thought that goes against his deeper feelings if he is told to by his authority."

That is saying that everyone that in our military system is a group thinker, that we have no individuals serving our country that can form a free thought. Although I don't believe that is true. I believe every soldier we have is a free thinker. Afterall no one forced them to join up to defend our country. However once they are there they are agreeing to listen to thier commanding officers and I believe violating an order is grounds for a dishonerable discharge if I am not mistaken. Even free thinkers sometimes have to do something they don't agree with.

The only group of people I would in good conscience be able to classify as group thinkings are pre-teen children and certain people with mental disablities as they really do have no understanding of the world around them and they are happy to just do what they are told.

I like the way you think and I agree. I consider myself a free thinker regardless of what group beliefs I may concur with.

This isn’t necessarily true.

When you join something like the military you are agreeing to follow the rules of the organization which means that you must do what your commanding officer tells you to do.

However, even in this highly structured and authoritarian situations you are supposed to object to following any commands that fall into the two following areas,..

1. You believe the command to be against the rules of the military.
2. You have genuine conscientious objections to.

In other words, you are permitted for file a conscientious objection, or to refuse to obey an order for this reason. This may not be easy to do, but you still have the right to do it none-the-less.

Also, if you had conscientious objections before you joined then what the hell would you join for in the first place?

This would be more for people who had been drafted against their will.

If you freely join a military then we might assume that you did it because you were a free-thinker. But maybe you didn’t. Maybe you joined because everyone around you was joining and so you did what most people were doing even though you didn’t really agree with it, only then would you be acting as a group thinker.

With respect to religion, if you believe in a particular religion simply because it’s popular in your culture, or because you were born into a family who believes it, then you’re acting like a group thinker.

I would hope this is not true. A soldier has the right to refuse an order from a superior if he deems it to be immoral or a crime. Indeed, he may be arrested, maybe even found guilty, since he is not allowed a civilian courtroom, how would you rather live the rest of your life, as a man who killed women and children because you were following orders, or as a man who refused to commit what you felt was a crime and an immoral act?
The trial of the men in Viet Nam is evidence that following orders can also get you into trouble.

It is true however the the military wants men who will follow orders without question, even to the point of firing on American citizens. There is one group who is asked whether they would fire on American citizens if they were ordered to do so. If they say "no" they are not admitted into this unit.




No person ever HAS to do anything that goes against their moral judgment, not even a soldier. There is always a choice. But if you are not willing to kill on command, you probably should not have joined in the first place. That is what they do. Innocent people will be killed along with the enemy. They will have to live with the choices they make in those situations.

Jeannie

So why would you think Christians fall into a category of blind sheep, or incapable of being a free thinker? Just because we have beliefs we can all somewhat concur with? All people are different and most are free thinkers regardless of their religion or lack of.

Just for the record, I don't think that everyone who joins the military is a group thinker.

Neither do I believe that everyone who believes in Christianity is a group thinker.

It's quite possible for people to believe the same things and to want to achieve the same goals and still be 'free thinkers'.

However, I feel where 'some' Christians display their group mentality is via their proselytizing methods.

If they are acting like everyone has to believe its true then this shows that they aren’t a free thinker.

If they believe in it freely then they would clearly know that other people are free to believe other ways.

The very idea that they feel that people must believe in it implies that they feel they would be chastised by a higher authority if they were to choose to not believe in it themselves.

Their very proclamation that God will be peeved if they don’t believe in this religion is a dead giveaway that they are sacred to death to think on their own, and that they are indeed cowering down before an authority that they fear the wrath of.

Let’s face it.

Christianity is all about a God who gets peeved at anyone who doesn’t believe in him.

This is why so many people believe that the religion was a brainwashing tactic of men.

It makes perfect sense that men would create a religion that proclaims that those who don’t adhere to it will be condemned.

Does it really make sense that the creator of this universe would insist that everyone views it in the same way?

Does it make any sense that the creator of this universe would create a regional religion that focuses on one group of people and one nation?

Why bother creating all the rest of the world if that’s all God is interested in?

Like Carl Sagan used to say, “The stage is far too big for the plot”.

Of course, he was referring to the entire universe. But that even makes sense just referring planet earth!

Christianity is an extremely regional religion!

If God was going to inspire men to write about him, why didn’t he inspire writers from all of humanity!

A REAL God would not have been so limited.

The religion is clearly regional folklore. IMHO.

As a free-thinker how can I possibly come to any another conclusion?