I don't like the word freethought

[Underseer]

Formal definition of agnostic versus colloquial meaning
We're all familiar with the problems caused by the more formal definition of agnosticism versus the way ordinary people use the word in ordinary language. Most people use the word to mean some kind of position in between atheism and theism as though it is a separate category distinct from atheism and theism.

This causes confusion because the more formal definition of agnostic has a very different meaning. Theism and atheism are answers to the question "is there a god(s)?" whereas agnosticism is an answer to a very different question ("What is knowable?"). Thus if we use the more formal definition of agnostic, it is perfectly possible for someone to be an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist. In this context, all "agnostic" means is "I have at least a rudimentary understanding of epistemology," which obvious describes a fairly large number of people.

Freethought: formal vs colloquial
I argue that we have a similar problem with the word "freethought." First, the formal definition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought

Freethought or free thought is a philosophical viewpoint which holds that positions regarding truth should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism, rather than authority, tradition, or other dogmas.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/free+thought

free thought
noun
thought unrestrained by deference to authority, tradition, or established belief, especially in matters of religion.

free thought
— n
thought unrestrained and uninfluenced by dogma or authority, esp in religious matters.

The dictionaries seem to treat it as a phrase rather than a single concatenated word. Whatever. The informal meaning of the term seems to be an umbrella term for various kinds of non-theists: atheists, agnostics (colloquial definition... there's that problem again), pantheists, apatheists, etc.

But why bother using this informal definition at all? The term nontheist is more descriptive if you ask me, but even the term nontheist is unnecessary. The a- prefix after all means "not" or "non" or "without," so the word atheist already means the same thing as nontheist. So the term nontheist is already redundant with atheist, and the term freethinker (in the colloquial sense) is redundant with atheist and nontheist. Besides, using the term in this colloquial sense implies that we are somehow more open-minded than theists. Even if that is true, it certainly comes across sounding arrogant and snotty.

Of course, I think I know how some people are going to respond to this. By the formal definition of freethought, theism is simply incompatible. If one accepts theism to be true, then at some point one must take authority and/or tradition to be more important or more valid than evidence and reason, and I agree with that analysis of the situation. The problem I have here is that being wrong or being inconsistent is not part of the definition of "freethinker." Heck, in any philosophy, you're going to have people applying the ideas in a way that is wrong or inconsistent because that's the nature of humans. Lots of Christians apply Christian teachings in ways that are demonstrably wrong or demonstrably inconsistent, yet we have no problem calling them Christians. Why must we be so rigid about how we define "freethinker"? Can't freethinkers also be wrong or inconsistent without losing the identifier?

Theist freethinkers
I know that the whole history of freethought is closely associated with critics of religion, but why can't the term be applied to some theists under some conditions? Surely even the most devout theist occasionally finds themselves saying "I know that the [pastor/priest/rabbi/imam] is an authority, but I think he's wrong about X and here's why" or "I know that the traditional view is X, but I think the traditional view is wrong and here's why" or "I know that the dogma says X, but in this case I think it's wrong and here's why." If the "here's why" that follows is based on evidence, logic, or reason, then in that moment the theist in question is engaged in freethinking. Surely in any church, synagogue or mosque there are going to be individuals within the congregation who engage in freethought as often as not. They may even be freethinkers on everything except one or two very important questions. Freethought is an epistemology, so I don't think it should be regarded as exclusive to people who have particular answers to the question of whether or not there is a god(s). Just as there can be agnostic theists and agnostic atheists, I think there can be freethinking theists and freethinking atheists.

Do we want or need to use the term freethinker? To whom should we apply the term and when?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I don't mind the word freethought primarily because it is devoid of religious origin. Even the word atheist has a religious genesis. When you get right down to it it's a religious word. Freethought doesn't lend itself to trendy other words, like theist to pantheist. It's cleaner.

But I'm certain someone will come along with some spinoff word soon.

 

[Jo]

Freethought is often misinterpreted as Free Speech and Free Will - which is then interpreted as "I can do, say and post what I want on this board." Empiricism, Logic and Reason are the foundations of Freethought.

 

[Underseer]

Freethought is often misinterpreted as Free Speech and Free Will - which is then interpreted as "I can do, say and post what I want on this board." Empiricism, Logic and Reason are the foundations of Freethought.

I already mentioned that in the original post.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Well, we have to call it something, and sanity was already taken...

 

[Underseer]

Well, we have to call it something, and sanity was already taken...

If you want to talk about the use of evidence or reason as an epistemology, then there are already words for that (rationalist, evidentialist/empiricist). If you want to talk about nontheists, then there are already words for that.

Freethought is kind of redundant in my opinion, but if we are going to use it, then I don't think we should shy away from using it to describe theists when the situation warrants it.

 

[dockeen]

Well, we have to call it something, and sanity was already taken...

Sanity + Dictation = Sanitation

 

[Zeluvia]

I have German immigrant relatives that were Freethinkers. Part of an organization of German Freethinkers even, with a congregation, from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The irony here is that some of them, after moving away from Oshkosh, converted at some point through marriage and application of the "logic and truth" they followed into Seventh Day Adventists, whom they felt accurately followed the Bible and did away with dogma.....

 

[George S]

Given that FRDB is the Freethought and Rationalism Discussion Board it could have simply changed FRDB's underlying web name.

"freeratio" was intended to recall the beginning of the long name.

"Talk Freethought" is a logical continuation of the IIDB, FRDB chain.

 

[braces_for_impact]

I think to the layman, free thought means the equivalent of thinking outside the box, and an important distinction is lost in that case.

 

[doubtingt]

I think to the layman, free thought means the equivalent of thinking outside the box, and an important distinction is lost in that case.

I somewhat agree with this. "The box" refers to generally held assumptions or conclusions. If those happen to be the product of rational thought, then real "free thought" would lead to the same "in the box" conclusions. OTOH, I think the key to the meaning is in the word "thought". Thinking is a process, not an end state. Thus, free thought can wind up at conclusions that are back "in the box", but it needs to entail stepping outside the box to question and challenge "in the box" assumptions. If those assumptions hold and reasoning based on them leads to "in the box" conclusions, then one has still engaged in "free thought".

Back to Underseer's point, a theist who challenges some detail point of theology is NOT a freethinker, because by being a theist they have failed to challenge the assumption of God in the first place (I contend no reasoned examination of that assumption would allow for retaining it). Also, if they disagree with Church authority on interpretation of scripture, then they are still deferring to the scripture itself, which is just another authority. I think that challenging authority (not just its conclusions but it starting premises) is a central component of free thought and it is part of both the philosophical and layman's definitions. What is missing from the layman's definition is the idea that one's own emotional biases are undermine thinking as well. If we define "thought" in terms of reasoning (and not just any form of psychological process), then beliefs based in emotional preference are not the product of "thought", thus the question of whether they are "free" is mute. To be "free thought" it must first be "thought" which means reasoning, and then be "free" meaning without deference to the authority (which doesn't mean automatically disagreeing with authority, because that means one is not at all free but rather letting the authority determine what position you cannot take).

That said, if you are just deferring to authority, then you are not reasoning. So, that means "reasoning" really covers both the "free" and the "thought" parts, so why not just call it reasoning?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I disagree that no reasoned examination would allow for retaining a god concept. It would be a incorrect conclusion to come to, of course, and they likely had some flawed thinking along the way, but free thought doesn't mean that you need to come to correct conclusions or delve into every premise you use along the way. You can have free thinkers who are communists and liberatarians, even though they need to hold unreasonable premises and come to invalid conclusions in order to hold those positions. You can have free thinkers who believe in UFOs, Bigfoot, gods and the integrity of the US electoral system despite how fundamentally invalid their positions and conclusions are.

Free thinking means that you're willing to challenge the assumptions that you use to come to your positions, not that you're able to do that well.

 

[doubtingt]

I disagree that no reasoned examination would allow for retaining a god concept. It would be a incorrect conclusion to come to, of course, and they likely had some flawed thinking along the way, but free thought doesn't mean that you need to come to correct conclusions or delve into every premise you use along the way. You can have free thinkers who are communists and liberatarians, even though they need to hold unreasonable premises and come to invalid conclusions in order to hold those positions. You can have free thinkers who believe in UFOs, Bigfoot, gods and the integrity of the US electoral system despite how fundamentally invalid their positions and conclusions are.

Free thinking means that you're willing to challenge the assumptions that you use to come to your positions, not that you're able to do that well.

In principle this is true, but I think in the modern world, a person literate enough to challenge authority on biblical interpretation would be hard pressed to reach a conclusion that God exists via honest inquiry misled merely by random accidental errors in reasoning. Note that Bigfoot, UFOs, and the integrity of our electoral system are all infinitely more reasonable, plausible, and intellectually defensible ideas than God's existence, thus are more likely than theism to be arrived at via honest but faulty reasoning.
Also, note that many reasoning errors are due to active self-delusion and biased efforts to construct a post-hoc argument that one uses to justify God, but that one knows are flawed and thus rejects in nearly every other context. Arguments from ignorance are a good example. Those using this form of argument rarely actually think it is a sound argument. They would see through it and reject it in any context where they didn't already have an a priori commitment to a conclusion.
Often wrong conclusions that appear due to reasoning errors are actually a priori, emotion/authority based conclusions and the errors come from the fact that the conclusions cannot be supported by sound reasoning, so the person cobbles together a pseudo justification that superficially seems like reasoning but they themselves aren't even convinced by it because it has nothing to do with why they actually accept the conclusion.

 

[Underseer]

Doutingt,

I agree that in order to believe in the existence of a god, one has to give precedence to authority and/or tradition over evidence and/or reason to at least some extent. It is necessarily an incorrect application of freethought (which by definition is giving more weight to evidence and reason over tradition and authority), but being correct isn't part of the definition of freethought.

A person could be a genuine freethinker on every topic and every issue except the question of the existence of a god. Should we refrain from calling that person a freethinker just because they got it wrong on one single idea out of the great multitude of ideas that swim around in the average human's head? I'm willing to bet that for every single person you would call a freethinker, that person would have at least one topic on which they failed to apply the principles of freethought correctly. Don't we all find ourselves deferring to authority and/or tradition from time to time even when we ought to know better?

 

[arkirk]

Maybe our thoughts are never free. Maybe they are always free in some regard. If you regard our thoughts solely as the servants of our body, then it would be hard to say they are free. What I am intensely conscious of is that our thinking is very heavily influenced by our social connections and repetitious behavior. If you are a woman in Taliban country, you just try to keep as much of yourself whole as possible given the culture. If you are an atheist in America, there is also a kind of isolation that occurs. It is the type of freedom that we are talking about here and nothing we can actualize in our current social milieu, Think about it. There are many utterances you had better not make in public or you will be subject to opprobrium. Regardless of our status, we spend most of our lives and a great deal of thought just staying out of trouble with our peers and our bosses and powerful and abusive people in general.

What happens in the deeper recesses of our rational processes, things like our reasoning regarding just what we can and cannot know. what is real, and what we actually feel we would want in life are all shunted aside in a constant societal thrust. I suspect that our reasoning is not so confined as it appears to be externally and that the average person has many notions, preferences, and even beliefs that come from his own thought processes and which are at odds with societal normative thinking. These are based on personal experience in the microcosm that is the individual's life.

I feel that every person who has made some social accommodations in his outward presentation of himself and even opinions is actually two people. The first is the private one that actually feels a certain way about an issue. The second one is the one that asks of the first, "Shut up! You are in polite company. Regardless of how hard we try, there is always some reason to screen our communications for the sake of those receiving them. So all of us are our persona and simultaneously a subtext running that informs us "this is how I think it really is."

Forums such as we have here give us a little more breathing room to express our actual thoughts, though there always is this dichotomy. This forced maintenance of two or more sets of advisement places on one who is at odds with social convention of any kind in a perpetual internal battle keeping one's own thoughts while complying with external demands of society. We become split personalities...with the greater portion of our thinking entirely private. The pressure is always from the outside to unify your standpoint with social normative thinking. The pressure from the inside is to be honest, and often in complex societies, this is impossible.

Imagine yourself living in Iran, or Salt Lake City, or working for the CIA in Pakistan. That is why I find, when it comes to dealing with basic issues we should make our calculations and our language as close to honest as possible, self preservation being the only exception. I support the idea that we all need to evaluate our social setting and act in ways that may perhaps lead to greater honesty. In that, I agree with Kant. Your reasoning can only be trusted if it is honest. It isn't a matter of whether or not one lies. It is a matter of trying not to blandly climb on board the social rationalizations of the time. If you feel that all is well in the world, chances are good you have slowed your own internal thought processes in conformance with social normative thinking. This is what a whole lot of spiritualist and new age thinking attempts to do to their followers. A prime example is Scientology. A far older, and definitely more deeply entrenched roadblock to personal rationality can be found in institutions like churches and patriotic organizations.

 

[Earl IV]

I prefer free form thought

or was it free from thought?

 

[Underseer]

Hold on, hold on. Freethought has a specific meaning, and I included the appropriate links in the original post. We already have two definitions muddling the waters, please don't add a third by using it in the sense of "thinking freely."

- - - Updated - - -

Or should we add the third meaning? It would muddy the waters even more, but frankly that might be a good thing.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

In principle this is true, but I think in the modern world, a person literate enough to challenge authority on biblical interpretation would be hard pressed to reach a conclusion that God exists via honest inquiry misled merely by random accidental errors in reasoning. Note that Bigfoot, UFOs, and the integrity of our electoral system are all infinitely more reasonable, plausible, and intellectually defensible ideas than God's existence, thus are more likely than theism to be arrived at via honest but faulty reasoning.
Also, note that many reasoning errors are due to active self-delusion and biased efforts to construct a post-hoc argument that one uses to justify God, but that one knows are flawed and thus rejects in nearly every other context. Arguments from ignorance are a good example. Those using this form of argument rarely actually think it is a sound argument. They would see through it and reject it in any context where they didn't already have an a priori commitment to a conclusion.
Often wrong conclusions that appear due to reasoning errors are actually a priori, emotion/authority based conclusions and the errors come from the fact that the conclusions cannot be supported by sound reasoning, so the person cobbles together a pseudo justification that superficially seems like reasoning but they themselves aren't even convinced by it because it has nothing to do with why they actually accept the conclusion.

Why not?

If someone finds a version of the KCA to be valid because he figures that the universe needs a first mover for whom the need for cause and effect doesn't apply, in what way is he not engaging in free thought? If someone prays for his father's heart surgery to be successful and interprets the success of the surgery to an answer to that prayer, how is he not engaging in free thought? If someone doesn't understand biology and finds the notion of evolutionary change to be nonsensical and thinks that it makes more sense that offspring are the same as their parents and have always been that way, does the lack of knowledge which he brings into his reasoning mean that his reasoning process is any less free? In all cases, there are issues with the soundness of the reasoning, but I don't see how it therefore follows that he's not reasoning freely because there are errors in his reasoning.

If someone is swayed by an emotional argument about the superiority of communism because it helps make a society equal and he ignores the socioeconomic and historical arguments about how it's not a viable ideology, would the fact that he becomes a communist mean that he's not a free thinker? If he becomes a liberatarian because he likes the idea of individuality but doesn't understand human psychology, is he not a free thinker? I don't see how the honest but faulty reasoning which would lead one to those conclusions is particular different from the honest but faulty reasoning that would lead one to become a theist.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

What would you call a general idea of "thought unrestrained by deference to authority, tradition, or established belief, especially in matters of religion.", if not "freethought"?

 

[Togo]

If someone is swayed by an emotional argument about the superiority of communism because it helps make a society equal and he ignores the socioeconomic and historical arguments about how it's not a viable ideology, would the fact that he becomes a communist mean that he's not a free thinker? If he becomes a liberatarian because he likes the idea of individuality but doesn't understand human psychology, is he not a free thinker? I don't see how the honest but faulty reasoning which would lead one to those conclusions is particular different from the honest but faulty reasoning that would lead one to become a theist.

More to the point, if someone decides that God doesn't exist because Dawkins said so, or embraces Evolution without really knowing what it is, simply because it makes him feel superior to all those nutty people who don't, are they really freethinkers?

I'm broadly happy with the idea that freethinkers are those that challenge particular influences. Deciding in advance what conclusions they reach as a result is kinda missing the point though. There's a conflict between encouraging people to challenge established ideas, and setting up a community of people who have reached the same conclusions.

And Underseer, what about agnostics that are neither theist nor atheist? There are plenty of people who are religious without believing in a god or gods, and plenty of people who reject religion but regard atheism, even as default position, as untenable. You probably don't agree with them, but there's no reason to deny them classification.