Thinkers in our society

[bthizle1]

Well, after having a conversation about deep thinkers and human life in general I have learnt much and aroused many questions that I must ask not only myself but others and society as a whole.

Before I even start I am going to state right away that some people may take offence to this but it is in no way intended to offend or be prejudice towards any specific beliefs/religion. Rather I write this in hopes that some may come to a realization or a simple newfound curiosity, that being a passion to seek the truths that we have no clue about.

I am going to impose many questions, but not hardly as many as I could. This will not only help me to get a general sense of what people think, but why they (you) think that way, based upon your surroundings and what you have been taught.

Throughout all of history there have been figureheads who have some how revolutionized the way humans think. These people have for the most part if not always been very deep thinkers. By deep thinkers I mean that they take things and instead of simply believing them, because that is what they were taught they look at them with an open mind. They do not rule out anything and realize that there are so many more possibilities to things than the mind can comprehend…or can it? However these deep thinkers know that even once a possibility is proven to be a truth, or not for that matter they cannot simply state that it is a truth. They have to somehow incorporate it in to the people’s beliefs or they will be considered a social outcast, just take for example religious heretics. Once a truth is revealed through facts, such as the earth being round or a simple truth that proves a religious belief to be false it is often very hard for that thinker to publicly announce what he has discovered. Instead of taking that risk they have sometimes manipulated these truths to benefit their own well being.

Take Joseph Smith for example, the founder of the Mormon Church. He was secretly visited by God the Father and God the Son, after praying about which church he should join. He was told by Jesus, he should join none of them for they were "all wrong" and all the Christian church's doctrines "were an abomination" (Joseph Smith - History 19, Pearl of Great Price). This First Vision was followed by several visits from an angel named Moroni who, in 1827, directed Smith to retrieve a set of Golden Plates which had been buried in a hill near Smith's home in Palmyra, New York. Between 1827-1830, Smith, with the help of friends, translated the Golden Plates into the LDS scripture, the Book of Mormon. Published in 1830, this was to become the first of many scriptures for the Mormon Church. By this time, Smith had also officially organized the LDS Church and was gaining a following. Smith started his own church, and the golden plated that he dug up were placed conveniently near his home in New York and he found them alone. What makes somebody like Moses and Aaron any different from a man like Smith? All three became leaders in their community after being given “divine” advice/orders from God. After all, when the Jews were losing faith Moses did travel alone atop the high mountain to retrieve these new laws from God that just so happened to fit in with what he needed to keep the population in check.

Those are only a couple examples of deep thinkers using their “gifts”, that being their ability to see the truth, to take advantage of others, but then again isn’t that what the majority of humans care about most….themselves. Deep thinkers are usually categorized as some sort of group of people, such as prophets, scientists and even now politicians. They take facts and deep logical thinking to form new revolutionary ideas that somehow change the way people live in this world by changing their views. I myself am not a huge fan of conspiracy theories, but honestly can you not just imagine the possibility that these deep thinkers run our society today how they want it to be ran? I mean through things such as religion and propaganda. The only way to determine a deep thinker is to see wither or not the being is truly open to an endless number of possibilities until it has been 100% factually proven…but even then you must realize that even those so called facts can be VERY distorted by other thinkers who don’t want others seeing the truth behind their schemes of self interest. I am not saying that all people who think this deeply and accept possibilities are in it for self interest and that is where we, the people of today come in to play.

So my question to everyone is WHY do we rule out possibilities because of things such as relgion? Do those who believe, believe because they truly do, or because the want to? Are they to afraid to accept possibilities because by doing so they may become a social outcast? Those last two questions apply to much more than just religion.

[Darth Wong]

Perhaps you should be concerned about clear thinkers instead of "deep" thinkers. The most precious characteristic of human thought is the capacity for rationality, not pretentions of special knowledge.

[turtle]

Perhaps you should be concerned about clear thinkers instead of "deep" thinkers. The most precious characteristic of human thought is the capacity for rationality, not pretentions of special knowledge.

I agree with Darth's statement. There is a great difference between someone who thinks deeply and someone who thinks rationaly. But I beleive that in order to accomplish anything you must learn how to combine deep thought and rational thought. Because if you base everything off of rationality, then you may not be able to figure something out that is considered irrational.

[bthizle1]

Perhaps you should be concerned about clear thinkers instead of "deep" thinkers. The most precious characteristic of human thought is the capacity for rationality, not pretentions of special knowledge.

Yes, and the capacity of rationality is the ability to look at and accept possibilities.

[turtle]

Yes, and the capacity of rationality is the ability to look at and accept possibilities.

Yes.

Rationality is great, but you must not let your rationality constrict your thoughts to just beleiving/accepting things which are supposedly the truth. You have to be open mindedly rational about things.

[Tritio]

So my question to everyone is WHY do we rule out possibilities because of things such as relgion? Do those who believe, believe because they truly do, or because the want to? Are they to afraid to accept possibilities because by doing so they may become a social outcast? Those last two questions apply to much more than just religion.

Because religions, for the most part, are not open minded about new ideas or change. In addition, the instinct of the average individual is to stick with things that are familiar, to avoid change. Denial. There is comfort in the familiar, and discomfort or uncertainty in change (especially big changes). Therefore, they resist change in an effort to remain with the familiar. This produces a conservative inertia in society which works against change.

About your second point, yes, that'd be another reason. The herd mentality. I think it is related to risk. If you follow the herd, then there is less chance that something unknown will happen to you, since so many others have trodden the path, anything that could have happened would probably have happened, and you can learn of their experience from them. However, if you are the first one on the path, you'd have no idea of what would happen. Therefore, it's back to uncertainty. So I think the difficult part is having the first bunch of people make the breakthrough. Then, perceiving the benefits (if any), and balancing that off against the possible perceived risk, others may follow.

[Darth Wong]

Yes.

Rationality is great, but you must not let your rationality constrict your thoughts to just beleiving/accepting things which are supposedly the truth. You have to be open mindedly rational about things.

Do you know what "rational" means? It requires the rejection of that which cannot be shown to follow logically from the premises. The idea of rationally being open-minded to irrational concepts is self-contradictory.

[Maron]

Do you know what "rational" means? It requires the rejection of that which cannot be shown to follow logically from the premises. The idea of rationally being open-minded to irrational concepts is self-contradictory.

Perhaps he's implying that we should be rationally open to the possibility that present "irrational concepts" could possibly be proven to be the opposite. :hmmm:
Is it not rational to believe that we do not know everything?

[turtle]

So my question to everyone is WHY do we rule out possibilities because of things such as relgion? Do those who believe, believe because they truly do, or because the want to? Are they to afraid to accept possibilities because by doing so they may become a social outcast? Those last two questions apply to much more than just religion.

I think the last question pretty much sums it up. People who think deeply, more often than not, will not attempt to change things in society because they think they will be outcasted by their society. But when you get the deep thinkers who are really sure of themselves or feel/beleive they have had divine intervention, then they will try to change things. Many people have had many great ideas, but they were never heard out of fear. Fear of social persecution.

[bthizle1]

How is it possible to know everything, because even once you supposidly do know everything how do you know wither not what you think is everything really is indeed everything.