Humans have been told by philosophers since Plato right on through Immanuel Kant on into today that we think our way to the conclusions we have. It makes us "who" we are.

We are, in a sense, a big glob of a thinking apparatus, set atop a body, and what we do all day long is have that thinking apparatus ingest, digest, and spit out the rational aspects of all we are and believe and that drives our "rational" behavior. Our "common sense." Our lives.

Sound accurate? It's what we're taught K-12. Undergrad. Grad. Vocation. Bi-vocation. Most all everywhere in the Western world.
In our schools. In our homes. In our workplaces. Even in our Churches.
Life is said to be built on what your rational glob on the top of your body tells the body to do.

But there are those who debate this paradigm.
What if before we are thinkers we are believers - before we can offer any plausible explanation of the world, we've already settled upon a galaxy of beliefs that steers that thinking - a worldview so to speak, that governs and importantly conditions our perception of the world?

Beliefs, these philosophers say, are more basic in the primordial of life - than ideas.
What defines us, in other words, is not what we think, but what we believe - the commitments and trusts that orient our being-in-the-world.
Which means before we are thinkers, we are believers.

It is this holistic approach to the human mind, body, and soul that now wages full scale war with academia and public opinion pundits.
And the two don't play well together.

Blessings,
Mark

"I think therefore I am"




I have largely not observed what you have in people apparently.

Renee Descartes of course. The "what."
He never did talk about the "why?"

They say he was around a pot-belly stove when the world altering thought hit him.
I like wood stoves myself.

My statements in paraphrase forms are not mine.
I'm not that smart.

God gave us the gift of thinking, reasoning and thus also rationalizing. What compass points we choose to follow is the big deal in my opinion. Our brains are not much different than a GPS unit we can mark all sorts of waypoints, it is a matter of what is the driver that leads us to certain waypoints and how long we are willing to stray and wander to get there. Our human society in general does not have the fortitude or the patience to wander another 40 years in a wilderness because God got mad at the leader for striking the rock to get water out of anger. In our modern society we seem to enjoy doing much of what we do out of anger.

Bryce

That is pretty heavy. Can we believe one thing and think another? Fine line between thinking and believing.

Many people believe one thing and speak another. Not the same as thinking.

Philosophers lay awake at night figuring these things out I suppose. It is heavy.

Even laymen stay awake at night pondering these questions.

Very true.

I know of a few shepherds, fisherman and likely a trapper or two who did.

The Boggy Man lays awake at night thinking that I might be under his bed.



Charlie

Interesting points Mark.

There is such a thing as critical feeling, which rides alongside critical thinking. I guess you could call feeling beliefs. The same principles apply as with critical thinking. They can either be rooted in first principles about the reality we live in, and expand from there, or they’re guided by anecdote.

honestly, I don't think (believe) so.

[not trying to be funny. I believe (think) that what one thinks is what one believes (and vice versa).]

If God didn't want us to think rationally, he wouldn't have given us the apparatus (brain) to do it with.

If you're a believer before a thinker, your thinking will be prone to error. Prior belief = prejudice.

Jim

This would explain why I have such a hard time relating to a lot of people. What they believe about the world is totally different than what I believe

flat out, you're wrong, Jim.

God is "spiritual". Much of what He does is NOT "rational" from the human perspective.

You've committed a fundamental error of "humanism".

Doesn't that presuppose an absolute truth we have to believe in, before we can think rationally?
If we are nothing but our intellect, how do we know that what our brain tells us is Truth, is in fact, true?

Normal human growth and development. As children a person lives by the morals and values of their parents. As teenagers their peers. As they get into young adulthood typically revert back to that established by the parents. Unless you introduce something in the teen years like alcohol or drugs. Then the growth and development ceases. A persons morals and values are defined by their beliefs. Say Christianity for example.

Not an absolute truth I'm talking about. We can never achieve absolute truth.

If you think black people are inferior, without any rational thinking, you are thinking from prejudice.

A rational person tests the belief first. Hypothesis: black people are inferior. Rationality test: the hypothesis is not supported by clinical, genetic, intelligence, and numerous other tests we know to be reliable.

If you start out assuming the belief to be true, you'll never arrive at an accurate conclusion no matter what tests you make.

Jim

Spot on.

Why is humanism a dirty word? Aren’t we humans?