Could Teaching Critical Thinking Abilities, End Cult Mind-Conrol Forever?

by lifelong humanist 66 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  thetrueone

  There is an astonishing difference when comparing ideologies of religious organizations like the JWS to

  individual critical thinking skills to be sure. Organizations like the the JWs operate on a structure of group

  organizational thinking or expressive thought, where the leading orchestrators

  self design the expressive thinking for the group to mentally absorb and uncritically support.

  What happens in this scenario is all individual expressive thought on subjects get mutely discouraged,

  replaced solemnly by the leaders own self expressions, which unfortunately mainly involves keeping

  the leaders at the brain stem of power and control over the entire organization.

  The ever present announcement that if people wanting to get into a true relationship with the Most High,

  they must come to them "Are Organization" is one that you hear from these organizations on a

  continuing revolving basis.
• 

  mrsjones5

  If anyone can find more links and resources about critical thinking please post them.

  There's a lot of resources online:

  http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=critical+thinking+elementary+education&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
• 

  Terry

  Well, sadly...I don't think all the critical thinking ability in the world can help until you change your core values.

  How you FEEL about what you think over-rides everything else.

  Religious faith is the default setting no matter how many logical heuristics are applied and FAITH is committing to attach the strongest possible value on unprovable assertions simply because you agree how wonderful they must be!

  I was a pretty sharp thinker when I was a JW and that didn't prevent my swallowing the whole bunkum piecemeal.
• 

  cyberjesus

  Critical thinking can occur whenever one judges, decides, or solves a problem; in general, whenever one must figure out what to believe or what to do, and do so in a reasonable and reflective way

  sbc: Give a toy to a 1 year old. He will "look" at it, then he will touch it and "feel" it, then will squeeze it and agitate it, to "hear" how it sounds, then he will put it in his mouth to 'taste" how it tastes, finnaly he will try to break it to see how it is made... we have this natural steps to learn about the world. We test it ourselves. We jump on the bed, we roll on the grass, we break things, we question things. All of those are natural processes that we go through in learning about anything.

  At around the age of 6 those process stop and we develop a concious process now. As adults now aware of our capabilities to think we can develop steps and testing procedures to analyze things. However we had those skills when we were younger but at a subsconcious level. They are gone.

  Dont take me wrong. I want to be a critical thinker. I want to learn how to refine my skills. But that methodology is for a handicapped adult. (Compared to a super powerful baby)

  Think about the process of learning a new languange... the procedural steps to learn it as an adult are way different than as a baby. As an adult we want to think how to learn, as a kid you only need to experience it. The brain figures out the rules by itself.

  That is why I believe tha teaching religion to a kid is abuse. teaching myths to a kid, teaching lies to a kid specially from a trusting figure is a diservice to humanity.

  I believe that the critical thinking skills that I am learning as an adult are not compared to the critical thinking skill I had when I was little. When I was little I would ask "WHY" all the time. and was labeled a REBEL by the adults. As an adult I am relearning to feel comfortable to ask WHYs again.

  PS: Im glad to see you back in the board
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  Critical thinking is critical except to it's own POV it seems...

  Psac, this is, once again, a prejudice against the concept of critical thinking. If a person is not critical of his own POV, he is just failing - fundamentally - to apply CT skills. That is no fault of the concepts themselves.

  For example, many people call themselves Christians but in no small way fail to reflect qualities attributed to Jesus. Does that diminish the value of such qualities? No. It just means man is incapable of displaying them to the superlative degree (or, in some cases, not really trying). But better he demonstrate those traits to the best of his ability than to abandon them completely, no?

  Critical thinking is congruent with the scientific method. Any good scientist must be highly critical of his own theories, no matter how badly he wants it to be true. He pokes, prods, and tests to find any holes because he knows that if one exists and he doesn't find it... someone else will. The scientific method doesn't play favorites.* The same is true of critical thinking skills.

  *I'm not saying scientists are unbiased, I'm referring specifically to the methodology.
• 

  cyberjesus

  TErry: The problem is that feelings are not controlled at the cognitive level. The outer cortex only controlls the reasoning. The emotions come from a deeper layer in the brain. Once the feelings are stored or the elements for the feelings are stored only a higher amount of intellectual process can override them.

  Or drugs is another way to get there. The subsconscious is though place to get.
• 

  cyberjesus

  If critical thinking does not criticize its own thinking, its not critical and is not thinking
• 

  PSacramento

  Psac, this is, once again, a prejudice against the concept of critical thinking. If a person is not critical of his own POV, he is just failing - fundamentally - to apply CT skills. That is no fault of the concepts themselves.

  The issue is that you can't remove the human element from thinking so the concept is, in of itself, not critical at all.

  For example, many people call themselves Christians but in no small way fail to reflect qualities attributed to Jesus. Does that diminish the value of such qualities? No. It just means man is incapable of displaying them to the superlative degree (or, in some cases, not really trying). But better he demonstrate those traits to the best of his ability than to abandon them completely, no?

  Agreed.

  Critical thinking is congruent with the scientific method. Any good scientist must be highly critical of his own theories, no matter how badly he wants it to be true. He pokes, prods, and tests to find any holes because he knows that if one exists and he doesn't find it... someone else will. The scientific method doesn't play favorites.* The same is true of critical thinking skills.

  The problem isn't with the concept of critical thinking, the problem is that to THINK one must be human and as such, we will be only critical up to a point and then we won't be.

  The concept is great, just not practical to the degree that we think it can be.

  *I'm not saying scientists are unbiased, I'm referring specifically to the methodology.

  I agree, the methodology is sound, but only in theory.

  Why? because just like scientists, "thinkers" are biased, perhaps MORE so and even worse so since, in the relm of "thinking" most is not "emperically provable"m heck we can't even prove we ARE thinking, lol !
• 

  PSacramento

  If critical thinking does not criticize its own thinking, its not critical and is not thinking

  Which makes it it's own worse enemy.

  To what point can you trust your critical thinking skills?
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  The issue is that you can't remove the human element from thinking so the concept is, in of itself, not critical at all.

  ... just like scientists, "thinkers" are biased, perhaps MORE so and even worse so since, in the relm of "thinking" most is not "emperically provable" heck we can't even prove we ARE thinking, lol !

  Reductio ad absurdum