Negative Thinking is NOT Critical Thinking

coberst · Post by **coberst** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 5:33 am

Negative Thinking is NOT Critical Thinking

Negative thinking often displays itself in ad hominem attacks. Often a forum has one or more individuals who have grown to think of themselves as the local ‘shaman’; these individuals try all kinds of ways to reject others who they fear will take away some of their ‘power’, so they use all forms of negative attacks to reject that new person.

I have seen instances of individuals who are very anti-intellectual devise means for rejecting any form of ideas that appear to be intellectual.

Ideologues are always fighting against other ideologues and they use every means to reject non-conforming ideas. I see that especially in anti-theism ideologues. I had one instance of an individual rejecting the works of Becker because Becker uses the word "faith", such a word was like the appearance of a snake under the bed.

We are indoctrinated in our ideologies and we are constantly fighting either for ours or against another, this leads to various techniques to throw off any invading new ideas. Also I am convinced that our schools and colleges have made people unconsciously fearful of any serious concepts that have not been introduced to them by a teacher. Self-learning is unconsciously an alien concept.

Devonin · Post by **Devonin** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 5:46 pm

Luckily I haven't seen very much of that here.

coberst · Post by **coberst** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 3:39 am

Devonin;1051299 wrote: Luckily I haven't seen very much of that here.

I agree, this forum does not exhibit many of the characteristics of most forums. I think that most forums have a large majority of their members below the age of 25 and I suspect that is not the case here.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 11:10 am

I think what your saying is that "conformity" is the norm and the accepted way of behavior in society.We do see this in the school system. When someone offers a different opinion, or even appears different, he/she is immediately suspect. So, for some folks, the "swords must be drawn".

This "difference" may not be a bad thing. So we should take the time to listen. We can disagree, but we must listen first.