Deductive Reasoning - alt.meditation

Message from discussion Deductive Reasoning

Judy Stein

More options Dec 18 1997, 3:00 am

Newsgroups: alt.meditation.transcendental, alt.meditation

From: jst...@panix.com (Judy Stein)

Date: 1997/12/18

Subject: Re: Deductive Reasoning

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In article <677emp$9b...@uuneo.neosoft.com>,

k...@neosoft.com (Kurt Arbuckle) wrote:

<snip>

> I am no fan of the typical anticultist. I have yet to agree with
> very much of what any one of them has said. However, I think that
> it is their ideas that are bs, and it is very easy for all of us
> to have bs ideas. I have run accross anticultists on the net who
> were, IMO, very dishonest amoral people with secondary gain agendas.
> But I have also run accross many anticultists who just live by
> reaction just like most of the population does. I don't find
> anticultists to be any more out of it in general than we all can
> be at times. Humans have not survived on critical thinking as much
> as good reflexes.

That may be the case. But if it is, what sort of position is the
typical anticultist in to claim purported cultists are unable to
think critically?

If you're going to charge the other guy (or group) with
deficiencies in critical thinking, you'd darn well better make
sure your own critical thinking is in order.

I don't think the phrase is used with much of a sense of what it
means. It's a "thought stopper." In my observation,
anticultists tend to use "lack of critical thinking" as a synonym
for "belief in something I think is nutty."

In Mabel's post, we saw that her criterion for the ability to
think critically was the ability to reject the supposed cult one
had belonged to.

It's not so much a matter of whether anticultists are any more
deficient in critical thinking than the average person. It's
that anticultists who are deficient in critical thinking pose
more of a danger to society than the average person, because
their thinking has the potential to have a negative impact on a
constitutional right.

It's a similar situation to those who would impose censorship on
the Internet.

What's of concern is that the anticult movement institutionalizes
the thinking of its members. If that thinking is insufficiently
critical, while it may at first have a negative impact only on
cultists, the institutionalization of a threat to *anyone's*
freedom of belief poses dangers to the freedom of society as a
whole.

When a right guaranteed by the Constitution may potentially be
jeopardized, even if that jeopardy appears to be legitimized
because it rights other wrongs, it's absolutely essential that
the situation be subjected to the most rigorous critical
thinking.

> While I would be among the first to point out to a specific person
> the folly of his/her thought processes, I would like to think it
> is at least in part a desire to give them constructive imput

If rigorous critical thinking does not come from within the
anticult movement, it's incumbent on those outside the movement
to provide it.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Judy Stein * The Author's Friend * jst...@ziplink.net +
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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