For those who would agree that religion represents the lunatic fringe of human thought (A.C. Grayling), what..

do you think of the proposition that thinking itself represents the lunatic fringe of human behaviour?





For example, much of our thinking is repetitive, useless and harmful (e.g. worrying, nurturing grudges).

For those who would agree that religion represents the lunatic fringe of human thought (A.C. Grayling), what..
Great question, really interesting.





Thinking can be unhelpful. People who keep journals are supposedly significantly more depressed, and they're writing down their thoughts, so maybe they're thinking more, and there's also the idea that the more intelligent are less happy. Then there are processes such as depressive thinking: negative beliefs about the world and the self, minimising the importance of personal success and attributing it to luck and so forth. I can also remember someone who was diagnosed as having a delusional disorder whose thoughts led to less widely-held conclusions when she was left to herself, so maybe she was thinking herself into psychosis there.





I can see a remedy to some of those situations, which is for people who are likely to be seen as psychotic to have more opportunity to interact with others. Loneliness, whether self-imposed or enforced, can lead to thinking going off in unusual directions, which might sometimes be stimulating and useful to society, for instance with the inventor or the creative artist, but can also, often in the same person, mean that their beliefs and habits of thought are not regularly checked against those of others', leading to behaviour which is not generally adapted to their practical needs or those of others.





Besides this, people's thought is often rife with fallacies and simplistic or unacknowledged world views, which actually can be quite easy to spot if you know what you're looking for. This is the kind of thing that can be changed by doing what i do for a living - philosophical counselling.





The problem then, though, is that one person's opinion being well-thought through doesn't mean the people around them will have similar ways of thinking, so this is something which needs to be spread.





I'm really impressed by your question. You should write a book about it.
Reply:Ivan R -- Since there is no way of contacting you, I would like to say that you make some excellent points and I really don't disagree with most of what you have said. (Except for your first paragraph!)





Thank you to all the people who answered. Report It

Reply:It is the case that much religious behavior is infantile, astral/fantasy-minded, even dogmatic and oppressive.


However, much the same is observable in any group, including atheistically-inclined academics. Some groups seem to mask their infantilism more subtly.





The genuine, rare, and best of any group are those which present worthwhile life lessons.





For some of the best of current religious teaching, http://www.yogananda-srf.org "Autobiography of a Yogi," "Watch Your Dreams," Ann Ree Colton, "Climb the Highest Mountain," Mark Prophet, "Light Is a Living Spirit," O. M. Aivanhov, "The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?", Free and Wilcock, "The Field," Lynne McTaggart, "The Master of Lucid Dreams," Dr. Olga Kharitidi, "Psychoenergetic Science," Dr. William Tiller, http://www.tiller.org and "Life before Life," Jim Tucker, M.D.





cordially,





j.
Reply:All religions are lunatic, because they make us believe in someone or somebody that does not exist.


About thinking, there is thinking and thinking. Useful thoughts and useless thoughts. YOU choose.
Reply:you have to learn how to control your thoughts like any other human action.
Reply:I would agree that much of human thought is centered around mundane behavioral patterns, but I think that much of this is due to the fact that many individuals have poor thought skills to start with. Many people are trained through poor skills, poor examples and societal influences to be more emotionally based in their behavior. Thought and reason have evolved solely to temper our animalistic tendencies.





It is not though itself that represents the lunatic fringe of human behavior, but how it is used.
Reply:I think I can believe the second proposition without acceding to the first.





Problem is largely semantic, as I can sense you have here raised religion/faith and thought as opposites. If this is the case, the sanity is faith without thought, which is religion, etc.





Ad Nauseum.
Reply:I agree that most thinking is useless.





I personally spend too much time worrying and stressing and not enough time being positive. I don't know what i'd think about if it wasn't negative......





That is a scary thought, why have i never thought about this before?
Reply:Hello,





(ANS) The proposal that "thinking" itself is a problem is utterly stupid and obviously absurd. Why? because this question has been taken out of the original context. You haven't quoted what A.C.Grayling said within its full context or meaning.





**Human beings are quite capable of VERY very inspired thinking processes, of making very brilliant connections in lateral thinking to solve complex problems. Human beings can have wonderful insights into many different aspects of life. Its human creativity %26amp; thinking that was responsible for putting a man on the moon and bring him back safely.





**It is human abilities to use our creative thinking that makes us completely different from ALL other species that came before us in term of Darwinian evolution.





**But this isn't a black %26amp; white either or subject, Humans are bound by our ancient brains too, primitive aspects of our evolutionary past still exist in the modern human. Which means we are still capable of dreadful acts of totally irrational thinking %26amp; even worse acts of murder %26amp; killing. i.e. Genocide, Holocaust, Rwanda, Uganda, Pol Pot and the Vietnam killing fields et al.





**Human beings are full of contradictions, contradictory behavior and attitudes, capable of great kindness %26amp; compassion and capable of utter stupidity like the hysteria over the name of a teddy bear.





**Religion is often the cause of more suffering than it solves, and if you doubt me then history is full of examples from the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the annihilation of the Aztecs %26amp; Incas,native American Indians, etc.





Ivan
Reply:Thought is the froth left on the rim of the coffee cup, the meaningless radio static which drowns the signal. It is pure epiphenomenon.
Reply:If you consider that making a better society is madness then yes (as the higher quality intellectual patterns are primarily concerned with) . If you consider that making a better world for all of us to live in is something Good that we should aspire to then NO.





i wish religion were 'fringe' but alas it's mainstream. I don't think it's even mainly lunacy just wishful thinking - it only becomes lunacy when things like the twin towers start disappearing off the face of the earth then it's "lunacy" then it's 'fringe' and then it's Evil





if you want religion to disappear then having a pop at thought is not going to serve your purposes. that's like 'biting the hand that feeds you'...

gardenia