Response to: KK (https://www.facebook.com/notes/sandra-loughmiller/build-its-institutions-constructively-allow-critical-thinking-nurture-economic-p/2001459379889492/?comment_id=10157089821459993¬if_id=1548228828601031¬if_t=feed_comment)Extremist thoughts and negativity isolate you. You become exclusive, not inclusive. And then when you are alone you only have extremist thoughts to keep you company. One should learn to appreciate all colours of the spectrum. The universe is made of so many colours and not noticing their beauty makes us colour blind. When people do not know how to use their heads and when they do not have the ability to question, they would believe anything. This is why extremism spread so rampantly in our society. The lack of critical thinking is what has helped leaders such as Adolf Hitler rule. and https://www.facebook.com/notes/sandra-loughmiller/government-policy-social-contractsinstitutions-and-islam/1999841550051275/
RESPONSE to PART 3: Critical thinking is the OBJECTIVE analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment; it is SELF-directed, SELF-disciplined, SELF-monitored, and SELF-corrective. Nature implies that its laws are objective and universal, where certain rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are inherent by virtue of human nature that Nature endows, which refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce rules of behavior from reality, e.g. through the use of perhaps, critical thinking. However, when you assert that a transcendent source endows these certain rights inherent by virtue of human nature, then these certain rights cannot be understood universally through human reason, because the aspect of a deity’s nature and power is that it is wholly independent of the material universe, beyond all known physical laws. You can certainly believe that a transcendent source encompasses or manifested in the material world, through some divine providence or prophet, but an excessively credulous belief in and reverence for supernatural beings is in fact mere superstition, and equivalent to a widely held but unjustifiable belief in supernatural causation, which leads to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice based on such a belief and not critical thinking then. So now; where does the critical thinking come in, where is that objective analysis through the use of reason? What you land up having put forth by some leaders is the inability untangle their subjective schema from objective reality, unable to understand or assume any perspective other than their own kind of egocentricity; with an unshakable belief that you would characterize consistently as inflated feelings of personal ability, privilege, or infallibility, and without regard for the conventions and demands of society, who may request special consideration or privileges. And, what would you call it, but extremism when all people are not equal and deserving of equal rights and opportunities under e.g. blasphemy laws, and their leaders, because they must totally submit to Islam and the Sharia, to protect its Islamic authority, to foster an Islamic way of life, under an Islamist’s egocentricity? Furthermore, how is it then that critical thinking is not showing contempt or lack of reverence to this transcendent deity? You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Once you eat it, it’s gone. You’re trying for two incompatible things; and speaking in metaphors about extremism as though it could apply to anything, but extremism is in fact, a term primarily in use to refer to a political or religious ideology outside the mainstream attitudes of society, which in the case of Pakistan is plainly about how far to the right or left of Islam and Sharia Pakistani society is willing to go. There is a description of what moving to the left would mean for Pakistan in my previous response, “Government Policy, Social Contracts/Institutions, and Islam;” and moving to the right? We can talk about that philosophy, as well.