... they simply except what others have told them, even if the information is true?
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... they simply except what others have told them, even if the information is true?
Yes.
Nice thing about 'true' things is, that it often isn't discouraged by the people 'teaching' the 'sheep' to look into things themselves. You can hardly convince someone for 40 years that (if you live in North-America or Europe) the farther north you go, the colder it gets: the guy would travel around a bit, and find out for himself. However, you could tell a kid that, and it might, no, would, believe it. How does the kid know the pole-caps aren't in the south?
It would be a pretty wrong mentality to just tell people something, no matter how true, and not encourage them thinking about it for themselves, if you ask me.
Indeed. If you do not question what is told to you, there is really no point to your existence; though this only would be realized when one has "awoken" .
The best point has already been made. If it were true, there is no harm in a little exploration. The problem is that many falsehoods are covered up with fear; telling people that if they do something they will get hurt, damned, etc...Reason is the answer to these problems; you must simply dare to use it.
The idea is, one would lack the ability to differentiate between truth and fiction if they only ever believed exactly what they were told.
On a regular basis, though, everyone must inevitably get much of their information second-hand. When it comes to anything scientific, political, or even sociological, the average person's experience doesn't come close to being able to judge information from other people/sources. We accept, by word alone, the statements of certain authorities, based only upon a collective agreement that those authorities are trustworthy and, for some, whether we like what they have to say.
One can usually only collect statements from various sources and parse them analytically to discover which is correct, based on information from still other sources. Some information we accept as true because our sources agree and not because we observe it ourselves.
Regardless of one's knowledge on certain subjects, nothing restricts them from applying their own common sense to the question. There is a difference between believing something because someone has told you it is true, and believing something because someone told you and you can understand how it could work that way.Quote:
Originally Posted by R.D.735
Without critical thought one is a sheep. Most people are sheep even if they aren't as gullible as some they still hold onto popular opinion without even realizing it.
A famous quote
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."
Buddha
Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.