Category: Critical Thinking

When your mind is full of assumptions, conclusions, and beliefs, it has no penetration; it just believes and repeats past impressions. It’s the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without just accepting it. So, after a lot of discussions on Critical Thinking aspects like System-1, System-2 , Knowledge pot holes, different biases somewhere I started thinking critically about my thoughts before making a perspective or decision. In this process the new journey was to find an old question which I think we all have inside: “What do we believe about God & Religion?” In fact does ” God” exists is also a question. As per our knowledge and experiences we tried defining ‘God’ and our believes about Religion and its impact on our and others lives. For me I don’t believe in a God figure or how religions are tagged and divided with names. I feel God is “Karma” that means doing deeds. And Religion is “Dharma” i.e path of doing deeds. I always believed in moving from finite towards infinite. Now after applying Critical thinking and listening to atheist I have a stronger clarity that I will keep thinking about thing with reasoning.

“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.”
― Christopher Hitchens

The last two sessions started with a discussion on Religion and religious beliefs. We were shown images as an activity where we had to reflect on our understanding on religion, followed by defining God, religious beliefs, rituals, customs and traditions and spirituality. Also there was a lot of discussion done for identifying the constraints in the pursuit of knowledge. During the discussions, I have observed people grappling with questions about the existence of God, the purpose of life, the validity and authenticity of various religious traditions, the role of religion in society, and how to reconcile their personal beliefs with the beliefs of others who may hold different views.

I think I still have a lot of questions about it but I am sure that critical thinking if practiced well will help me find answers to my approaches and interpretations to religion.

Today I completed my second season with Critical Thinking. In the last season I lost my “faith in God” and I thought I have lost all my grounds. But here I am successfully completing my second season. Not only that, I am really proud of myself the way I have turned out without “my faith in GOD”. It’s not that I was not thriving earlier but the fear of letting go of something to gain something – was something I had never done before.

Today when I hear anyone talking about how religious they are and how religiously they follow the practices- my response is – great – good for you!! and I move on. The reason I don’t try to change or question them, just because I have got my share of clarity is because -I took my own time and processing to come to this stage. I don’t want to take that right away from them. It’s a journey of evolution, self introspection and enlightment so it is better the individual experience it themselves at their own pace. During my evolution journey someone once told me – speed doesn’t matter – as long as you are growing. (PS – I have already expressed my gratitude to that someone.)

Saying that it doesn’t mean I don’t have any values or principles. I do and I very religiously follow them but the difference is – they are my selected ones – not imposed on me by anyone or anything. Thanks to the CT sessions and especially my facilitators for guiding me to create my own ground with my own set of values and principles. This is one of the victories for me at many levels – which is another story to tell. But by choosing “my own set of values and principles” I am not only enjoying the freedom with purpose I am role modelling the same for my kids.

Everyone knows to think just be little critical to start off. CHOOSE YOUR OWN GROUNDS.

I think religion is the practice created by humans for society. People with the same thoughts and beliefs created their groups and named them religions. They follow different authorities which they named god. These Gods have different names and their identity, they are from mythology or some saints.

I am not totally against some beliefs as far as it’s not harming society and my self-esteem. I believe in some positive power that keeps motivating me to do the right things. I also chose saints such as Swami Samartha, and Sai baba to share my thoughts to ask some questions in my mind for which I get answers by myself. The statues or photographs are not talking with me but motivate me to listen to my inner voice for a sure. I think it’s a faith factor and not following religion blindly.

I started keeping my points of view about my beliefs too. I don’t allow myself to go to some pandit, baba to solve my problems, as only I am the person who can work on them.

But there are many people who are grappling with some beliefs like we can not do pooja during periods, Different communities have to follow only their religion, Only particular reason is showing the right path, and Follow the authorities blindly without thinking logically etc.

Critical thinking helps to be more open-minded and think logically about religion and beliefs. I will surely be able to question myself whenever I might have to take any decision about my beliefs or how to the extent I need to participate in rituals.

Apart from this System, 1 and System 2 helped me a lot. I have gone through a couple of situations where I was able to apply Think 2, take a pose, and react.

Though I am an open-minded parent, I will definitely work on that I will not pass on my beliefs regarding religion to my daughter and let her decide what is religion for her or whether she believes or does not believe in that.

Humanity is a religion most required for us and future generations. We need to be more open-minded towards each other so that this world becomes place where individuals with sensible logical brains co-exist heading towards betterment overall instead just worrying about me, my family, my community.

Training brain to think Critically only on required issues, is surely going to save lots of time and energy, keeping in mind that few times being ‘Emotional’ is OK!