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Are you quite sure you are being fair here? Much as I and many people here dislike Bush, I don't think out negative assessments were not argued reasonably well.
Actually, I did wish later I hadn't written that statement that way. I don't think anything I've said here about Bush was ever really argued against in a non-well reasoned way. However, there were a few anti-Bush arguments where I just couldn't believe the arguments being used. To me it seemed people had assessed Bush as "Evil" and then used that assessment to interpret anything he did. Not that I haven't done the same. We all do it sometimes, and I'm not going to rehash any specifics. My point is that we all have moments of unobjectivity.

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With all due respect, Jeff, for me the term 'spiritual issues' has no meaning. Your faith is between you and your God. I have no right to judge your perception of it, but I see no reason to follow your example here. I understand that you might be compelled to try and change my 'spiritual situation', and don't resent it. However, my 'godlessness', as Bitt put it, harms nobody (except perhaps myself, as you might think). Hordes of unthinking followers of whoever happens to fill they need for The Leader harms everybody and everything.
Admittedly, I changed topics slightly, but I think the point is important. We have a bunch of people not really fully engaging in the type of critical thinking that we think is important. To a lot of them, critical thinking isn't important- they know what they believe and will vote for the candidate who best seems to represent those things. The lament is that those people may not be getting what they really want because they aren't engaging the way they should, not to mention these actions affect others and what they want. Still, it's almost impossible to convince them of this because they don't want to be told what to think or believe. In reality, no one likes to be told what to think or believe. But I see a lot of people who are animate about critical thinking not engage in questions of a spiritual nature. For some this is due to a reasoned non-belief in organized religion. That I understand. However, there are so many others who've simply checked out of the whole question altogether- "I can't figure it out so it can't be that important". This to me is the same comfortable ignorance that is displayed by the non-critical political group and the results are (in my mind) even more devastating. While I believe there are societal ramifications of collective non-belief, I'll grant you the point that the non-critical thinking approach to politics has a more direct and easily notable effect on others. Still, if we are to challenge others to think about things they don’t want to, we must be willing to do the same about things we don’t think are important. Note that I’m not throwing this out as an accusation of this BBS. We’ve definitely engaged in these issues and many of you have very aggressively questioned these matters. I’ve met many more who aren’t.

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Critical thinking and good political ideas might lower the number of people needing soup kitchens. Feeding the hungry while helping making their numbers swell only falsely calms one's conscience.
I think this is unfair. Yes there are those who do the work to ease their conscious, but that's a broad brush to use. Critical thinking can help those in need, but it can also fail them. Social programs can hurt situations if not executed well, so they can't be viewed as the only solution. Perhaps the long term war might be won through critical thinking, but for many the battle is important too. Sometimes the compassion of an individual reaching to another individual can help in ways a social program never can. Those in need must been seen both as a group and as individuals, and the best way to reach an individual is with a personal, non obligated touch.

And if you want to say that a person working a soup kitchen is insincere because he or she is working for the gratification of helping a fellow human in need, what is the motivation behind the critical thinking social programs if not to do exactly that?

I fear for what our society would be if we had only critical thinking without true, compassionate love. Likewise, true compassionate love without critical thinking is also a mess. We should never eschew one fore the other (insert "Hemispheres" by Rush here). Unfortunately, most people I know have a tendency one way or the other, and that simply isn't good enough. Who I aspire to be is a well-reasoned, loving and caring individual full of passion for helping my fellow man. I’m definitely not there yet, but that’s what I’m shooting for.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.