It’s called ‘Independent Thought.’
I see. You call yourself and Atheist, and believe that is thinking independently, just like all the others who call themselves atheists.
I suggested that since Atheism is just identifying oneself in terms of something they don’t believe in, it is silly, because there are endless things one doesn’t believe. I do not know another soul who has ever said that (they may have, but I don’t know it) but according to you, that is not independent thought.
So, in your view, thinking the same thing lots of other people think, and repeating what they’ve taught you is “independent thinking,” but thinking something almost no one else thinks and being able to explain why one thinks it is not independent thinking.
Besides, “independent thinking” is redundant. All thinking is independent—of course a lot of people confuse just anything that goes on in their heads with thinking.
Hank
Hank, you are trying to spice and dice because you don’t ‘get it.’
Independent thought in this case is thought that is free from the constraints of the threat of eternal damnation and the often illogical set of rules that religion gives one to live by and free from the promise of eternal salvation and all the selfish things that come from such motivation ‘to act.’
I have a feeling you actually do ‘get it,’ but you are too bull headed to admit it.