The first step of Freedom is the realization that everything is open to question.
Do you agree?
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.my freedom to swing my arm ends at your nose. freedom does not need to be, nor should it be, completely unrestricted, unless only one person in the universe counts and the rest don't matter. so before we talk about what the first step to freedom is, we need to know what freedom is.
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genessa
Level 8
Oct 30, 2018
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If you define freedom as the ability to ask questions, then yes. But if you believe for instance that laws against murder should be open to question, somehow I think that flies in the face of the intended victim's freedom and I don't agree.
lerlo
Level 8
Oct 30, 2018
1
Yes I completely agree. There is a cost to Society that all must bear, the absolute prohibition against murder being one of the necessary extremes.
I think it depends on how you define "freedom". Some want freedom from uncertainty. That inherently means they want someone to tell them what to think / believe / feel. If you value freedom from angst more than intellectual freedom then you'll trade intellectual freedom for dogma so long as the lies are, at least in the short run, comforting.
My guess though is that you're talking about intellectual freedom / freedom of thought. And yes, nothing can be exempt from a requirement that it be substantiated. Nothing can be dependent on presuppositions -- or at the least, any presuppositions must be very minimal. For example in math, there are a few unproven and possibly unprovable axioms ... but at least math has been demonstrated to accurately predict and explain actual reality.
mordant
Level 8
Oct 29, 2018
1
I think yes to freedom of thought and the freedom of speech that allows people to engage in discussions so as to be able to think better. Where action is concerned, I agree with the religious thinkers who feel freedom is the ability to chose what is right and do it.
brentan
Level 8
Oct 29, 2018
1
When religious thinkers talk about what is "right" I get a little concerned. Right for who? I ask. By what right? I ponder. Usually, their notion of right falls into my wrong box, not because I desire to be contrary, but because I cannot share their guiding presuppositions.
Our presuppositions are the real restraints that deny, or at least inhibit, our freedom. These are weeds that take extreme effort to identify and uproot.
@rcandlish Yeah, that’s the rub. Right for Jehovah, I guess. But I think these religious thinkers are right in principle, even if they never thought that principle would be extended to include individual value systems. So I mean to understand freedom of choice in my life as the freedom I get from choosing (limiting myself) what is good instead of bad in my idiosyncratic subjective way. That limiting freedom seems contradictory in essence and I think it is a problem made manifest by semantics and philosophy. I suppose our presuppositions, whether we get them from scripture or any other flawed source, can only be helped through discussion and reading.
Yes, but then again, this is open to question too.
Tomfoolery33
Level 9
Oct 29, 2018
1
As everything should be!
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