Yeah, critical thinking is an important skill to have. Sadly, there is a very low percentage of people (specifically, in the USA) that have it.
I’m approximating that around 98% of the news media, here in the USA, are biased and/or propaganda. The first year of my university education taught me how to separate fact from opinion. What if you don’t go to university? How do you learn critical thinking? I have a college friend that I’ve known for almost thirty years. He has a masters degree in finance and he is a certified public accountant. However, when it comes to USA politics, he has been completely brainwashed by the media. He is one of those MAGA nut-jobs.
Having second hand accounts of anything is, certainly, unreliable. I wish more people could have, at least, one experience that fell outside of what we know from science. Unbelievably, I’ve had several of these. I’d say about five that I cannot explain using the best of our scientific knowledge.
…does this mean that saying “Joe Biden is acting like a fascist autocrat”, is ok, but applying it as a title, as in “Joe Biden the Fascist Autocrat” is not?
In my opinion, yes. However, this is something that I would want to discuss with the other administrators/moderators in order to reach a conclusion.
I have had many years of formal training and education under the umbrella of science and the scientific method. This requires both skepticism and questioning.
When I say that I am open minded about subjects such as NDE, OBE and the like I mean that I’m using the aforementioned.
Obviously, science does not have the answers to everything. Science still questions everything while, at the same time, acknowledges that there is much more to know.
I have had several experiences, so far in life, that I cannot explain using what we know from science. For, at least, the past decade I’ve felt much more comfortable and inspired with more questions than I have answers.
Science and/or the scientific method is a tool. A tool that has been developed by humans. But that’s all that it is.
As with religion, I will not hold science up on a pedestal.