Actually Thinking vs. Just Believing

<p> In '<i>actually</i> THINKING vs. <i>just</i> BELIEVING' Doug Matheson discusses the importance of learning <i>how</i> to think not just <i>what</i> to think. The failure to do this has huge repercussions. He also calls upon us all including Christian conservatives to take seriously humankind's stewardship of the planet on a practical level and he asks everyone to take action to correct the sad inequalities of a world in which in his words 'our myopic preoccupation with economic growth and personal accumulation of wealth' leads us to ignore deterioration of ecosystems at home and around the world and the growing threat to political stability globally. This book is of value to anyone who believes we can be doing better. </p> <p> This is powerful and will have wide appeal... it's fresh challenging and interesting. </p> <p> The above quotes are from Gwyneth Cravens author of numerous articles published in The New Yorker and Harper's Magazine and of several books including Power to Save the World: the Truth about Nuclear Energy. </p> <p> <i>actually</i> THINKING is about our mindsets and our future. It examines our biases it deals with the real-world politics of terrorism and our foreign policy and it delves into a variety of internal matters that will ultimately keep us a stable and sustainable nation and culture or see us fragment and weaken into irrelevance or even devolve into chaos. </p> <p> The contrast between <i>believing</i> based on conscious choice or not and analytically <i>thinking</i> is the central theme of this book. It points out that we cannot begin to deal realistically with the myriad challenges of our time without first recognizing the influence of our philosophical starting points and then learning to step beyond the shoes we happen to have grown up in. </p>