The Only True Freethinkers

A true freethinker is not biased for or against any idea, as he or she instead cares only for truth and how to prove that something is true.  This is what it means to avoid all assumptions, all leaps from one concept or fact to another unless the laws of logic illuminate an actual link between them.  If someone assumed that something is true or even believed in something logically self-verifying (the basic veracity of logical axioms) or otherwise logically provable for an irrelevant reason, perhaps because a person they respect believes it, they could not be a freethinker until they exchange assumptions for rationalism.  There is no other way to become what so many people would probably like to be called: a freethinker who does not care about personal preferences or social conditioning.

Being a freethinker does not necessarily mean that a person never asks other people for help or never intentionally or unintentionally encounters certain ideas through others initially.  Out of curiosity or desperation, a person can seek out what others think as they concurrently reason out other truths themselves and independently look to logic to analyze everything they are told.  This does not mean they cannot have discovered certain logical facts or philosophical frameworks on their own or that they are doomed to rely on others or appeal to authority.  It means they can be freethinkers and dive wholeheartedly into rationalism regardless of their social interactions or exposure to the ideas of the world, rational or irrational.  What a freethinker can never do without surrendering their status is believe something on a fallacious basis like subjective persuasion that someone must be telling them the truth.

Politicians, scientists, historians, pastors, authors, speakers, or friends of any kind are not what grounds truth metaphysically or what epistemologically reveals it to the willing seekers.  Reality is truth, and without reason, neither reason itself nor sensory experiences, familiar and foreign concepts alike, and introspective experiences could be understood to the slightest extent.  Certainty and clarity forever elude non-rationalists.  Moreover, reality itself is the enemy of irrationalists.  Thus, the only true freethinker, the only kind of person who truly understands at least baseline things that can be known with absolute certainty because they wield the laws of logic intentionally, is a rationalist.  No one else has even taken the first step towards truth for truth's sake except in a disjointed, incomplete manner.

The most sincere kind of freethinker is not what they are because they desire to be perceived as intelligent, deep, or helpful; they already would be these things by virtue of being a rationalist no matter how others perceive them or how they perceive themself.  Instead, shedding even cherished beliefs that are contrary to reality or unprovable, a genuine freethinker cares enough about truth to seek it and internally acknowledge it as reason leads them.  There are no epistemological shortcuts by means of assumptions, for biases and non sequiturs are disguised stupidity at best.  There are no truths that are not logically possible and there is no infallible knowledge without intentional alignment with the laws of logic themselves, not mere unexamined perceptions.  A freethinker can avoid assumptions entirely.