@DuchessNyx Yes, EXACTLY!

Oxymornon*

My closest friend in high school had a mother who was a devout catholic and a father who was a complete atheist. They were both awesome. I would say she was pretty free thinking.

@JohnnyThorazine She's the exception, not the rule.

@KKGator Ugh. We are ruled by our prejudice, I suppose.

It's truly amazing to watch some of them twist themselves like pretzels to justify their hypicrisies.

@DuchessNyx sounds like double speak to me. So, let's say you read a book, maybe some dick dawkins book...and you think like he thinks....you are no longer a freethinker? Or you go to college, and take a philosophy class and decide you want to follow a certain philosophy that you decide has merit, you aren't freethinking? We are free to follow or not follow the rules we choose. We are also free to gain or suffer the result. I would say the only 'not freethinker' is someone who has been actually brainwashed through brainwashing techniques (not the 'brainwash' because you are incredulous as to the belief system that a person chooses to follow). Freethinker is either jargon that you have created a definition for, or it means you are free to think as you wish.

@DuchessNyx Greatest thing ever: I will argue that you don't have an argument to argue. haha! TRIPLE TALK! Love it...perhaps you should look up 'brainwashing' as opposed to passing on family beliefs....ugh. Just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean that someone is forced to think that way....as for cliques of people, the tend to share similar interests, hence the term 'clique'...it can be hard to leave any clique, whatever their interests, because those are your friends....an example for me was drinking and going to shows...that was the main interests in my former clique...when I got bored of both of those, I had to move on, and they still keep pestering me to go to shows and go drinking with them...because as I lost a clique, they lost a member, and we didn't quite hanging out because we ceased liking each other, but because our interests changed....now if you were to add to this an actual feeling that a person is in danger for leaving (and it also, often subconsciously, slightly attacks your belief system), shunning is not uncommon.
And it sorta sounds like perhaps you might be brainwashed by your own definition. only able to think within the boundaries of atheism, 'to not even ponder beyond that.' Hehe. But it's okay, there are enough yes people in your minority to keep you fed.

Wouldn't that just be a catholic who had different outside the standard dogma? Is the wife/husband of a married couple a 'freethinker' because they cheat outside their marriage, because it is outside the vows of their marriage? I am all for married priests and same sex marriage, but I don't think they have much to do with freethinking. Broadening social mores which are good for society, however.

@DuchessNyx everything anyone thinks, has been planted there for us. We are godless beasts reacting to stimuli. The real question is, is there such a thing as a free thinker?

And they are all over the globe in support of that flat earth, too!