There tis a reason for all things me friend !Just because a chap will not reason doesmt make him a bigot, and just because a chap cant reason dont make one a fool,and finaly one that dare not reason is not necessarily a slave...there is a REASON for The reason and all reasons can and do have different meanings for different situations!

In general, yes, I do. A person who will not reason for himself/herself is a person who is robotically mimicking and living that which was told and taught to him/her without the power of discernment to determine what is worth believing and what is not. Thus, any bigoted views and socialization received will go unchallenged and perpetuated by such an individual. A person who cannot reason is a fool, because he/she by default has all of his/her beliefs and choices made for him/her and they are not a product of the individual's own reasoning. A person who is not allowed to reason is little better than a slave, for the reasons given in the previous sentence. All his/her choices and beliefs are decided by others, which removes the individual autonomy. The process one uses to avoid such pitfalls is called Critical Thinking. Critical thinking is the systematic evaluation or formulation of beliefs or statements by rational standards. I once wrote this regarding Critical Thinking: ************************************************* You came into this world without opinions, judgments, values, or viewpoints - and now your head is brimming with them. If you tried to write them all down, you would be busy for the rest of your life (and would probably win an award for being the world's biggest bore). They help you make your way through the world. They guide you to both failure and success, ignorance and understanding, good and bad, paralysis and empowerment. Some of your beliefs truly inform you, and some blind you. Some are true; some are not. The question is, which ones are which? This kind of question - a question about the quality of your beliefs - is the fundamental concern of critical thinking. Critical thinking is not about what you think, but how you think. The question about the quality of beliefs is not about what factors caused you to have the beliefs that you do. A sociologist might tell you how society has influenced some of your moral choices. A psychologist might describe how your emotions cause you to cling to certain opinions. Your best friend might allege that you have unconsciously absorbed most of your beliefs directly from your parents. But none of these speculations have much to do with the central task of critical thinking. Critical thinking focuses not on what causes a belief, but on whether or not it is worth believing. A belief is worth believing, or accepting, if we have good reasons to accept it. The better the reasons for acceptance, the more likely the belief is to be true. Critical thinking offers us a set of standards embodied in techniques, attitudes, and principles that we can use to assess beliefs and determine if they are supported by good reasons. After all, we want our beliefs to be true, to be good guides for dealing with the world - and critical thinking is the best tool we have for achieving this goal. Critical thinking is systematic because it involves distinct procedures and methods. It entails evaluation and formulation because it is used to both assess existing beliefs (yours or someone else's) and devise new ones. It operates according to rational standards in that beliefs are judged by how well they are supported by reasons. Critical thinking, of course, involves logic. Logic is the study of good reasoning, or inference, and the rules that govern it. Critical thinking is broader than logic because it involves not only logic but also the truth or falsity of statements, the evaluation of arguments and evidence, the use of analysis and investigation, and the application of many other skills that help us deccide what to believe or do. Ultimately, what critical thinking leads you to is knowledge, understanding, and - if you put this to work - empowerment. Why does it matter? Our lives are defined in large measure by our actions and choices - which in turn are guided by our thinking, so our thinking had better be good. Almost every day we are hit by a blizzard of assertions, opinions, arguments, and pronouncements from all directions. They all implore us to believe, to agree, to accept, to follow, to submit. If we care whether our choices are right and our beliefs are true, if we want to rise above blind acceptance and arbitrary choices, we must use the tools provided by critical thinking. Of course, we always have the option of taking the easy way out. We can simply grab onto whatever beliefs or statements come blowing by in the wind, adopting viewpoints because they are favored by others or because they make us feel good. But then we forfeit control over our lives and let wind take us wherever it will, as if we had no more say in the outcome than a leaf in a storm. A consequence then of going with the wind is a loss of personal freedom. If you passively accept beliefs that have been handed to you by your parents, your culture, or your teachers, then those beliefs are not really yours. You just happened to be in a certain place and time when they were handed out. If they are not really yours and you let them guide your choices and actions, then they - not you - are in charge of your life. Your beliefs are yours only if you critically examine them for yourself to see if they are supported by good reasons and evidence.