Benefits of Critical Thinking

It is challenging to become rational in a world where most people are irrational and ruled by their emotions. However, millions of people around the world have realised the follies of blind faith and are trying to become rational thinkers and realise their full potential as human beings. A Chinese proverb beautifully says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Instead of waiting for the world to change and become rational, you must change yourself to become rational and lead a better life, which will gradually convince the people to follow you, thus making progressively the world more rational.

We all wish to live a peaceful and happy life. We also don’t want to go against our loved ones and society, as we don’t want to lose their affection. Therefore, we must know the cost of remaining as irrational as others and the benefits of developing critical thinking. 

Without critical thinking, it is almost impossible for you to differentiate truth from untruth, right from wrong and myths from reality. As a result, you become an easy target, a sitting duck, to be exploited by the vested interests, leading to undesirable consequences for you. Let us understand the benefits of becoming a critical thinker. 

Protection from Exploitation

Critical thinking is the best self-defence system to protect yourself from people exploiting you for their benefit. Politicians want to exploit us by making us believe their ideologies. They also convince us about their excellent work by exaggerating their achievements and suppressing their mischief. They often exploit our sentiments by fueling hatred against other communities and rival political parties through the propaganda unleashed by their IT cells and their dirty tricks department. Savvy business people try to exploit us through their well-crafted advertisements and dubious schemes to sell their products at high prices even though we hardly need them. Instead of fulfilling our needs, they create needs in us through advertisements featuring attractive models and celebrities and using fallacious arguments and evidence.

We are also exploited by religious leaders, astrologers, and numerologists through their false promises and their anecdotes of miracles. They are now joined by the tribes of motivational speakers who use anecdotal evidence to motivate you to do great things through positive thinking, faith in self and hard work. They are silent about the hundreds of people who failed to follow their methods, but they highlight one case that succeeded and then generalise them for all. As a result, people feel even more frustrated after receiving their advice when they develop high hopes and are mentally unprepared to fail. 

If we are not rational, we may even be exploited by our loved ones. Our parents want us to obey them and follow their values. They often wish to realise their dreams through us and force us to live a life which they think is best for us. However, only we know what we want in life and what makes us happy or unhappy. You can’t fit into someone else’s shoes. Similarly, our friends are also often responsible for many of our bad habits like smoking, drinking, etc. and immoral behaviour. Unless we are rational, we will likely fall into bad company and spoil our lives.

It is said that love is blind because most people can’t think rationally about their beloved when they are in love. Love is a beautiful thing that can fill your life with joy, but if you love the wrong person, you can be exploited by your beloved, and your life can become hell. Critical thinking can help you select the right partner and friends for you. Moreover, with rational thinking, you not only avoid following the wrong path and make wrong decisions yourself, but you can also protect your loved ones following the wrong path. 

Avoidance of Physical and Mental Pain

Fear of God is the most irrational fear that troubles the human mind. Believers perform many evil deeds like terrorism and animal sacrifice in the hope of heaven or due to fear of hell. Billions of people undergo fasting, carry out numerous rituals, and spend considerable time and money on arduous pilgrimages to please God. When you understand that there is no God to listen to your prayer or would be pleased when you suffer pain, you won’t be suffering unnecessary pain in your life. In addition, religions often prohibit the consumption of many types of food and drinks, and one feels guilty when he consumes a meat product or alcoholic drink, garlic or onion, even when the same is necessary for health. Some people won’t take medicines which contain alcohol and even refuse to drink milk or eggs when their health conditions necessitate such food and drinks. You can avoid such pains as a critical thinker. 

Healthy Living

Many people fall sick more often because they are unaware of the importance of hygiene,  social distancing, a balanced diet, and a healthy lifestyle in keeping good health. When they fall sick, they often get treatments from unqualified doctors or go to medical practitioners of Ayurveda, Homeopathy, naturopathy, etc. Similarly, frequently, Yoga practitioners make tall claims about the benefits of Yoga and claim to treat severe diseases like heart problems, diabetes and even cancer through yoga. Unfortunately, the condition of the patients gets worse after following their advice, and sometimes, they even lose their lives.

Many ancient practices in India, such as Yoga and Ayurveda, are based on faith rather than scientific studies. They have utility, but their effectiveness in treating people with serious diseases is highly exaggerated and rarely subjected to scientific scrutiny. They may be good as a preventive measure or may provide dietary support for good health due to their use of natural products, but they are not effective in treating serious illnesses. 

Many people also believe that you fall ill due to your sins, black magic or the influence of evil spirits or ghosts. As a result, they often go to priests, tantrics, and spiritual gurus for treatment. However, instead of getting well, they lose their health further and sometimes even lose their lives. Critical thinking lets you differentiate between real and fake medical treatments and lead a healthy life.  

Self-Confidence

When you develop the habit of believing anything without due analysis and rational thinking, you gradually lose your ability to apply your rational mind to find out the truth. I am often amazed when I talk to educated people who believe in the miracles of the scriptures and accept mythologies as facts. Suppose you can believe that a child can eat the Sun as bread, or that airplanes existed thousands of years ago, just because it is mentioned in the scriptures, without seeking any corroborative evidence. In that case, you can believe virtually anything, provided someone can show you the reference in a holy book. 

A believer in one aspect is a believer in all aspects. It is easy to persuade a religious person to believe in astrology, numerology, palmistry or any other form of pseudoscience. Moreover, the religious teachers often ask their discipline to surrender their will to the Gurus and follow them rather than critically evaluating what the teachers claim. An irrational person is easily convinced through stories and anecdotal evidence because they don’t know how to find the truth using critical thinking.

A rational person believes himself more than anyone else. When confronted with a problem, he analyses it properly and finds out the solution himself or through the right experts instead of relying on fraudsters and astrologers. 

Better Decision-Making

An irrational person makes decisions based on emotions, intuition and impulses. His decisions suffer from emotional and cognitive biases. Instead of facts, irrational people rely on feelings. Hence, they often make incorrect decisions. However, a critical thinker relies on facts, evidence and rational analysis of the situation to make a decision. Hence, his decisions are always better.

Critical thinking helps you sharpen your mind by understanding the scientific methods of investigation. You can find the truth with the help of reason using arguments and logic. When you know the different types of biases and use the debiasing strategies, you minimize the errors and make better decisions.  

Accurate Knowledge of a thing or a person is like the maps that give you a helpful image of reality. If our map is faulty, we can’t arrive at our destination. Rational decisions are based on accurate knowledge, sound arguments, and logical analysis, and they are free of all types of biases. Hence, they are more convincing to others. Further, errors can be identified and corrected if there is any flaw in the arguments or the data. As a result, the quality of decision-making of a rational person improves with time as the person learns from every success and failure. However, an irrational person learns nothing from the outcome as he attributes his successes and failures to the will of God, destiny or fate. Hence, instead of learning from experience, he only develops more faith and engages in more rituals to succeed in life.

Happiness and Prosperity

According to the World Happiness Report 2023¹, the top 10 happiest countries and their Happiness Score are 

1. Finland, 7.804
2. Denmark 7.586
3. Iceland 7.530
4. Israel 7.473
5. Netherlands 7.403
6. Sweden 7.395
7. Norway 7.315
8. Switzerland 7.240
9. Luxembourg 7.228
10. New Zealand 7.123

Now, all the happiest countries in the world also figure in the list of top countries that have the largest population of atheists, agnostics, or nonbelievers in God.² The percentage of the population of the nonreligious population in these happiest countries in the world during the period 2010-2017 are Finland (55), Denmark (61), Iceland (49), Israel (58), Netherlands(42), Sweden (73), Norway (62), Switzerland (58), Luxembourg (38), and New Zealand (37). These countries are also among the most developed countries in the world. Hence, you will find that the happiest countries have a high population of atheists and the highest level of economic development, gender equality and literacy.

There is a direct correlation between happiness and the development of rational thinking. Critical thinking helps you discard irrational fears of God and make you a more logical and happier person. 

Critical Thinking Benefits

Rationality may be uncommon in the present world, but nobody can stop us from being rational if we desire. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once said, “To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.” 

To become rational, we need a paradigm shift in our thinking. We have been conditioned to think that God makes the world, that everything is predestined, or that our stars or the lines of hands decide our life, making us puppets in an outside entity’s hands. Instead, we have to take control of our lives in our own hands and become what we wish to become. 

Critical thinking helps us create an accurate map of the self, others, and reality, and it helps us navigate the world easily. It makes you self-sufficient, as you can reach your destination easily without any external support. However, to become rational, you have to develop a deeper understanding of your emotions and feelings, which are responsible for your happiness, which is the most cherished goal of mankind. We have also to cultivate the right habits so that we can perform our tasks most efficiently.

A rational person is not without beliefs. However, his beliefs are found after the investigation of doubt based on evidence and reason. His beliefs are subject to change if they do not conform to reality. There is no place for blind faith in the mind of a rational person.

Albert Einstein once stated, “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.” While science may never find the absolute truth of the universe and humans can never become fully rational, we can always become more rational than what we are now to understand the world clearly and live a happy, successful and peaceful life.   

With critical thinking, one can deal with complex problems, situations, or choices and solve real-life problems more creatively, independently, and effectively, thereby achieving the goals of the self and the organization. Critical thinkers can’t be corrupted or brainwashed easily as they can easily identify the logical fallacy and quickly expose the misinformation. They are intellectually responsible and trustworthy because they are rational and unbiased. They don’t make statements based on emotions, rumours or heresy but based on accurate knowledge,  reliable information and corroborative evidence. They use strong and valid logic to conclude. Hence, they are more convincing and reliable than those who are driven by emotions and intuition. 

There is no perfection in critical thinking, as there is always a scope for improvement. Being a perfect critical thinker may be difficult since all humans have emotions that affect our daily decision-making. Further, we also can’t hope to have accurate knowledge of every subject. However, we can still reap huge benefits in life by developing critical thinking skills and practising them as much as possible.

References :

1. https://www.forbesindia.com/article/explainers/happiest-countries-in-the-world/89435/1 ↩︎
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion  ↩︎

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