Category: Teachers/Educators

Talking to Kids About Morality Without God

Posted on by John MacDonald

One thing you sometimes hear is that without God there could be no objective morality (the oughts), because if moral rules/principles don’t get their authority from God, where could their authority come from?

Of course, this way of thinking is wrong. Children from a very young age understand what being a “friend” means without God having anything to do with the knowledge. So, kids can extrapolate from this understanding of friendship principles like “you’re being a better friend if you play the game your friend wants to play than if you selfishly demand to play your favorite game” or “you are being a bad friend if you steal your friend’s toy car.”

Another important point here is that the key elements of morality such as altruism are present widely in the animal kingdom, and so aren’t simply implanted in humans as the unique and special pinnacle of God’s creation. One article on this topic makes such points as:

  • “Since altruism, empathy, and gratitude all underpin moral behavior, finding them in our fellow mammals suggests that they run deep in our brain biology and did not come about because of moral reasoning or religion. In fact, probably the opposite is true—religion developed because of our innate capacities for caring.“

  • “[I]n our attempts to study our animal brethren and avoid anthropomorphizing them we sometimes miss their very real similarities to us. According to the scientists Morell interviews, birds are capable of complex communication, elephants have long memories and strong social networks, and dolphins will act altruistically. These scientists are convinced that many higher order cognitive abilities are not limited to humans, and that we only need look a bit further to discover them in animals.“

see: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/morality_animals

ARTICLE: Finding Morality in Animals
Two new books explore research on animals to better understand the roots of human morality and challenge human specialness.

Treat Your Kids Like the Little Philosophers They Are

Posted on by John MacDonald

Great new article suggesting to treat kids like philosophers:

https://time.com/6177632/parenting-kids-how-to-raise/

Here’s an excerpt:

I hope the kids continue to have those sorts of conversations. I want them to think deeply about the world, to ponder big ideas, like truth, justice, and God. But the research suggests that those conversations are likely to trail off as they age. Little kids (age 3-8) often raise philosophical questions on their own (“Why does the world exist?” “What is it like to be dead?” “Am I dreaming my entire life?”). They’re puzzled by the world—and they’re trying to puzzle it out.

But as they age, kids start to worry about what others think of them. They don’t want to seem silly or risk being wrong. And they notice that the adults in their lives don’t discuss questions like, “Why does the world exist?” or “Am I dreaming my entire life?” Over time, they lose some of their curiosity and courage as thinkers.

I think that’s a shame. The world could use more deep and discerning thinkers. We’re flooded with disinformation, and too many people are too easily duped by it. Our society values hot takes and tweets more than sustained thought.

The good news is: we can push back on that. If we support our kids’ philosophical adventures, they’re more likely to continue them. In fact, we can raise philosophers.

CHECK IT OUT!

Inquiry Questions and Metacognition

Posted on by John MacDonald

One of the most important goals of teaching is fostering “Metacognition,” making implicit student thinking processes explicit for the students. One approach to this is teaching Inquiry Questions. All student work is going to be an answer to questions, and so getting students to become aware of the questions they are answering helps to create cohesion and meaningfulness to their learning. Here are two examples:

(1) This essay is called “The Justified Lie By The Johannine Jesus In Its Greco-Roman-Jewish Context.” The Inquiry Questions it is answering are: (i) Does the Gospel of John portray Jesus as lying? (ii) If so, why would the writer portray such a thing? See: https://infidels.org/library/modern/john-macdonald-justified-lie/

(2) This essay is called “A Critique of the Penal Substitution Interpretation of the Cross of Christ.” The Inquiry Questions it is answering are: Our oldest faith statement of the cross is from the Corinthian creed/poetry Paul quotes that “Christ Died For Our Sins.” Does this mean Christ died (i) to pay our sin debt, or (ii) to make our hidden sin nature conspicuous to inspire transformation and repentance? See: https://infidels.org/library/modern/a-critique-of-the-penal-substitution-interpretation-of-the-cross-of-christ/

In the above cases, seeing how student writing not only has a specific form (eg recount, report, narrative, etc), but also has an unfolding thesis, theme, etc, and blossoms forth in the context of inquiry questions, students not only find greater purpose in their work, but also become better thinkers as their cognitive strategies and approaches go from implicit to explicit.

Background For Teachers On The Argument For God’s Existence From Beauty

Posted on by John MacDonald

Of the traditional arguments trying to prove the existence of God (ontological argument, cosmological argument, argument from design, and argument from beauty), the argument from beauty is one of the most popular, persuasive, and easy to understand. For instance, surely the beautiful image below is evidence of a divine artist …

In helping students question the argument from beauty, there is no need to upset them by showing the image below, but a gentler analogous image can be used to show the argument from beauty is special pleading, picking and choosing images that might support a religious belief and ignoring those that don’t. Eg:

(wiki)

And besides, beauty is not in the world, but in the eye of the beholder: eg one person sees a dilapidated bungalow, while another sees it as a quaint cottage; or, one person see a mansion as magnificent, while a minimalist sees it as gawdy.

Education and Censorship

Posted on by John MacDonald

This is a recent post by Jeana Jorgensen, who studied folklore under Alan Dundes at the University of California, Berkeley, and went on to earn her PhD in folklore from Indiana University. She addresses the issue of censorship in education.

https://onlysky.media/jjorgensen/censorship-in-education-is-a-social-justice-issue/

Also, consider this, because all religious people don’t look at this issue in the same way:

This Book Will Be Banned

Question:

If questionable content makes a book a target, should the bible be banned for such things genocide, etc? Spoiler: Of course not!

Warm up puzzles for a class on Critical Thinking

Posted on by John MacDonald

These have been shared by philosopher Garrett Pendergraft

1 The Bridge Riddle

2 Coming and Going

In 1978 the Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned an old exam question:

Q. How far can a dog run into the woods?

A. Halfway. The rest of the time he is running out.

Harvard’s Richard E. Baym wrote in to take issue with the answer:

The correct answer is ‘All the way’. Certainly we understand that the dog is running ‘in’ only until he reaches the middle of the forest, but this is in fact, all the way in. If the dog ran only half ‘in’, he would not yet be at the middle. Indeed if the dog ran halfway in and then ran halfway out, he would still be in the woods.

The editors noted, “It occurs to us that the dog’s continued presence there would be useful, in case something happens to that tree that we’ve been hearing about since high school physics — the one that falls when no one is in the forest and since there is no eardum to register sound waves, makes no noise. You know what a fine sense of hearing a dog has. Let him run halfway in (or as Mr. Baym argues, all the way), settle there, and keep an ear cocked for that tree.”

(from Robert L. Weber, ed., Science With a Smile, 1992.)

3 Penniless Pilgrim

4 The River Crossing

5 Fun With Venn Diagrams

Euphony

A charming puzzle from Crux Mathematicorum, December 2004:

If all plinks are plonks and some plunks are plinks, which of these statements must be true?

X: All plinks are plunks.
Y: Some plonks are plunks.
Z: Some plinks are not plunks.

Answer

euphony puzzle

6 The Troll’s Paradox Puzzle:

7 The Jail Break Riddle

8. Prisoner Hat Riddle

9. Wizard Standoff Riddle

10 The Temple Riddle

11 The Pirate Riddle

12 The Dark Coin Riddle

13 Which Box Has The Gold?

Which box has the gold?

14 The Giant Iron Riddle