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.
Also, consider this, because all religious people don’t look at this issue in the same way:
Question:
If questionable content makes a book a target, should the bible be banned for such things genocide, etc? Spoiler: Of course not!
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
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
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?
14 The Giant Iron Riddle
The cosmological argument basically says something like: I have parents, and my parents had parents, and so on in time back to the beginning of the universe, asking how the materials that made up The Big Bang got there in the first place? The theist says we must posit God as creator to start the chain of causes. In fact, this theistic answer is a God of the Gaps fallacy, like the ancient Greeks not knowing why the sun went across the sky so they imagined the God Helios driving the sun across the sky. There is a gap in scientific knowledge regarding a precise scientific consensus about the very beginning of our universe, but as scientific and mathematical knowledge grows we can see we are certainly not at the point where a reasonable answer is that fairies created the universe. Here is an important video explaining why:
It’s clear to every padawan that some things are wrong. For instance, it is wrong to steal from your parent’s wallet. Now, this seems to have nothing to do with whether there is a God or not, and yet some religious people say without God there can be no right or wrong. Why? They say god is in charge, so things are right or wrong because God says so. In other words, without God’s stamp of approval/disapproval, on whose authority, for instance, do we know that stealing is objectively wrong?
A long time ago, a thinker named Immanuel Kant explained this very well. He said we exist in such a way that our minds unconsciously give us the rule that we morally accompany all our actions, unlike lower animals such as dogs who, with the intellect of a two year old, are not morally responsible like we are. If the dog chews up the couch, the dog is not evil, because it doesn’t know any better. This is also true of certain mentally challenged people. This unconscious rule we follow makes human ethical experiences and judgments possible. A thinker after Kant named Schelling said it is our ability to be evil that is what is unique in humans among the animals. We have evolved in such a way that we all have a circle of friends, however small, that we act in a caring way toward because we like them and this is how we would want to be treated. This is the golden rule, which has been known and applied across place and time throughout human history, regardless of religious or secular context.
So, it’s not God saying so that makes morality possible, but rather the evolutionary combination of reason with the drive toward a circle of friends is eventually realized in the idea of universal human rights. We are all innately benevolent to some extent because we inherently like friends and understand you treat friends with kindness and are being a better friend if you play the game your friend wants to rather than the one you want to – and you’re being a bad friend if you steal your friend’s girlfriend.
Image Source: https://www.philipchircop.com/post/131380362282/the-golden-rule-talking-about-rules-for-living
Questions:
| angels | belief | darth | |||
| debate | demons | doubt | |||
| evidence | gods | harley | |||
| logic | reason | secular | |||
| skeptic | supernatural | superstition |
Down
1 The love of wisdom
2 Searching for reasons/evidence
3 Magic and Monsters
5 Information on which to base belief
7 Believing someone/thing has successfully cast a magic spell
9 Not believing in the supernatural
(*****************sing to the tune of Old MacDonald Had A Farm)
(Verse 1)
Young Darth Harley had some doubts
A-questioning he goes
And with those doubts he questioned commercials
A-questioning he goes
With a “does it work?” here
And a “will it make me happy?” there
Here a doubt, there a doubt
Everywhere an “Ad” doubt
Young Darth Harley had some doubts
A-questioning he goes
(Verse 2)
Young Darth Harley had some doubts
A-questioning he goes
And with those doubts he questioned gods
A-questioning he goes
With “never a Zeus” here
And “never a Thor” there
Here a doubt, there a doubt
Everywhere a “God” doubt
Young Darth Harley had some doubts
A-questioning he goes
CAN YOU WRITE THE NEXT VERSE IN THIS SONG?
Darth Harley was snoring loudly at the back of World Religions class while Li’l Yoda took detailed notes of the class discussion:
Y: “Wake up, Harley!,” Yoda chirped, “You’re going to get in trouble!”
H: “Oops, sorry, what did I miss?”
Y: “Li’l Richard is arguing with the teacher again that Jesus never existed.”
H: “I like Li’l Richard, he’s so random! What passage are they arguing over?”
Y: Mark 4:11-12. “It’s weird:”
11 And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; 12 in order that
‘they may indeed look, but not perceive,
and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’”
H: “What does Ritchie think it means?”
Y: “He says only those who were part of the Christian club knew Jesus was a mythical being who was never on earth, while maybe Mark was trying to trick the people who were not part of the club to think Jesus was a man killed on earth.”
H: “Well, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean that, because the club members wouldn’t be shown to be violent at Jesus’ arrest if they knew all along he was supposed to die.”
Y: So what do you think it means?
H: “It’s interesting, and really a random passage. I think it might have to do with the “guilt by association” of Jesus’s followers who were as guilty as Jesus was in the public eye. Think about the young man in Mark who was seen as guilty as the naked Adam:”
51 A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, 52 but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked. (Mark 14:51-52)
H: “But, in the tomb he was clothed in righteousness in God’s eyes because he followed Jesus who was not really a criminal but rather the holiest of holy men:”
As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in white. (Mark 16:5)
** For an example of a scholar arguing Mark may be trying to trick outsiders (not followers) into thinking Jesus was a real person who was killed, see Dr. Richard Carrier, time 20:42 here
Harley stood nervously in front of his class and read out loud the quotation he had found:
** “In consequence, if the world is beautiful, that fact would be evidence for God’s existence.” (Swinburne, Richard, The Existence of God, OUP, 2nd Edition, 2004,)
“So,” Harley said, “for my reader response to this quote I would like to read a short poem I wrote.”
Harley took a deep breath, remembering as best he could, and recited his poem about The Fall Season:
Such a lovely time is Fall
Treats and pumpkins, masks and all.
Gorgeous colors on the trees
No doubt that God painted the leaves.
Or are the colors really masks
Secrets for someone who asks?
Such a lovely time is Fall
Playing in the leaves that fall.
Harley’s teacher thanked him, and mentioned his poem seemed to have a hidden meaning. Harley chuckled and said:
“The only thing difficult about my poem was remembering all those lines!”
