If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people. –House
You know, the stereotype is that religion is pretty much all ABOUT taking authority at face value. Stereotypes don’t arise in a context-free vacuum, after all.
Do you suppose you could assist with resolving the cognitive dissonance your syllogism above creates when juxtaposed with that stereotype and its context?
Make Demon Haunted Word required reading. And, as others have noted, have a comparative religion type class. I think that neither of these are odious or onerous to the students, and it would at least minimally equip them with both a basic bullshit detection kit AND at least some idea of what other religions are about.
That may be a stereotype that exists among some people. I do not believe that all stereotypes have validity. I think that some are entirely false.
Jesus Christ, the world’s most famous religious figure, was executed because he defied the authority figures in the country where he lived. This fact doesn’t seem to agree with the claim that religion is all about taking authority at face value. Even if we limit ourselves to just the history of Christianity, we can find millions of people who have endured death or other types of persecution because they refused to submit to authority. Millions still do, in countries such as China and Cuba where the government still seeks to stamp out or limit religion, as well as places such as Saudi Arabia where the government seeks to stamp out any religion but Islam.
On a more personal note, my intellectual life unfolded in a way that directly contradicts the stereotype you put forward. That is to say, when I was a child I had a tendency to accept whatever teachers, professors, scientists and other authority figures at face value. It was only when I stopped doing so and began free intellectual exploration on my own that I started on the path that lead to conversion.
Except in the case of “personal religion,” which is more like, you know, the direct mystical experience of a hermit-monk or visionary; which does depend on rejection of authority, but not on logic or reason.
That never applies to a religion’s founder, of course; he gets his authority straight from God, like Muhammad, or from his own visionary intuition, like Buddha. But, you know, founders are rare.
I generally ignored this thread because I’ve got no interest in anti-religious instruction. But something kind of cool happened in my third-grade classroom today. Long story ahead:
I’m doing a mini-unit specifically on the scientific method, in between units on specific areas of knowledge (skeletal system, solar system, etc.); we’ll refer back to this mini-unit in later studies. Last week we did a series of fun experiments to try to figure out how soap and dye interact, and we followed a simplified scientific method to cycle between questions, hypotheses, experiments, and conclusions.
Today I had a shortened time for a lesson, so I figured I’d do a read-aloud about the moon, beginning with a KWL chart on the SmartBoard (i.e., a three-column chart: What I Know, what I Want to know, what I Learned, displayed on our touch-sensitive wall screen). Through this lesson I’d emphasize the value of understanding science through research.
Problem was, the SmartBoard started acting crazy every time I tried to write on it, making crazy slashing scrawled lines across the screen, much to the amusement of the class.
In one of my better pedagogical moments, I flipped the lesson around. "Here’s a problem, I said. “Let’s use the scientific method to solve it.”
First, I asked if anyone had a question. “What THE HECK is going on with that thing?” a student volunteered.
Here’s what the scientific method eventually looked like for this inquiry:
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Question, as phrased by a student: “What THE HECK is wrong with that thing?”
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Gather knowledge, explaining how the SmartBoard works and what an input device is.
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Hypothesis: “I think the problem is with the computer, not with the SmartBoard.”
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Experiment: “If my hypothesis is correct, when I use the mouse, it’ll also not work.”
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Collect data: “Oh, look, the mouse works!”
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Conclusion: My hypothesis was incorrect.
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New question: “If the computer is working, what’s wrong with the SmartBoard?”
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Gather knowledge: “The problem seems to be worst in the upper left corner of the SmartBoard.”
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Hypothesis: “I think that the SmartBoard is misaligned.”
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Experiment: “If my hypothesis is correct, when I align the SmartBoard (i.e., run a short app that involves touching the board in 9 specific locations), the problem will disappear.”
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Collect data: “I aligned the SmartBoard, and now it’s working fine!”
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Conclusion: The SmartBoard was misaligned.
Afterwards, I explained to them that there was a different approach to explaining computer problems: blame it on evil spirits. “Have any of you ever heard someone say, ‘this computer hates me’?” I asked, and of course everyone raised their hands. I said that this was a very tempting explanation, but it wasn’t one that resulted in very many fixed computers. If you use the scientific method to explain computer problems, I said, people will think you’re a computer genius.
This absolutely wasn’t an attempt at anti-religious instruction. But in retrospect, I realized I contrasted supernatural explanations for phenomena with natural explanations and showed the superiority of the latter category, so I suppose it kind of was anti-religious in a sense.
Nonsense; how does a guy getting squashed by authority figures not uphold the idea that you are supposed to just shut up and obey them? He wasn’t an authority figure then.
You handled a very teachable moment with skill. I think part of teaching critical thinking is helping them to see that natural explanations are appropriate in a classroom and that those things that some call “supernatural” may be quite natural, but at this point are not proven to be. I don’t think that your stance was anti-religious at all. You drew an appropriate line.
Skeptics should remain open-minded as part of their critical thinking skills, don’t you think?
Open minded to any evidence that comes in supporting a claim-yes. Open minded to concepts that have no evidence for, and plenty of evidence against-no.