I lucked onto a new writer, Dan Arel, who impresses me ~ his running theme is "religious silliness", hence the thread title ~ I'll post several of his more recent columns here as time allows ~ I'm hoping this becomes our latest recurring thread ~

Sooz

A very thought-provoking read ~ Sooz

Dangerous Little Books / By Dan Arel
Learning to Think in a Society Ruled by Absurd Religion and Other Dogma
Children should be prepared to question everyone and everything.

August 22, 2014 | The following is an excerpt from Parenting Without God by Dan Arel.

One important thing to teach our children is how to think critically. It is easy to tell them they should, but it is not as easy to teach them how, mainly because we may not be that great at it ourselves.

How many atheists do you know who are anti-GMO or anti-vaccination? We know these can be smart people who took on a position that is full of emotion, misinformation or bad research methods.

Think back to earlier discussions about vaccinations when those opposed were flooding you with links, not links to scientific studies, but to blogs or “information” sites by doctors who seemed to be selling a cure-all at the same time they were telling you to avoid modern medicine.

This is a failure in critical thinking, and it's usually the result of confirmation bias. If you start off with the notion that vaccines are dangerous you will be drawn to articles that confirm your position. Instead, a position should be started from a clean slate. This is not easy to do but it is crucial.

Ask the question, “Are vaccines safe?” Then look for information from trustworthy sources and see what they say. What do medical peer review journals have to say? What do medical organizations say? What do opponents think and what are their sources? Are their sources reliable?

This same method applies to religion. Who is making the claim, and does the claim defy the laws of nature that we understand? Is there a simpler explanation for what happened? Is it possible this claim ever happened at all?

Look at Noah’s flood, with two of every single animal on the planet and a handful of human beings on a single boat. First look at the logistics. How big would the boat need to be and how much food would be required? What about the carnivorous animals? If you only brought two of each, what did the lions eat for an entire trip?

This alone makes the story seem implausible, but then look at the scientific evidence. Have we found a boat that could have done this? Surely a boat of this size must have some rather impressive remains somewhere in the world. How about the placement of animals; did Noah go around and drop each animal off at its particular continent after the flood subsided? How did he do this?

Then we can look at the archeological evidence. Fossils form best in wet conditions. So just imagine the archeological goldmine left behind from this massive flood that would have drowned billions of creatures. What have we found? To date we have found nothing suggesting a flood of this magnitude. It seems fairly reasonable to conclude there was no flood. No mass killings of people and animals. This is nothing but a myth, and can be treated as such.

Thinking critically about such an issue is rather simple to find a logical conclusion. This can be used for every tale in the Bible. From talking snakes to virgin births, we can look at these stories and apply the same critical thinking skills to them.

Our children should be using this method every day in all matters of life. With claims from friends, family, parents, and teachers, they should be well prepared to question everyone and everything. Doing this also allows them to become their own person and not simply a carbon copy of what people are telling them to be.

Many of us, especially those who grew up in religion, had it engrained that the questioning of claims is frowned upon and God has an exact plan for who we should be. Many never break out of that cycle and allow those they consider authorities to dictate how their lives should be led. The generation we want to raise would be a generation that questions everything, from religion to government and even science.

We often imagine we cannot question science, but the core of scientific research is questioning. That is what peer-review is all about. Theists, especially creationists, often claim we all have faith in science, or call science a religion because we simply accept what scientists say. This could not be further from the truth. However, this is something important we should be teaching our children. The method in which we apply critical thinking to science, the scientific method and the rigorous testing scientific ideas are put through ensures that only sound ideas come out the other end as scientifically valid. All the others are discarded as nonsense or failures.

Pseudoscience exists because some people lack the ability to discard disproven or untestable ideas. From homeopathy to astrology, science discards claims, yet people insist on continuing to believe these claims. People who hold onto these ideas and continue to believe them lack critical thinking skills.

Pseudoscience is a strong example of the dangers of not applying critical thinking skills to real life. Many people lose the battle with treatable cancer because they believe nonsense claims by alternative medicine practitioners who have a "cure" that has never been tested, or if it has, failed.

The Burzynski Clinic in Texas offers such a service, despite FDA warning that its treatments are not only unproven, but its advertising and claims are deemed to be unlawful. It has been sued for misleading patients, insurance fraud and not being up to state medical standards. Yet it remains open for business, offering a cure that is too good to be true, while people who are not using critical thinking skills continue to throw all their money at this fraud, no matter the results.

How many TV evangelists have we seen in our lifetime who can heal those who cannot walk or see, or help someone overcome addiction, by placing their hands on someone’s head, yelling prayers or speaking in incoherent tongues? Then boom, the people are healed, up walking and dancing, while the audience goes crazy and throws money at the pastor and church to continue this miraculous healing.

This is all a fraud: everyone involved is in on the secret. Faith healers know that people want to believe in miracles; they want to believe so badly they will suspend reality to do so. We are eager to believe in things outside the laws of nature, like the paranormal, even though we know that no evidence ever supports such claims.

It may be crazy, but think about it. How many people do you know who do not believe in God, yet seem to think ghosts are possible Maybe even you. But think about it: you don’t believe in a soul or an afterlife, yet you believe we somehow stay alive after death, or some or our energy sticks around. Even skeptical thinkers can fall victim to thoughts like this. We seemed to be evolutionarily primed for it.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/learning-think-society-ruled-absurd-religion-and-other-dogma?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

Another goody ~ I really like this guy ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

AlterNet / By Dan Arel
The Most Absurd Religious Right Headlines of the Week (and One Hopeful Humanist One)
Headlines from the spiritual and the secular.

September 12, 2014 | A remarkable week in religious news got off to a roaring start when it was revealed that former mega-church pastor Mark Driscoll once likened women to “penis homes” in a pseudonymous blog post he wrote 13 years ago. Driscoll who recently stepped down from the pulpit at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington over allegations of plagiarism and abuse of power, has now hastened the closing of church branches since his blog post (which he wrote under the name William Wallace II) was revealed.

In response to the question of why God created women, Driscoll wrote: “Knowing that His penis would need a home, God created a woman to be your wife and when you marry her and look down you will notice that your wife is shaped differently than you and makes a very nice home.”

Since the post was unearthed by the feminist blogger Libby Ann, Driscoll has refrained from further comments.

Meanwhile, on a more secular front, a poll regarding the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance revealed that a third of Americans supports re-wording the nationalistic covenant to be more inclusive. This has inspired the American Humanist Association to launch a controversial campaign asking people, religious or not, to stop saying the pledge. The association’s goal is to restore the version of the pledge to its pre-1954 form before “under God” was added during McCarthyism as a way to differentiate the U.S. from the concept of perceived communist atheism. Pre-1954 versions did not include the phrase “under God,” but read:


“We want everyone to know that the current wording of the pledge discriminates against atheists and others who are good without a god, and we want them to stand up for fairness by sitting down until the pledge is restored to its original, unifying form,” the association’s executive director Roy Speckhardt told the Washington Times.

But as secularists are trying to remove religion from the nation’s pledge, one former Republican senator suggests that the government label secularism a religion so it could be banned in schools. Rick Santorum told conservative radio host Bryan Fischer “the idea that, if you take religion out of the public square, if you take the Bible out of the classroom, that that’s neutral, well, no it’s not neutral! It’s a different worldview! I think we should start calling secularism a religion, because if we did, then we could ban that, too.”

In the past, Santorum has led the charge to put Christian values into the public sector, especially in schools where he believes the atheist worldview is being pushed on students.

To top off this eventful week in religion, a rarely used Pennsylvania law came into play that protects religious objects from desecration, even if they haven’t been physically manipulated or harmed. As part of a prank, a 14-year-old boy posted photographs of himself thrusting his crotch into the face of a kneeling Jesus statue. Under the 42-year-old law, he’s been charged with desecrating a sacred object after he posted the photographs to his Facebook page. The photos do not show the boy violating any indecency laws (he was wearing pants). The ministry where the statue is located did not press charges, but the state police are pursuing charges nonetheless.

http://www.alternet.org/most-absurd-religious-right-headlines-week-and-one-hopeful-humanist-one

For a guy who pats himself on the back constantly for being a "critical thinker" he's got a few problems.

Lets take the sub-heading of his article for a start: Children should be prepared to question everyone and everything.


Now, I know I'm a logic whore, but that's kind of important for critical thinking after all, so I'll indulge myself. That particular saying is one of those nice little homilies which we enlightened people like to spout every now and then, but on further reflection its a bowl of crock for three pretty obvious reasons:

1. Its not a smart thing to attempt at all.
2. Its impossible anyway.
AND
3. From a logical point of view its at least potentially self-contradictory.

THINK about it .....

I'm a logical person, CM, and I have no clue what point you're making ~

Sooz

Hmmmmm.

This particular "critical thinker" who thinks "everything should be questioned" doesn't critically think or question what HE says.

The first person a genuinely critical thinker questions is themselves.

As an example, he says: Our children should be using this method every day in all matters of life. With claims from friends, family, parents, and teachers, they should be well prepared to question everyone and everything. Doing this also allows them to become their own person and not simply a carbon copy of what people are telling them to be.


Its impossible to "question everything".

He's saying that children should be well prepared to do something which they can't possibly do.

Cattleman wrote:

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So, CM, since thinking critically about everything stresses our little brains beyond the breaking point, specifically what should we teach our children not to think critically about.

Even if we had super brains like "deep thought" we couldn't do it Jim, the impossibility of thinking about everything doesn't depend how how little your brain may be.

As for the particular things children shouldn't think critically about that's pretty much up to them. Things they aren't even slightly interested in might be a good place to start though.

I'm all for children thinking critically. Just not telling them they can question everything.

Now, if the guy had just said something sensible like "don't believe everything you are told" I'd be fine with it.

I'm thinking you are over-analyzing this, CM ~ first, the author did not say "question everything/everyone except me" anywhere in his writings ~ next, he is using the word "everything" not in the strictly literal sense but in the context of everything/anything that the individual thinks about or is confronted by ~ iow, he is writing a short article for the general public to express an overall concept/idea vs writing an educational treatise ~

I can understand you'd prefer the use of the word "anything" instead of "everything", but I don't see how that would materially change what the author is expressing ~ for me, simply saying "don't believe everything you are told" is more lacking in context that children and many adults would understand ~

Sooz

It all comes down to fostering curiosity in children, imo. They should be taught to question everything.

I understand what CM is saying.

Questioning whether or not the sun is shining when a look out the window suffices might illustrate the point.
Stating the sun isn't shining on a cloudy day is a total logical fallacy but does convey the intended meaning.

Lets just say we had just read an article by Dan Arel and took it to heart and we happened to be wandering through the "education" section of a library and pulled out two books at random and found different views in them.

Book 1 puts forward the view that:

Proposition 1: Children should be taught to believe everything they read in the Bible

While Book 2 puts forward the view that:

Proposition 2: Children should be taught to question everyone and everything

As good critical thinkers we immediately apply our powers of reason to an examination of proposition 1 and come up with the sort of objections that Arel mentions in the OP.

But, if we are really critical thinkers shouldn't we also apply the same powers of reasoning to proposition 2 and question it as well? In fact, isn't that what it tells us to do?

And if we do that what is the result?

All sorts of pretty obvious problems arise. "Everything" is pretty big. In fact its incredibly big. One might even say "unimaginably big". How do we question everything about something we can't know all of or even imagine in the first place? At a more manageable level, pick up any science (or other didactic) text and question "everything and everybody" written there. 20 years down the track and you might get to page 2 - but only if you fudge it. The thing is that questions lead to more questions, which lead to more questions ad infinitum.

As for the world itself rather than the world of books see Oskar's point.

The thing is that none of that is rocket science. A few minutes reflection and the multiple objections start to appear. What gets up my nose is that Arel shows zero sign of even reflecting on his own proposition. He HASN'T done what he has told the rest of us to do. In short, he displays intellectual hypocrisy.

Chaos gets it exactly right. All he had to say was "ask questions" rather than "question everything" and the problems go away. But he didn't, he took a valid point "its good to question" and converted it to the hyperbolic nonsense of "question everything".

And I'm sorry sooz, but I'm simply not willing to accept that the fact that you aren't writing a treatise, and that you are writing for "the general public" excuses sloppy thinking, especially when you are accusing others of doing precisely that. That's when you need to be as clear and precise as you possibly can be.

And I can't see why "don't believe everything you are told" is somehow more difficult for people to understand than "question everything". We've all got plenty of context for both.

And I'm with you Rose "foster curiosity" and "children should be taught to question". Just don't throw them the impossible curve ball of "everything".

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, CM ~ and vice versa ~ and I am entitled to disagree with it ~ and vice versa ~ I still like his writing and find it thought-provoking ~

Sooz

*Edited it add the comments in red above ~

Ahhhh, But our respective "entitlements" isn't the issue sooz.

To question something isn't to automatically reject it. I remember well that toddler "question everything" phase...where "why?" after "why?" after "why?" actually led to some pretty interesting places. We do stifle that natural curiosity over time, which is a shame.

However I do see a flaw in this:

It may be crazy, but think about it. How many people do you know who do not believe in God, yet seem to think ghosts are possible Maybe even you. But think about it: you don’t believe in a soul or an afterlife, yet you believe we somehow stay alive after death, or some or our energy sticks around.

Why would I have to believe in "God" to believe in an afterlife or that ghosts are possible? It's a flawed premise from the start. They are entirely different things.

Chaos, even your above post leads to more questions, which in turn leads to discussions ~ that's why I see Dan Arel as "thought-provoking" ~

Sooz

Believing in god(s) or ghosts... where's the difference?

Believing in god(s) means that one believes in an ethereal soul that comes from that god or gods and is sent back to that god or gods (or to hell, depending) upon death.

Believing in ghosts could mean that one believes we are beings made of electrical energy that hangs around after death for while. It doesn't necessarily mean that one thinks a god or gods are involved.

A huge distinction for me.

Believe what you will but it then becomes illogical to consider others' beliefs as foolish.

Didn't know you were roseanne.