Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Pew Report: Religiously unaffiliated people face harassment in a growing number of countries.

Who the author of this work is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the object for attention is the work itself, not the author, said Thomas Paine.

In West Virginia a new introduced ‘Life at conception’ bill violates the Constitution.

Councillors take a stand over ‘inappropriate’ Christian prayers at meetings.

How blasphemy laws are used to serve political ends.

What is an atheist doing at a religious freedom summit?

American Atheists board members exit, dogged by misconduct allegations.

World of Woo: COVID and Myocarditis.

Environment: Hydro-power could help developing nations decarbonize.

The myth of academic indoctrination.

On testing students in the age of ChatGPT.

Why are flood myths so common in stories from ancient cultures around the world?

Have any of Earth’s creatures stopped evolving?

What is the Universe expanding into?

There is a web conference next month on advancing human dignity and development that you may like to register for. I will post links to the recording at a later date.

Long Reads: The latest Crusade to place Religion over the rest of Civil Society. The rise of Spirit Warriors on the Christian Right. Religious people all over the world insist that their beliefs should control what everyone else can say, look at, or know about. A brief history of Scepticism. When you turn 50 you get the face you deserve 😊 The Rift Valley is the only place where human history can be seen in its entirety.

Podcast:  Richard Dawkins on critical thinking and pernicious delusions.

Sunday Book Club: The Milky Way, an autobiography of our galaxy.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Video:  Tom Holland & AC Grayling: Did Christianity give us our human values?

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week everyone!

[StregaModerator]

Thanks Reg!

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

Great collection of stories to explore as always!

Here’s a story to share with all of our Theist foils who like to tell us that Atheism is synonymous with Communism and Twentieth Century Democide. It seems that Joseph Stalin’s greatest propaganda agent in the U.S. was a Roman Catholic Priest.

Duped by Stalin and Putin
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/duped-by-stalin-and-putin

[AutumnParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

The myth of academic indoctrination.

It’s impossible to avoid everything that could remotely resemble indoctrination in an environment where you educate or instruct. A disingenuous person could quite easily make specious claims that any teaching is indoctrination and get traction with it for no less than two reasons that come to mind first and foremost:

i) New knowledge or theory can be destabilizing if it challenges existing orthodoxy. Look at the academic material that gets challenged most frequently and you’ll find a pretty consistent theme of information that has the potential to undermine current social structures and hierarchies. This creates the potential for change, and the potential for change may mean instability, uncertainty, and insecurity. This triggers fear which in turn fuels cognitive bias. Cognitive bias drives those afflicted to look for anything that undermines challenging new ideas, so painting those new ideas as hypocritical, liberal ideology is rather appealing.

Of course it’s reductive to say that’s always the case. I’m just saying when we look at human rights issues, environmental issues, economic issues, issues that undermine religious world views, justice and law enforcement issues, there is often a reflexive, knee-jerk response to resist change at all costs.

ii) Most of us don’t think all that much about pedagogy, inquiry, and the critical thought processes that go into advancing knowledge. We know that there were periods in history where draconian measures were employed to silence dissent and cement oppression. As a result, we know how censorship can lead to serious harms. But the antithesis to that isn’t a ‘say anything approach’.

Imagine you had strep throat and the doctor amputated your foot, then prescribed several rounds of chemotherapy. On realizing that rather than heal you, the doctor caused harm, imagine we concluded it was immoral to have doctors instead and each person should approach maladies by doing what-the-fuck-ever. While this may prevent a certain amount of harm, it also denies potential good. The answer isn’t to ban doctors, but rather to use appropriate treatments to address the appropriate malady, and to continue advancing medical knowledge for better and more accurate treatments going forward.

Which is not to suggest that we need better structured censorship, but rather to say we can’t just focus on how not to harm; we also have to focus on how to build. Which means academic institutions are going to have to have a certain degree of rigour which means some ideas will be taught over others because we have reliable means of determining which have more merit, and this is not the same as political indoctrination or draconian censorship.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

Of course it’s reductive to say that’s always the case. I’m just saying when we look at human rights issues, environmental issues, economic issues, issues that undermine religious world views, justice and law enforcement issues, there is often a reflexive, knee-jerk response to resist change at all costs.

This cognitive bias makes sense in some ways.  If it ain’t broke, why fix it?  Tradition and culture are naturally conservative things.

New ideas had better be good, or we’re not going to listen.  I find this all the time in doing philosophy.  To get someone to listen to new ideas, the bar is very high regarding being well-informed and relevant.  This may be because everyone is already invested in their pet ideas, and they think these are the best ones already.

If someone is screaming their new ideas at you, saying “don’t think, just listen”, and “if you disagree, you’re evil” – it doesn’t make those ideas look very appealing.  However, the door is always open to those who come calmly with evidence.

[AutumnParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

This cognitive bias makes sense in some ways. If it ain’t broke, why fix it? Tradition and culture are naturally conservative things. New ideas had better be good, or we’re not going to listen.

You say it makes sense, but then follow with a response that is non-sequitur to what I wrote.

If someone is screaming their new ideas at you, saying “don’t think, just listen”, and “if you disagree, you’re evil” – it doesn’t make those ideas look very appealing.  However, the door is always open to those who come calmly with evidence.

Bullshit.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

You say it makes sense, but then follow with a response that is non-sequitur to what I wrote.

I’m saying that if people want to take us in a new direction, then it needs to be a good new direction, for good reasons.

Autumn wrote:

If someone is screaming their new ideas at you, saying “don’t think, just listen”, and “if you disagree, you’re evil” – it doesn’t make those ideas look very appealing. However, the door is always open to those who come calmly with evidence.

Bullshit.

Which part of it is bullshit?  My door is always open to people who come calmly with evidence.  It makes their ideas look credible.

[NoelParticipant]

Thanks Reg: long time. Hope you’ve been well. On your advice downloaded a Kindle version of “The Milky Way, an autobiography of our galaxy”.  Enjoying it so far and giggling every time I find myself thinking about The Milky Way speaking to me in the first person.

[AutumnParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I’m saying that if people want to take us in a new direction, then it needs to be a good new direction, for good reasons.

Again, this has nearly nothing to do with what I wrote.

Autumn wrote:

Which part of it is bullshit? My door is always open to people who come calmly with evidence. It makes their ideas look credible.

Ideas are credible based on the ideas themselves. If I say “1+1=2”, the math is valid. If I say, “Hey asshole, 1+1=2”, you may not like me for saying it that way, but the math is still valid. If you’re unable to separate out those two things, then there is a problem with you. Credible arguments make a person look credible, not demeanour.

Furthermore, why do you think people end up shouting and screaming much of the time? I mean, seriously, think about it.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

there is often a reflexive, knee-jerk response to resist change at all costs.

That’s true, there often is a reflexive knee-jerk response to resist change at all costs.  I think this is for two reasons: 1) people are naturally conservative – in their state of nature – because they just don’t like new ideas; 2) they might think “if you win, I lose” – that life is a zero-sum game (i.e., narcissists, who are competitive in their outlook, think like this) whereas for humans, generally, the name of the game is win-win.  If you do well, then so do I, as a direct result.

Credible arguments make a person look credible, not demeanour.

In a way I completely agree with you.  But we’re not talking about mathematics.  We’re talking about human beings trying to sell ideas to other human beings about how to live.  If the ideas “vendors” come across like bullying brats – it doesn’t make those ideas look attractive.  Why would I want to also be a bullying brat?

Furthermore, why do you think people end up shouting and screaming much of the time? I mean, seriously, think about it.

I get it.  But there’s a big difference between shouting and screaming, and bullying and intimidation.  People resent being bullied and intimidated, and they push back.

 

[AutumnParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I get it. But there’s a big difference between shouting and screaming, and bullying and intimidation. People resent being bullied and intimidated, and they push back.

You don’t get it. The screaming you are complaining about typically IS the pushback, not the push.

If you go back to the top of our exchange, you’ll see I am not talking absent context. The context is the idea of academic indoctrination. When we’re talking about critical race theory, queer theory, climate science, we are talking about reasonably presented, academic subjects. There also exist academic criticisms. But in mainstream society, we also encounter an issue of hysterical overreaction. People who know fuck all about CRT, sexual orientation and gender identity, climate science (etc.) instead of getting informed about what’s actually being and making reasoned arguments will resort of borderline ad homs by claiming CRT is indoctrination.

Does everyone do that? Of course not, but it’s a sociological phenomenon large enough to have wide scale impacts in political and media spheres. It’s what props up a DeSantis and what reduces our responsiveness as a society to our emerging understanding of human diversity and need.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Yes, people do get a hysterical overreaction to things like CRT, sexual orientation, gender identity etc.  But the woke people have given a gift to the reactionary Right, by actually trying to indoctrinate students – to try to force them to believe certain ideas.  “Progressives” trying to force the issue and trying to indoctrinate people gives people like DeSantis a “semi”.  It’s like all his birthdays and Christmases came at once.

 

[AutumnParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

But the woke people have given a gift to the reactionary Right, by actually trying to indoctrinate students – to try to force them to believe certain ideas. “Progressives” trying to force the issue and trying to indoctrinate people gives people like DeSantis a “semi”. It’s like all his birthdays and Christmases came at once.

What indoctrination? This is the whole point. It’s easy to label teaching as indoctrination so as to dismiss ideas without having to actually rationally refute them. DeSantis doesn’t need there to be actual indoctrination for him to cry wolf over it. Honestly, we’ve just gone in a big circle back to the original article our resident fronkey expert linked.

[DavisModerator]

Simon, you could argue that teaching children that racism is harmful (and to be kind to one another) is also indoctrination. Or that “war should be avoided if possible” is indoctrination. In fact, you could argue that teaching anything you disagree with or at least, is even mildly progressive or controversial, is indoctrination. I fail to see what the problem is with discussing with children that people are born with characteristics that they did not choose and that disparaging, hurting or bullying such people is harmful to them and even to everyone in the long run. This is true. It isn’t even an opinion. This is not indoctrination. Calling it so is just a tactic to maintain the status quo of biggotry.

[Author]

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