Why critical thinking is so important for kids

I don’t normally delve into religion or politics in this blog – but, I think recent events make an excellent case for why as parents; we need to ensure that our kids learn how to think critically. And this goes for all parents of all backgrounds and not just for humanist parents.

Recently a 19 year old boy was arrested at the airport as he tried to leave to go to Syria to aid ISIL. His parents are horrified. This is not what they taught him to value.  They are upset that ISIL is brain washing kids in this way.  They make a pretty good case that – look – he’s a kid – he’s stupid – he really didn’t understand the consequences of what he was planning to do and he came under the influence of a really bad cult.

I want to provide a quote from the interview Anderson Cooper did with his parents at (http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/01/16/ac-intv-khan-durkin-isis-teen-parents.cnn) I want to draw your attention specifically to a comment made by his mother. This is not an exact quote because I left out the ums and you know, but it’s mostly correct.

When asked what she would say to other parents whose kids are watching these ISIL recruitment videos who may be unaware of the risk, she basically said,

 “Maybe the mistake we made. We were trying to protect our children. We were trying to protect our culture and our values.  But maybe that was a mistake. I would tell them to expose their children more to what is going on in the world. Help them develop critical thinking skills, to differentiate between the good guys and the bad guys.”

Why is this important?  Because her son was recruited by a violent cult and she had not prepared him properly to differentiate between good religion and bad religion.  She had taught him – to protect the culture and the values of that culture in the form of their religion – and THAT’s what made him vulnerable to recruitment by the cult.

The solution – learned too late to help her son – is to be more secular. Do not insulate yourself within your community. Expose yourself and your children to different ways of thinking – so they know what’s out there and so they learn – not to believe everything they are told.

And mostly – teach them that it’s not faith that makes you a good person. It’s how you choose to act.

Animalism or humanism

To be brutish or good.
That is the question.

Found this post on the Pakistan Observer website. (See: Animalism or humanism) It annoys me. Only a religious person could turn Humanism into a false dichotomy between acting civilized and acting like an animal. Being a Humanist does not mean thinking we are the pinnacle of creation as this writer claims. That is a religious idea, not a Humanist one. The Humanist does not deify humans. We simply strive to be the best human we can be.

Humanists know we are animals. We are human animals. And so there is no conflict between us choosing to be human or choosing to be animal. We are both. I realize this guy was just trying to extol people to be good people instead of brutish. The point is that we can be both wonderful and/or brutish. That is our nature as Humans.

I don't think that believing we are the pinnacle of god's creation is going to help us control our brutish impulses. Quite the opposite actually. It is when people believe they can do no wrong because they are the pinnacle of god's creation, that they feel most justified in giving free rein to their most brutish impulses instead of trying to control them.

We do not need to think of ourselves as the pinnacle of creation to choose to be good. We simply need to choose to be good despite the fact our animal tendencies, in addition to encouraging us towards compassion, can also encourage us towards brutishness. Denying those brutish impulses doesn't help us control them.

Religious versus Intellectual Humility

I got an email the other day from someone trying to convert me to Christianity. Very nice email unlike some I get. But one thing about it bothered me. She was talking about how humble she is before god and then goes on to be annoyingly arrogant. It might just be me, but it seems extraordinarily condescending to claim to know god’s will to the point you feel justified in labeling your fellow co-religionists as unworthy. Clearly being humble before god does not necessarily make someone a humble person.

Anyway, to my point. When Humanists talk about the importance of humility, we are talking about intellectual humility. And on behalf of the entire Freethought movement I am going to issue a collective “our bad” for not making this point clear earlier. Being intellectually humble means that regardless of how sure you are that you are right, you are open to being proved wrong. And this is important because religious certitude in addition to being really annoying can also be quite dangerous. The only known antidote for religious certitude is intellectual humility