Interview with a Christian school superintendent
Brian Flemming, a former fundamentalist Christian, goes back to interview Dr. Sipus, the superintendent of Fleming's Christian grade school, Village Christian in California. The interview grows heated when Flemming questions the wisdom of teaching children religious belief as fact. The scene is from the documentary, "The God Who Wasn’t There."
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Comments
Grouper put the most insane video of someone pulling faces after that one. I never honestly thought that pulling faces could be that funny (Jim Carrey aside).
So, appeals to authority and popularity, the proof from lack of proof of the negative, poisoning the well, false dilemma. Where is philosophy 101 when you need it?
Like math, I think our public education system has somehow come to believe that philosophy is too hard for most kids to get. Unlike math, people generally seem to think that philosophy is not of practical value, so it is even less worth the effort.
During my time as an intelligence officer, I found it useful to appoint one of my team members to be the assumption terminator in our analytical meetings. Armed with a long list of commonly recognized logical fallacies, his role was to raise his hand, call out the fallacy and conclude with "...assumption terminated pending restatement."
Can we have a few more of these people please?
As for the funny faces guy that followed the interview, I thought he was a fitting continuation of the argument, but speaking in tongues. He was as effective as the superintendent in swaying my belief; perhaps even more so, since his unintelligible utterances did less to offend reason.
I absolutely love your idea of the "assumption terminator". What a brilliant idea. Just imagine where we might be today if out current administration had adopted such a policy.
Great post, Joe. You nailed it.
What sheep. Say baaa then run away. Coward, stand and fight like a man.
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