Thinking about Thinking

Honest Omar got Kadizzle reading a book about how the mind operates.  This morning The New York Times ran an article about the same subject. How many people ever stop to think about how they think. Are we rational?  Of course not.  Billions of people believe in strange entities in the sky.  You have superstition, and on it goes.  The question is how do you get people to believe things contrary to what is real?

Kadizzle has two daughters and he like to think both of them are well endowed intellectually.  Can you raise intelligent children or more precisely can you teach children to think?  You can surely give them some very bad thinking habits.  Take them to church and give them a good dose of indoctrination. Religion has a debilitating effect on thinking and sadly it is one of the worst things you can do to young people.  How does religion teach children to think?  Religion legitimizes believing in things that are not provable or factual.  Religion teaches children not to question, but to simply obey.  Religion teaches children so many bad thinking habits the list is endless.

Most knowledge is gained by questioning and observation.  Kadizzle taught his children to question. Question authority.  Because someone is the Pope, or the Mayor, or the Teacher, that gives them no special access to reality.  Things are not always what they appear is an important concept to give children.  The Earth appears to be flat and it makes sense, but dig deeper.

Don't be afraid to say " I don't know".   When your children ask you a difficult question like " Is there a god?".  Be an adult, simply say " I don't know".  You don't know.  When my kids and I got into this kind of discussion Kadizzle would say " I don't know, but some people believe...."   Giving children a sense of certainty is great, but if you destroy their mind in the process it is a sin.

One of the greatest modern tragedies are the people that home school their children.  They keep them home and indoctrinate them.  Those parents rob their children of reality.  Fortunately it often fails and the minds imprisoned by idiocy break out and come alive.

Currently Republicans are bent on destroying public education.  A good crop of stupid people serves the Republican party well.  Get the religious to help and you pave the way for more Trumps.