Posted: Jul 19, 2010 2:37 am
Woocache wrote:
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Another example I can think of is Francis Collins, the leader of the Human Genome Project. He famously converted to Christianity in adult life (if I recall correctly, he saw three frozen waterfalls and was instantly convinced him the Trinity is real... or something). That is not a failure of his schooling.
Yes, it is a failure of his schooling. It's one thing to be taught that "Critical thinking is what you do in a science lab." It's another thing entirely to have the teacher give you the proverbial smack upside the head with "You need to be critical of your cherished beliefs too. You can't compartmentalize them. If they can't hold their own, you have to pitch them, just like you would a scientific hypothesis. Beliefs are not things to be cherished in the first place."
Critical thought is not something that most people just instinctively do. You have to be taught it. And right now, the US education system royally sucks at it. Last time I was in school, science was rote memorization and the occasional "let's see what we can dig outta the pond!" trip.
That is a failure of an adult to engage with reality on an existential level and come to terms with it without reaching out to an imaginary omnipotent father figure to help him through life. How does that happen?
Uh what? Collins converted because he saw a waterfall frozen in three stages, was overwhelmed by it's beauty, and went "OMG, ONLY GOD COULD DO THAT!" Because.... he doesn't THINK outside a lab, apparently.
I have to wonder what his reasons for not believing in the first place were. Because it's been my experience that non-believers who convert for whatever reason, usually were non-believers for BAD reasons to begin with. If you rationally reasoned your way to atheism, it requires a rational reason to get you to change you mind. And since religion is pretty irrational, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for those types to convert. On the other hand, if you were an atheist for emotional reasons, all you need is an emotional reason to convert. And religion has tons of those. It's about the only thing they DO have. And it's not taught, pretty much ANYWHERE mainstream, that emotional reasons are not good enough for such hefty things. And so, we come back to education.