Journal - Day 8 03/04/2003 
Journals:
This time we did discuss Dr. Rivas' Pascalian Wager. Several of the youths did not understand why he might say an Atheist had to have more FAITH in order to remain an Atheist.
We only covered 2 questions.
9. Why were "There are many areas where Bible was not followed as it should have been, but two are outstanding?" page 113 bottom
10. Why is this said to be so? "... yet the church, as the church, did not speak out sufficiently against them (slavery and the noncompassionate use of wealth)." page 113 bottomThe class went for 2 hours and only ended because I thought it was time. I am still the main lecturer which is still unfortunate. None the less, I can see the students are expanding their horizons.
Along with a report on guilt, I should have also assigned a report on Political Correctness.
We may have only covered 4 questions, but we had some discussion today for a change. These questions had been taken from my old Journal rather than this particular chapter. None the less, we got somewhere.
The questions discussed were...11. What does this statement mean?
[John Locke continues then with the use of children to make his point. "If therefore these two propositions; 'Whatsoever is, is,' and 'it is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be,' are by nature imprinted, children cannot be ignorant of them; infants, and all that have souls, must necessarily have them in their understandings, know the truth of them, and assent to it."]
John Locke "The Egocentric Predicament" handout.12. What does this sentence mean?
["The concept of causality cannot be legitimately extended beyond the objects of possible sense experience, and therefore cannot be extended to God."]
Causality - David Hume handout.13. What are realism, nominalism, conceptualism?
The Water Shed Principle handout.14. Why did Amendment XVIII turn some cultural values towards liquors into a Constitutional Amendment (law)?
We've been over the Water Shed Principle a lot in this class. We have used the term "Logical Out workings" and I would hope the students note small decisions may seem inconsequential, but if they would think out where it may lead (Logical outworkings), they may find it is a very poor choice indeed.
We finished up question 14 and then moved onto question #15. Two questions. You know what? We have discussions!
14. Why did Amendment XVIII turn some cultural values towards liquors into a Constitutional Amendment (law)?
15. What does this saying mean? "Forty acres and a mule"
(Reparations - http://www.ncobra.com - handout, bottom page 2)It would seem letting them read my response to their questions -- and -- may having included a number of questions in my responses, do indeed provide room for discussion.
Some revelations which were surprises to me in attitudes and opinions. I, the teacher, is not pressing any of the students too hard on their positions. I just want them stated. As we progress through the book and we become exposed to more and more different ideas, their attitudes and opinions may change a number of time. Still, here is one plus and two minuses.
- Christians can declare something is morally unethical. A humanist cannot since they have hold to no moral absolutes.
- The perceived advantages or personal desires trump immorality.
- There is a limit to how much wealth one might have after which the rest should be taken from them and redistributed to others.
We talked for over an hour on the next question:
16. What is meant by this statement? Poverty like wealth is intergenerational, inherited?
(Reparations - advocate argues for redressing America's debt to blacks - handout, bottom page 1)We'll be back on this question later when it comes up during the chapter too. Well, we do have discussions now. That is good.
After the had tugged and pulled upon this idea that people in poverty inherently do not know how to manage any assets if they had any, I saw the following new clipping...[Low-Income Homes Play More Video Games-Study
Apr 1, 1:21 pm ET
By Ben Berkowitz
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - People in homes where the annual income is less than $35,000 a year spend about 50 percent more time a week playing video games than those in homes with incomes above $74,000, according to a study released on Tuesday.
The study from Jupiter Research, released at the start of a two-day games industry conference in Los Angeles, also found that overall, teenagers spend less time playing games than watching TV, going online or listening to the radio. However, game playing occupied more of their time than reading books and magazines, it said. ]Once we started into Chapter 5, we hadn't gone far before I realized I didn't have very many good examples of rights. My solution was to turn that short coming into a homework assignment.
Questions Asked:
All the questions were covered during the class.
- Why did Dr. Zacharias claim an Atheist must have more faith to be an Atheist than a Christian needs to be a Christian?
- What is Political Correctness?
Discussions:
After reviewing my answer to question #9, we attempted to get the students to look at the statement objectively and critically. Mr. Shaeffer, the author, claimed two issues were outstanding. Was it the truth, or an assertion? There were a number of issues which seemed to be perhaps of more weight. The problem with penance, for example.
Also, the students seemed to equate the seriousness of an issue in history with today. That is, if slavery is not an issue today, then it wasn't 150 years ago.
The 9th and 10th question deal with guilt. This turned out to be a good time to include their reports on guilt. The question which is most trouble some to the students is how we can be guilty of whatever wrongs our grandparents may or may not have done.
We discussed Political Correctness and attempted to see how Mr. Shaeffer struggled with this chapter, burdened as he was will Political Correct guilt as he seems to have been.
We did have one analogy which may be repeatable.
If there were 10 people who were going to play basketball. The students may presume they are one of the captains. They are going to choose up teams. Now, 9 of the people wishing to play basketball are white and one is black. The black boy is also almost 2 feet shorter than the rest of the potential players.
Question:
- Who is most likely to be picked last?
- Why would that person be picked last?
- Why would anyone make excuses or try to point out the reason this person was picked last?
- If there was no black player to be picked, would anyone make an excuse as to why who ever was last, was last?
- What is this element which is at play when there was a black player and not present when there wasn't a black player?
- Why would not everyone just suppose the black player was picked last because he was so much shorter?
This element which is present only in prescribed circumstances is guilt and it's delivery method is Political Correctness. One of the ways we describe Political Correctness is "Society Approved Guilt". It doesn't have to be so much of society as to be ALL of society, but rather, a vocal portion of society.
We've not even gotten to Affirmative Action, but, one looks at the analogy above, one might see how Political Correctness will enforce Affirmative Action even if there were no laws to enforce it. After all, more than one student figured they needed to pick the black boy other than last. Now, what possible motivation could encourage them to pick the shortest player 2nd or 3rd, if not, FIRST?Day 9:
The greatest discussion was with our values becoming law. We substituted other issues rather than alcohol in our discussions, such as,
Presuming you felt cigarettes were immoral, would you buy gas at a gas station which sold cigarettes? Would you buy gas from a gas station which sold cigarettes and offered gas at 10 cents less than the gas station across the street which does not sell cigarettes.
We also picked on SUVs.
Our discussion of caused and not causes ran into "other dimensions".Day 10:
If you wanted to tear down your neighbors house and put in miniature golf, should you be able to?
- What if your neighbor doesn't want to sell?
- What if everyone in the neighborhood agrees with you that it is a great idea?
- What if you raise the money way, way high, and still he will not sell?
- Is it unethical to go other routes to get the house by forcing the neighbor to sell - legally?
We have had some revelations just trying to decide if it was ethical to take the land away from 70,000 southerners to give to former slaves. Both from the angle of helping the down trodden and also as punitive damages.
The 14, 15, and 16th amendment were read and discussed. The statement had been made that nothing need to done for the black slaves beyond these three amendments. The consensus was these three amendments did deal with the slave issue adequately --- however, Amendment 15 was pointed not at the blacks so much but rather as punitive actions against the South.
Revelation - if Amendment 15 were literally interpreted (and not reserved against the Civil War south only), there would be many whose careers would be in jeopardy. Amendment 15 claims no one who has ever given comfort and aid to the enemy may hold public office. Know anyone in the public eye who has given aid and comfort to the enemy?Day 11:
We now have a number of different views going. We are not pushing hard to change anyone's views on any issue. When we get further into the book I am sure many views will change, and change again.
- One believes there should be limits on the wealth and income one could make. Beyond some point, everything else should be redistributed to others.
- Wealth and Poverty are not inherited qualities.
- Wealth and Poverty predispositions come from the environment we grow up in.
- A society (humanistic) cannot have inalienable rights if they do not believe in God.
Various suggestions were made about how we could help people learn how to care for their assets. It just didn't seem credible to the students there were people who would not attend a class on finance and budgets if it were made available to them.
The students picked up on the hypocrisy of the statement which suggests all blacks are always poor because they are born poor, and yet Mr. Randall, the presenter of the proposal, is not exactly poor any longer. There are also all these black millionaires.
To get out of the Black / White analogy we keep falling back into, we looked to some other classifications such as "Red Neck". It would probably do to have a better analogy, although the Red Neck with their trailer and all sort of worked.
At first, the students were very much opposed to being asked to pay any reparations. When we modified the proposal so it only applied to those in States south of Tennessee, it became much more palatable. You can read into this they didn't necessarily buy my argument if poor people inherit a tendency to blow away their assets, giving them a hand out isn't going to help the next generation at all.
Assignments:
None.
Should have had them each locate one article a piece which includes an example of Political Correctness and which also did not use any of the terms we've been using like PC or guilt. Might assign this next week.
Day 11 - We have Homework:
- Create two lists.
- One list will be all the unalienable rights
- and the second will be Man's rights.
- List all the rights touted by the United Nations (a humanistic organization)
Plan for Next Week:
