US Politics Mega-thread - Page 143

On March 04 2013 05:31 sam!zdat wrote:
The 2012 republican platform for texas states explicitly, I kid you not, that they are opposed to the teaching of critical thought and "higher order" thinking.

So I had to explain a number of things: what "critical thought" is (nobody seems to know), then how "critical thought" historically develops out of critical investigation of scripture, cannot be separated from this, and is not, as the scientistic-atheistic worldview would like to believe, the natural state of man before big bad religion showed up and ruined it. That critical thought is a development from religious thought, and that religious thought is serious and should be taken seriously, studied, and treated with respect ("respect," of course, for sam includes critical examination - I believe that biblical literalism is highly disrespectful to the text and to the people who wrote it.) Basically these kids want to think that pre-modern man is just a bunch of modern positivist-worldview atheists in smelly fur clothes, and I've been trying to smack some sense into them.

edit: at the end of the day, only people who have never made any effort to understand what religion is about can dismiss it in the way that seems to now be so fashionable.

edit: The point I'm making specifically about politics is that everyone should have to encounter ideas in school that they find uncomfortable. This means sex-ed and evolution for christians, and christianity for atheists.

On March 04 2013 06:05 farvacola wrote:

So where in history would you like to posit the practice of critical thought bereft of religious or spiritual background?

On March 04 2013 04:48 ACrow wrote:
Isn't this thread supposed to be about US politics? I came here expecting to read about for example the fiscal cuts that came to enforcement on friday and instead all I see is abstract stuff about the concept of a god...
Maybe go back to topic?

On March 04 2013 06:05 farvacola wrote:

So where in history would you like to posit the practice of critical thought bereft of religious or spiritual background?

Kerry pledges millions for Egyptian budget

US secretary of state, on first state visit to Arab world, releases $190m for Cairo and urges rival factions to unite.

The United States will provide Egypt with the first $190m of a pledged $450m in budget support and an additional $60m to set up a joint enterprise fund, the US secretary of state has said.

John Kerry, on a regional tour that will take him to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, made the pledge on Sunday after meeting Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian president.

"Today I advised him the United States will now provide the first $190m of our pledged $450m in budget support funds," Kerry said.

Kerry, who flew into Cairo from Turkey on Saturday, urged a wide range of political and business leaders to reach a consensus, after months of political turmoil and unrest.

During his trip, Kerry urged the Egyptian government to finalise a long-stalled loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Also on Sunday, Egyptian Finance Minister al-Mursi al-Sayed Hegazy said he hopes a deal on a $4.8bn IMF loan can be agreed before parliamentary elections begin on April 22.

The deal was agreed in principle last November but put on hold at Cairo's request following unrest on Egyptian streets.

"We expect that an agreement will happen before the elections," Higazy told reporters. "I expect and am hopeful this deal can be made before the elections."

Egypt's foreign reserves have plummeted in the two years since the revolution that overthrew longtime president Hosni Mubarak: Egypt's central bank now has less than $13.6bn in its coffers, down from $36bn in January 2011.

On March 04 2013 06:13 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:


I am not going to eat this purple berry because I will get sick, why do I think I will get sick? because every time I have seen someone else eat a purple berry they got sick.

Is this not critical thought?

Edit: I think deciding what berries to eat came before religion, hard to write fairy-tales on an empty stomach.

On March 04 2013 06:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Depends on your definition of "critical thought". Personally I think you're setting the bar too low.

On March 04 2013 06:07 oneofthem wrote:
when the first guy looked at a wheel and discovered that it can roll? the faculty is always there, though the socially important position of rleigious thought made everyone "run" that routine.

On March 04 2013 06:13 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:
I am not going to eat this purple berry because I will get sick, why do I think I will get sick? because every time I have seen someone else eat a purple berry they got sick.

Is this not critical thought?

Edit: I think deciding what berries to eat came before religion, hard to write fairy-tales on an empty stomach.

House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered different views of the sequester cuts that took effect late Friday night after lawmakers failed to reach a deal to avoid them.

On NBC's Meet The Press, Boehner criticized the cuts, calling them "silly" and "random."

"I am concerned about its impact on our economy and its impact on our military. Listen, we've known about his problem for 16 months. We've known the sequester was coming," he said. "I’ve watched leaders from both parties kick this can down the road. We’re out of road to kick the can down."

Boehner said he believed cuts were needed, but that "there are smarter ways to cut spending than this silly sequester that the president demanded... we need to address the long-term spending problem. But we can't cut our way to prosperity.”

When asked how the cuts would affect economic growth, Boehner said, "I don't know whether it's going to hurt the economy or not. I don't think anyone quite understands how the sequester is really going to work.”

The House Speaker insisted he did everything he could to avoid the cuts and blamed the president and the Democrats for not reaching a deal.

"There's no one in this town who's tried harder to come to an agreement with the president and deal with this long-term spending problem," he said.

McConnell struck a different tone on CNN's State Of The Union, calling Friday's cuts “modest."

"We have a $16 trillion national debt,” he said. “Our debt is as big as our economy. That alone makes us look like a Western European country... I think the American people know we have a spending addiction in Washington."

McConnell said that Senate Republicans are open to discussing how to rework the cuts, but put his foot down on raising taxes.

The first of the automatic spending cuts took effect on Friday after months of unproductive negotiations between the White House and Republicans. The cuts, totaling $1.2 trillion, were designed during the 2011 debt ceiling crisis in hopes that it would force Congress to reach a deal to balance the budget. A Congressional Budget Office official said that the cuts could cost 750,000 jobs.

Last month, Boehner called the cuts "ugly and dangerous."

On March 04 2013 06:30 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:


Critical thought is the ability to use reason to discern the truthfulness of a statement/idea is it not?

On March 04 2013 06:36 Kukaracha wrote:

Religions appeared more than 100 000 years ago, while the invention of the wheel dates back to 3500 B.C.


This is an utilitarian thought, which doesn't have to be critical nor logical, but merely practical.
In fact, if you consider this to be critical thinking, then there is no difference between that and just thinking.

On March 04 2013 05:49 McBengt wrote:


Then we are at an impasse. This has passed into the realm of abstract philosophy, which bores me. Where pragmatism ends, I take my leave. Good night sir.

On March 04 2013 05:41 oneofthem wrote:
oh geez. science --> solipsism? i don't even know how you got up that creek. just take a taxi back

On March 04 2013 05:46 oneofthem wrote:

this is as absurd as saying walking created legs

On March 04 2013 06:07 oneofthem wrote:

when the first guy looked at a wheel and discovered that it can roll? the faculty is always there, though the socially important position of rleigious thought made everyone "run" that routine.

On March 04 2013 06:13 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:


I am not going to eat this purple berry because I will get sick, why do I think I will get sick? because every time I have seen someone else eat a purple berry they got sick.

Is this not critical thought?

On March 04 2013 06:30 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:


Critical thought is the ability to use reason to discern the truthfulness of a statement/idea is it not?

On March 04 2013 06:00 sc2superfan101 wrote:

that is a very unfortunate wording of their platform, leaving itself open to misinterpretation quite easily. at least, i hope it's just misinterpretation of their actual goals. if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that they probably are trying to say that their is some value in the traditional methods of teaching. and with the whole "fixed beliefs" thing, well I kind of agree with them there too. I think there is value in challenging beliefs, but at the same time I think society has a vested interest in establishing specific doctrines as, for lack of better terms, iron-clad. and on one level I think that if we are to challenge a child's faith with schooling (something that for older students may be valuable)

then we should also challenge the lack of faith with equal fervor.

but on the note of religious thought and all that I think you make an interesting point here with regards to religion and critical thought. I never really looked at it that way.

On March 04 2013 05:56 oneofthem wrote:
i've given you way too much ground already. it's more like, this is as absurd as saying stumbling created legs.

you english major guys have basically said two big ideas, both of which are highly questionable at best.

1. is the historicist thesis that history created humanity. a lot of layered problems with this one, but mainly, the underlying biological human with all of her mental faculties is not historical. the historic narrative's all too unrefined causal language makes it seem, to some i guess, that history "created" everything.

2.religion accounts for a basic desire for explanation and thus all attempts at explanation is religious. the religious space of reason can operate with you just sitting inside of the house, never venturing out into the world. this should tell you something already.

it is the fact that you as a human is endowed with this ability to represent yourself as a subject, and understand yourself in a World, etc. This is as general as you can get with "religion", as it covers even existentialism and all such "meaning" endowing thinking.

However, this is not all there is to the mind. It may seem to lay claim to explain everything, but as sooon as you walk outside of the house, in the euphoria of discovering the meaning of life, and hit your head against a pole, that illusion should shatter.

this ability is quite distinct from any scientific theorizing. it is important, sure, but it is also as wittgenstein said, outside of the world.

On March 04 2013 08:00 oneofthem wrote:
i don't know what possessed you to think that "the Real" of hitting your head against a pole is more religious than whatever spacious space operatic metaphysics that most people would call religion.