My children experience the reality of Santa Claus every year. Their experimental data is exactly the same: they ask Santa for stuff and Santa delivers.
The Santa/Easter Bunny comparison is a false equivalent. When you tell your children Santa is real, you know, in your household anyway, Santa is really you. You know you are telling them a story that is fun, but not true. All parents understand that it’s a ruse they perpetrate out of custom, and because the children enjoy it. By offering that example, you are implying that God is of the same order, a story parents know is false that they tell children for whatever reason (bemusement, control, whatever). But, Eve, you DO NOT and CANNOT know that about God. You are assuming an equivalence that simply doesn’t exist. Since at least Dickinsian times, parents have played Santa, and when their kids reach a certain age, they pull back the curtain and reveal how the trick was done. “See, we’re Santa!” But that has never, ever, in all of human history happened with God. Parents are not God, they don’t pretend to be God, and there is no curtain for them to pull back at the end of the show and reveal “See? We were God all along!” Because they’re not. These things don’t compare at all.
Was there really a boy who knew God existed who was challenged by a philosophy professor out to murder the faith of any student he taught?
Thousands upon thousands, girls, too. Atheism is taught as logic in many, maybe most, first year philosophy classes, and has been for a while. The following essay isn’t on Medium anymore, because it’s now in my book, but it’s a good example of what I’m talking about. The Great Courses Lecture Series referenced is just that — a Great Courses selection, which means it is considered an exemplary model class:
You Are Not Stupid. You Are Not Delusional. Stand Up to Intellectual Bullies.
An Open Letter to Students Taking Their First College Philosophy Course
This is my final essay in response to the Great Courses lecture series The Big Questions of Philosophy, taught by Professor David K. Johnson, which I returned for a full refund to avoid succumbing to rage-induced spontaneous human combustion. Because there’s only so much atheist propaganda disguised as philosophy one should ever be required to endure.
Dear Students:
So, you’ve enrolled in Philosophy 101. Good for you.
The word philosophy comes from the Greek roots philo- meaning “love” and -sophos, which means “wisdom.” Philosophy is, at its core, the love of wisdom.
“Love,” in this context, means pretty much what you think it does. Love is fondness, appreciation, respect, and valuing your beloved as precious and irreplaceable.
Let’s look, then, at a few definitions of wisdom:
Psychology Today says wisdom is:
… an integration of knowledge, experience, and deep understanding that incorporates tolerance for the uncertainties of life as well as its ups and downs. There’s an awareness of how things play out over time, and it confers a sense of balance.
PT further defines the “Three Facets of Wise Reasoning” as:
1. Intellectual humility
2. Self-transcendence
3. Consideration of others’ perspectives/compromise
The Cambridge Dictionary defines wisdom as:
The ability to make good judgments based on what you have learned from your experience.
Wikipedia says:
Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, defined wisdom as the understanding of causes, i.e. knowing why things are a certain way, which is deeper than merely knowing that things are a certain way.
and
Wisdom is also important within Christianity. Jesus emphasized it. Paul the Apostle, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, argued that there is both secular and divine wisdom, urging Christians to pursue the latter.
and
… although “there is an overlap of the implicit theory of wisdom with intelligence, perceptiveness, spirituality and shrewdness, it is evident that wisdom is an expertise in dealing with difficult questions of life and adaptation to complex requirements.”
The same Wikipedia article includes discussion of wisdom traditions in numerous faiths, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.
My point is that wisdom is a subject as broad as the human mind, heart and spirit. It’s the state we achieve when our human minds, hearts and spirits are functioning at their best, in tandem, and in balance (that’s my definition, anyway).
That kind of wisdom, I think, is worthy of our love.
But it may not be what you encounter in the classroom.
After listening to the first 17 lectures in the Great Courses series The Big Questions of Philosophy, taught by Professor David K. Johnson I feel compelled to share this warning: If what you’re expecting from your Philosophy 101 course is inspiration to love the kind of wisdom described above, watch out.
I hope you get lucky and land a professor who pursues wisdom broadly, and whose goal is to show you how philosophy can help you think deeply about, and broaden your perspective on, the big questions of life.
But, if Professor Johnson’s course is indicative of philosophy education in the 21st Century (and it may well be, since it was selected for inclusion in the Great Courses catalog), there’s a fair chance you’ll wind up with a teacher who just wants to browbeat you into atheism.
In fairness, I’m not a mind reader, so I won’t pretend to know David K. Johnson’s motivation in this lecture series. He may think he’s serving some other goal entirely.
But the content of his course is not subtle. In the first 17 lectures, he explicitly states, and repeats often, that:
Belief in the existence of God is irrational.
Belief in the goodness/power of God is irrational, even for those who accept the possibility of God’s existence.
Acceptance of the tenets of any religion can never be justified.
Trusting another person’s testimony regarding religious experience is irrational (example given: the authors of the Bible, Old and New Testament alike).
Trust in our own religious experience is irrational, no matter how profound, vivid or heartfelt (because it’s much more likely we’re deluding ourselves).
Belief in the reality of anything that can’t be verified by double-blind scientific experiment is irrational (not just God, but angels, demons, heaven, hell, miracles, the efficacy of prayer, and even the human soul).
I won’t go on at length in this letter about all the ways in which I believe Professor Johnson is wrong. I’ve already written four long essays to that effect.
I am writing to you today, dear students, to encourage you to trust yourself and your feelings when you enter that Philosophy 101 classroom.
When your gut screams that your professor is presenting his or her opinion as fact, you’re almost certainly right; call them out.
When the hairs on the back of your neck bristle at the arrogance with which your teacher dismisses your most cherished beliefs, you are being abused; fight back.
When opposing opinions are neither offered nor asked for, and no compromise is tolerated between the professor’s opinion and yours, you are being bullied; stand tall.
Philosophy is love of wisdom. Should your Philosophy 101 course, as did this Great Courses lecture series, turn out to be a one-sided attack on the existence of God and the rationality of religious belief (yours or anyone else’s), recognize that love has decayed into abuse. Wisdom has devolved into polemic.
In the absence of both love and wisdom, you are not being taught philosophy.
You are not getting what you paid for.
Know this:
You are not stupid. Your are not delusional. Your professor is wrong.
Walk out. Get your money back. It worked for me.
Much love,
Jack
