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http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/08/ ... s-wha.html[/url]

USA Today -- August 29, 2007
by Tom Krattenmaker

Commentary[/u] :
http://www.criticalthinking.org/resourc ... 8-News.cfm

Aristotle is alleged to have said, "The mark of an educated person is their ability to entertain positions other than their own." An open mind is essential to critical thinking. Yet, most religions and atheist positions are cut from the same cloth. Neither of these "metaphysical" positions is given to recognizing or admitting what can't yet be substantiated. No conclusive proof of the existence, or non existence, of our vaguely defined concepts of god currently exists. However, both religious and secular camps believe what they believe, and the fact that they believe one way or the other is, itself, held as "proof" of their truths' validity. When people already know the truth by equating their beliefs with fact, they aren't thinking critically. Their truths get in the way of their and others' journeys to discovery and learning. Belief systems — religious as well as secular faiths — are generally held together by external third-party "arguments by authority" such as gods, apostles, prophets, gurus, scriptures, literature, language, as well as by our social conditioning and other intellectual blind spots. And, it isn't always that we don't know what we know and don't know, but that we hold the truth in self-righteousness and want to impose our version of it on everyone else. We need to check our legacy beliefs and belief systems at the door and adopt a more agnostic, albeit tentative, working relationship with each other in the things we may believe but don't actually know. The difference between knowledge and belief is a fine one grounded in a non cynical yet skeptical process of objective reasoning. Critical thinking emphasizes the trancendence of egocentricities and sociocentricities with intellectual humility and rigorous independent exploration and examination of diverse points of view that are clear, accurate, precise, and relevant. A seminal pedagogical concept and cadre of best practices that accompany all forms of inquiry, discourse, and understanding in virtually every domain and discipline, it is the foundational competency behind all learning. It’s the key to learning how to learn and to taking ownership of knowledge and skills in all other domains and disciplines. Available to any and all who choose to understand and practice it, it's the purview of neither religious nor secular camps.



GentleStormi
Roloff Rebekah Survivor to Overcomer
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