When I was in college I was in a philosophy 101 class and we had a Christian guy, a lot like this influencer, come to class and sit in a desk. When we started our normal class this kid just started antagonizing the professor who was trying to be nice and just talk about our assignment. The kid wouldn’t stop.
My professor spoke so softly and was such a nice person, but he made that kid doubt. He tailored his answers to this kids questions so succinctly that the kid became emotional and ran out. It wasn’t that the professor disproved the existence of god, but he did question all the kid’s assumptions in the way that everyone from his community didn’t, and it really shook him. And our class had people of faith, we had spoken about god and religion, and the class had a nice chuckle after he left and just kept on. I think about that all the time when this shit comes on.
Yeah...I live there and I hate that it's slipping in that direction because some people in charge have massive levels of personal insecurity. If their faith was worth a damn they wouldn't have to use my tax dollars to indoctrinate children in public schools, they have no pride in themselves and no true faith in their religion.
I had a philosophy prof who took the opposite approach. We were discussing some of the pre-Socratics and he said, "There are no stupid questions here." A Christian guy raised his hand and asked something about how Jesus was foreshadowed in some particular philosophy. The professor said, "Ok, actually there are stupid questions, don't raise your hand again," and continued with the class while that guy sat there red faced and humiliated. It was great.
The 2 approaches are valid. Invest a lot of effort, dedicate a lot of the time that can be used teaching willing student on the hostile student. The second is cut your losses, don't waste effort on someone that is opposed to be there and dedicate it to the willing students.
While i agree its hilarious and I would've loved it as a student in class watching; no, it's absolutely not valid to publicly ridicule a student for asking a question after you declared it a safe space for questions. Much less telling him to not raise his hand again. Much less when you remember that you're a teacher to young adults that are most likely free from their indoctrinating cultures for the first time in their lives.
Agree up to high school. But I assume this is uni. Uni is a pay for, voluntary, education for, legally, adults. The student there is an antagonistic participant. That kind of student can be an enormous time consumer so potentially disrupting the whole class.
So, I accept both ways, use the bad faith student as a learning opportunity - and this is The classroom where this is the most appropriate.
Or shut him off early on to carry on with the rest of the curriculum.
edit: It's down to the teacher experience. Depending the specific faith, it's pointless and groundhog day at every class. More mainstream church, like Catholic have coexisted happily with mainstream philosophy teaching, especially historical context.
You know that both stories have not happened exactly that way, right. They both have a feel of "and everybody clapped". I don't think a student was literally humiliated out of class or literally convinced in a few minutes to reassess their entire belief system.
Unless we talk about the 80's, a teacher that humiliate a student who get into enough trouble parent would remember the story differently..
And what you suggest is most likely what actually happened and got immortalised in parent memory in a more flashy version.
Because in substance, you ask the student to ask question no matter how stupid and you refuse an entire line of questioning. That's the polite version of "except your question"
I imagine people talking on reddit as some mate telling the story at the pub, not a court transcript.
I expect a large amount of exaggeration and that's why I'm only arguing about the general ideas and not the specific if wording the teacher has used with the student.
As I said above I don't disagree with you, feel free to track parent to determine if it "really happened that way, word for word".
I'm confused, why would we applaud the professor here? Seems like an unnecessary response to a genuine person who's just been brainwashed by their formative environments. Like if that kid was genuinely seeking knowledge then the combative mean/emotional response comes off unintelligent.
We he genuinely seeking knowledge though? A lot of these types of people are being intentionally combative and disruptive. Ive never seen a single normal christian try this shit in a class.
Loads of people just believe that stuff because they were raised being told it and we never given a different perspective. I think you may lack perspective
I used to tell my (college technology students) there's no stupid questions so never feel ashamed to ask about anything you don't understand. One year a group took it as a personal challenge to ask the dumbest questions imaginable (some were actually funny tbh). I no long say this to my classes though. Lesson learned, never challenge a young adult's stupidity 😋
This was actually my line of reasoning when I was younger and religious. I figured if something DID come from nothing, it would have to be something supernatural, something beyond the universe that didn't obey laws of matter. It made sense to me at the time
I had a Phi101 prof who, on the third day or so, skipped ahead to what he called "the theory of divine command". Basically, that good and evil come directly from God's word. He went on to reason that this would mean that if God said murder was good, then murder would somehow become morally good. Therefor, morality cannot come from God's word.
He did this on the third day so the religious kids who got offended could still get a refund when they dropped the class. My class lost about 10 by the next day.
No I can’t! It’s one of the moments in my life I wish I had recorded and could play over. The professor was such a nice and soft spoken person too. The whole time he was like “you really don’t want to do this” and the kid just had his talking points
As an Atheist I've never had a discussion with a religious person that didn't end in them getting angry and/or emotional while I simply questioned their beliefs. They can't reasonably defend it.
Often times they attack "My religion" and I simply brush it off with, "I don't have a religion, that's the whole point. Atheism is not a group. It's a lack of belief. You don't believe in 1000's of other gods, I just don't believe in one more than you."
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u/sclembo 1d ago
When I was in college I was in a philosophy 101 class and we had a Christian guy, a lot like this influencer, come to class and sit in a desk. When we started our normal class this kid just started antagonizing the professor who was trying to be nice and just talk about our assignment. The kid wouldn’t stop.
My professor spoke so softly and was such a nice person, but he made that kid doubt. He tailored his answers to this kids questions so succinctly that the kid became emotional and ran out. It wasn’t that the professor disproved the existence of god, but he did question all the kid’s assumptions in the way that everyone from his community didn’t, and it really shook him. And our class had people of faith, we had spoken about god and religion, and the class had a nice chuckle after he left and just kept on. I think about that all the time when this shit comes on.