People And Planet

November 24, 2010

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or google Marie Schickel Rottschaefer

Blog 7

Continuing from last week, Paul and Elder speak to the result from learning critical thinking.   I will repeat the characteristics of a well-cultivated thinker; I inadvertently left out material in the second point.

"A well-cultivated critical thinker:

·      raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely;

·      gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively

·      comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;

·      thinks open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and

·      communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.”

In resume blog 6 point 2 I gave an example regarding a range of focus on nutrition.  Regarding the second part of point 2 i.e. using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively, I would choose personal nutrition since my project would be about the essentials of health promotion for the individual.

Regarding point 3 testing solutions, the response is easy.  I use biological and other natural sciences, medical and the social sciences.  Regarding point 4 history is a good check on alternatives.  Many of the old time alternatives were either unscientific or less advanced science.  Point 5 in communicating with others, is a given. Nutrition science has progressed impressively.  The science and technology of exercise has advanced with Dr. Kenneth Cooper’s aerobics and since that time.  All the other areas mentioned are advanced specialty areas requiring assistance from health professionals of one kind or another but cooperation from the client in doing his/her homework.

The authors continue, describing the core of critical thinking.

Self-directed

Self-disciplined

Self-monitored

Self-corrective thinking.

It takes for granted consent to rigorous standards of excellence and attentive control of their use.  It requires effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.

This is what a health promotion project is about, self-directed; excellence, appropriate control, effective communication, problem solving, and one of the most challenging issues, a commitment to overcome innate egocentrism and sociocentrism.

People And Planet

November 18, 2010

http://unprecedentedchange.blogspot.com

or google Marie Schickel Rottschaefer

Resume Blog 6

The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking -- Concepts & Tools by Dr. Richard Paul and Dr. Linda Elder The Foundation for Critical Thinking 2003 is our mini-guide that contains the essence of critical thinking concepts and tools extracted for ‘pocket size’ learning.  Users apply these skills to their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and various academic disciplines such as history, science, math, philosophy, and the arts; as well as their personal and professional life.  So this is a good beginning for those ‘training to be trained’ in this complex and uncertain society.

The authors begin by laying out the problem as to why we need critical thinking. Every one of us thinks.  But without training often enough our thinking is subject to being biased, distorted, partial, uniformed or clearly prejudiced.  We could easily think of examples we have encountered.  They continue, the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends on the quality of our thought.  Substandard thinking is costly, in money and in quality of life.  But excellence in thought must be systematically developed.  (Let us remember as people & planet restoration people, we are trying to bring quality to people and planet.)

Such quality thinking must have a definition.  Paul and Elder say: Critical thinking is that mode of thinking about any subject, content, or problem in which the thinker improves the quality of his/her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them.

To understand this abstract definition concretely I use my own examples.  Each person has his/her examples depending on one’s individual life circumstances.  As a retired RN I am interested in health promotion.  What are the structures?  --  All those areas that promote health: nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress management, avoiding harmful substances and situations in the environment, and timely preventive and restorative health care.  These are the intellectual standards to be imposed on the structure or construction of a health promotion project because if any are missing then the health promotion  task is compromised.  In building a house, if any vital pieces were missing, it would never pass inspection. 

What is the result we would expect from our adaptation?

Paul and Elder list them.

A well-cultivated thinker:

- raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely

[People and planet restoration workers want to get it right; my immediate area would be to focus on nutrition]

- gathers and assesses relevant information

[What area of nutrition?  It could be anything from personal nutrition with particular diets for normal to therapeutic diets on one end of the spectrum, to State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet An incisive account of the global food crisis—and how it can be solved, on the other end.  We know that it’s important to stay focused on one area yet be flexible enough to change priorities if necessary.]

I will continue Paul & Elder’s list next week with my examples to make it specific.

People and Planet

People And Planet

November 13, 2010

http://unprecedentedchange.blogspot.com

or google Marie Schickel Rottschaefer

Resume Blog 5

[Critical thinking is a] desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.  ~Francis Bacon (1605) Courtesy http://www.criticalthinking.org/ .  This Internet address will lead you to a wealth of material. 

From Resume Blog 4 “There is a handy resource that can teach us more about critical thinking skills.  After two millennia of indoctrination and questionable thinking regarding many assumptions in Catholicism, and Christianity in general, we could use some fresh ways of reasoning and discovering reality.” This little booklet put out by these critical thinking people will be a start for us.

I also said that there are people to assist, knowledge resources available, a world of opportunities to re-enrich the planet and its inhabitants and hopefully mitigate the tipping point, the sixth mass extinction, climate change, and promote the reestablishment of the earth’s homeostasis and the mechanisms that sustain it.

We as a species created this deficit.  It is up to us to bring it back into balance as best we can.  But we need skills and virtue to do it.  Notice all the virtues described in that one sentence of Francis Bacon.  The multi-faceted global crisis is so severe that we must train ourselves to mitigate it, ‘to get it right’, even though we will make mistakes.  Patience and perseverance are essential.

According to my philosopher husband the definition of virtue is: a learned capacity to do the right thing in every circumstance.  Aristotle, Plato, certain English philosophers, and others are examples of ‘virtue ethicists.’  Being a virtuous person is of course an ideal to strive for, but even very young children can be empathetic and have a sense of fairness.  We learn from day one.  I believe that I had mentioned earlier that epistemology and logic are branches of philosophy; so too, ethics. 

Moving from talk about virtue to reminding ourselves that we need skills, I want to state once again a post that I put on PCV recently.

Marie Schickel Rottschaefer said...

9-15-10 Progressive Catholic Voice people I wish you well with your Synod of the Baptized but how about adding this agenda at the end?
May 2010 (CNN) -- The world's eco-systems are at risk of "rapid degradation and collapse" according to a new United Nations report.
The third Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3) published by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) warns that unless "swift, radical and creative action" is taken "massive further loss is increasingly likely." Reading the entire online report is vital.

September 15, 2010 10:09 PM

Are we some of those people who will take “swift, radical and creative action”?

There are a zillion potential and actual green jobs out there in the world.  But unemployment, well,  -- See The New York Times: Off The Charts In Global Unemployment, a Sea of Young Faces By Floyd Norris Published: April 16, 2010.  The question is how to get jobs and the unemployed together?  Doing the right thing well means we must train ourselves in virtue and skill.  We train ourselves in marketable skills or by creating our own jobs.  There is merit in either path and each path has its challenges as well.  We have the perfect set-up: vast global needs to be met, people anxiously job searching, and a cautious consideration of training to be trained.  What I am suggesting is outside the academic circle but using academic resources – a personal development program of learning skills in thinking and enhancing one’s basic virtue or good qualities to prepare for further academic education or new job possibilities i.e. training to be trained.  To change the planet in a high-tech society will take a high degree of personal, technical, and professional education.  But those who train to be trained will not have a free education; they earned it.  No, they can consider themselves as having already paid their tuition given the circumstances of their lives. 

 Let’s begin with our tiny booklet to learn more about training ourselves to get it right.  The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking by Dr. Richard Paul and Dr. Linda Elder The Foundation for Critical Thinking 2003.

People And Planet

November 11, 2010

http://unprecedentedchange.blogspot.com

or google Marie Schickel Rottschaefer

Resume Blog 4

 From Resume Blog 3: “-- both science and philosophy are essential tools in constructing a post-axial age faith.  We need the evidence of science but the reasoning power of philosophy to correct possible errors of thinking and enhance our cognitive capacities.”

This sounds so intellectual, but yes, this is our evolution!  Words must be anchored in reality, ‘feeling good’ must find its rightful place, and behavior and action genuinely, purposefully productive.  Hopefully this is building the post-Axial Age faith phenomenon.  This is learning further the skills to express love (caring), to promote justice, to end the suffering, to bring healing, to restore as much as we can the goods and the services to profoundly deprived people and animals, to replenish the earth (land, oceans and waterways, the atmosphere), and to promote for our descendants and ourselves -- a better future.  This advances our evolutionary journey and step-by-step we travel closer to the Origin of our contingent being at least in understanding more and more our bequest of a universe.  Necessary Being sustains our contingent being as we discover our reality.

There are people to assist, knowledge resources available, a world of opportunities to re-enrich the planet and its inhabitants and hopefully mitigate the tipping point, the sixth mass extinction, climate change, and re-establish the earth’s homeostasis and the mechanisms that sustain it.

There is a handy resource that can teach us more about critical thinking skills.  After two millennia of indoctrination and questionable thinking regarding many assumptions in Catholicism, and Christianity in general, we could use some fresh ways of reasoning and discovering reality.  This tiny booklet was my clue for the need to advance in critical thinking skills as a beginning step.  I call it the art of correct thinking.  To construct a post-Axial Age faith phenomenon we need good thinking skills to distinguish between fact and fiction, myth from reality, and evidence from wishful thinking.  As a follow-up we can reference pertinent philosophical sources as needed.  Then we can examine the relevant science and use it for restoring planet earth to the best of our ability.  We have no time to delay.  The following is a quote that is over 10 years old!

“The Sixth Extinction

Niles Eldredge

An ActionBioscience.org original article

articlehighlights Can we stop the devastation of our planet and save our own species? We are in a biodiversity crisis — the fastest mass extinction in Earth’s history, largely due to:

␣ human destruction of ecosystems ␣ overexploitation of species and natural resources ␣ human overpopulation ␣ the spread of agriculture ␣ pollution.”

We have a multitude of resources; the political will and organization must be multiplied by the existing effort.

People and Planet

People And Planet

November 5, 2010

http://unprecedentedchange.blogspot.com

or google Marie Schickel Rottschaefer

Resume Blog 3

Earlier I spoke of Christianity’s foundation based on the incarnation and resurrection beliefs needing to evolve into a new faith phenomenon.  The faith and morals issue of more than two millennia must metamorphose.  The incarnation and resurrection belief reevaluation (biblical-historical scientific scholarship) and the faith and revelation issue based on an infallible authority i.e. the hierarchical structure (epistemology challenging its validity) are two reasons why a supernatural view has been supplanted with a natural view.   An axial age religion is undergoing a metamorphosis into a post-axial age faith phenomenon.  The invention of reality is being replaced with the discovery of reality.  Necessary Being has bequeathed a universe to contingent being (us).  Our evolutionary journey needs to be sustained not squelched by a sixth mass extinction we are currently experiencing.  If we want to be people of faith, moral people, our task is to unite as a species to restore our planet and its inhabitants.  This world and its manifestation of being an evolutionary journey is the basis of our new found faith.  Our task is to accept this fact in all its implications.  Here is where the faith and morals issue begins to metamorphose.  The state of planet earth and contemporary knowledge induce the change.  To repeat for emphasis, both science and philosophy are essential tools in constructing a post-axial age faith.  We need the evidence of science but the reasoning power of philosophy to correct possible errors of thinking and enhance our cognitive capacities.  Cooperation, collaboration, negotiation, shaking off fear, establishing trust in valuing the sharing of talents and gifts, replacing envy, intolerance, and self-seeking with cherishing each others’ contributions, to continue our journey of evolution and keep devolution, (degeneration), and extinction at bay is required.  Extinction screams at us to change our direction.  We must convince one another without condemning one another.

People And Planet

November 3, 2010

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Resume Blog 2

11-4-10 Last time in blog 1 of my resumed blogs I extended Peter Steinfels’ metaphor of a church further adrift to it being run aground.  Its foundation based on the incarnation and resurrection beliefs have to evolve into a new faith phenomenon.

Prior to this in my post 10-24-10 to PCV in response to Steinfels’ piece I said the bedrock, the theological infrastructure of Christianity i.e. the doctrines of the incarnation and resurrection appear to have collapsed.  Biblical-historical scientific scholarship and philosophical reasoning e.g. epistemology in exposing the circular argument of the "faith-revelation' issue are bottom line reasons why educated people can no longer practice Christianity. This Axial Age religion has run its course. A post-Axial Age faith phenomenon is evolving.  Biblical-historical science and epistemological reasoning are intersecting to strengthen the position that we are moving into a post-Axial Age faith phenomenon. 

The Axial Age cultural cohesion seeking personal wholeness and social coherence was functional but over time has moved into significant dysfunction.  (See Loyal Rue: Everybody’s Story and Religion Is Not About God.)  Dysfunction has its own reasons and causes.  Who has not encountered dysfunction in some form in his/her individual life?  The history of Homo sapiens tells the story.  Momentous issues such as the advancement of human knowledge and the dire state of planet earth and its inhabitants propel humanity into indispensable and unprecedented change.  Anyone of us can notice small, subtle cutbacks in goods and services that just a few years ago were not the case.  But for a large percentage of the planet the situation of scarcity is multiplied drastically.

Besides the biblical-historical scientific scholarship, epistemological reasoning necessitates examining the circular argument inherent in the faith and revelation issue be it a Catholic or Protestant viewpoint.  We are nudged into the realization that our long-standing Christian faith has finished its course.  A provisionally named post-Axial Age faith phenomenon is our only recourse if we are to continue as faith-seekers.  I say provisionally because this definitive century will name itself.   So what is the problem with the faith-revelation issue?  

First let’s refresh our memories as to the definition of ‘begging the question’.  Begging the question is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself.  When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place.  [For those who have not studied philosophy, logic is another branch of philosophy as is epistemology]. We can see why both science and philosophy are essential tools in constructing a post-axial age faith.  We need the evidence of science but the reasoning power of philosophy to correct possible errors of thinking and enhance our cognitive capacities.

So, returning to Thomas Sheehan’s “Revolution in the Church” article mentioned in resumed Blog 1 he explains the circularity in the faith and revelation connection.  “In other words, the Catholic argument from revelation seems to end up either begging the question (the infallible interpreters of revelation must first interpret revelation as constituting them infallible) or taking refuge in a quasi Protestantism that throws believers back on their personal experience of God's revelation. But if one follows the second path,  -- the same circularity of revelation of himself is what brings faith about; yet only from within faith can the believer know that there has been revelation and what has been revealed.”  “Over and above the scientific gains that the Catholic liberal consensus has made, its major achievement has been to rediscover the ineluctability of this hermeneutical circle of revelation and faith.  -- In any case, this rediscovery seems to be bringing the Church to what can be called the end of Catholicism, that is, to the limits of what it can say about God and the human condition.”

I fine-tune this for my own understanding as follows.  The circularity = the explanatory circle of revelation and faith i.e. revelation brings faith about yet only through faith can the believer know that revelation exists.   A circular argument has no epistemic ground; its foundations, scope and validity are not available.  See Robert Audi’s Belief Justification and Knowledge for more on the circular argument.                                                                      

What works for me in developing a post-Axial Age faith is to consider my own contingent (dependent) being.  Therefore there must be a Necessary Being, a Supreme Being, the Origin of my being from which I exist.  I am a person and so my personhood came from the fullness of personhood i.e. this Necessary Being Who is the fullness of the Personal.  My being is generated from the One Who is Person, but not in the Christian sense of Trinity. (Jesus as second person of the Trinity appears to be an obsolete reality; read more of the biblical scholars including Sheehan to check this out.)   If there was no incarnation and resurrection of Jesus then the Trinity concept needs to be replaced.  All people -- believers of any religion -- a non-believer who says that we could have come from nothing, (I actually heard someone say this!), might consider it more logical to believe that we came from necessary being than from non-being – all of these people might come to a common understanding of our own contingency.  Understanding our contingency means that knowledge is our goal and belief is subject to change.  We express our being in and with and through our Necessary Being, who is with us in every breath we take, every thought we consider, and every behavior and action we generate.  Awesome!

People And Planet

October 28, 2010

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or google Marie Schickel Rottschaefer

 Resume Blog 1

10-28-10 As a laywoman reading and writing online in recent times it has become clear that the RC church is in a quagmire.  When one is in quicksand generally speaking one’s only recourse is to be rescued.  I believe that this is the position the church is in today.  Outside help is the only answer because the-struggle has been long.  The struggle is multifaceted -- abuse of various kinds, financial disaster, spiritual, doctrinal, ethical, and everyday practical issues needing appropriate resolution have besieged the church.  And so I would like to present some people and resources ready to assist.  Because visits to my blog [People and Planet hhtp://unprecedentedchange.blogspot.com or google Marie Schickel Rottschaefer] have trickled in since August 2010 I have decided to resume writing my blog but in an ad hoc manner for the time being.         

The issues I raise are not so much about parishes and dioceses problem- solving as about the church as an institution and meta-level issues.  In my post in response to Peter Steinfels’ A Church Further Adrift 10-22-10, I state that the bedrock, the theological infrastructure of Christianity i.e. the doctrines of the incarnation and resurrection appear to have collapsed.  I say this because the book The Acts of Jesus by Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar as I understand it gives a strong argument for this being the case from the scientific biblical-historical scholarship that they have produced.  This is the kind of scholarship that Pope Pius XII promulgated in 1943 with his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu: “11. There is no one who cannot easily perceive that the conditions of biblical studies and their subsidiary sciences have greatly changed within the last fifty years. For, apart from anything else, when Our Predecessor published the Encyclical Letter Providentissimus Deus, hardly a single place in Palestine had begun to be explored by means of relevant excavations. Now, however, this kind of investigation is much more frequent and, since more precise methods and technical skill have been developed in the course of actual experience, it gives us information at once more abundant and more accurate. How much light has been derived from these explorations for the more correct and fuller understanding of the Sacred Books all experts know, as well as all those who devote themselves to these studies.”

Thomas Sheehan in his article in The New York Review of Books Volume 31, Number 10. June 14, 1984 “Revolution in the Church” goes into detail as to why the sea change in the church.  Both the encyclical and Sheehan’s piece can be found on the Internet.  The Funk et al book is easily accessible.

Indeed the church is further adrift because it is being run aground or in to a quagmire.  It has run its course.  Its foundation based on the incarnation and resurrection beliefs have to evolve into a new faith phenomenon.  The faith and morals issue of more than two millennia must metamorphose.  The Axial Age from which it originated is far more ancient (see Loyal Rue’s Religion Is Not About God ---).  But things change and Homo sapiens’ history makes the Axial Age look relatively brief.  The World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia New York World Book 1996 states that most anthropologists believe that between about 400,000 & 300,000 years ago, Homo erectus evolved into a new species called Homo sapiens.