Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for March 27, 2021

So Joe is used to detention

Never be afraid of the answers to your questions.

“Teachahs” don’t want you to think? :/

This is the behaviour I would expect from teachers nowadays sadly. Correcting them is seen as challenging what they say instead of an opportunity to learn.

How to properly raise your kids!

Once upon a long ago, my son (who happens to be an intuitive mathematician) asked a question in his Algebra class. The instructor was using a balance scale example to teach how to solve ratios. Son asked the teacher, “Instead of building all that long formula, couldn’t I just divide this into that and get the answer?” The response was snapped in a very aggrieved tone.

“No. that doesn’t always work!”

Intrigued, Son asked politely, “Would you be so kind as to give me an example of when it doesn’t work?”

The teacher threw him out of class for being ‘challenging’ and ‘argumentative’, and for questioning him in front of the class. On his way out, Son overheard the instructor say to the class “Ignore what he said. It’s wrong.”

I had to go to the school, have the vice-principle call the instructor in, and ask him in front of his superior to prove his point by giving an example of when the method about which my son had asked would NOT work. He couldn’t.

Instructor was required to apologize to the entire class about his failure to recognize a legitimate question.

How sweet; but the question still arises – how many presidents have ever been made liable for their crimes??

None of course , so we should all be so proud of what our country has become, it’s embarrassing and more people need to stand up and and point out how many things have been done to subdue voters rights, and we all just say on well, guess we deserve what we get!

My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma

Love the heart-shaped smoke from the pipe!

Long before the SOL’s (a lovely acronym with two uses) became the law, teachers were required to teach the standard dogmas of their eras. Some did because they believed in the built-in biases that comprised subjects like history, literature, and biology. Others varied their lesson plans to include a touch of skepticism, which is a way of hinting at an alternate path to bright individuals without having to actually lead them to it.

The true skeptic accepts no facts until the source is identified and proved reliable. It is the path to developing one’s own standards for life. Naturally, that suggests that those who swallow alternate truths without question are at the gullible level and provide fertile grounds for the planters of false dogma. Lots of those around.

I remember a student in our HS Civics class that would question the teacher and that would take the rest of class time with the give and take. The student became a lawyer in NY.

Science is a series of beliefs based on fact. Religion is a series of beliefs based on faith.

If all you have to go on is facts and logic then atheism is the most likely outcome. Atheism is comforting in that the more we understand the facts, the more we understand reality. We have to be willing to accept the changes when the facts tell us we must do so.

Science is a growing thing.

Faith is a belief in things beyond fact that are unprovable. Faith can force us to reach out beyond the facts and can inspire us to do marvelous things.

Faith can be static or it can also be a growing thing. The “truth is still the truth” but there are always new things to be found out about it. As heretical as it sounds, it is spiritually healthy to question one’s faith. It’s not for the faint of heart: you ask questions and sometimes you don’t get the answer you want.

Living things have two choices: grow or die.

I contend that if your religion isn’t a living thing then maybe religion isn’t for you.

Static faith based on unchanging truth doesn’t grow.

People with static faith make up information (alternative facts) to support their belief. They deny facts (fake news) that contradict their beliefs and attempt to warp reality to fit their fantasy (don’t believe what is happening).

One cannot reason with a person with static faith. Reason depends on fact and logic. Neither exist in a static faith environment.

It does not matter whether the belief is in the Christ, Allah, the Buddha, Trump or the Great Pumpkin, static faith is a sickness.

Static faith is based on emotion: primarily the need for certainty in an uncertain world and the need to control even God. Very often it is based in fear: fear of going to hell or fear of Mexicans, Muslims, blacks, gays or women taking over America or fear of losing what I consider a birthright.

and I am left to wonder if Wiley’s lack of self awareness is part of the joke.

Love Capt. Eddy’s pipe punctuation! Very subtle, Wiley.

The US is populated with people who fought to escape tyranny and dictatorship. …what happened?

Some days the smugness of the woke is stifling. Today is such a day.

I went to a Parochial high school, we didn’t have “Detention”, we had “Jug” (Judgement Under God)

It’s too easy for young people forget that there is an implied corollary in that common phrase: “Question authority … but be prepared to listen to the answers.”

I tell the young pandas, to question everything. Then they question me. That makes me smile. Ain’t this a funny old life?

Question Everything!!! Why?

@TexTech: I wish I knew how to create a troll-trolling bot. (not responded to directly, because I don’t want to add to Lv’s response chain).

So, they all show up at the diner for holiday meals? That’s messed up.

My all-time favorite graffito occurred back in the Vietnam War era. On a prominent billboard on University Avenue here in Madison, someone had spray-painted the ubiquitous counter-cultural sentiment “Question Authority!”.

Right underneath it, someone else had added “Why should I?”.

None, including the warmongers.

Schools used to teach critical thinking, but then came W. Bush’s leave every child behind program. That turned from critical thinking, to more of a Hunger Games training to pass tests for dollars.

Love the comments from Capt. Eddie’s pipe.

Teachers teach what they are taught to teach, though there are some marvelous exceptions if you’re lucky enough to find one.

This applies to all instruction: School, religion, military, politics, etc.

Even teachers of critical thinking merely parrot what they have been taught.

“Thinking outside of the box” happens in a vacuum.

keenanthelibrarian – Many were liable for their crimes, but none have actually been held accountable.

What does your query have to do with this comic??

So, does that mean I’m allowed to question “climate change” now?