In answer, Genesis reveals that God created humans in his image as relational beings. ![]() To understand emotions’ proper place in our thinking, we can start by asking, “What’s a biblical view of emotions?” A Biblical View of Emotions 4ĭoes the fact that emotions are not a logical compass of truth mean they should never play a role in our thinking? Not necessarily. ![]() Emotions add power to a messages’ persuasive punch, but believing a message is true or false based only on the emotions it evokes is a fallacy, or logical error, called appeal to emotion. When facing emotionally evocative messages, we can apply the critical thinking hack of asking, “Is this message true or false because…?” Here, we’d ask, “Is a message true because it raises strong emotions?” Worded that way, it’s easier to see the answer is no. Even some of my university textbooks channeled the power of emotional wording and imagery to make a case for evolutionary origins, for instance, by showing apes in adorably human-like poses. 2 Did you notice the emotionally charged words in that quote? Impose, dogma, attack, rights, risk, serious, children, extremely harmful…such wording adds up to an undisguised emotional campaign rallying anger, fear, and pity to sway the minds of leaders.īut we don’t need to be global leaders to experience emotion-based persuasion. This quote comes from the draft report Resolution 1580, “The Dangers of Creationism in Education,” which the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed as a guideline for its 57 member nations. There is a great risk of a serious confusion being introduced into our children’s minds between what has to do with convictions, beliefs and ideals and what has to do with science, and of the advent of an “all things are equal” attitude, which may seem appealing and tolerant but is actually extremely harmful. There can be no doubt that this is a serious attack on human rights. ![]() Consider the following paragraph, meant to persuade global leaders to exclusively teach evolutionary interpretations of science in public schools: With creationism today, we are witnessing a growth of modes of thought which, the better to impose religious dogma, are attacking the very core of the knowledge that we have built up little by little concerning nature, evolution, our origins and our place in the universe. Persuasion can be a bit of an emotional subject-but you don’t have to take my word for it.
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