What Danes consider healthy children’s television
economist.com
economist.com
I'm Dutch but my wife is Danish. She does her utmost best confronting our kids with Danish TV (we live in Holland), so I understand a bit of what the author is on about. I was initially surprised as well.
Truth is, it _is_ entertaining! But most importantly, once you get past the absolutely amateuristic way things are shot (hey, the kids don't care, why should you?), there's a lot of depth to a lot of it. You need to let that depth sink in a bit before you can see the value of it.
For example, the article about Kaj and Andreea:
Probably most striking, though, is another thing lacking: education. Quite simply, there is none, academic or moral. “Kaj and Andrea”, a pair of puppets, are sweet friends, but also goofily flawed: Kaj is terribly self-obsessed, Andrea is warbling and neurotic. When other characters do something wrong, there is little of the obvious consequence-and-lesson resolution of American shows; the results are usually left to speak for themselves.
The lovely thing here is that it is educative, but it's up to the watcher to draw the lesson. Kaj's self-obsession is usually very funny and rather ridiculous. It teaches kids "wow, it's pretty ridiculous to be so self-obsessed". And at the same time it teaches kids that even if you're flawed, that's ok - both Kaj and Andreea appreciate one another and are appreciated and respected by the human co-hosts of their TV shows. This is something that I've not really seen anywhere else.
I'm not convinced that kids learn lessons like these better when it's spelled out for them.
Left to her own devices (literally), she scans youtube for videos of off-screen adults playing with toys (which depresses the crap out of me) and 1990s-quality offshore Flash video of the same "Johnny finger" song in various copyright violating incarnations. The song is horrific. Do not go look it up unless you plan on having kids and want to inoculate yourself now, but writing this out I wonder if it's not her looking to simply enjoy something rather than constantly be prompted to solve a shitty math puzzle so we can move on with the plot.
All of this sounds like I am an awful father but in reality we limit her daily screen time to no more than 24 hours.
Kids aren't dumb, they just lack refined thinking models adults develop as they grow up. Eg: I think we all have experienced reading again something we read young and loved and finding a lot more meaning in it.
(I'd still avoid showing some things to them of course.)
At first, it's about a robot and another robot doing stuff. Then they're on a journey. Then the desire for friendship. And hospital. Then (gradually) the idea of different motivations comes in. Perhaps some ecology. Then conflict, etc.
All the while, my daughter is delightfully more interested in robots and space travel than standard 'pink princess' fare.
Of course, YMMV.
My favourite example of this comes from comics:
Try looking at Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run (issue #20 or 21 of volume 2 - the 1982 revival). It's a masterpiece that is well worth reading as an adult.
Now try looking at early 80's X-Men. While e.g. Days of Future Past is good, one of the reasons some of the arcs like Days of Future Past stands out so much is that many of these series were so full of excessive amounts of tedious exposition recapping things that just happened and reminding about and explaining things to the reader all the time, and the standouts were the few exceptions that treated the reader as a person with somewhat more mental capacity than a goldfish.
At the time, I didn't see the difference. I enjoyed X-Men and Swamp Thing equally. Now, going back and looking at those old X-Men issues is - with a few exceptions - almost painful and only worth it for the nostalgia.
Also 'findable' : The Clangers (charming 1970s show from the UK); Mr Men; Shaun the Sheep; Mr Benn.
All of these are 'gentle' but fun, and not really educational per-se. Even though you'll end up watching all of these again-and-again, Shaun the Sheep remains entertaining for parents too.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kipper_the_Dog
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clangers
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Men
My wife and I are working through the old Tom and Jerry cartoons with our toddler, and we are shocked to see how much blackface there is. Like, okay, I get it was a different time- but the quantity is shocking. Episodes where it doesn't even have to happen, they'll just quickly mock black people and then get back to the plot.
If you want a complicated viewing experience, track down Clampett's "So White An' De Sebben Dwarves", which is positively bursting with energy and love, for both the craft of animation, and the jazz scene of the day... and a whoooole lotta visuals that just aren't okay any more.
We'd make a "movie night" of it and watch it together, bunched up in the sofa, with some cheese doodles.
The 20 minute episodes were just about short enough to keep their attention. (At age 3 & 5.)
pbs kids is much better "educationally", meaning i guess the danes and the article author would hate it. the point of numbers and letters at an early age is not some parental obsession "achievement" but rather acclimation to things critical to life. you can't read -- whatever the hell you like to read -- if you can't spell, and for us, the sooner our kids can read themselves the better.
Educational entertainment is more about parents than education. However, kids also like to learn things so interesting and educational are frequently linked when done well.
PS: If you actually want to teach kids to read then integrating subtitles and story seems like a great option.
Amazing that Google thinks that unboxing videos of products paid by the companies to the "entertainers" is good content for developing minds. I was under the assumption that app was curated, but it must not be.
Amazon's Freetime Unlimited with a Kindle and a soft case has been the best setup so far. Lots of educational stuff from PBS, but they can also mix in the Pokemon or super hero cartoons.
Surprisingly (or not), the kids sort of gravitate towards the more educational PBS shows.
Chorlton and the Wheelies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Ng7VMqet0
Noggin the Nog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bKAYH3Sl8s
The Trapdoor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eEXyg1lsZc
Bod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfFoj-gFP2M
Bagpuss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9beAp3TG2E
...and, of course, the Clangers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Golf34zPQ
(There's a new series of the Clangers being made. Haven't watched any, I'm too scared it won't be up to the standards of the original...)
Oh! And I nearly forgot the Magic Roundabout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3DcChXNyYQ
There's also Mister Ben (not sure this stands the test of time) and Ivor the Engine.
(And I have fond memories of Danger Mouse, but I'm not sure that's any good either).
Also I appear to have remembered a fairly small selection of the 'children's television on drugs' genre. See also: Banamaman, Jamie and the Magic Torch, Roobarb and Custard, Captain Pugwash...
While talking about children's television: it's not British, and it's slightly later, but any person of any age who doesn't like Fraggle Rock has no soul.
In return I give you: The Wombles!
It was co-produced by a British television company (TVS), and had specifically filmed inserts that replaced the Inventor with a Lighthouse owner (the sequences were arguably better too, certainly less rambling and more focused).
But even if you ignore the inserts (others were filmed worldwide) it's still partially British
Stone soup...
Is it a translated version of Donnie Murdo? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-5hII715_s
If you're implying drugs were involved I think it's a tad insulting to the creativity and artistry of the people behind these wonderful shows.
Original post edited --- ta.
Some shows I like of hers:
- Miles from Tomorrowland, a family adventuring in space with bits of science and physics thrown in
- Lost in Oz, it's decades later and Dorothy's daughter is into making gadgets and stuff, ends up in Oz. There's only 1 episode now but it's about to be a whole series on Amazon
- Wishenpoof, another Amazon title , little girl can make wishes come true with magic but she's constantly discovering she doesn't need magic to solve problems
- Barbie Spy Squad, it's decent even though all the other Barbie stuff I've seen is pretty fucked-up.
You get Glados running the automated closet and plotting for world fashion domination, only to be stopped by the evil switch being turned off again, a large part of the first episode is modelled on an Indiana Jones temple exploration, they often handle things like batteries and glitter in the real size form (so the battery is about half the size of the people).. it's surprisingly funny.
Regardless, I'm using it as my alias from now on.
I wonder whether someone is working on that, it really sounds like a good and interesting idea. Is there a system to parameterize clothes? Hm.. I would have joined the closet if I was Barbie, despite the relation with the 'evil' switch.
What is this referring to, exactly? Videos of (adults?) playing with toys?
OTOH, I've been thinking off and on about how to start a channel since it's clearly a great way to pay for kids' toys based on the one show we watched where a kid and his dad assembled a gigantic Spider-Man drivable car.
There's your self-licking ice cream clone. I wonder why it's so pleasurable to watch these kind of unboxing vids. Mirror neurons?
It's not all unboxing though, whole stories get acted out with toys and different camera angles and lots of editing. There's a lot of elaborate music video reenactments too, like the songs from Frozen.
To be completely fair, I subscribe to more than a few blacksmithing, metalworking, machining, woodworking, and other heavy-duty crafty channels, and there's little-to-no chance that I'll ever get a lathe or a mill.
Here's the thing, though. There's a tradeoff between setting limits and teaching children what's right and wrong; and teaching them how to decide for themselves what's what. This is why kids of a certain age often get cash allowances, for example.
Kids are going to grow up one day. They will watch porn, and they need to know what's what -- what's bizarre entertainment and what's intimate, whatever its kinky-ness level, sex. They will watch violent movies, and movies that depict amoral, despicable situations. And this is fine: we're always flirting with the edge of our morality and our knowledge, this is how we keep growing as humans. "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth."
This why I have long decided not to have kids. I don't have the kind of generosity to host a little person that at first can't walk on his own, but is already his own person. I don't know how fathers do it. I often think my father should be disapointed that I didn't become a musician like him or some other kind of high-brow artist, but instead a "numbers person" as he puts it. But he isn't disappointed. And just I had been warned, when you're 10, dads know everything; when you're 20, they're total fools; when you're 30, they're even wiser than you realized when you were a kid.
My dad knows something mysterious about Being and Life itself I can only glimpse from watching soccer with him. Foolish as some of his life choices have been.
Congratulations on being a parent!
Absolutely, but it's mysterious and nuanced and a giant pain in my analytical brain. Allowing her to wander off with a phone or tablet can be a life-saver when things need to be done without any outside "assistance" but our daughter is highly susceptible to a condition I have named "iPad Face" wherein a screen held at arm's length or closer (how I laugh about what my parents' generation would say about eyeballs so close to a TV) can turn the happiest of moods into a dark sulk.
The other problem is everything needs to be taught by example, not by legislative fiat, which is another PITA and a bit of a challenge in These Modern Times. Looking forward to getting her interested in video games so she has another excuse to never go outside!
It's sweet, fun, no violence, no words (almost). Used to be quite popular (outside anglophonic countries I guess)
The subtitle of the show was (is?) "Lach- und Sachgeschichten" (roughly "stories to laugh about and stories to learn from") hinting at the format: some clips were pure entertainment and some were educational. The show is still running though the format has changed a bit over the decades I think.
[0]: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PNRrOGJqUI for an example of a 1990s explanation of how the Internet works (with live action re-enactments of DNS resolution and data transfer).
You're totally right about the Johnny Finger song too. It's at least 30% of all youtube-kids content.
My kids will come and tell me when it shows up in between all the braindead stuff because they know I'll sit together with them. Same goes for Tom&Jerry (eh, the part about me sitting down to watch TV, not the part about hidden references.)
Edit: oh, and I found the Winnie the Pooh audiobook from before Disney bought it and turned it into another educational timewaster. Kids have learned to like it as well.
This is likely in part deliberate. A significant amount of Teen Titans Go seems to be about taking potshots that those who enjoyed the original cartoon. Like 'Revenge of Slade' and its entire plot being a poorly disguised lecture on how fans of the first cartoon shouldn't want this one to be more than randomness for really young kids.
Which of course means anyone actually in the target demographic would have no clue what half the episode means. It's simultaneously confusing to young kids and infuriating to older viewers at the same time.
...and those wouldn't be so bad if they were not terrible at teaching math or reading or morals.
As a child I never watched TV with any regularity but that and Sesame Street stick out in my mind above all the cartoons and other shows I watched.
I am raising Danish kids abroad myself so I have watched a fair share of the Ramasjang shows from here.
To be fair, Danish children's shows are often inspired by American shows, to the point where many of the characters are - visually - clones of popular American versions: Check out this bird from what is maybe the most popular Danish children's show ever (5 sec in): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGOf_cV5ebc Looks like Big Bird. Or this popular show, Ramajetterne, which is visually completely like Sesame Street: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-jk_VuoJsg
[1] NSFW: Purno de Purno episode called the "The big nude woman" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUIbD-SASjo
[0] http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/29/47221130...
Not full of sex references, but definitely politically incorrect dialogues and some swear words for good measure. I don't think it had any negative impact on my childhood ;).
I've started describing it to people as: British shows are designed to entertain first, and perhaps kids can learn something, whereas the US approach is THOU SHALT MAKE SURE CHILDREN UNDERSTAND RIGHT AND WRONG!.
From another angle, showing events with consistent and guaranteed moral consequences could be seen as mis-educating viewers that if people misbehave then benign forces will appear on the scene, putting things to rights and dealing out appropriate punishments and rewards.
Sadly, in the real world, this is far from often the case.
Obviously, you don't want kids to grow up thinking "great, I'll be a bully and a thief, I'll get what I want and nothing will happen to me," but neither would I want them to grow up thinking "I'll just go along with whatever shit unpleasant people throw my way because something bad will happen to them before long without me having to do anything, and my innate goodness will be rewarded automatically."
Exactly.
Yes there is a time to spell things out, but by and large, kids learn by emulation. That's why the cliché "do as I say, not what I do" fails.
And more generally, that applies to adults as well. Most of us pick up more knowledge and life lessons from those who live it, than from explicit teaching. Sure a dump of information is good here and there at various stages of the mastery process, but that's a minority in the journey.
I'm no child psychologist, but I'd even tentatively argue it could be damaging.
I remember being a kid and seeing both: shows that tried to teach me, and shows that were entertaining. I remember even young-me rolling my eyes at "educational" shows. Sure, some were great, but most of the time, I'd rather watch the entertaining ones, because I didn't feel like they were pushing something onto me.
Once I got into school, I realized "oh, it's more of this educational crap". I clearly remember being skeptical of whatever they taught me, because, once again, it felt like they were pushing something onto me.
The same thing with games (video and non). I hated games that tried to teach me things. There was a clear contrast of quality between entertainment games, and learning games.
Kids (or adults) don't learn from lecturing nearly as much as we do from modeling and direct experience.
For me, this article was more about the reaction of someone raised with sterile and condescending media presence now witnessing an experience that does not underestimate children's intelligence.
It is about what USA-nians consider "unhealthy" children's television.
They where mostly products of the seventies and I would argue they where educational by not being pedagogic.
I am more annoyed by my youngest who watch YouTube kids. He is not just watching "ABC" but also shows about other children who play.
In some ways it's the same as the Danish shows yet filled with product placement stuff so I guess I kind of understand how Danish children shows must feel to foreigners.
At the end we probably shouldn't worry too much. At those ages kids don't really learn as much as evolve.
However, mostly you may have missed the subtle, educational point (yes, there is one) underpinning these characters: Critical thinking. Is it right to behave like this, even if there is no negative consequence (as is often the case in real life)? Do you emphasize with someone taking advantage of their friends? In Denmark, we have this crazy idea that kids are interested in distinguishing right from wrong, even when the answer isn't spoon-fed by a morally correct television character - and maybe exactly because it isn't.
The kids don't like Ramasjang because it's a training ground for inspiring film makers. The like it because naughty is fun. And, if done right, it just may induce some critical thinking. It'll take more than a few days of watching, but just like the kids, you'll see the point :-)
Best regards from a grown-up, bottle-fed on Bamse, somewhat certain of right from wrong.
I seems to me that the author actually enjoyed the shows and I mostly agree with his assessment, but he can't have been watching too much because he missed some important shows that are in fact educational.
Most prominent of the educational shows is Mr. Beard, who teaches numbers, counting, simple math, letters and simple spelling. The show is weird and quirky, but also features some great songs. The whole thing is backed by some pretty great apps, which expand on the educational stuff.
There's also a great show about kids helping animals in trouble. They don't pretend that the kids do most of the work, it's a professional that does the heavy lifting, but the kids get involved as much as possible.
I don't mind watching these shows with my kids, but I'll leave as soon as Dora or Thomas the tank engine or Chuggington starts.
If you're interested in watching some completely outrageous danish childrens TV, go watch "Carsten og Gittes vennevilla". It's created by the duo "Wulf Morgenthaler", who have produced some the weirdest stuff on danish TV. Particularly the one where Carsten creates a fox is a hoot.
And I actually disagree with the premise that this contains no lessons or morals. Children are able to see clearly how ridiculous and ill-advised the behavior of these characters is, and so learn to recognize it in themselves and others.
Someone once pointed out that while Mickey Mouse is the mascot of Disney in the U.S. and the main character of the franchise, in Europe it was Donald Duck who became popular. Europeans like the flawed anti-hero, while moralizing America (sorry!) preferred the do-gooder know-it-all Mickey Mouse.
In fact, I don't think I've even seen a single Mickey Mouse cartoon...
If you go a bit later, to when they started doing new animation for Looney Tunes tv specials in the 70s and 80s, the cartoons got dumber as well.
American audiences want their comic lead to be the cool guy making witty remarks, British audiences want the lead to be the butt of the jokes.
>You know that scene in Animal House where there’s a fellow playing folk music on the guitar, and John Belushi picks up the guitar and destroys it. And the cinema loves it. [Belushi] just smashes it and then waggles his eyebrows at the camera. Everyone thinks, "God, is he great!" Well, the British comedian would want to play the folk singer. We want to play the failure.
Additionally, my understanding is that Donald Duck had at least a few American fans. Though their numbers are probably limited to the few Americans who enjoy Looney Tunes, Homer Simpson, and the stereotypical sitcom dad (among other characters).
I grew up with a weekly Disney comic book that was a collection of mostly Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse (detective) stories. Almost always skipped Mickey, he's just way too boring as a character.
But didn't you guys have Duck Tales as well? I thought that was massively popular.
A large part due to how utterly annoying it is to listen to him "talk".
>But didn't you guys have Duck Tales as well? I thought that was massively popular.
Yes - at least in my childhood/area it was very popular. They also didn't talk like Donald Duck though. That probably has a lot to do with it.
I collected hundreds of them at flea markets about 40 years ago.
And yeah. Mickey's a boring goody-two-shoes. The earliest cartoons had him as an anarchic troublemaker but once he became the Disney mascot he got all the fun siphoned out of him and everyone quit giving a shit about him.
Ducktales was a very well done series, but what appeals to adults doesn't always appeal to kids, and the Ducktales movie bombed so bad it canceled the rest of the movies based on Disney Afternoon shows.
For comparison, the best Disney Afternoon series in the states was Aladdin, which outlasted Ducktales by several years, and spawned several direct to DVD movies.
But in the USA, Donald Duck (and comics in general) had growing competition whereas in europe he had time to become a nostalgic tradition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1kBNCRB6hw
Nanna: "What're you doing?"
Mother: "We're having sex, what're you doing?"
with possibly the most Danish name I have ever seen, heh.
Other than that, in the summer time anyways, I'll usually toss them a book of matches and tell them to start a fire or go build a dam in the brook.
We usually have lofty educational goals at the start of summer but quite honestly I can't be arsed when the weather is warm and there's so much great romping to be had. When we watch TV it's usually youtube for something we're curious about as a family. The "Fun" T.V. most always leaves my kids grumpy afterwards so we avoid it, not for moral or educational or child development reasons, but because i don't like grumpy kids.
After a couple kids and being the oldest of a large family I've realized from my individual scientific survey of one that kids will develop and learn in spite of their parents. We get too much credit and too much blame.
You gotta water if the sun's hot and it won't be raining for a while and you should try to get a load of fertilizer at least once a year. I guess you should weed after the first planting but you certainly can't make them grow.
If this comment is too rambling for you maybe you should go watch something with a moral in it[0]
Is that really as surprising as is implied? To me, none of what the article describes seems like such a bad thing. Sure it's a little weird, but it seems right up there with the humor children enjoy. And not everything has to have a message or a moral at the end of it.
> And God he says, lives in heaven with Santa Claus and
> their dog Marianne, implying that the Supreme Being
> is not only imaginary, but also gay.
It turns out that they are not gay, but not because it's inconceivable to children. They just aren't gay. (http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Are_Ernie_and_Bert_gay%3F)
Or is this not how it works?
> Or is this not how it works?
I think that the orthodox position would be that man was meant to be in God's image & likeness, but the Fall has warped the world and imperfections have crept in. Kinda like if I took a photograph of you, and then some random person came by and drew on a moustache.
Or gender, like nationality and status under human laws, is an element of the material condition of humanity irrelevant to the manner in which humans participate in the image of God; consider, e.g., Gal 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (text from the NAB, but the sense isn't shifted in any other version that I am aware of.)
Or, you know, a woman.
> Steven Universe
This show works incredibly well. Especially since the episodes are short - a feature for parents as well as kids. Gravity Falls, as well, does a great job of being fun without trying to do much preaching. Of course, some of the adult fandom for these can be a bit ... enthusiastic, so I worry about whether the kids will be able to enjoy themselves at conventions and on the internet without getting caught up in the drama.
Both of these shows have also garnered approval from some parents with some pretty insane control issues, too. In situations like that, it's nice to be able to provide gateway entertainment to kids languishing under extreme supervision. I doubt I'm the only one who's had to deal with that. It's surprising how many parents unwittingly rob their kids of a childhood. Being a non-parent in some ways gives a more even perspective about loosening the grip on the kids and not taking everything so seriously.
Shows like Regular Show and Adventure Time are pretty good, but some parents reject them for being "too stupid". Yeah, there's juvenile behavior, but it's not all over. When introducing parents to these, I sometimes have to be particular about which episodes I start with, or they'll immediately reject it.
I've introduced teens to shows like Rick and Morty and Star vs. the Forces of Evil. Parents are generally more accepting of more edgy material at that age. And they're gonna push boundaries, so at least point them to the better quality shows. Anime has also gotten hugely popular in this recent generation, to the point that some of my nieces and nephews seem to literally breathe it. Streaming subscriptions help with that, though available shows vary by licensing deals and region. Hulu is one of the best for cartoons.
It's also amusing that the creators of these shows are the recent adults who grew up on the last generation of entertainment cartoons.
Even stuff towards the more rubbish end of the spectrum, like Teen Titans Go, obviously has really good writers and is a lot of fun, at least for somewhat older kids and their parents.
Several of its shows seem aimed at all-ages audiences, some are exclusively adult--so much so that they call the block Adult Swim--and only a few are primarily for kids.
Of those that do seem to be kids' shows, it seems to me that they are better than the cartoons I watched as a child. At the very least, they don't seem to be long-form toy advertisements.
What makes television unhealthy, anyway? Is watching Cubs baseball unhealthy? Doesn't that teach the lesson that no matter how great you look at your regular job, you will always collapse into disappointment in the postseason? Is watching Good Morning America unhealthy? Doesn't that horribly skew one's perceptions of what is actually important in life, and prime you for receptivity to advertisement? Is watching unscripted "reality" television unhealthy? ...Yes. Absolutely, it is.
I already love this!
If there's one thing that children need to experience at an early age, it's that the majority of what they'll deal with in life will have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Life should be enjoyed for life ... it doesn't always have to be a backhanded way to learn to count.
https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/onkel-reje-og-boernenes-brevkasse-s1...
Most bakers sells "Kaj Cakes", we don't mind eating the cute puppets: https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/e35/c72.0.495....
Well worth checking out.
yes, I grew up watching mainly old American cartoons (like Tom and Jerry), and I don't remember them being particularly "educational", and it was well understood that we are watching them for entertainment, and the last one was at 7:15 pm on our television.
Onkle Reje:
http://www.dr.dk/Ramasjang/Onkel_Reje/forside.htm
It may be in Danish, but it is for 4 year olds.
What would Rasmus Klump do?
Denmark - No gun crime, low homocide rate, high Human Development Index (HDI) USA - High gun crime, high homicide rate, lower HDI.
So - What exactly do kid shows have to do with long term success of the kid, or the general society they contribute to?
Strangely a lot of reshot UK programmes.
My particular favourite was putting a camera on the front of a train: Helsingør to Helsingborg the long way round.
I'll get my coat.
It's just math. Make sure your kids are in that 5%.
I was immensely proud when my son at 4 years old decided to stand up in his pre-school class and point this out to everyone.
Edit for the naysayers: quantum effects too...
edit: there's also proof of quantum effect in the real world.
Being a bit more grounded there's a possibility that it's electron, not electrons too.
There's also proof of God: to borrow Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph, si monumentum requiris, circumspice.
I don't mind a little atheist boy proclaiming his disbelief in preschool, but I wonder how his father would feel about a little religious boy proclaiming his belief in that same school.
This, is no proof. At best it's an argument from authority.
You need a little leg up in rhetoric arguments. It has long been decided, by better logicians and theologists than us, that either there's no proof of a supreme being or that it doesn't exist. To borrow vocabulary from another domain, it's a closed issue.
Either way is fine, and I've been careful not to disclose my beliefs.
edit: I used an argument from authority, partly by sarcasm
pedit: musing about languages and brains: I did 3 years of latin classes and was good at it, and although I could roughly understand the latin quote, translating it in English through my native tongue made my brain feel weird, so I took the translation found on wikipedia...
Why can't kids be kids and believe in whatever makes them happy? They'll have plenty of time later to be old and cynical.
In the absence of falsifiable claims, the burden of proof lies exclusively on the person making a positive statement of existence (that there is a supreme being). If you care about truth, preaching from a book is so much worse.
(Although in NL, Sinterklaas' helpers will abduct you to Spain if you're naughty)
(edit: Actually that doesn't sound too bad, I wouldn't mind going to spain)
Historical evidence (whether documentary or archaeological or otherwise) is certainly producible, but not reproducible in the sense that you can provide the exact same thing again.
Geological evidence (again, very simply, like rock strata) is not reproducible. Even saying that this kind of formation always accompanies another kind isn't reproducible. (The "all ravens are black" problem.")
There are other logical kinds of evidence that don't meet the "scientific" standard, and yet are quite valid. My objection really is that the original statement was far too narrow.
Would you care to provide many examples?
- Coincidences where the person decided at "random" to take a different route, and ended up avoiding a disaster or helping someone as a result. Counterarguments: confirmation bias, ignoring unconscious intuition.
- Other people saying or doing the right thing at exactly the right time to alleviate a personal suffering the other person "couldn't" have known about. Counterarguments: confirmation bias, underestimating others' intuition/perceptiveness.
- Feeling a funny happy/peaceful/warm/shivery/tingly feeling at the same time as something religious happens or while reading a religious book. Counterargument: fMRI+TcDCS/TcMS experiments (though tentative), other situations in which similar feelings occur like relationships, deeply artistic movies, music, nature, etc.
- Children saying things about subjects they haven't been taught about directly, like a long dead relative. Counterargument: confirmation bias (think of all the misbehavior children commit), and underestimating children's perceptiveness.
- Personal epiphanies, like having unexpected words or an internal dialog instead of monologue popping into mind especially in religious scenarios, for example when praying over someone else, or when reading, etc. Counterarguments: right temporal gyrus (bicameral mind theory), evidence that thoughts occur before we are aware of them, subjective variations in nature of internal monologues and imagery.
And FWIW, I thought the commenters in this thread did a decent job of not turning it into a flamewar.
So if this comment was detached because it received a lot of flags, consider that it may be effectively suppressing an interesting intellectual viewpoint because of one group's disproportionate taking of offense at disagreement, to the point of feeling the need to flag this comment but not other, similar comments that support that group.