Faith Intersections
  • Home
    • Goals and Lessons Overview
  • Section One: Lessons 1-3
    • 1. I Believe in God: Creation and Evolution >
      • The Two Stories
      • What's The Big Deal?
      • Finding Your Voice
      • Leader Guide - I Believe in God: Creation and Evolution
    • 2. I Believe in Jesus Christ: Incarnation, Life, Death, and Resurrection >
      • The Two Lenses
      • What's The Big Deal?
      • Focusing Your Vision
      • Leader Guide - I Believe in Jesus Christ: Life, Death, and Resurrection
    • 3. I Believe in the Holy Spirit: God's Activity in the World >
      • The Two Claims
      • What's the Big Deal?
      • Listening With Two Ears
      • Leader Guide - I Believe in the Holy Spirit: God's Activity in the World
  • Section Two: Lessons 4-6
    • 4. Prayer and Faith - Mind, Body, Spirit: Are They Connected? >
      • The Two Perspectives
      • What's The Big Deal?
      • More Than One Angle
      • Leader Guide - Prayer and Faith - Mind, Body, Spirit: Are They Connected?
    • 5. Good and Evil - Biology and Theology: Sinner or Saint? >
      • The Two Sides
      • What's The Big Deal?
      • Making Connections
      • Leader Guide - Biology and Theology: Sinner or Saint?
    • 6. Ways of Knowing - Data and Belief: Theological and Scientific Methods >
      • The Two Methods
      • What's The Big Deal?
      • Choosing Options
      • Leader Guide - Ways of Knowing: Data and Belief - Theological and Scientific Methods
  • What's The Big Deal? TEST
  • What's The Big Deal? TEST2
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   From the time we are born, we begin learning about and making sense of the world. Through exploration, testing, along with trial and error we grow in understanding of our environment. As we grow older we enter into formal education that furthers our ability to make sense of the world. Our experiences and knowledge combine so that eventually we are able to form judgments concerning how the world works.  

There are many ways to gain information, or data, about the world.  In early childhood we begin with organizing and classifying objects as is common with teaching young children to group “like” objects together. For a quick reminder of this early learning click on the link below to hear a lesson from Sesame Street:


Sesame Street
We also learn to make meaning of events and objects from a variety of sources. As children we have the experience of activities at home and in school or public places that help us to make sense of our world and to navigate the differences between our private and public life. We experience rituals (religious or non-religious), are exposed to media sources, and learn to use tools to name a few. Through role-playing, artwork, storytelling, and imitation of others, we interpret and make sense of these experiences.1 The information we take in as children is the data that serves to further our ability to develop skills to function in life. 

These experiences and data also help shape our understanding of what is important or valued, a sense of fairness and justice, as well as to interpret symbols and develop beliefs. This includes our capacity for belief in a higher power, or god/God.
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As author and researcher Justin L. Barrett tells, “Children are prone to believe in supernatural beings such as spirits, ghosts, angels, devils, and gods during the first four years of life due to ordinary cognitive development in ordinary human environments. Indeed, evidence exists that children might find especially natural the idea of a nonhuman creator of the natural world, possessing superpower, superknowledge, superperceptions and being immortal and morally good.” 2  He suggests that as children, we are designed naturally to believe in a god, or God.

So how can we understand both the scientific and theological methods for how we learn and believe? Click on the next tab “THE TWO METHODS,” or the button below, to learn more about these claims.
Below are two options for using the LEADER GUIDE;  the first option contains information for this page only and the second option contains the entire LEADER GUIDE. 
The Two Methods
Page One Guide
Leader Guide

1 Summary of information presented in McGraw-Hill, “Young Children Making Meaning at Home and School,” 7. http://mcgraw-hill.co.uk/openup/chapters/0335212654.pdf

2 Justin L. Barrett, Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Belief (New York, NY: Free Press, A Division of Simon and Schuster, Inc.), 3.
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