abe smith

or, How To Make a Hume. subthread to recent discussion here about how to promote "critical thinking/thinkers".

If you want (your) children to become "critical thinkers"/skeptics, careful about accuracy and substantiation & "the truth", twould be advisable to start *early* = probably preverbal; certainly preliterate. Break promises; thwart expectations (randomly, unpredictably); LIE to the child every chance you get, except to include a random true fact or so, unpredictably.
All-This works best if the Teacher is sufficiently self-deluded (not too hard to arrange) as to believe his/her own falsehoods & inconsistencies. (After all, look at who run the world.)

"Can you say"cognitive dissonance", Orlando?" Way to go.

(What do you think Santa Claus & that God-stuff are for?} There's that hair-raising "joke' about the Jewish father & his little boy: "Go ahead, jump; Papa will catch you." It's related in some weird way to the (Freud's) "Oi. Kreplach." joke. (That's the punch line.)
I've often wondered about what it was that did it for David Hume. He was posthumous = born after his Father's death; could that have had some relevance?