Yellow and Pink is
a story about two wooden figures that have just been made by a man. They
become conscious of their presence in the world, and they wonder how
they got here...and how they can know how they got here. Yellow and
Pink go through a series of possibilities trying to understand how
they came to be. Yellow attempts to use science to explain how they
got there, emphasizing the role of accidents in creation. Pink continues
to doubt and questions Yellow's explanation. Ultimately, they both agree that
there are some questions that they can not answer.
In thinking about how we as humans have been made, we certainly can sympathize
with Yellow and Pink in acknowledging that there are some questions which we
can not answer. However, this is all the more reason to discuss those issues
in an attempt to come to a better understanding of them in relationship to our
life.
Yellow and Pink are wooden figures that exist because a man has made them. This
man crafted them with similar materials, yet gave them slightly different forms.
The story is a metaphor, essentially arguing for the existence of God, or some
creator of the world. The story suggests that the man made Yellow and Pink, but
Yellow and Pink themselves do not come to that conclusion. In fact, they do not
know who the man is at all. This leaves room for speculation and for evaluation
of their existence.
The history of philosophy provides a whole spectrum of discourse on God and the
existence or non-existence of God. This includes both ontological and cosmological
proofs for the existence of God, as well as different understandings of God's
form and role in our life. God is often characterized at omnipotent, omniscient,
and benevolent, but does not always assume that role. God can be a specific entity
or an ambiguous universal. God can exist or God can not exist. A discussion about
God may be a religious one, but not necessarily. Because of the many arguments
for God's existence, there is room for philosophic debate about their validity. This allows for a religious matter to be examined through philosophic terms.
Regardless, it is almost certain that the children will have thoughts
about this issue - whether their own thoughts or things that have been
told to them by parents or other authority figures. It is important to
get the students thinking critically about this topic. No conclusion is necessary,
but generating ideas and examining possibilities will prove worthwhile
without being controversial.
It is often difficult to distinguish between what is an accident and what is
not an accident, especially for children whose life has not yet given
them sufficient experiences to help make this distinction. It is therefore helpful
to raise examples of things that may or may not be accidents. For example, thinking
a bad thought, it getting dark at night, or being born. In the case of the story,
this involves Yellow's explanation of how he and Pink came to be. There seem to
be certain conditions that may or may not enhance the likelihood that the figures
came to be simply by accident. These may include perfection of form, length of
time, ability to sense, and accountability of science. These can be examined
and used to help define accidents.
Additionally, after developing a basis for understanding accidents, we
can raise questions about the world itself to see if it could have been created
by accident. This can be thought of in relationship to God and whether or not
God played a role in the creation of the world. We tend to reason that everything
has a cause, but this becomes difficult when we start thinking about things as
large as the world. There is the battle between science and religion that philosophers
discuss in attempts to make sense of this perplexing problem. The notion of causality
here is then examined in terms of the very first cause and whatever it is that
cause entails.
Continue
to question set for this story
