The Cosmological Argument (with children), PART 1: Understanding Sets

A practical exercise that includes a discussion with children. This helps them to understand one of the concepts that is part of the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God.

In this exercise the children think of a set of things. It's preferable if the set is something to do with their own interests. This is a step towards them comprehending a set of things that have something in common with the other members of the same set.

After PART 1 the next step will be a set of the things that come from or are made from or explained by other things outside of their own set. So in PART 2 we can look at the set of wooden furniture and then we will understand that things within that set require other things to explain their existence (e.g. trees, carpenters, carpentry tools etc.).

This video covers the stage prior to that. Two of the young people simply make a set of things they like and the other one makes a set of Lord of the Rings characters.

The concept and activity in this video is simple and straightforward so feel free to jump ahead in the video once you get an idea of what is going on.

Materials Required: A sheet of paper and a pen (or pencil) for each young person.

0 mins: Into & Explanation for Children
0 mins 45 seconds: Start showing the children by example
3 mins 13: Things that don't belong in the set
4 mins 43: Children start their own sets
5 mins 22: Ideas for sets
7 mins 43: Things outside of the circle