Hi On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Rick Froman wrote: > I teach at an interdenominational Christian college and > students take Bible classes here as part of the Core > curriculum. They are not graded on their agreement with the > teacher's doctrinal beliefs but by their ability to show > evidence of their understanding of various doctrines > discussed in the class. If they can do that in a religion > class, I think they can do it in physics classes, too.
I think this gets at the crux of the problem. The difficulty I have with your position is that it equates the foundations of our beliefs about our physical world on the basis of physics (or other sciences), with the foundations of our beliefs about religious matters. To me that is a patently false parallel. Ideas and propositions that come to be believed as true in science are based on a repertoire of scientific tools that allow us to evaluate and eliminate competing hypotheses, to overcome our biases and other cognitive limitations, to determine how well predictions (often quite unexpected or non-intuitive ones) based on our belief fits with subsequent observation, and so on. Beliefs that do not meet these rigorous criteria are discarded or held in abeyance until appropriate tests are undertaken. There is nothing comparable in religion, which is why (to connect with another thread) methods books in psychology consider how the scientific way of knowing (what is true or what to believe) differs from other purported ways of knowing. If this distinction is correct, then one is not equally eligible to "believe" in the contexts of science or of religion. "Not believing" in the well-founded products of science (not that there aren't lots of unresolved areas in science!) is akin to a rejection of the entire enterprise, whereas rejecting one religion's tenets (e.g., reincarnation) does not necessarily mean that one rejects whatever fundamental foundations underlie our many religions. As for the arguments about instilling belief being indoctrinating and the like, such arguments are conflating different senses of the word "belief" (or "believe"). The word "belief" is neutral (i.e., accept as true) and does NOT specify the grounds of belief (e.g., faith-based). I would think that most of us do want to instill in our students a belief in the scientific and/or psychological enterprise, as well as a whole host of empirically-validated findings (e.g., birds of a feather, treatment x is effective for condition y, ...). Best wishes Jim ============================================================================ James M. Clark (204) 786-9757 Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax University of Winnipeg 4L05D Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED] CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark ============================================================================ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
