Hi James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> "jim guinee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05-Apr-07 12:20:09 AM >>> Jim CLark: 3. Isn't there something ironic about a group that constitutes a 90% or better majority pleading bias and discrimination? Even the article cited by Jim notes the continuing prejudice against atheists in America. Jim G: Good point, but again, we're talking about for example the class environment. If psychology instructors are much less theistic, much less religious, the view changes because the person in power, the person making decisions about curricula, etc is personally opposed to what most of the students espouse. JC: You make it sound as though nonbelief in deities is simply a matter of personal, arbitrary preference, akin to the beliefs of others to those deities. And that instructors would be foisting these personal beliefs on students. But that is not a valid characterization of the situation. Our primary job as faculty, arguably, is to teach students what beliefs are worth maintaining because they are empirically well founded, rational, etc. Our job is not to perpetuate beliefs simply because 90% or even 99% of the population believes them, and our job is certainly not to maintain that certain domains of life (e.g., religion) are somehow exempt from the kind of critical thinking that we are trying to teach. Once you do that, students are free to exempt all kinds of domains of belief, such as their beliefs in the inherent inferiority of some people, their ideological beliefs in the efficacy of certain political structures, and so on. Scientists are justifiably unwilling to divorce their critical faculties from everyday beliefs, including religion, which is perhaps why lack of evidence is by far and away the dominant reason that evolutionary biologists gave in one survey for their high level of non-belief in god (see http://www.cornellevolutionproject.org/results.pdf). Jim CLark: 4. What constitutes respect in the classroom? Is it respectful to treat people as adults who wish to examine critically the validity of their beliefs about the world? Or is it more respectful to pander to people's current beliefs, no matter what they might be, on the assumption that their childish egos are too fragile to stand any challenge? To make this concrete, consider a memorable philosophy of religion course I took many years ago. Much of the course was devoted to examining the various arguments for the existence of god, all of which were shown to be flawed in diverse ways. Should the instructor instead have ignored these philosophical questions or misled the students into thinking the arguments were valid in order to demonstrate "respect" for their religious views? Jim G: The instructor was right to challenge, and challenge hard. If someone's belief is that brittle, well... I think respect is more about we treat the student, as opposed to the student's belief. There's a difference between viewing a belief in God as being improbable and viewing a believer in God as being a dope. JC: Would it not be more accurate to say that a belief in god is irrational and unscientific, rather than just improbable? After all, there is no logical or empirical reason to justify such a belief, is there? I'm less sanguine than Jim G. that such a statement about belief is going to be much comfort to the believer. The crux of an even more fundamental problem, I suspect, is implied by Jim's "if someone's belief is that brittle, well...". I think that many religious people would argue that no matter how absent the empirical and logical grounds for the belief, one should continue believing in god, perhaps based on experiential or intuitive grounds. Indeed, some might even argue that the most profound testament to one's faith in god arises just when evidence and reason for the belief are most wanting (e.g., when horrific things happen to nice people). But once you admit something akin to this is ok, and perhaps even laudable, you have to a large extent undermined the whole point of teaching critical thinking. Critical thinking becomes something that people can turn on or off, like a tap, depending on how willing they are to expose their own or other people's beliefs to critical scrutiny (i.e., how much they want to insulate certain domains of belief from critical examination). Take care Jim --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
