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.
Jim G: I don't see it that way. JC: And that instructors would be foisting these personal beliefs on students. Jim G: Not would be, MIGHT be. The question is, does it happen? If so, how often? In what way? JC: But that is not a valid characterization of the situation. Jim G: Because why, because you don't do it (that's not meant to sound argumentative)? JC: Our primary job as faculty, arguably, is to teach students what beliefs are worth maintaining because they are empirically well founded, rational, etc. Jim G: If they are supposedly empirically well founded, then I don't see them as a belief. I guess it might depend on your definition. Do you have some examples in mind? JC: Our job is not to perpetuate beliefs simply because 90% or even 99% of the population believes them Jim G: No one is saying otherwise. The fact that most people believe something doesn't make it rational, doesn't make it true. But if most do believe something, it certainly demands taking note. Maybe even doing a better job of understanding why...which means looking at the possiblity it just might be rational. It seems like from your point of view, you don't find theism rational so then it must not be rational. Can 90% of the population really be that irrational? I find that improbable. But not proveable ;) JC: 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. Jim G: Of course not. JC: 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. Jim G: Well, you may have misunderstood me, that somehow I was arguing since most believe something, a) it must be true and b) back off. Not so. Jim C: 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 G: Uh, SOME evolutionary biologists based on the sample that chose to respond to the survey. So what? Isn't this true for anyone who doesn't believe in God? How many people say "I think there is plenty of evidence for God but I don't want to believe it?" :) JC: Would it not be more accurate to say that a belief in god is irrational and unscientific, rather than just improbable? Jim G: I find a belief in God quite rational. Unscientific, sure. But then again I don't base everything I do or view in my life based on whether I can stick it under a microscope and measure it. JC: After all, there is no logical or empirical reason to justify such a belief, is there? Jim G: There is to me, and plenty others. We obviously see it differently [shrug] JC: 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, on should continue believing in god, perhaps based on experiential or intuitive grounds. Jim G: Some might argue that, yes. A comedian once joked "I think some people believe in God JUST in case...you don't want to say 'There's no God,' get to the pearly gates and go 'Uh, is there some community service I can do'?" --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
