Professor Peter Boghossian of Portland State University believes that when a student makes a faith claim in a classroom, it is the professor's duty to tell them they're wrong. Because faith claims are not empirical or testable, professors should stop treating such claims with kid gloves and start corrected the students who make them. He made this argument in a short article for the journal Inside Higher Ed and then gave a subsequent talk where he argued that faith is a kind of cognitive sickness that should not be given equal time in the classroom. Claims like these are grabbing the attention of atheists and theists alike because they have the potential to affect the way we think about faith.
The article has garnered a lot of attention including, approvingly, that of Sam Harris, and disapprovingly of Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, who lambasted the professor for his views. Because of the interest in this topic, I sat down with professor Boghossian's to dig into his claims a bit more deeply. His ideas are important ones in that they capture what I think a lot of people are discussing when it comes to faith and the public square. Many are questioning whether faith claims are appropriate in a modern, scientifically literate classroom (and, for that matter, society). Professor Boghossian clearly thinks they aren't and argues that professors should have the courage to say so.
At the heart of Boghossian's argument is the idea that students should leave a classroom more informed about the world than they entered it, and since faith claims aren't publicly testable, students who make them "shouldn't be given a seat at the adult table." Boghossian makes a distinction between a private belief that impacts only the person believing it (like the belief that peanut butter tastes good) and public claims that are supposed to have implications for the rest of us (like the claim that God disapproves of contraception). Beliefs about God and his activity are private beliefs that students are welcome to hold but these beliefs should not be a part of the educational conversation. If a student makes a public argument that is based on a private belief, professors should call these students out and help correct their thinking.
Boghossian is clear that the crux issue is not about the claims themselves. Rather, he focuses on addressing the processes one uses to get to those claims. Professors must "meaningfully discuss these issues and talk about the process one uses and the fact that certain processes are unreliable to lead one to the truth -- faith being one of those processes -- and have educators call people out on, quite frankly, delusion."
For example, flipping coins or sacrificing goats is not a reliable process for predicting the weather. Scientific processes that test and correct hypotheses are. Faith claims, according to Boghossian, are grounded on processes much more like flipping coins than evidenced-based research. If a student makes a claim not based on evidence and argument, why should such a claim have any authority in a classroom? In his article, Boghossian notes that a student wrote on a final exam that despite what she learned in the classroom, her belief in God was "absolute" and no amount of philosophy would ever change that. The processes that led the student to such unequivocal belief are not only faulty, but dangerous, says Boghossian, and professors would be remiss if they let students leave their classroom believing that such processes are reliable.
These issues have much wider cultural implications. Should faith claims have any authority in politics for example? According to a recent Gallup poll, more than 90 percent of Americans claim to believe in some higher power. Shouldn't this belief have an impact on how we think about governance? Boghossian says no because this is not a belief that could even possibly be evaluated for truth. The fact that the majority believes it doesn't mean it has merit (he makes a comparison to beliefs about slavery in the past -- mass delusion is still delusion).
What role should faith play, if any, in the way we think about the conversation in the classroom or an ordered society?
According to Boghossian, it should be relegated to personal preference like a taste for peanut butter or what to do in one's free time. Faith claims should not be given any educational or social authority. And in case you missed it, that's a public truth claim and one that should and will be discussed broadly and deeply as the role of faith continues to evolve.
Listen to the podcast with professor Bogossian and find out more about his work at philosophynews.com
I have found that there are many athiests on this thread who do two main things. They tend to either not realize that the tools are insufficient, or they treat having no evidence of god as if it is proof or carries the same implications. Neither respect the scientific method or the academic commmunity. Especially in the context of a thread topic about a professor and a student, we need to be mindful of how we can apply the tools we have in a consistent manner.
Said this right but--- why we often forget that in the word elightenment itself, and whoever tries to make himself enlightened, the light is there and without light there would be no enlightenment and no one would be enlightened. But some who do not believe in God as LIGHT, as such, keep talking about enlightenment and related matters like reason etc. If they want to be enlightened they have to do more research on the source of that REAL LIGHT that created this whole universe with the word be it and it is done. Now, when that light guides you believe me, no one should be left without enlightenment or enlightened. To me without LIGHT there cannot be any enlightenment and no one would be enlightened, see the word light taken out the light should be out and darkness should set they are mutually exclusive for sure and for reason, and it remains only "en--enment" which does not mean anything. So enough on this enlightenment or the enlightened one or pure entertainment so the discussion must go on with Reason that there has to be light in enlightenment to enlighten anyone who wants to be enlightened. So GOD ENLIGHTEN US.
I can see the point if he is talking about classes in a "hard"Science but if a faith based comment is made in a class on something like Philosophy then it would be as appropriate as aanything else.
One need not pretend to know things one doesn't know, in order to believe that pretending to know things one doesn't know is a bad idea. Once someone understands that rather simple principle, Dr Boghossian's thesis becomes self evidently true.
1. Sickness when a necessary function of the human body fails to operate correctly [definition].
2. Rational thinking is a necessary function of cognition [premise].
3. Anything which prevents one from thinking rationally would qualify as a "cognitive sickness." [1, 2].
4. Religion prevents people from thinking rationally [premise]
5. Religion is a cognitive sickness [3, 4].
You're demanding precisely the incorrect sort of support for Prof. BoghossianÂ's characterization, and therefore the fact that you won't get it hardly improves your position. Prof. Boghossian isn't the one speaking outside of his area of expertise, you are. If you want to critique his position, you'd do better to go after points 2 or 4 as outlined above. Good luck.
Cognitive dissonance at work. Classic.
The first wholly new interpretation for two thousand years of the moral teachings of Christ is published on the web. Radically different from anything else we know of from history, this new teaching is predicated upon a precise and predefined experience and called 'the first Resurrection'. A direct individual intervention into the natural world by omnipotent power to confirm divine will, command and covenant, "correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries." So like it or no, a new religious claim testable by faith, meeting all Enlightenment criteria of evidence based causation and definitive proof now exists. Nothing short of a religious revolution is getting under way. More info at http://www.energon.org.uk
http://soulgineering.com/2011/05/22/the-final-freedoms/
Ponder away...
How about something provable and testable that would indicate that the Bible is god's word?
[29] "Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
[30] " 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
[31] "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead
One also need not draw an explicitly religious requirement from that kind of data, even if supported. Consider Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" and his resulting practice of logotherapy in which he develops his thesis that what people need to survive harsh circumstances is purpose. This would seem to be supportive (or at least parallel) to the studies you cite. But Frankl is quite clear that it need not be restricted to a religious sense of "purpose," and gives examples of many other things that would work.
But even so, here you're using religion as data points in arguments regarding sociology and/or psychology, not as the arguments themselves. That's an entirely different thing.
In a class about clinical psychology a student's personal beliefs are no more relevant than they would be in a religious studies class or a biology class or a chemistry class or a literature class. Just because you are studying the effects of faith, doesn't mean you can make claims about the 'reality' of said faith.