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[john_proctor]

Yes.  My own educational background as well as my curriculum blends Literature and Religion (Biblical Studies.  I do history of interpretation, critical theory, etc.).

I'm a member of religion specific professional societies and the Am. Comp. Lit. Assoc. and MLA.

I think there is a great deal of overlap in techniques, issues, approaches, methods, ethics and ends.

[invinoveritas]

Ok, I guess I'll repeat myself since so many of you either do not understand or are simply unwilling to accept the point I was making.

I said "Now,...I never said that any professor should never express any of their own thoughts about the subject matter....I agree with you here...that's practically impossible.  As soon as you start talking about anything, the manner in which you convey it is from a perspective.  True, but that doesn't mean that we all have to go in for some kind of postmodern 'all is relative' nonsense (not that you suggested this...).

The point I'm standing on is that when it comes to religion, professors should attempt to teach it as objectively as possible."

canadian,...its not a contradiction.  And your comparison between religion and sexual preference is a bad one for the simple reason that religion is chosen, sexual preference is not.

There is a clear and distinct difference between 'expressing thoughts about a subject matter' and 'teaching objectively'.  I cannot for the life of me understand why some of you refuse to recognize this difference.

Grasshopper....I never said that religous people are mindless idiots....but the vast majority of them hold unsound metaphysical views.  The vast majority profess belief in some kind of 'supernatural' realm.  This is ridiculous....there is only one world...the natural world....and I no longer have the patience to debate it any further.

What I really love though, is how you now claim that you were being satirical.  This is laughable.  You said you were Catholic.  Catholics believe that praying for someone can actually affect their salvation.  If you do not believe that, then you are not Catholic.  So either you weren't being satirical, and now you claim you are because you can't defend yourself any other way, or you were being satirical, and you choose to call yourself Catholic even though you don't really adhere to the faith.

Perhaps the reason why some of you are attacking me is because the argument has turned from whether or not grasshopper taught objectively to whether objective teaching is possible at all.  It is.  And I am astounded that so many of you do not think so.  Has all the recent postmodern nonsense deconstructed your brains?   Perhaps a simple example might help you to understand: You can teach religion by explaining the history, beliefs, and practices of the world's religions without offering your own religious beliefs in the process.  Yes....its really that simple.  I do not see any need whatsoever to profess your religious beliefs to your students. I cannot imagine why any professor would do so unless they were attempting to persuade.

john proctor,

you said: "I'm not sure why we feel we need to either reveal or conceal, or why we think we could really do either."

I agree with the first part of your statement and I think I've offered a viable answer to it above.  But I think you may be too quick to accept the second part (unless you were just wondering out loud).  At the end of a semester, I had a few students asking me what my religious beliefs were...I asked them to vote as to what they thought.  About half thought I was Christian, a quarter thought I was atheist, and the other quarter thought I was agnostic (more evidence that religion can be taught objectively....but it seems like most of you don't want to hear that). 

Of course we can choose to either reveal or conceal.  Grasshopper chooses to reveal and I choose to conceal.  As all of you can tell, I think it is better to conceal.  Perhaps the second part of your statement was really referring to whether our revealing or concealing could really have an influence. 

I think it can.  Maybe not always, but sometimes it does...especially if your students like you, hold you in high regard, and are impressed with your knowledge.  And if you are teaching religion at a public college or university, you should take this seriously.  Attempting to influence students of the truth of a particular religious worldview at a public college or institution is a violation of our constitutional separation of church and state.

[quasihumanist]

I teach mathematics, and i find it hard enough myself not to end up revealing at least to some students that roughly three times a month i spend an hour sitting mostly in silence with 20 or 30 other people in the room.  Certainly this experience has an effect on how i teach, and i do generally want to be open with students about why i do certain things in the classroom.

Please note that i phrased the above as revealing my religious practice, not my religious beliefs, though in my case the natural interpretation by a knowledgeable person knowing where i live would not be that far off.

I think i am not the only person resisting arete1's arguments because we disagree with his or her premise that religion is primarily about doctrine.  (Note we talk about "practicing Catholics", not "believing Catholics".)

Indeed, the confidence with which he or she makes his or her pronouncements makes it seem as if he or she has never read Kant or Wittgenstein and aware of the philosophical issues with his or her statements.

[case_insensitive]

arete,

no one is attacking you. you are the one begging for debate. when folks lose interest in your arguments, you seem to want to attack them. 

if you truly want to debate, expect folks to question your assumptions and statements.  don't confuse someone's questioning of your position with an attack on yourself.

c i

[invinoveritas]

case,

You are probably right...but I think that their 'losing interest' is really an unwillingness to admit the fact of a counterpoint that I've presented.  I do expect questions on my assumptions and statements...and I welcome them if they are supportable, but I get the feeling that most people are not listening to my arguments, not because they are bad arguments, or because some people might think that my mode of presentation is 'arrogant', but because they disagree with what I'm saying even though they do not know how to effectively argue against it.  Its fine to disagree if you can offer a good argument against someone's point, but if you can't offer a good argument, then just agree or offer something otherwise insightful on the topic...  And if you re-read some of the posts, you might see that a lot of them are attacking me rather than my argument or they appeal to some kind of relativistic nonsense about the impossibility of being objective about anything at all.  Its no wonder so many people do not take the humanities very seriously anymore....

quasihumanist,

2 points:

1. Aren't practising Catholics and believing Catholics the same?  If not, then why bother practising?  So please don't try to lecture me about a practically meaningless distinction.

2. I am completely aware of the 'philosphical issues with my statements' as you say.  Which issues are you specifically referring to?  I am very familiar with Kant's philosophy and Wittgenstein's....so shoot away.  I see no relevance here, unless you can explain why you referenced them....so do it if you think you have a point...don't just throw their names out there as if you've said something profound against my argument by simply mentioning Kant and Wittgenstein.

[case_insensitive]

You are probably right...but I think that their 'losing interest' is really an unwillingness to admit the fact of a counterpoint that I've presented. 

Continue to think that if it makes you feel good...

[thundering_m]

You are probably right...but I think that their 'losing interest' is really an unwillingness to admit the fact of a counterpoint that I've presented. 

Continue to think that if it makes you feel good...

*LOL*

[invinoveritas]

case and thundering,

Once again you have both displayed your childishness and inability to create a rational argument for your views.  Since you seem to lack any respect for reason, I now realize that it is not worth engaging you in discussion.

Why do you even bother?  Go post your nonsense in a kid's chatroom if that's the level of thought you're going to respond with...

[canadian73]

case and thundering,

Once again you have both displayed your childishness and inability to create a rational argument for your views.  Since you seem to lack any respect for reason, I now realize that it is not worth engaging you in discussion.

Why do you even bother?  Go post your nonsense in a kid's chatroom if that's the level of thought you're going to respond with...

funny, i bet this is exactly what everyone in this discussion has been wanting to say to you from the beginning, but have been way too polite to say.

i do believe this discussion is dead.

[case_insensitive]

arete,

Once again you have displayed your childishness and inability to create a rational argument for your views. 

Why can't you do me the honor of believing me when i say I am just not interested...?

By the way, that's a rhetorical question.

Have a great day!

case

[invinoveritas]

Sorry case and canadian,

I don't honor sarcastic and/or useless posts...hypothetical or otherwise. 

I no longer care what case says. 

canadian, do you have a point you'd like to raise regarding the topic of teaching objectively or not?....if you do, offer it up, if you don't, then...well...whatever....your snide comment is baseless and your previous attempt to equate homosexuality and religion was absurd.  Now you act as if your 'restrained politeness' is somehow noble?  The only thing funny here is your sad attempt to offer an argument, and when that failed, you couldn't respond any other way than with a sorry attempt to ridicule an argument to which you could offer no decent reply. 

[nonny]

I'm quite disappointed to discover from these posts that many faculty share the same questionable understanding of "objectivity" as the average firstyear student or CNN and Fox programming directors.  I wonder if, as educators, whose job it is to convey knowledge, we should all be required to take a course in the theory of knowledge.

Objectivity does not mean the absence of opinion, it means an opinion that corresponds to the nature of the object rather than to a given subject's feelings about or impression of the object.  It's true that as a  matter of method, we try to be objective by restraining or controlling personal attitudes and feelings.  This is because personal attitudes are more likely to (though not necessarily) reflect a subjective relation between subject and object rather than an objective property accessible to any and every subject.

But that's a methodological issue: it requires being cautious and self-critical about our perceptions of things.  Which is NOT the same thing as discounting all beliefs or opinions.  Objective methodology is good precisely because it is more likely to lead to OBJECTIVE BELIEFS.  Far from objectivity meaning subtracting out beliefs, it means identifying superior and inferior beliefs.  For example, objectivity REQUIRES rejecting any religious belief grounded in faith because it depends on a subjective relation to the object of faith. 

It is not true that being objective requires hiding one's own opinions or beliefs.  (I find particularly troubling the idea that I should have to hide my atheism.  Must I hide my belief in evolution, too?  How about my non-belief that the earth is supported on the back of a giant turtle?  Should I keep that to myself?  Do physics teachers have to keep to themselves whether they belief their texts are true?)  First, because given objectivity of method, beliefs are objective.  In teaching, this means we have to explain what the objective reasons for a belief are--show what makes for objectivity of method--not subtract beliefs out of the equation.  If we do the latter, we fail to teach students how to distinguish truth and falsehood, better and worse, more and less likely beliefs.  It's by explaining reasons for belief that we avoid failure to be objective in teaching. 

Second, we don't have to hide beliefs not only because there are such a thing as objective beliefs, so they don't necessarily interfere with objectivity.  More importantly, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, with "imposing" our beliefs on the students.  On the contrary, to teach is to try to persuade.  If you're not doing it, you're not doing your job.  First, I use the word "impose" half jokingly.  There's no danger of "imposing" beliefs unless (a) you're holding a gun to your students' heads or (b) your students are helpless infants awaiting programming.  (B) is slowly becoming the case, thanks to teachers who like to "protect" students from the possibility that they might ever have to face being wrong about anything, or encounter an authentically different view (i.e., one incompatible with their own), thus necessitating authentic epistemological choice.

Nevertheless, (b) is not yet hopelessly true, and I for one am working against it.  The worry about misleadingly called "imposition" or "indoctrination" is a real one, but we have to be clear what the danger is. 

The dangers are:
1) you teach beliefs that are not objectively derived.  A good example of this would be, yes, a devoutly religious person who, as some but not all religious persons do, holds her beliefs on the basis of a personal feeling or conviction.  Ideally, teachers try to teach things that are true, and personal feelings aren't (by themselves) a good guide for that. 
2) you teach objectively based beliefs but in a manipulative way.  This is another issue in which all faculty taking an introductory philosophy or epistemology course could benefit.  To use the classic oversimple formulation: knowledge is justified true belief.  We don't just want to give the students true beliefs, but we want them to hold them for the right reasons, or be justified in their beliefs.  So not only do we seek objective verification in methodology for coming to those beliefs, we try to teach students to use objective methodology to come to them as well.  So we still impose or persuade, but we try to do so using reason rather than authority or emotion or peer pressure or whatever else.

If we insist that the mere presence of personal, controversial beliefs are incompatible with objectivity, we then make truth dependent upon popular opinion.  Whatever (like say, religion, or evolution, or politics) is subject to wide disagreement then becomes something about which we cannot claim truth and consequently cannot demand other rational persons recognize the truth of.  Ironically, this definition of "objectivity" implies there's no such thing as objectivity. 

[invinoveritas]

Nonny,

Well said!

I know I probably didn't express my thoughts on this topic as clearly as I should have (you've just shown how to clear up most of the fuzz around the concept of objectivity quite nicely).  I think your post was excellent.  I hope everyone who lambasted me takes the time to read it and think about it.