{"id":1682,"date":"2010-02-01T12:27:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-01T12:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/02\/faith-vs-skepticism\/"},"modified":"2010-02-01T12:27:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-01T12:27:00","slug":"faith-vs-skepticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/02\/faith-vs-skepticism.html","title":{"rendered":"Faith vs. Skepticism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Today in my religion and science fiction class we focused on the X-Files. The assigned reading was a chapter from The Philosophy of The X-Files<\/em><\/a>\u00a0which compares Mulder and Scully, and philosophers James and Clifford, on the topic of belief and its justification.<\/span><\/div>\n
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At one point the choice between these approaches was summarized in what I think is a very helpful way.\u00a0If we\u00a0adopt a skeptical approach,\u00a0we\u00a0are less likely to\u00a0believe\u00a0things that\u00a0are false, but will also probably not believe\u00a0many things that are true but for which evidence is lacking.\u00a0If we take a credulous approach, by believing everything we may be certain that we have believed everything that is true, but we will inevitably believe many things that are false as well.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Which approach do you consider preferable? Is there any real way to find a middle ground between them? And for those whose religious standpoint leads them to believe that God prefers<\/em> one or the other of these approaches (or looks favorably on humans who adopt one or the other), why do you think that might be the case?<\/span><\/div>\n
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Today in my religion and science fiction class we focused on the X-Files. The assigned reading was a chapter from The Philosophy of The X-Files\u00a0which compares Mulder and Scully, and philosophers James and Clifford, on the topic of belief and its justification. At one point the choice between these approaches was summarized in what I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFaith vs. Skepticism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today in my religion and science fiction class we focused on the X-Files. 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