A Portland State University philosophy teacher will talk about challenging students' faith-based beliefs in the classroom in a free public lecture Nov. 17 on the Portland campus.



Peter Boghossian will argue that faith-based beliefs are a "cognitive sickness" that have been turned into a moral virtue and that -- like racist beliefs -- they should be given no countenance in the classroom.



"I believe our role as educators should be to teach students not just factual data, but the importance of critically examining beliefs by exposing them to facts," he wrote in an online piece at Inside Higher Ed. "Some values, like matters of taste, have a fundamentally internal, subjective component. Facts relate to the objective status of things."



During his lecture, "Faith, Belief and Hope: From Cognitive Sickness to Moral Value and Back Again," Boghossian will identify and challenge six obstacles that discourage educators from engaging student beliefs. Questions and dissenting viewpoints are welcome at the 7:30 p.m. lecture in the PSU Science and Research Training Center, Room 155.



Boghossian is also affiliated with Oregon Health & Science University. The lecture is co-sponsored by the PSU physics department and the nonprofit group, Oregonians for Science and Reason.



-- Nancy Haught







