Thanks for your comment, and your honesty. One of the things that frustrates me about my inclination towards philosophy is that I keep changing my mind about so many things!

If only I knew the difference between faithfulness and pride…

The best way I have discovered to keep myself honest and humble as a Christian Philosopher is to ask myself, in a stereotypically Christian way, “If Jesus is the Truth, how does my argument point towards the Truth?” That doesn’t mean that every argument is about God - what it does mean is that any argument I make ought to be one that has Truth in mind. If it doesn’t, then I’m not being a very good philosopher, and I’m not being an honest Christian.

That’s an interesting perspective, as I tend to usually be hesitant to resort to biological explanations, as they’re often used in a reductionistic manner that essentially removes any responsibility for our actions from us.

That being said, however, I believe that this is a key piece of the puzzle. I’ll have to keep mulling this one over.

I think what you are dealing with is biological at it’s roots. There is ample psychological evidence that suggests that we percieve and judge information and situations long before we think about them in a rational way. It seems that it is part of being human and on an evolutionary level, necessary for survival.

This mental instinct does gum us up in the academic world and I think Gregg is right when he says that we have to be willing to acknowledge that we could be wrong and most likely are in a lot of cases. Or at the very least, not to assume and present ourselves with more authority than expressing our opinions warrants.

No doubt the academic life can be a sham, but it doesn’t have to be, if we’re open to learning new and better views than we have already, and acknowledging that we can be wrong.