| Problem Set |
Section |
Problems |
|---|---|---|
| 17 | ∗ | Read the article “ The Odds of That,” by Lisa Belkin, which appeared in the New York Times on August 11, 2002. As backdrop to the article recall that, around that time, several people around the country had received letters in the mail laced with anthrax. The article lays out a good case for responding to strange events with words like “Those things happen. It would be even stranger if they never happened. Perhaps the strange thing is not that unlikely things occur—they do all the time—but that I was here to witness such things. But since every event that happens is extremely unlikely, I should be no more amazed by the ones I witness than the ones I don't.” Such a response has merit. But the article contains phrases like “Much religious faith is based on the idea that almost nothing is coincidence.” “Believing in fate, or even conspiracy, can sometimes be more comforting than facing the fact that sometimes things just happen.” “We need to be told that those lucky last-minute stops for an Egg McMuffin at McDonald's or to pick up a watch at the repair shop or to vote in the mayoral primary—stops that saved lives of people who would otherwise have been in the (World Trade Center) towers when the first plane hit (on Sept. 11, 2001)—certainly looked like miracles but could have been predicted by statistics.” “Coincidence is a sort of Rorschach test. We look into it and find what we already believe.” Do these statements, taken together, amount to an attack on Christian faith? What is, in your view, an appropriate Christian response to this article? Can the positions expressed therein be accepted in full by a Christian? In part? Not at all? Write an essay of length at least one page responding to these questions. |
| n | manditory problem |
| (n) | helper problem |
| [n] | ungraded problem |
| {n} | optional problem |