Our Ethics Bowl team will be meeting every Wednesday, from 4 to 5, in Main 201. All interested students are welcome. (Explanation: Ethics Bowl is like Debate or Forensics, but the point is to come up with the fairest & wisest assessment of tricky ethical situations.)
Also, we will commence Bowling for Philosophical Truth next Tuesday, Sept. 11, 7 p.m., at Logan Lanes. Come have fun and gain the benefit of the wisdom of the Oracle of the Nine Pins.
Several readers may find this book discussion interesting. It’s about Jefferson’s complicated relationship to the Bible. And the author, Brad Gregory, is a USU alumnus!
Excerpt:
Jefferson’s sharp-edged Bible study hardly makes him unique in the annals of skeptical investigations of Christianity or any other religion, for critically engaged belief has always left a deep imprint on the content of religious texts. But was Jefferson’s scissor work a profound act of faith or an assault on the very notion of divinity? This question lies at the heart of Brad Gregory’s passionate and polemical book, The Unintended Reformation. Gregory, a history professor at the University of Notre Dame and a well-known scholar of the European Reformation, seeks to upend longstanding assumptions about the process by which Western secularism, capitalism and individualism have emerged since the Reformation. In his formulation, Jefferson is one of the key architects of what Gregory labels the great “Kingdom of Whatever,” a society indelibly shaped by religious pluralism and scientific naturalism, and ruled more by the demands of the marketplace and individual rights than by communitarian ethics and the search for the common good. The apotheosis of the unintended Reformation is the diverse, indeed hyper-pluralist and anything-goes society of the United States.
The first meeting for Ethics Bowl is tomorrow, 4p.m. – 5 p.m., in Main 205. Or at least I *think* this is true; watch the comments on this post for any corrections!
Join other philosophers for pizza and beverages at The Factory pizzeria (199 S. Main), 7 p.m.
This, in anticipation of Kleiner’s class this fall (hat tip to Brian Leiter):
USUPhilosophy 