USUPhilosophy

Here is a short but provocative article on TS Eliot and the relationship between religion and humanism.

While I am sure my friends in SHAFT will disagree, I don’t think humanism can survive without religion.  But what is interesting here is Eliot’s claim that religion cannot survive without humanism.  

(On the first claim, of course in order to decide what humanism needs we first need an adequate anthropology – that is, we need to know what a human is.  The folks over at SHAFT are probably all materialists, so we already don’t agree there.  I want a humanism that is worthy of the human person as a whole).

For those interested in reading more on religious humanism, I would direct you to John Paul the Great (JPII).  His personalism is a fine example of authentic humanism, and it is philosophically informed (you may recall that JPII first ‘job’ was as a philosophy professor).

I’ve jotted down some thoughts here. Comments welcome!

I will leave this wide-open for students to post on their reaction to Scalia’s talk.

1. S.H.A.F.T. MEETING: The first Secular Humanist Atheist FreeThinker meeting will be Thursday, 9/18, from 6 to 7, in TSC 335.

2. PHILOSOPHY CLUB / PHI SIGMA TAU initial meeting: Thursday, 9/18, 7-7:20, Main 326. If you’d like to come and brainstorm over events to have over the coming year, please do. After a very brief meeting, we will go to the German film (see below).

3. GERMAN CLUB FILM: “The Counterfeiters,” an Academy-award winning film about moral dilemmas faced by concentration-camp laborers. Thursday, 9/18, Library 154, 7:30. Brief introduction by Professor Felix Tweraser.

4. S.H.A.F.T. SOCIAL: Friday, 9/19, from 6 to 7, in TSC 335.

5. KLEINER AND HUENEMANN DEBATE THEISM: Thursday, 9/25, from 4 to 5, ENGR 108. And with a twist: Kleiner will argue for atheism, and Huenemann for theism! Each side hopes to lose.

Here is an interesting article on the new Large Hadron Collider.  It does a decent job of explaining in close to ordinary language what they are looking for, and what we might conclude if they do or do not find it.