Grace & gratitude

Sadness and Loss Are Everywhere. Books Can Help.
The saddest stories can show us how full of grace the fallen world can be.

...We've all had near misses that shook us to the core: when a hydroplaning car skidded to a stop in the nick of time; when a toddler, unwatched for half a second, teetered at the top of a flight of steps but was caught just before stepping over the edge; when the scan showed a shadow that had to be a tumor but turned out to be nothing at all.

And every near miss is almost always followed by a golden time, too brief, when the futile frustrations and pointless irritations of daily life fall away, when all that's left behind is gratitude. We are here. Our beloveds are here. How remarkable it is to be together. How full of grace the fallen world can be... Margaret Renkl

"an unconstrained transgressive [and destructive] life

A cautionary tale: Jacob Taubes, a man who really believed that Dostoevesky and Nietzsche were right , that without a god everything is permitted... and finally  "a man who was  the sum total of his performances, of which he too was a spectator." He was the sort of philosopher who gives philosophy a bad name. The wrong sort.

The Man Who Made Thinking Erotic
Jerry Z. Muller's "Professor of Apocalypse" tells the story of Jacob Taubes, who is largely forgotten today but was at the center of intellectual life after the war.

...Taubes was a conventional believer until his encounter with the German Jewish political philosopher Leo Strauss, who was then in exile at the New School. Though today Strauss is thought of as a conservative, in fact he was a deeply radical thinker. He taught Taubes the works of Maimonides and drew from the medieval sage the lesson that unconstrained philosophical inquiry ultimately poses a threat to the faith of ordinary people and to the authority of society's laws, which enforce justice and decency. If the philosopher is to remain radically free in his thinking he must learn to dissemble publicly, speaking carefully to avoid prosecution and observing social norms. Muller believes this teaching had a profound effect on Taubes, shaking his faith and convincing him that he faced a choice: between a private reflective life constrained by respect for law (Strauss's choice) or an unconstrained transgressive life now that God was dead. He chose the latter... nyt

KSR's future

Kim Stanley Robinson hasn't stopped thinking of what humanity might yet make of itself. We're going to read his Ministry for the Future in Environmental Ethics this Fall, alongside Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben, Paul Hawken, and the Sunrise Movement... (continues)

 One day the zookeeper noticed that the chimpanzee was reading two books-- the Bible and Darwin's The Origin of Species. In surprise he asked the chimp, "Why are you reading both of those books?" "Well," said the chimp, "I just wanted to know if I was my brother's keeper or my keeper's brother."

 

Bibles removed from Easter display at veterans medical center gift shop after secular activist group objects to them

https://www.theblaze.com/news/bibles-removed-from-easter-display-at-veterans-medical-center-gift-shop-after-atheist-group-objects-to-them NEWS

DAVE URBANSKI

April 14, 2022

   

Photo by Willie J. Allen Jr. for the Washington Post

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Editor's note: The original version of this story referred to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation as an "atheist activist group." The description has been changed to "secular activist group" to more accurately portray their mission.

Bibles recently were removed from an Easter display at a New Mexico veterans medical center gift shop after the Military Religious Freedom Foundation — a secular activist group — objected to them.

Full Article Here

Link to 4 14 2022 Podcast 

Death is something that's sure. It's also something many of us avoid. Certain people, though, have made facing death part of their everyday life. In an opening feature, we visit Larkspur Conservation – one of the only conservation burial grounds in the country as we say goodbye to one man's son. Then we speak with a woman who recently buried her dad at Larkspur as well as ordained ministers from different traditions about how they are plugging into, and guiding us through, the dying time. Guests: Lindsey Baydoun, photographer who recently lost her father, Cory Fite Becca Stevens, speaker, social entrepreneur, author, priest, founder of 10 nonprofit justice initiatives including Larkspur Conservation, and president of Thistle Farms Chaplain Omarán Lee, pastoral counselor, chaplain at Nashville General Hospital at Meharry Rev. Jeannie Alexander, co-founder and co-director of No Exceptions Prison Collective, death doula in training More: A documentary on Larkspur will be available on PBS beginning April 18. Learn more here. See more photos of Cory Fite's burial ceremony that is featured in the documentary here. Photos by John Brown and courtesy Lindsey Baydoun.

Questions Apr 19-21

AC

1. In which of the four secular categories is the US?

2. What's the global tendency in religion-state relations today?

3. What did the UN General Assembly say about the rights of the child in 1989?

4. What was banned in France in 2010?

5. How has Habermas shifted his position vis-a-vis Rawls's view?

6. What did the Speaker of the Turkish Parliament say in 2016 about the constitution?

7. Even in a world of diversity, says Copson, we need what?

 

DQ

• As our course wraps up, do you think you have a clearer sense of the differences and similarities between the various 'isms we've considered? What still puzzles you about them? Are there any you are prepared to embrace, or any you definitely reject?
• Gary has reminded us of that quote from William James (he was in turn quoting Henry Leuba) that the end of religion is life, more life etc.-not God. Do you agree? Do you think most atheists grasp this point? Most humanists? Pragmatists? Etc.?
• Does the US really "treat religions neutrally"? Do most Americans want it to?
• Do you agree that violence "triumphed" in the Charlie Hebdo murders? 103
• How do you answer any of the questions on 110?
• Your suggestions pertaining to AC, LBH, presentations, the course subject-matter in its entirety as we conclude...