Quizzes March 27, 29

NG preface, 1-2

1. Who was the "cheese" to John Locke's "chalk"?

2. The Declaration of Independence really stands for what?

3. What false impression do millions of Americans have of Ethan Allen?

4.  The author of Moby Dick might have been thinking of Allen when he said what?

5. What "engine" did Thomas Young co-found?

6. Who called Young a "little dirty Screw"?

7. Who did his contemporaries call "a confirmed infidel" and a "howling atheist"?

8. The important infidels at the end of the 18th century were all what?

9. Name two of the  "scrupulous and worthwhile" scholarly efforts about the American revolutionaries cited by Stewart.

10. What "solemn journey" did Jefferson take at age 23?

11. From where did Allen claim to have learned everything worth knowing?

12. What did Young decide was "one big fraud"?

13. What "individualistic side of Protestantism" did Jonathan Edwards push to its extreme?

14. Whose poem/essay won the admiration of Kant, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Young?

15. Young and his fellow "natural-born rebels" sought what, beyond freedom of religion?

DQ

• What were you taught in school about Ethan Allen and Thomas Young?
• Why should we care about the ideas of the founders?
• Is Deism a worthy alternative to atheism (freethought, humanism etc.) or a transitional stage to it?
• Is it accurate to call Jefferson an atheist?
• Should Protestants abandon the concepts of election and predestination, as incompatible with individualism?
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Quiz March 29 NG 3 (These are from the first half of the chapter, please add yours from the second half.)

1. What was Epicurus's dangerous idea?

2. What did Thomas Hobbes say about Epicureanism?

3. According to Epicurus, nature acts according to ___, not ___.

4. The best general statement of the guiding Epicurean principle is what?

5. What did Einstein identify as the eternal mystery of the world?

6. Who said it's better ("less remote from the truth") to believe nothing than to believe what's wrong?

7. Why is the Epicurean philosophy more robust than a narrower materialism?

8. How did Jefferson describe "the dead"?

9. How did Epicurus account for the complexity and diversity of life?

10. How did Lucretius account for the creation of better and more just arrangements of society?

DQ

• Do you agree that the rediscovery of Lucretius and revival of Epicureanism were more important than the scientific revolution? 80
• Do you think it's accurate to describe Epicurus as the most famous atheist in history?
• Is there any place for teleology in an atheistic (naturalistic/humanistic) worldview?
• What do you think Jefferson would say about William James's "Will to Believe" and its assertion that it's sometimes appropriate and necessary to believe things without proof?
• Is it correct to say that atoms are not really things? 95
• Do you agree with Jefferson's critique of Plato? 100
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