Please paste your assignments in here. Write your definition of the term “JEW” for a Dictionary of Stereotypes based on antisemitic websites you have found on the web. Be sure to include links to webpages you found.
Is this a legitimate cultural practice that should be defended or an abuse of the human rights of women?
Leave your comments below
Prof. Charmé
I’m very excited to announce that we will have an opportunity to discuss the idea that God is a delusion with a renowned scholar of psychology and religion on January 26th at 12:30 pm in Penn 401 on the Rutgers-Camden campus. Susan Blackmore will be on campus to discuss “The Power of Memes, or How Infectious is the God Delusion?” Whether you agree or disagree, be sure to come.
Personally, I don’t think it is necessary to pathologize religious belief by suggesting it is a mental illness (delusion) or a disease (infection). Nor do I think most people come to their belief in God on the basis of rational argument, so rational arguments against God are about as likely to be very successful as trying to talk someone out of being in love on the basis of a “rational” appraisal of their beloved. It seems to me that there are many powerful experiences in human life are non-rational and our brains are capable of more than just analyzing logical arguments. When Freud called God an “illusion,” he was careful to say he couldn’t disprove God based on scientific evidence anymore than believers could prove God’s existence with any kind of hard evidence. Rather he was suspicious about religious belief in a benevolent deity who rules the universe with perfect love and justice because it corresponds so perfectly with our deep wish for the world to be just and meaningful place. Emotionally, belief in God is as deeply satisfying as being in love. What we have to decide is whether the benefits of our irrational experiences and beliefs outweigh the dangers. Obviously, in the case of religion, the dangers of actions based on irrational beliefs are considerble.
Hope you all can come to the lecture and discussion on Jan. 26.
For an amusing presentation on the issue of atheism and belief, take a look at this:
http://atheistdelusion.cf.huffingtonpost.com/
Stuart Charmé
(click on “comments” below to leave your responses)
As my “End of the World” class discovered this week, Nostradamus amazingly is always predicting cataclysmic events, such as an impending World War III to be started by a bearded Iranian ruler, that are scheduled to occur just a few months or years in the future. We are certainly “lucky” to live in such interesting times. Forget, for now, that Nostradamus mentioned July 1999 as the date for the appearance of some sort of frightening King. That month was actually pretty quiet, though Morocco did get a new king. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_1999) Of course, the quatrains of Nostradamus are vague and ambiguous enough to get reinterpreted to fit whatever actual events end up happening. I started to wonder about something else. What if Nostradamus, or any other prophet, actually made precise predictions about people, places, and events? For example, if he had actually said back in the 16th century that “On November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, a president named Kennedy will be assassinated” I confess that I would REALLY be impressed and would have to reconsider my views about time and history. If it were hypothetically possible for a psychic or prophet to do this, and I don’t see any evidence that it is, it raises a different kind of question. Would the people who had read his prediction about 1963 during the 400 years before the 1960s have had any reason to care? In other words, is narcissistic interest in our own time the crucial ingredient for studying prophets like Nostradamus? Even if we had good reason to believe a prophecy about, let’s say, an alien invasion of earth or the second coming of Jesus scheduled for April 15, 2500, would it really matter to anyone today? I guess this is why it is better for prophets to be vague and ambiguous, so that people in any period of history can think that they are talking about them. How do you explain the popularity of Nostradamus’s prophecies?
Welcome to the new blog sponsored by the Philosophy and Religion Department at Rutgers-Camden. For many years, the student-run Philosophy Society has been a venue for serious discussion both at invited talks and on the group’s email list. In more recent years, our religion students have added an additional set of issues and concerns to the conversation. We’re hoping that this new blog will be a place where we can continue to have these discussions. The faculty in the department will be posting their own thoughts and musings about various issues and we invite you to suggest issues and topics of your own. Send your suggestions to me, Stuart Charmé, at scharme@rutgers.edu, or leave a comment on the blog. We’re new at this technology, so bear with us as we try to get the kinks out of this process.
Let the dialogue begin!