Another philosophical week has gone. Meetings for Friday of course and tutoring on Saturday, but the courses are finished until Monday evening. So was much accomplished? I think so. I made inquiries concerning how my use of the materials was appreciated by everyone and the responses are all positive. This week I used a Betty White and Johnny Carson skit about Adam and Eve and tied that in with a reading from Mark Twain - Eve's Diary, all to introduce Augustine's interpretation of what the Fall represented. This followed by the crucifixion scene from The Passion to discuss the sacrifice and how Augustine interpreted that. At one point I also showed the entire TED talk that Steven Pinker gave concerning The Better Angels of Our Nature - and that violence has declined. I argued a main reason for the decline is the growth in acceptance of the main Christian principle of Love.

A note on some previous blogs: when I use the speech to text function of my Nexus the blogs tend to be a bit scrappy - philosophers' names tend to be difficult, for example. I discover some words that make me look grammatically literate drop off. Just saying. Typing this one! Coming from class just now introducing Jesus using the Front Line Jesus to Christ presentation for part of the class. My main emphasis was on the variety of interpretations of who Jesus was and how that is reflected in the variety of religious sects that refer to themselves as Christians. I mention Harold Bloom's "The American Religion" and point out that he considers most sects in the US that call themselves Christians as pagans. (I try to remain neutral in this while still pointing out why he thinks so.) Today, despite my efforts I had one student ask a question that clearly indicates I need to explain further, since she wondered if she should check with a preacher to get a good answer! I asked what preacher? She obviously figured it did not matter, if they were a Christian preacher they would know "the answer". Obviously I did not convey the idea that there would be as many answers as preachers depending on the tradition of the sect and school that they attended. Hmmm. Must work on this. Next class we do my interpretation of Saint Augustine.

(Repaired by typing) This evening in humanities class we never got to cover the videos on the syllabus. The Internet was working fine and so we went over some of the things we could not cover last week.I felt like things went very well and everyone seems to follow what we were covering. We spent most of the time covering the philosophies from Plato and Aristotle up through the post Aristotelians. When we talked about the Cynics I referred to Dionysius. While discussing him I showed the class the picture by Rafael titled the School of Athens. Then I talked about Epicurus which led to a discussion about the Epicurean philosophy. For an example I played portion of the movie by Fellini titled Satyricon. The portion I showed from the movie was Tremalchio's feast. Then we talked about the Stoics and their philosophy with an emphasis on Epictetus. Next, we talked about the Skeptics and after the Skeptics we talked about the neo-Platonists and then right away to talk about Jesus. For the topic of Jesus I showed a portion of the Front Line presentation on Jesus to Christ.

Easy variability is what is wrong with pre-scientific explanation. David Deutsch explains http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=folTvNDL08A

For a great description of what I use the word "Saved" to mean - as in "Have you ever been Saved?" is from here page 12 and so on: http://books.google.com/books?id=y7yJP67BRz0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=josiah+royce+the+sources+of+religious+insight&source=bl&ots=jmPf7lVrXd&sig=Z1m44ruUvcqyaMNt73QQrenYKSk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3rNWUOuPGq60igLuo4HYBQ&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=josiah%20royce%20the%20sources%20of%20religious%20insight&f=false

Continuing to read http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Human-Evolution-Paleolithic-Axial/dp/0674061438/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347681435&sr=1-1&keywords=robert+bellah and meanwhile adding a dip back into Clifford Geertz http://www.amazon.com/Interpretation-Cultures-Basic-Books-Classics/dp/0465097197/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347681552&sr=1-1&keywords=clifford+geertz+the+interpretation+of+cultures which is the predominant source for the introductory discussion on the nature of religion in RB's book (see page 90 in Geertz). This all ties in beautifully with my discussion piece in HUM 212 and my page http://wsjamison.uaa.alaska.edu/rel.htm Sorry for the nature of this blog of nothing but links but it should be pretty handy for me this week.

Typing this one. About three or four previous were dictated to the Nexus and posted as the Nexus interpreted my speech - so some of the text is obviously wrong. Today I am reading Robert Bellah's "Religion in Human Evolution". Starts with three nice quotations, one by T. Mann (from Joseph and His Brothers), one from Hegel, and one from Mencius. First point I'd like to note is a critique of Richard Dawkins (I love critiques of RD!) concerning his "The Selfish Gene" and how contemporary views favor the organism rather than the gene as the main unit of survival. But this critique immediately strikes me as a bit unfair - and I would rather argue both are simply models of what to notice in evolution rather than thinking one is right and the other wrong. The stronger interpretation is that both models are useful - and probably other models besides. But notice footnote 8 of the Preface RB says RD notes this as his point of view also in his next book "The Extended Phenotype".

reading Harold Bloom's new book the anatomy of influence. One of his quotations is the writing is the defense of melancholy. It seems to me that if writing is a defense off melancholy then that is 1 of the reasons that I do not write very much. when I was a kid, doing the first 3 years of my life, my mother use to walk me alternatively to the Philadelphia Art Museum or to the Philadelphia Zoo almost daily. We lived 3 blocks from the bridge that was just across from the Philadelphia Art Museum so it was a short walk from our apartment. Remember also that this time there were no TVs and as far as I know my family did not have a radio either. I remember the first time we got the radio in the house that would have been many years later since we were in the suburbs then and I remember the puzzling look on my father's face as he sat there listening to the voice coming from that little box. The TV arrived at the same house at about the same time and I remember that very clearly because it almost killed me.as I recall the TV installer had brought the TV and installed the antenna on the roof and was sitting on the couch explaining to my parents how the device work. Meanwhile, I was on the floor heading about on all fours I remember the great rug the walls and the vanilla looking cabinet of the large TV sitting on the floor. Next to the TV was a brown wire with 2 little metal leaves. I recognize it as electrical and thought it needed to be plugged in and I distinctly remember plugging the 75 ohm antenna lead into electric socket. This of course started electric shock coursing through my body and I remember hopping around and looking up at the 3 adults sitting on the couch. My parents we're completely focused on what the installer was saying and he set in the middle of the 2 of them. What I remember was his turning and seeing me and reaching down and grabbing it.but before all this happened we lived 1 Spring Garden Street just across the Schuylkill River from the art museum. And my mother said that she used to walk me they're practically everyday so I must have gotten an early it's a cation in art. That probably explains why even today when I visit the Philadelphia Art Museum I have a very strange feeling of comfort with the place. I somehow remember the feeling of the halls the steps the artwork very atmosphere of the place. Are you even remember the strange ancient elevator with its Gigantic brasss doors.

Okay so maybe it is pretty clear why we still write on paper most of the time since this clearly is not the perfect way of doing it, because it still gets mistakes. I will give it a try and edit the blogs that I've already posted so that they make a little bit more sense and don't say weird things. But I have to admit this is really pretty cool. (This has been edited later!)

this is the third block but I will write using just this text love speech to text device. I'm at the moment did the showing my daughter how this works. I think it's pretty cool myself however, it might bug the heck out of you if you are reading my blog. So my advice to you is not to read my blog if you don't want to see such screwy fryer oil fryer oil trial there you go he he he experiments amen.

this is the second blog that I will write using the speech to text feature of my next 7 I was amazed that I was actually able to publish the last 1 so the last 1 was just a test.but now that I'm actually fascinated with how well this works now I have to come up with something interesting to say we're even I won't want to read my blog. So what should I talk about, if all I'm able to think about at the moment is hell meet my new devices?continuing to give my blog a little bit more of something interesting to say I have to admit that occasionally some of the words do not come across exactly right. Like in the last sentence for example, I use the word how and instead of how the machine rotel route hell well not root cell wrote that's correct how very strange. Testing sprint sprint it's it to talkno someone else is talking this is a very funny machinepepsi.. Will come? Here's the real kicker it's he he he he he he he

it surprises me that we write on paper anymore when we can just speak to our machines and they write everything down for us. This is the first time that I am using my Nexus 7 in order to write this blog but it surprises me that I do not have to correct the device at all it seems to catch everything the first time as I say it. I am engine if I get comfortable with this machines I will be able to speak at my own comfortable pace and be able to write as fast as I think instead of as fast as I type.

Thoughts: a new semester has begun and my classes are terrific. The students seem ever more enthusiastic. I don't know if it is just my feeling or if either I am getting better and introducing things or more of my students are aware ahead of time of how I do things and they look forward to it. Either way, it makes for a nice feeling all around I think. I have the same basic set of courses minus logic this semester. Two Introduction to Philosophy sections, one Truth Beauty and Goodness, and one Introduction to Humanities II. I pushed myself to keep pace instead of falling behind early in the first two classes which often happens and it seemed to work. We are keeping pace with the syllabi in all except TBG where the normal problem of racing through the history of philosophy before starting Quine typically takes more than one session. But we did race through Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas - maybe a little heavy on Aquinas, but it really went well this time. I also gave the pretest this semester for the first time since 2006. So far as I can tell, I did not read them closely, but the results look good with regard to giving me plenty of opportunity to achieve improvements in their scores. Since I also told my classes that I hoped they would do poorly on the pretest and well on the post test they seemed happy to find the questions confusing! They look forward to having an improved post test. And now we have the Labor Day holiday. This is the last chance to read and finish up the summer reading plans.