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Word of the week: w/c 02/03/15 - Agape

28/2/2015

 



unconditional Love. For christians it is the love revealed by Jesus. Spiritual, selfless and evident in his death on the cross. 

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PictureFr. Daniel
This is the second time love has been the word of the week - but last time was during half-term and there is a lot more to say on the matter than in my last post!


We were lucky enough to have Fr. Daniel Sandham, Vicar of Brownswood Park (@sjebp) come to address the School's Philosophy Society on the matter of Sex, Marriage and Sexuality in the Church of England. This is a topic relevant to all students studying Religious Studies or Philosophy and Ethics from Year 10 and above at our School. This report was written by one of our Year 10 students who attended the talk:

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"The talk commenced with a rather humorous introduction as Father Daniel admitted; a Vicar is not the person most people want to discuss sex with! The talk began with the topic of ‘agape’, or love and the importance of love at the heart of Christianity. This impacts the Anglican view of marriage, sex and sexuality, so was relevant throughout the discussion. We also learnt of the ‘three-legged stool’ of Anglicanism, focusing upon three components: scripture, reason and tradition, which again influence the view of an Anglican on these matters.

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"He outlined the importance of an Anglican marriage and its necessary components. Upon learning that an Anglican marriage must be between a man and woman many people voiced their objections and Fr. Sandham agreed that this is an area that church still has to reach consensus. We learnt of the importance of sex in the marriage and how the phrase "the delight and tenderness of sexual union’ is a core part of the marriage ceremony. This led into our discussion regarding pre-marital sex; we analysed points made by Jesus in the Gospels and St Paul, but regarded them in their context, being aware of the modern normalisation of sex, considering scripture, reason and tradition, so regarding the ‘three legs’.

"The majority of students were fairly lenient towards the idea of pre-marital sex; however, the topic of adultery caused much more controversy. We found that, according to the Bible and Anglican beliefs, adultery is wrong. Divorce was another issue up for much discussion and, although the Bible and Jesus condemn divorce, we discovered that the Church of England allows the marriage of divorcees at the discretion of the Vicar, showing a certain acceptance.


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"The final topic discussed was homosexuality. As we discovered previously, homosexuals cannot get married in the Church of England; however, this does not necessarily mean that the Church of England is against homosexuality. We learnt that, although there are quotations from Leviticus that condemn homosexuality: ‘you shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination’, Leviticus holds little relevance to many Christian lives today and that Jesus said absolutely nothing about it. The Synod, representing the official position of the Church of England, writes that ‘homosexual acts fall short of [being] an act of total commitment’. However, it goes on to state that the decision to ‘enter into such relationships must be respected’, showing acceptance.

"Finally, we summed up our learning with some scenarios as if we were listening to confession, provoking much debate, such as whether a person’s autonomy allows them to sin against others or if adultery can be considered acceptable in a broken relationship. This concluding activity allowed us to culminate our new knowledge to formulate pastoral responses as a priest has to do every day. Overall, the talk was informative and really interactive, making it enjoyable and hugely beneficial to our learning".


So it is that marriage in Anglicanism is a mixture of the different kinds of love (Eros and Agape) but at its heart is Agape; a marriage echoes Christ's love for his Church and so those in relationships should be prepared to sacrifice anything for the other. But at the same time the Church recognises that people are fallen and that this ideal is not always achieved but certainly should be striven for.


Dig Deeper: MOOCs, edX and The Ethics of Eating 

26/2/2015

 
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Want to be able to explore new subject areas? Perhaps you want to find out what a course might be at University? Want to study in your own time, at your own pace and wherever you want? If the answers to these questions are “yes” then MOOCs might be for you!

A MOOC stands for Massive, Open, Online Course. They are massive in that a huge number of people can sign up to them; open in that anyone can join in and they are free (to an extent); and online so available pretty much any time anywhere. This video from @davecormier explains it very well!
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There are a huge number of providers of MOOCs online (find them here https://www.mooc-list.com/) but three sites dominate the market; Coursera, Udacity and edX. I have no idea what Udacity is like because it is all programming and tech subjects. Coursera is a very good platform and there are a good number of courses that readers of this blog might be interested such as “Introduction to Philosophy”, “Logic, Language and information” and “Moral Foundations and Politics” - the problem is that some of these courses (e.g. that last two I mentioned) cost money to complete - £30 or so - however some can be done for free.

The platform that I have used the most is edX and I love it! All the courses are free to audit - but if you wanted a certificate to show an employer or university you can pay for this. In total they offer 434 courses on a huge range of subjects. When it comes to Philosophy and Ethics there are some great ones to take up. The great thing is you follow them assiduously (watch every video and read every text) or you can dip in and out, selecting what you want to access.


Here are a few courses you might be interested in:


Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge and Consciousness - a great introduction to lots of the topics we study at A-level (Ontological, Cosmological etc) but at degree level. Lots of primary texts and videos to explain it.





Justice (with Michael J. Sandel) - This course explores a huge range of ethical approaches to justice including utilitarianism, Libertarianism, Kantianism and Virtue Theory.




Jesus in Scripture and Tradition - This course has not started yet but promises to explore the figure of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, Gospels and Early-Church writers. This should be great course for anyone thinking about a degree in Theology.





The Divine Comedy: Dante's Journey to Freedom, Part 1 - A very good course for those interested in English Literature and Philosophy; exploring concepts such as human freedom, responsibility and identity through the writings of Dante’s Divine Comedy.






The Science of Everyday Thinking - A course which challenges us to “Think better, argue better and choose better”. It is a great course with really innovative ideas and some brilliant interviews with scholars from all over the world.


The Ethics of Eating - Finally this really exciting new course which starts soon  hopes to explore the ethics of eating and purchasing food. The course promises it will consult with a diverse group of philosophers, food scientists, activists, industry specialists and farmers. This course deals with an area of ethics that is not really very well covered at A-level and so this could be great to show that you are interested in Ethics and its application to the real world. I will definitely be doing this course!

So I hope this has whet your appetite for MOOCs and that you will now go on to explore them and benefit from their learning opportunities. 

Word of the Week: W/c 23/09/15 - Tawhid

19/2/2015

 



The doctrine of "the oneness" of God; the concept of absoulte monotheism in Islam.  (also transliterated as Tawid, Tawheed and Tauheed)


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Arguably the most important belief in Islam is the concept of Tawhid - which means the “oneness” of God. Oneness is central to the nature of Allah. According to Muslims this means that God:

Has no equal

Has no partners

Knows everything (omniscient)

Is all-powerful (omnipotent)

Is the one God of all time and all humankind.

The most famous verse in the Quran that sets this out is Surah 112: “He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; None is born of Him, nor is He born; And there is none like Him.”

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http://simplydeen786.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/learning-surah-of-al-quran-al-ikhlas.html


It is also evident from the Shahaddah; the declaration of Faith which is one of the five pillars of Islam: “I bear witness that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.”
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http://freeislamiccalligraphy.com/portfolio-category/shahadah/


How did this come about? Islam developed at a time and place when polytheism was the norm - the Bedouin tribes of Arabia that Muhammad came from worshipped many gods and the Kaaba was cleared of these idols by Muhammad and his followers. Islam differed radically in stressing the oneness of Allah - but God is also utterly different from us and beyond our comprehension. That is why God is given 99 names in Islam, this shows that one cannot pin God down or reify him. So being One does not make God simple! 
Allah cannot be described fully by any or all of these names but they help Muslims to think about Allah’s unknowable nature.

Many Muslims recite the names as one of the forms of dhikr (remembrance) to develop their awareness of Allah and some Muslims use prayer beads (subha) to help them remember as they recite.

Some examples of the 99 names:

  • Al-Rahman, the All-beneficent (the Compassionate)
  • Al-Rahim, the Most Merciful
  • Al-Aziz, the Almighty (the Victorious)
  • Al-Hakam, the Judge



The concept of Tawhid should serve as a reminder to us, whether we are religious or not, that our lives are fleeting and that we cannot hope to understand anything like all there is to know. Muslims believe that Allah is the only being in this position, likewise Christians and Jews have the same concept of God. There is something very salutatory in this idea, especially in a society that seems to be less and less appreciative of the value of knowledge (the "I can just Google it" culture). I am not saying we should not strive for knowledge and understanding, far from it. But I am saying that we also need to be humble in the face of the vastness of the cosmos and our tiny place within it.

Dig Deeper: BBC Religion & Ethics 

19/2/2015

 
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I am not sure when it changed - but the BBC Religion & Ethics website seems to have undergone something of a face-lift. The results are very good! The website can be found here: http://ope.nr/2Kn

The site pulls together, into one place, all the BBC's content on Religion & Ethics and presents it in a really good way. You could follow a lead to a BBC news story, a Webpage on a particular subject or one the new iWonder pages.

A particularly good iWonder page for those studying Bussiness Ethics in Y13 or at GCSE that is up there at the moment is "Can banking ever be Ethical?" You can find it here: http://ope.nr/2Ko
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Steph McGovern (a BBC Economics Journalist @stephbreakfast) takes you thorough various elements of the subject - why we have banking at all, how banking has been unethical in the past, what the world would be like without banks, what examples of ethical banking are and gives you links to further research opportunities. The site is an excellent mixture of video, images and of course, text. 

This particular page would be excellent preparation for those coming to our upcoming Phil. Soc. talk next term by Graeme Cameron, a Director at RBS, entitled "Is Ethical Banking a possibility" on 30th April - more details to follow!
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Word of the Week: w/c 16/2/15 - Love

15/2/2015

 





A strong feeling of affection for something or someone

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Does this definition above really do the word justice? In many ways this is the point of this post!


Last week the Philosophy Society at School welcomed Fr. Daniel Sandham (@frdanielsandham) for a talk about Sex, Marriage and Sexuality in the Church of England. He began by suggesting that the foundation of any discussion about these matters must be focused primarily on Love.

For such a short word it has a huge range of uses:

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In 
English we use the same word to describe our feelings for our Rugby club (I love Saracens), music (I love that tune), food (I love fried chicken) and our spouse!  The Ancient Greeks were much more subtle and employed at least four different words so they knew exactly what they meant.

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Storge

Storge is love of family members - the love of parents for their children, the love between siblings. A better understanding of it might be affection.


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Philos


Philos is love of friendship and is a much more cerebral type of love - it is loyalty and enjoyment of another company, but without any romance.


Eros

This word is the origin of the English word Erotic and means passionate love and is often, but not exclusively sexual. It is to yearn for someone and to desire them.

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Agape

This final type is the most important word for Philosophers and Theologians. Agape is unconditional love of others. Love that requires nothing in return.
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For Christians, Agape is exemplified in the life and death of Jesus Christ. They believe that he, a perfect man and God Incarnate who had committed no sin, was willing to die for the sins of the world. He did not need to die and his death was completely unjustified, yet he gave himself willingly expecting nothing in return. The whole of the Bible from creation in Genesis, to the end of the world in Revelation, is the story of this love and God's plan for humanity - a salvation history.

Christians believe that they should emulate Jesus’ love and therefore should be agapeic - loving their neighbour and praying for those who persecute them.

Wedded bliss?

So what kind of love is being celebrated in a marriage? Well in my mind it is a heady mix of all four, and indeed as couples go through their life together the type of love will change and develop.

There is certainly a place for eros in a marriage, but this of course could not be the only connection between the couple - such relationships do not last. There will have been a lot more eros at the start of a marriage and this is a good example of how married relationships develop. There also needs to be friendship - philos. A good relationship is cerebral, you have to enjoy being in each others company. Often you hear a person saying that they married their best friend and this is philos. There will be storge, warm affection and pride in a spouses’ achievements. Most importantly there will be agape - the willingness to sacrifice everything for the other person, to do anything for them but for nothing in return. This is endless love, love that causes people to stay with their partner no matter what wrongs they commit or if they are disabled or injured.

So next time you hear someone say “I love…” have a think about what kind of love they mean and how the Ancient Greeks would categorize it. There’s more to this four-letter word that it first seems...

Can you think of any other definitions of love?

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love
http://typesoflove.org/four-types-of-love-greek-style/

Dig Deeper: Philosvids - University of Gloustershire

10/2/2015

 
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Click here to go to the Philosvids Website
Last week on Friday I took a group of students to a Candle Conference (http://candleconferences.com/ @puzzlevardy) run by Peter and Charlotte Vardy. The event also included a guest speaker - Dr David Webster (@davidwebster) who gave an excellent talk about Buddhist Ethics. Since then I have found that he contributes to this very good website which is run by the Religion, Philosophy and Ethics Department of the University of Gloucestershire (@RPEatGlos). The other contributors include Dr Roy Jackson, Dr William Large and Professor Melissa Raphael.

Between them they deliver various vodcasts about topics that A-level students will find relevant to their Philosophy and Ethics courses, and those considering Theology or Religious Studies at university can enjoy.

I have chosen to feature three videos here but if you go to their website you will find lots more, helpfully indexed on the right-hand side of the page. Just click on the button above to go to the website or find it here.

Dig Deeper: The Edgar Jones Philosophy Essay Competition

9/2/2015

 
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An Essay prize can be great opportunity to push yourself further and pit yourself against students from all over the country. There are many on offer and I will be posting more in the weeks to come.

The first is from St Peter's College, Oxford (@SPC_Oxford) The aim of the prize is to provide for students in Year 12 with an opportunity to write about a philosophical issue and so, it is hoped, enable you to develop your abilities for independent research and thought.


Entrants must be in Year 12 during the academic year 2014-15. Essays must be a maximum of 2000 words in length and must be submitted in hardcopy. Essays must seek to answer one of the questions set for the year (see below) and should contain the full name of the author on the first page. Accompanying the essay entrants must submit a completed entry form, which can be downloaded here. Submissions should be sent to Alison Wiblin, Fellow’ Secretary, St Peter’s College, Oxford, OX1 2DL, to arrive by 11th September 2015.

Questions for the 2015 competition:

1) Will being dead be bad for you?

2) Is there any reason to believe that there are things about which science cannot tell us’?



All the details can be found here along with most of the information I have given above.

Good luck!

Dig Deeper: Putting your money where your mouth is

8/2/2015

 
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Click Here for the Radio Programme
On Sunday 1st Febrauary a very interesting radio programme aired on BBC Radio 4. Presented by Giles Fraser, formally a canon of St Paul's Cathedral and now often on TV and radio making the case for social justice, this programme looks at the logic of giving to charity and interviewed some great philosophers along the way.


In the words of the BBC:
If you believe the world should be a fairer place, does morality demand that you give away your money to those who are poorer than you - even if you don't think of yourself as rich? And if so, should you donate it to charity or pay it in tax?

In this personal exploration of the issues, Giles Fraser seeks to work through the tricky moral dilemmas involved in responding to poverty and inequality, both in the UK and internationally. He talks to those who have pledged to give away large portions of their income, and others who think that this is simply an irrelevant gesture. The interviewees include the the prominent moral philosopher Peter Singer, TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady, Matt Wrack from the Fire Brigades Union, the Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan, the writer George Monbiot, and Will MacAskill of Giving What We Can.
The programme can be heard here: http://ope.nr/2Ab


The "Giving what we can" website refered to in the show can be found here: http://ope.nr/2Ac


Peter Singers' website "The Life you can Save" can be found here: http://ope.nr/2Ad

Dig Deeper: Open Culture - Free Online Philosophy and Ethics Courses

8/2/2015

 
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Open Culture is a site providing links to free courses and tutorials. Their self-professed mission is to bring together the huge range of free online courses (MOOCs) and offer them all in one place. 


The courses are often provided by universities, so at a higher ability than A-level, but they are a great way to stretch yourself and dig deeper. They might be especially useful for those thinking about university courses to get a flavour of them in advance.


This is a link to their page on free Philosophy Courses: http://ope.nr/2Aa


Courses that stood out for me were:
  •  A romp through ethics for complete beginners
  • Critical reasoning for beginners
  • Bio-Ethics: An introduction
  • Environmental Ethics
  • Kant
  • Philosophy for beginners
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Socrates
  • Science vs. Religion
  • History of Philosophy without any gaps


All of the links seem to work - but clearly the websites they link to are of varying quality - for example I clicked on Plato's Republic and was sent to a website where a student has clearly recorded his lectures at university and just uploaded them; the result being very difficult to listen to! By contrast the link for "History of Philosophy without the gaps" goes to a fantastic website hosted by Kings College London - Here there are hundreds of podcasts to listen to and you can really further your learning done in lessons.

Word of the Week - 09/02/15 - Prophet

8/2/2015

 



An individual who is claimed to have been contacted by God to speak for the divine, serving as an intermediary with Humans. The message that a prophet conveys is a prophecy

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Many people today tend to think of Prophets as being those who see into the future and predict what will occur. Certainly this has often been a feature of prophets - but a prophet is far more that just this.

A prophet is basically a spokesman for God chosen to preach his message to the people. They were examples of holiness, role models, scholars and often set the standard of behaviour that those they spoke to were failing to meet. In the Old Testament there are 55 prophets and these are not all men; Ruth, Esther, Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah and Abigail are all female prophets.

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Queen Esther Read more of her inspiring story at: http://ope.nr/2A5

Interestingly not all prophets in the Old Testament are Jewish - most notably the prophet Balaam in Numbers 22 - and some of the prophets are not sent to the Jews such as Jonah whose message is delivered to the Gentiles of Nineva.

Often prophets have a very rough time of it and are often not accepted by the people they are sent to (as Jesus says in Matthew 13.57 - "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home."). Elijah was described by King Ahab as “the troubler of Israel” is never really listened to throughout his career. Jonah was swallowed and then spat out of a fish and forced to go to Nineveh where he did not want to go. Ezekiel was made to lie on his Left side for 390 days and then his right for 40 days - this was to make up for the rebellion of Jewish people! Hosea was directed by God to marry a promiscuous woman, divorce her and when she had sold herself into slavery re-marry her - their children are given symbolic names such as “unloved” and “not my people”. These names are representative of the people of Israel and their broken relationship with God.
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Hosea - not so lucky in love
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Elijah - the "Troubler of Israel"
The key to understanding what is going on here is that Prophets often live out God’s message in their real lives - they don’t just speak the word, they act the word, they suffer for the word.

For Christians the culmination of all the Old Testament prophecies was the birth of Jesus of Nazareth - the Messiah predicted as the “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9.6). That he would be born of a virgin (Jeremiah 31.22) and that he would be both God and Man (Jeremiah 23.5-6). And finally that he would die for the sins of the world and by doing so put an end to sin and reconcile us with God (Daniel 9). This is what Philip says in the Gospel of John, who told Nathanael, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45).

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Jesus as he is "Transfigured" - To either side of him are Moses and Elijah representing the prophets who predict him in the Old Testament. The Disciples are terrified and fall face down (Matthew 17)
Obviously this claim needs the faith of Christianity to be seen as true and many would deny these prophecies - Jews in that that they have yet to come about and Atheists that they are just wishful thinking. Either way the prophets represent a rich vein of Philosophical and Theological material that have inspired the generations and impacted upon our literature, music and culture.


How has our modern culture been influenced by the Prophets of the Old Testament? 

Who would you say are modern day prophets?

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