Second Part of Junior Faith:
The Human Condition

• Bill Moyers' PBS Special The Truth About Lies

1. Know the short story of Socrates and the Delphic Oracle. Why did the Oracle deem Socrates the wisest man alive?
2. List and explain five aspects of the human condition. Be able to cite at least five sources from the course and be able to explain and evaluate each well.
3. What ideas presented in this section about the human condition do we see presented historically in Bill Moyers' PBS Special The Truth About Lies
4. What is the classic, philosophical problem of evil? Be able to list and explain the six "approaches" to this problem from the RB. Be able to summarize Rabbi Kushner's response, as taught in class.*
   Optional but encouraged: What is the Catholic response offered by Peter Kreeft? Click these two links so you can see that this has been a major challenge for theologians and philosophers for years becasue it is a major challlnege of most people at some time in their lives.
   * Summarry of the key ideas of Rabbi Kushner at When Bad Things Happen to Good People. This can be done as an extra credit assignment.
5. Summarize what these historical figures have said aboout the human condition: Pascal, Marcus Aurelius, Buddha, Fromm, Plato and Aristotle.
6. What does the Christian doctrine of original sin offer about the human condition? Would the above thinkers agree or disagree with this view of man?
7. List and explain three effects of original sin.
8. According to Christian theology, what are the four last things every person faces?
9. Be able to solve snail questions. What does this have to do with the human condition? How are these metaphors for real learning?
10. Thomas Jefferson's Letter to Peter Carr
    
    1. Jefferson lists many important things in life. What is first, second, and third on Jefferson's list? Why?
    2. When a person is tempted to be dishonest or immoral, what does Jefferson suggest that the person do?
    3. Jefferson compares physical exercise of a limb to moral exercise of one's character. Do you agree with this comparison? Why or why not?
11. M. Scott Peck's "Choosing a Map for Life"
    1. According to Peck, why are "maps" important tour lives?
    2. Why is it difficult to update our maps of the world?
    3. Why are self-discipline and truth so important to Peck?

Web assignment for the Human Condition section: Right speech experiment.

• Look on to one of these great websites and choose a program that is relevant to the contents of this section.
  • What is the Catholic response offered by Peter Kreeft? Click these two links so you can see that this has been a major challenge for theologians and philosophers for years becasue it is a major challlnege of most people at some time in their lives.
  • Living a Deliberate Life Henry David Thoreau spoke of living a deliberate life. " I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived ... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life ..." Aristotle said that most men lives lives of ships in the sea without rudders. Plato said the unreflected life is not worth living. Pascal believed most men busied themselves with distractions in order not to face the major questions of life. What about you? To what degree are living a deliberate life? To what degree are you guiding your own ship?
  • The Readings Book mention Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. In it is a very famous literary work that is a classic. It is also full of philosophy and theology. Read The Grand Inquisitor. Then do a summary and refflection.
  • Listen to a Speaking of Faith radio program and write a summary of it. Show which key ideas it illustrates. Two I'd recommend Hearing Muslim Voices aftter 9-11 and Moral Man and Immoral Society: The Theolgy of Reinhold Niebuhr or The Problem of Evil.
  • View a Frontline program and write a summary of it. Show which key ideas it illustrates. The program selected must be approved.

  Let me, and your classmates, know if there is anything missed on this review.

  
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