Please suggest a piece of music for this section. Is there a piece of music that elicits wonder and awe for you? Most obvious: Also Spake Zaruthrustra by Richard Strauss or Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin
Review Questions:
The author asks you to “pretend for a moment we have never heard of ____, _____ or _____.”
According to Aristotle, philosophy begins with ___.
Retell Mr. Geger's experiences with wonder. If you can, list at least three instances that inspired in him wonder and awe that also occasion in you wonder and awe. If you cannot list five.
Wonder leaves us with feelings of ____ and ____.
"We use the word wonder in two ways." Explain.
Give a theological definition of mystery.
If the Trinity is a mystery, why believe in it? For that matter, why believe in anything, or anyone, you cannot fully and completely, understand?
Terms you should know: wonder, mystery, intrinsic mystery, Trinity, Hypostatic Union, Paschal Mystery, Fides et Ratio
Choose ONE:
Create a website, or write a paper, that describes, maybe even begins to capture, something that evokes in you wonder and awe. This requires something personal and real. What in your life has amazed you, made your jaw drop, fascinated you? Two necessary parts: describe it and explain why it elicits wonder and awe. Use photos and graphics (attribute those from others), embed links, add "sources" or "for further information" links. Do what you can to convey your wonder and awe to the reader. How does it really affect you? What does it do inisde you?
Do the Film Exercise on page 45 on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Listen to and learn. Listen to one of these radio programs and write a two part paper: a summary of key ideas and a reaction/reflection to what you heard.
From this Speaking of Faith program
Days of Awe
We delve into the world and meaning of the Jewish High Holy Days, ten days that span the new year of Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur's rituals of atonement. A young rabbi in L.A. is one voice in a Jewish spiritual renaissance that is taking many forms across the U.S. The vast majority of her congregation are people in their 20s and 30s, who, she says, are making life-giving connections between ritual, personal transformation, and relevance in the world.
You are always encouraged to create your own assignment. This must be approved within two class days of the assignment.
Albert Einstein's and excerpt from "My Credo"
"The most beautiful and deepest experience a (person) can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavor in art and in science. . . He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. The sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.
(Did Einstein realize he was using the same metaphor Paul used in I Corinthians 13:12, "now we see in a glass darkly,or "now we see only dim, blurred reflections." I'm sure he knew Plato's allegory of the cave. Paul adds the promise that God will bring the day when we will see face to face and know fully, even as we are fully known by God.)
Recommended extra credit
Let me, and your classmates, know if there is anything missed on this review.
