A Big Chill

Currently in Toledo, OH:
Mostly Cloudy and Windy. 16 degrees Farenheit. Feels Like -3 degrees Farenheit.
weather.com
I see that it is 15 with a -2 windchill in Upland. Pretty close to us.
I guess I should be thankful that I don't live in Chicagoland!! 4 degrees with -15 chill in Deerfield!! Ouch!
St. Louis, on the other hand, makes me jealous: 23 with a 16 degree chill. !


I'm riding the campus bus as much as possible today, because the wind chill is ridiculous.
The bus driver was listening to a sports talk show on the radio. This quote stood out to my ears:

"Money will fail. Marriages most times will fail. The one thing they can't take away from you is your Superbowl record."

!!!

Good Lord, deliver us!
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"He Himself is our Peace." (Eph 2)

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Sin and Morality

To ponder:

What do you think the connection, conceptually speaking, is between moral wrongdoing and sin? Are the categories of moral wrongdoing and sinful behavior coextensive? Does sin include anything that is not immoral? Does immorality include anything that is not sin?

If moral wrongdoing and sinful behavior are coexstensive, is there a strong intensional synonymity between the adjectives "immoral" and "sinful"?

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"He Himself is our Peace." (Eph 2)

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MLK Day

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is Monday. As you probably all know.
I encourage you to do something about it.
Becoming more educated about the current state of race relations and race politics in this country is really important for deep-seated theological and moral reasons, in my opinion.
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"He Himself is our Peace." (Eph 2)

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World Religions Class

World Religions class is fun for me right now, although I still worry that the students may be bored with my lecturing for over an hour with little interruption.
(Advice/suggestions on how to make this class more interactive in the classroom would be welcome!)
I talked about different psychological and anthropological theories of religion on Tuesday. I was concerned going into the class that I would move so quickly through the material I had prepared that I would run out of things to say; in fact, I spent so long talking about anthropological theories of religion that I had less time at the end of class for a discussion (on a separate topic) than I had planned.
Today we started talking about Hinduism. I worry that I might be cramming too much information into the time we have; but I don't know how to decompress without just talking more slowly (I hope I'm not speaking too quickly, although I know I tend to do that when nervous in presentations, in general).
I've been reading through some personal reflection essays I assigned based on some of the introductory chapter material. I asked for (1) examples of the "sacred" and the "profane" from their own experience, (2) examples of rituals and/or rites of passage in their own experience, (3) examples of how their religious culture was patriarchal (or not), and (4) examples of how organized religion can be negative, and/or how it can be positive.
This has made for interesting reading. I have found out that many of my students are from a Catholic background. I wonder if that says something about the relatively lower percentage of Protestant students at UT, or if it says something about the higher interest level in studying other religions among Catholic students. I still only have one Jew, one Muslim, and one "other" (perhaps Sikh? I'm not sure).
It's interesting to read different students' perspectives on their confirmation and first communion, which is what most of them use as examples of rituals/rites of passage. I have had two or three (female) students write that they had not thought about whether their religion was patriarchal or not, but now they can see many ways in which it is definitely patriarchal. I'm pleased to have raised awareness of this issue!
While there is no right or wrong for any of the opinions expressed in these essays (although there might be better and worse examples), I sometimes get interesting responses. One student identified the elements of the Eucharist as "sacred" and the Bible as "profane", because the Bible is "worldly", and almost everyone knows what the Bible is about. Another student betrayed a bit of biblical illiteracy, referring briefly to loving your neighbor as yourself as one of the Ten Commandments.

I was also tutoring a Logic student today (something I don't do that often, because students don't ask!) and found myself wishing that I had used a certain method of illustration in class to explain logical possibility/impossibility in the context of defining validity and invalidity. I can do this later, but the students will be taking an exam before I see them again in person. :(

I am *very* upset with my Logic book publisher (Thompson, now Cengage). They charge the students $103-$123 for this book, which comes with all these nice online tutorial features (nice trick, that, switching from a packaged CD to a website that you have to buy year-by-year access to, so that you can't sell your CD with the book to the next student!), as well as instructor helps like homework problems and tests that are automatically graded. But they have not responded to any of my several requests for instructor access to their website!! Grrr.

Ah, well.
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"He Himself is our Peace." (Eph 2)

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Moral Judgments and Football Judgments

What is it that makes these judgments not examples of moral/ethical judgment?
And, what would you call these judgments isntead (chauvinistic judgments)?
I am trying to get at something essential to moral discourse here.

• You should support Italy for the World Cup title this year.
• You should support OSU against UM in the upcoming game.

I would like a more or less thoughtful response from all of my readers (however few or numerous they may be!).
Bonus points to anyone who can refer me to a scholarly essay and/or monograph that explicitly deals with this or a similar question.
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"He Himself is our Peace." (Eph 2)

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Disappointment

So I was scheduled to begin teaching an Intro to Philosophy class on Monday at 10:00am. I received an e-mail from the dept chair dated Tuesday warning me that it was possible that I might lose that class and be assigned a Logic class instead due to enrollment issues (I think there were enough in the Intro class; the issue was that other, more important faculty were being denied their first choices and needed to take a second choice). I just now received an e-mail from the dept chair dated Thursday confirming that, in his words, "the worst has happened", and I will be teaching Logic instead of Intro.

I'm very glad for the employment, anyway, and I know I can be prepared for Logic on short notice, having taught it the last three semesters.

And, I still have my World Religions course! :)

I was really looking forward to teaching Intro-I've been asking for that course since I got here a couple of years ago. But, that's life when you're at the bottom of the hierarchy. I also rather regret how much time and effort I've put into prepping the course (I had the syllabus, one quiz, a course website, and two weeks worth of lectures finished). I will be sad for a while. :(

I hope the new professor uses the book I picked, since I would expect that many of the students have already purchased it!!

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"He Himself is our Peace." (Eph 2)

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