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The hiP losopher's Stone Armstrong College of Liberal Arts

2-14-2018 The hiP losopher's Stone Philosophical Discussion Group, Armstrong State University

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February 14th, 2018 Vol. 20, No. 3 October 20, 2016 Philosophical ON RELATIONSHIPS Discussion Group Volume 19, Number 2 ComeBetween visit the “land Love, that makes Justice, no sense” Religion on November & 3Philosophyrd @ 4pm in G 106 . Are you having trouble with relationships? Reflections on love and justice may help. Wednesday, Feb. 28th @ 4:30 pm in Gamble 106 For Philosophy Tells Me So Waiting For God. In her letters to by Molly Robinson Father Perrin, Weil obstinately insists [email protected] despite his pleas to the contrary that she refrain from being baptized. Her “Christ does not call his benefactors primary reason for this is the feeling loving or charitable. He calls them that her spiritual destiny lay outside just. The Gospel makes no distinction the nave’s walls. between the love of our neighbor Waiting For God reveal’s and justice … We have invented the certain biographical aspects of Weil’s distinction between justice and life, among which is that her charity”(85). philosophy sprung from a tedious, Simone Weil outlines a theory painstaking disavowal of certain of justice in this excerpt from her exegetical practices of the Catholic essay collection Waiting For God Church over the course of her (Harper, 2009). For Weil, the act of intellectual journey. The origin of being just is synonymous with the act Weil’s ideas notwithstanding, hers of loving one’s neighbor and being remain a pillar of Modern Platonism charitable. While this theory could and continue to be subjected to arguably hold in a secular context, it debates in political and moral is offered to the reader via Weil’s philosophy. long discussion of Christian doctrine, But do the religious origins of as well as a historical analysis of Weil’s philosophy undermine her Christianity. ideas? Is anything lost if Weil’s theory Although Simone Weil is a of justice is taken in a secular light? philosopher in her own right, many And would the philosophy collapse scholars also consider her a Christian without a clear sense of a Judeo- mystic. This classification, however, Christian God? More generally, does not negate her long, where do we draw the line between complicated history with Christianity, theology and philosophy? Are the which plays out in the two compatible, indistinguishable, or correspondence between Weil and mutually exclusive? Father Perrin at the beginning of WHAT OTHER’S HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT Christ was crucified because he would have JUSTICE, RELIGION, THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY nothing to do with the crowd (even though he addressed himself to all). He did not want Is the pious loved by gods because it is pious, to form a party, an interest group, a mass or is it pious because it is loved by gods? movement, but wanted to be what he was, – Plato the truth, which is related to the single individual. Therefore everyone who will What are kingdoms without justice? They’re genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact just gangs of bandits. – Augustine a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little The theologian considers sin mainly as an knowledge of human passions. But no offence against God; the moral philosopher witness to the truth dares to get involved as contrary to reasonableness. with the crowd. – Kierkegaard – Thomas Aquinas If you say to someone who has ears to hear: And thus, however strong men’s propensity ‘What you are doing to me is not just,’ you to believe invisible, intelligent power in may touch and awaken at its source the spirit nature, their propensity is equally strong to of attention and love. But it is not the same rest their attention on sensible, visible with words like, ‘I have the right...’ or ‘you objects; and in order to reconcile these have no right to...’ They evoke a latent war opposite inclinations, they are led to unite and awaken the spirit of contention. the invisible power with some visible object. – Simone Weil – David Hume Religion in so far as it is a source of Kneeling down or grovelling on the ground, consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and even to express your reverence for heavenly in this sense atheism is a purification. things, is contrary to human dignity. – Kant – Simone Weil

Worship requires the abandonment of one’s Pain and suffering are a kind of currency role as an autonomous moral agent. passed from hand to hand until they reach –James Rachels someone who receives them but does not pass them on. – Simone Weil Wherever morality is based on theology, wherever right is made dependent on divine The Philosophical Discussion Group (PDG) authority, the most immoral, unjust, invites you to consider the lines between infamous things can be justified and love and justice, religion and philosophy. established. – Ludwig Feuerbach --Dr. Erik Nordenhaug Religion is based primarily upon fear. It is Faculty advisor to the PDG partly the terror of the unknown and partly as the wish to feel that you have a kind of “It is an eternal obligation toward the elder brother who will stand by you in all human being not to let him suffer from your troubles and disputes. Fear of the hunger when one has a chance of coming mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear to his assistance.” -- Simone Weil is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone To assist with the eternal obligation, hand in hand. – Bertrand Russell food for thought, pizza & soda are justly provided WED., Feb. 28 @ 4:30 PM IN GAMBLE 106