At ChristChurch, Clarendon Park, for the seventh session in the course, "Mindfulness". This eight-week course is an interfaith opportunity presented by Christians Aware (as part of its Faith Awareness programme) in association with Leicester Serene Reflection Meditation Group.
Our
topic this evening is "The Place of Wisdom in the Humanist
Tradition", presented by Dr Allan Hayes. Allan studied
mathematics at Trinity College Cambridge (BA, PhD). Retired
from an academic career, in which he taught at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), Purdue University, Leicester
University and De Montfort University, he is now a Director
of Leicester
Secular Society and a Trustee of the Sea
of Faith Network and of the British
Humanist Association.
Allan
discusses the wisdom of Proverbs and of Jesus as recorded in the
Gospels and makes a case for their value as human-created,
human-centred sources of wisdom, without the need to appeal to
supernatural origin. When asked to clarify what he means by
"supernatural", Allan defines it (without recourse to any
text) as "an agency with intention, acting with its own purpose,
that is outside the normal discourse of science."
Allan
refers to two books, published within a year of each other, which
illustrate opposite ends of the spectrum of belief: Don
Cupitt's Jesus
and Philosophy
(London: SCM Press, 2009), in which the author presents Jesus as a
radical humanist and John
Shelby Spong's
Jesus
for the Non-Religious (New
York: HarperOne, 2008), in which the author argues that Jesus is such
an extraordinary figure, he must be divine.
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