A GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS

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ORAL PRESENTATION TIPS• USE A DATA STICK—

EMAIL TAKES TOO LONG!• PREPARE, ORGANIZE• LIMIT SLIDE INFO—

FONT READABLE IN BACK OF ROOM• SPEAK CLEARLY, LOUDLY,

SO ALL CAN HEAR• MONITOR TIME- STAY ON SCHEDULE

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RELIGION AND THE HUMAN QUEST• Governing Themes: • cosmos, human destiny, society, individual , suffering and evil• The Human Being: What is human nature (the human condition)? What

does it mean to be a human being? What is the social meaning of human beings?

• The Cosmos: What is the (nature of the) cosmos? Relationship to “natural world”? Relationship to the other beings.

• Human Life? How do humans find and sustain life? (How relate to Holy?) What is holy/Holy power? What goes wrong in human life, and how is it to be remedied? (The problem of evil and suffering)

• Human destiny? What is the outcome, purpose, meaning of human existence

• The Human Quest and Human Experience: What can we learn from the great traditions of human experience? (What constitutes an adequate sample

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WHAT’S THIS?

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WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?

ASK 25 PEOPLE TO COMPOSE 25 TRUTHFUL, ACCURATE,

GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT, ENGLISH SENTENCES

THAT DESCRIBE WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE PICTURE

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WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?

USING JUST THE WORDS IN THE SENTENCES, HOW MANY TRUTHFUL, ACCURATE, GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT, ENGLISH SENTENCES COULD YOU COMPOSE?

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HOW MANY?

19.8 BILLION

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WORDS ARE TOOLS for thinking, communicating, storing, retrieving

HUMAN EXPERIENCE

• WORDS ARE REALLY SOUNDS• LANGUAGES ARE SYSTEMS OF SOUNDS• WE USE THESE SOUNDS TO CAPTURE

EXPERIENCE TO STORE AND RE-MEMBER IT• BY SHARING THESE SOUNDS, WE CAN SHARE

OUR EXPERIENCE

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LET ME COUNT THE WAYS!

THERE ARE LOTS OF WAYS TO SAY ANYTHING!

WORDS CALL FOR MORE WORDS?

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WORDS ARE TOOLS for thinking, communicating,

storing, retrieving human experience

• DIFFERENT CULTURES EXPRESS THEIR EXPERIENCE DIFFERENTLY, IN THEIR OWN DISTINCTIVE WAYS

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METAPHOR

Meta-pharein (Greek)• Meta- “after,” “beyond”• Pharein- “to carry”• “Meta-pharein” has the sense two people

carrying something over a distance• Hence, shared experience • Qunitillian: “Nearly everything we say is

metaphor.”

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METAPHOR

SHARING EXPERIENCE

OR

TRANSLATING ONE KIND OF EXPERIENCE INTO ANOTHER KIND OF EXPERIENCE:

“What does it taste like?”“Kumquats?”

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AN EXPERIMENT IN THINKING

HAVE YOU HEARD THE WORD “TRADITION”?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

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“TRADITION”

• GREEK SIMILARS:– Para-dosis/ para-didomi : “to put, hand over,

allow, grant, offer, share” (Mt 11.27, 25.14,20,22; Rom 5.15, 6.17; 2 Th 2.15, 3.6)

– para-theke/ para-tithemi: “to put, lay (upon, up, in), entrust, commit (maintain, preserve)”(1 Tim 1.18, 6.20; 2 Tim 1.12, 14, 2.2)

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“TRADITION”

LATIN: trans-dare, tradere, traditiotrans: prefix “across”dare: verb “to give”

“To give over or across” (time or space)

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“TRADITION AS --”

A VARIETY OF WAYS THE WORD IS USED OR UNDERSTOOD

TRADITION AS—

1. LORE-– Vestigial relics of a disappearing past as opposed

to the contemporary or modern; the enemy of progress

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“TRADITION AS--”

2. CONTENT (MATTER) – Accumulated material inherited from the past, usually

accompanied by an attitude (+ or -); – What has been passed on in fixed form

(birthday cake; Christmas tree; Thanksgiving turkey)

3. PROCESS OF INHERITING/RECEIVING (ACT)– The act (or acts) of inheriting, cultivating, transferring,

practicing, performing(baking the cake, buying the tree, cooking the turkey)

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“TRADITION”4. THE MEANS OF PASSING ON (FORM)

– The techniques by which one passes on or receives

(using Grandma’s recipe, putting the decorations up in a certain way)

5. CANON (A COLLECTION OF…)– Recognized, authorized, normative, official

content to be passed on or received– Guaranteed by history, long practice– Resists to innovation, fashion, idiosyncrasy

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“TRADITION AS BODY”

6. EMBODIMENT (MODE OF PRESENCE IN)• The Universe: 16 Billion Years

– If 1” = 1 million years: 1331 feet

• The Earth: 4.5 Billion Years

– If 1” = 1 million years: 375 feet

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“TRADITION AS BODY”

The material in our bodies is– 16 billion years old– The elements developed almost instantly– This matter has been evolving ever since– The are billions of galaxies– The Universe continues to expand– Completely replaced every 7 years

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“TRADITION AS BODY”

Genetically speaking—• Each of us embodies the unbroken

chain of DNA of our ancestors

• Yet each of us is unique:–I am not my grandfather–This is not my grandfather's body

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LET’S STRETCH OUR MIND A BIT!

HOW MANY ANCESTORS

DO YOU HAVE?

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“TRADITION AS--”

7. EXPERIENCE: - Gives us the ability to retain, to

retrieve, to enter into the experience of our ancestors

- Experience is embodied in language, culture, art, history, institutions

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“TRADITION AS--”

• AN-AMNESIS – “not-forgetting”• RE-MEMBERING – “putting together again”• RE-CALLING- …to mind• RE-COLLECTING – assembling the pieces anew• RE-CORDING - literally, “re-heart-ing”• RE-TELLING – recomposing the story• RE-PEATING -“going somewhere again”

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Greek: Soter/ soteria / sozo (“cure,” “make healthy”

(hagios= “holy” power-ful)Latin: Salus / Salvus (“salve,”

German: Heil, HeiligeAnglo-Saxon: Hal, Halig

• [Hosanna! (Aram.) = “save now”]• Salvation, save, salud, salutary• Health, healthy, holy, whole, hale • Wealth, wealthy, (common-)weal

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LATIN

SALUS, SALVUS, SALVARE: –“save,” “salvation,” “safety,”

“salutation,” “salute,” “salve”–Spanish: “salud”

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GERMAN

HEIL, HEILIGE: “hail,” “health, “holy”

ANGLO-SAXON

HAL, HALIG“health, hale, holy, wealth, weal,

whole”27

RELIGION AND THE HUMAN QUESTGoverning Themes: cosmos, human destiny, society, individuality, being a person (WHO vs. WHAT), suffering and evilThe Human Being: What is human nature/ What is the human condition? What does it mean to be a human being? What does it mean to be a WHO? What is the social meaning of human beings? How is our way of being something shared?The Cosmos: What is the (nature of the) cosmos? What is humans’ relationship to the “natural world”? Relationship to the other beings that are not human? Human Life? How do humans find and sustain life? How do they relate to what is Holy? What is holy/Holy power? What goes wrong in human life, and how is it to be remedied? Must humans consider the problem/mystery of evil, suffering and death? How? Human destiny? What is the outcome, purpose, meaning of human existenceThe Human Quest and Human Experience: What can we learn from the great traditions of human experience? (What constitutes an adequate sample?)

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PERSPECTIVES/ATTITUDES

• Experience: awareness, consciousness, • Quest-ion-ing/seek-ing/search-ing—purpose • What do we (you) want as humans being?

Why do we desire? What do we desire? • Spirituality: How does it all fit together? Does

it? An it? How?• Framing questions

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Mystery vs. problem/puzzle(?)

PROBLEM: pro-blema: Greek.: “something thrown forward”, from pro-, “before, forward, forth,” + ballein, “to throw.”

MYSTERY: mysterion: Greek.: “an event of disclosure that both reveals and leads toward something that gets deeper the more it is pursued”.

WHERE HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED “MYSTERY”?

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MYSTERY VS. PROBLEM/PUZZLE

• Friendship?• Love?• Birth?• Death?• Curiosity?• ?????????

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