Thursday January 01 1970
TCD PHIL SOC & TCD MSA DEBATE: Is Religion relevant in the 21st century?
dublin |
education |
event notice 
Monday February 14, 2011 23:08
by FOSIS Ireland - FOSIS Ireland
ireland.communications at fosis dot org dot uk
TCD PHIL SOC & TCD MSA DEBATE: Is Religion relevant in the 21st century?
Part of the FOSIS Ireland Islam Awarness Month 2011 The Great Debates Tour 2011
TCD MSA VS Phil SOC (The Biggest Society in Trinity College with a membership of 6000+ students and one of the most powerful top 5 student societies in Ireland)
Time & Date: Tuesday 12pm, 15th February 2011.
Venue: Graduates Memorial Building, Trinity College Dublin
Motion: Is Religion relevant in the 21st century?
Speakers info
Hamza Andreas Tzortzis is an international public speaker on Islam, a writer and researcher. He has debated prominent intellectuals and academics. Some of his interlocutors include the leading humanist and best selling author Peter Cave, the editor of the Philosophy Now mazagine Rick Lewis and the highly acclaimed Professor Simon Blackburn. More recently Hamza debated one of the leading American atheists and secular activists Dr. Ed Buckner, the president of American Atheists.
Professor Peter Simons studied Mathematics and Philosophy at the University of Manchester, where he was supervised by Wolfe Mays. There he co-founded, with Kevin Mulligan and Barry Smith, the Seminar for Austro-German Philosophy (1975–85). After working briefly as a librarian he became Lecturer in Philosophy at Bolton Institute of Technology (now the University of Bolton). He then moved to Austria and lectured at the University of Salzburg from 1980-1995. From 1995-2009 he was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Leeds. From 1989-2001 he worked as a consultant to the software company Ontek Corporation. In 2004 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, and in 2006 a Member of the Academia Europaea. Since 2009 he has held the Chair of Moral Philosophy (1837) at Trinity College Dublin, where he is also Head of Department.
Comments (3 of 3)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3"Religion" doesn't always mean what people brought up in Abrahamic traditions assume it to mean...
One of the first known Irish atheists was a Buddhist monk in Burma at the turn of the twentieth century - a fierce opponent of Christian missionaries on freethinking grounds, who republished the works of Thomas Paine and contemporary atheists in Burmese. See the link below for details of a Cork event this weekend on the life and politics of U Dhammaloka.
Texts is a big part of the problem - written by and for humans but claiming to be the Word of God. Religion is a security blanket and Islam has served that purpose well in the Middle east. Same as it did here. But who can stay in a religious headspace and take Darwin and Einstein on board as well?
If I recall right, Darwin considered himself religious, and fitted his findings into his religious understanding of the world.
Einstein wrote on the subject, and its in print still. See 'Einstein on Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms', Dover, 2009. Easons should have it if your library doesn't. And if you are not in your local library, rectify it immediately, before Enda de Line gets his slash-hook out.
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