Reason and Religious Beliefs 10.1

In the tenth lecture, McShane winds things up by asking about beginnings. He comments on the meaning of theology, remembering that faith is a human conviction related to the friendliness of the cosmos. He also comments on desire and the Indo-European, Hindu, and Christian traditions.

Questions:

• Do faith and hope reveal beauty?
• What is fundamental self-worth?
• Do human cultures and institutions need to ask more and talk more about questions?

Topics:

1. Pascal and Fermat
   • Religious conviction and evil (done completely and cheerfully)
   • Reasons of the heart
   • Probability
2. Transformations (individual and communal) and displacements
3. Desire, the primal seed and germ of the Spirit
4. Cosmos and self as beautiful
5. The incomplete examination of the incomplete self-(project)