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Sunday Platforms
During the Summer (from June 6--skipping June 13 and July 4--through August 22) the Ethical Humanist Society of Philadelphia presents Sunday programs at 10 a.m. The programs include colloquies and book discussions. The book discussions for this summer are listed below. The colloquies are quiet times for music, structured discussion, and meditation on a given topic. The Society will resume its regular Sunday schedule (when Platforms start at 11 a.m.) on Sunday, September 12. Our programs are free and open to the public. A coffee time follows each program. Free parking is available with a permit you can get inside the Society's office.
Richard Kiniry will lead the first of three Sunday discussions based on Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel's
book, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? and Sandel's course on justice, which was broadcast on PBS and is available
online at Justice at Harvard. Excerpts from Sandel’s book are available, free here.
Colloquy, a quiet time for music, structured discussion, and meditation on a given topic. Led by Kate Esposito.
Ken Greiff will lead a discussion of the Jewish creation story, found in Genesis, chapters 1 through 3, which
Ken asks you to read carefully beforehand. He plans to focus on topics like good, evil, temptation, sin and death. What
does it say about God that he put into His creation a tree containing the knowledge of good and evil? Adam and Eve
disobey God when they eat of the tree, but did they do wrong? Can they do wrong before they’ve eaten the apple and know
what wrong is? Or, is sin introduced not by the action but by its consequence, since afterwards they know what wrong is?
Is this a fortunate fall, or do we wish humanity were forever ignorant of the knowledge of right and wrong?
Richard Kiniry will lead the second of three Sunday discussions based on Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel's
book, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? and Sandel's course on justice, which was broadcast on PBS and is available
online at Justice at Harvard. Excerpts from Sandel’s book are available, free here.
Colloquy, a quiet time for music, structured discussion, and meditation on a given topic. Led by Betsy Lightbourn.
Ellen Rose will redeem a promise she made last summer and lead a discussion of James Joyce’s “The Dead,”
thought by many (including Ellen) to be the greatest short story in the English language. It is available in libraries, bookstores
and online at Irish Resources. Please read it beforehand so that
you can appreciate the craft with which Joyce traces his protagonist Gabriel Conroy’s path from smug narcissism to moral
and spiritual redemption.
Richard Kiniry will lead the third of three Sunday discussions based on Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel's
book, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? and Sandel's course on justice, which was broadcast on PBS and is available
online at Justice at Harvard. Excerpts from Sandel’s book are available, free here.
Colloquy, a quiet time for music, structured discussion, and meditation on a given topic. Led by Henry Pashkow.
Lyle Murley will lead a discussion of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, a play in which life lies come
in conflict with claims of the ideal and in which ambiguities in communication both illuminate and confuse personal
relationships. The play is available at libraries, bookstores, online and in various film adaptations.
Deena Stryker will lead a discussion, "An Update on Cuba."
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