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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, April 24.1963
Northrop Urges Unity In Religions of World
If world unity is to be effected today, the peoples of the world will have to approach religious education and statesmanship as religious partners — not religious superiors, said F.S.C. Northrop, professor of philosophy and law at Yale University.
Northrop spoke at a convocation of the school of religion yesterday in the Kansas Union. He referred to a Pearl Harbor of religion in the world today. The Pearl Harbor of 1941, he explained, was a powerful political impact; the Pearl Harbor of today is predominantly a cultural impact.
Northrop stressed the necessity of understanding other cultures. Doctors, lawyers, engineers and agriculturists, especially those working in other countries, to be effective, must have a thorough understanding of customs, instruments, medical techniques and legal procedures of other lands, as well as their own, he said.
Northrop said that often he must prevent his foreign students at Yale from becoming too "Americanized." "Even though they may master Western ways, they lose contact with their own people. They are taken over by the Western way of thinking," said Northrop, "and sometimes lose respect for their native ways of thinking."
Northrop emphasized the need to have experts and educators keep alive the understanding of the living religions. "Christians must understand Buddhism and Hinduism in their deepest terms and the specific factors that differentiate them from other religions such as Judaism and Islam," he said.
He stressed that basic to human understanding is the integration of religion with other phases of knowledge such as economics, physics, mathematics and history. Such an integrating, all-encompassing knowledge is called epistemology.
Epistemology, according to Northrop, gives a common denominator
to all religions. That is, through epistemology, all religions can be reduced to similar terms.
He referred to "modes of knowing": radical empiricism and idealistic naive realism. Buddhists and Hindus, he said, are oriental empiricists who conceive the meaning of God as something timely, eminent, immediately apprehendable and indeterminate. To these radical empiricists, all worldly phenomena are determinary, transitory and thus perishable. God is an all-embracing concept.
On the other hand, for the Semitic religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam, which he terms idealistic naive realists, the concept of God is determinate and fixed, rather than transitory. The Semitic religions attempt to explain God by logical realistic, sometimes scientific reasons.
Northrop stressed that neither the Oriental radical empiricist, nor the idealistic Western naive realist can be related to good or evil.
"Good and evil cannot be identified with these concepts," said Northrop. "Instead we must try to combine the Western concept of the divine with the oriental concept. That is, we must understand our religion with the other great religions of the world."
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AUFS Speaker Japanese Expert
LAWRENCE TYPEWRITER
The fourth and final American Universities Field Staff authority for 1962-63 will speak to classes, seminars and faculty gatherings here this week.
735 Mass. VI 3-3644
Lawrence Olson, an authority on Japanese affairs, will be on the campus April 24-May 3.
He will discuss economic, political and social areas of Japanese life and the redationship of Japan to the United States and other Asian countries.
Olson has been with the AUFS since 1955 and has served with the U.S. government in Asia.
He received his Ph.D in Asian History and Languages at Harvard University in 1954.
Official Bulletin
Ph.D. Reading Examination in German,
Saturday, May 4, 9:30 a.m., Summerfield
411. Candidates must register in Fraser
306 by 4 p.m. Friday, April 26.
Ph.D. Reading Examination
9th January 2014 in room 138, Room 24.
No books accepted after April 24.
TODAY
Radio Production Center. 7:30 p.m.
Boom 220 Flint, Executive Committee
Episcopal Holy Communion, 9:30 p.m.
Danforth Chapel.
TOMORROW
Catholic Masses, 7:00 a.m. 11:40 a.m.
St. Stephen Catholic Chapel, 1910 Stratford Road
College Life 7:30 p.m. Parlor A Student-side for Christ director of Oklahoma.
Der deutsche Verein, 5 Uhr, Donnerstag, den 25. April, 502 Fraser, Deutsche Lieder, Spiele, Erfrischungen. Wir werden auch über den "Picnic" spreen.
Fraternity Jewelry
Badges, Rings, Novelties Sweatshirts, Mugs, Paddles Cups, Trophies, Medals
Feuding Factions—
Balfour
(Continued from page 1) Again in the spring of 1961 both parties presented similar planks. Both supported peaceful methods of eliminating discrimination practices.
411 W. 14th VI 3-1571
AL LAUTER
(Continued from page 1)
Both recommended that the student body president be given a veto ower on all ASC legislation, subject to a two-thirds override.
VOX'S PLATFORM in the fall of 1961 had two significant planks. One asked for elimination or reduction of residence hall parking fees for residents of the halls. The other concerned night bus service.
One UP plank asked that Stop Week possibilities be investigated. Another supported creation of a Current Events Committee. Vox supported this in its next platform
Vox also backed the move to get Greek houses to remove discriminatory clauses in their constitutions. UP supported a bi-partisan ASC qualifications board to control committee appointments.
Vox supported Big Eight College Bowl competition.
THE PARTIES have taken stands on almost everything imaginable, yet the feeling exists among students that the parties really do not stand for anything in their platforms. Since some of the planks
border on the ludicrous, that feeling may have some basis in fact.
For example, early Vox platforms contained planks saying the ASC was not to be used as a springboard for promotion of individual interests and ambitions, a plank as conspicuous by its presence then as it is by its absence now.
During the past campaign, Charles Whitman, UP candidate for student body president, charged that the presidency "was being used as a stepping-stone to state senator."
ROGER WILSON, Vox president,
replied that "motives are not important,
but the job the person does
when he gets the position is."
VOX HAS NON monopoly on ridiculous planks, however. UP has advocated student discounts at local stores, cooperation with city officials on off-campus traffic, parking and snow removal. All these matters are entirely out of the realm of the ASC.
During the recent campaign Vox charged UP with "rehashing old issues." UP was guilty, but no more so than Vox. Both organizations have done this since their formation.
Next: "Successes and Failures" or "Have They Done Anything but Talk?"
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