300 Attend Wild, Aiken Discussion

Henry D. Aiken, associate professor of Philosophy, and John D. Wild, professor of Philosophy, interpreted the value and nature of religion from the respective points of view of humanism and realism last night before a crowd of nearly 300 at the Adams House Forum.

Aiken, rejecting "transcendental theism and "cracker-barrel atheism," called for a re-interpretation of Christian testaments as "poetic myths expressing the ideal of man." He felt that "all values derive from the satisfaction of the wants of man."

"Religion," he said, "is not primarily a matter of beliefs but a blend of aesthetic and moral attitudes." His opponent claimed that these "attitudes" could not exist without beliefs.

Wild defined his "realism" as the conviction that we live in a "world of objects which exists independently of man" and the belief that "there is a real right and wrong independent of human opinions."

He called religion a "mode of communication with some Being higher than man" and felt it was important because it "illuminated truth" and gave man a sense of humility and permanent love.