Title search results
Showing 121 - 140 of 15994 items
Hope After Faith: An Ex-Pastor's Journey from Belief to Atheism
By Jerry Dewitt. 2013
Atheism's leading lights have long been intellectuals raised in the secular and academic worlds: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the…
late Christopher Hitchens. By contrast, Jerry DeWitt was born and bred into the church and was in fact a Pentecostal preacher before arriving at atheism through an extraordinary dialogue with faith that spanned more than a quarter of a century. Hope After Faith is his account of that journey. DeWitt was a pastor in the town of DeRidder, Louisiana, and was a fixture of the community. In private, however, he'd begun to question his faith. Late one night in May 2011, a member of his flock called seeking prayer for her brother who had been in a serious accident. As DeWitt searched for the right words to console her, speech failed him, and he found that the faith which once had formed the cornerstone of his life had finally crumbled to dust. When it became public knowledge that DeWitt was now an atheist, he found himself shunned by much of DeRidder's highly religious community, losing nearly everything he'd known. DeWitt's struggle for identity and meaning mirrors the one currently facing millions of people around the world. With both agnosticism and atheism entering the mainstream-one in five Americans now claim no religious affiliation, according to a recent study-the moment has arrived for a new atheist voice, one that is respectful of faith and religious traditions yet warmly embraces a life free of religion, finding not skepticism and cold doubt but rather profound meaning and hope. Hope After Faith is the story of one man's evolution toward a committed and considered atheism, one driven by humanism, a profound moral dimension, and a happiness and self-confidence obtained through living free of fear.The Bhagavad Gita
By Eknath Easwaran. 1961
In the Bhagavad Gita, Prince Arjuna asks direct, uncompromising questions of his spiritual guide on the eve of a great…
battle. In this expanded edition of the most famous --and popular -- of Indian scriptures, Eknath Easwaran contextualizes the book culturally and historically and explains the key concepts of Hindu religious thought and the technical vocabulary of yoga. Chapter introductions, notes, and a glossary help readers understand the book's message. Most importantly, this translation uses simple, clear language to impart the poetry, universality, and timelessness of the Gita's teachings.Secular Spirituality
By Harald Walach. 2015
This book discusses spirituality as an emerging scientific topic from a historical perspective, with extensive discussion of the mind-body problem…
and of scientific concepts of consciousness. While the book focuses on the Western tradition of 'Enlightenment', it also implicitly addresses the double meaning of the term, with the Eastern tradition describing it as 'a state of true knowledge, which is an important goal on an individual's spiritual path' and the Western tradition seeing it as 'the collective process of getting rid of narrow-minded dogmas and concepts'. The book is based on a simple yet challenging premise: Science has not gone far enough in the scientific process of going from a collective mind tied up in dogmatic teachings to a truly free mind that, seemingly, freed itself from bondage and restrictions. The book shows that science, and with it our whole Western culture, has to incorporate spirituality if it is to realize this goal of enlightenment. If that is done, and it can only be done by many individuals actually practicing spirituality, this will also lead to the individual type of enlightenment.Discerning the Powers in Post-Colonial Africa and Asia
By Pak Nung Wong. 2016
Qualifying post-Westphalian sovereign statehood as a 'power' as argued for in Hendrik Berkhoff's political theology, this book addresses the decades-long…
theological-spiritual debate between Christian realism and Christian pacifism in U. S. foreign policy and global Christian circles. It approaches the debate by delving into the pacifist Anabaptist political theology and delineates empirically how sovereign statehood in post-colonial Africa and Asia has fallen into the hands of the devil Satan, as a 'fallen power' in the Foucaultian terms of power structures, techniques and episteme. While the book offers intervention schemes and options, it holds that Christian statecraft remains the source of hope to effectively address a number of serious global issues. By extension, the book is thus an invitation to ignite debates on the suitability of Christian statecraft and the nexus between spirituality and world politics, making it especially interesting for scholars and students in the fields of International Politics, Politics of Asian and African States, Post-colonial Studies and Political Theology.Towards Cultural Psychology of Religion
By Jacob A. Belzen. 2009
This book takes a bold stand: all psychology should be culturally sensitive psychology, especially when studying religious phenomena. It explains…
that culture is not simply to be conceived of as a variable that possibly influences behavior. Rather, it stresses that cultural patterns of acting, thinking and experiencing are created, adopted and promulgated by a number of individuals jointly. As human subjectivity is different in different cultures, cultural psychology is not interested in comparatively investigating how experiences and behavior, attitudes and social relationships present themselves within different cultural conditions. By consequence, cultural psychology does not start from Western psychological constructs, testing for their presence in other cultures, but from human acts and activities in specific cultures, analyzing them in a hermeneutical way. Like cultural psychology, psychology of religion currently enjoys more and more interest and rapid growth. But the two fields have remained rather unconnected in the recent past. Psychological research on religion has been pursued from a number of perspectives, among which a cultural psychological one has not yet become prominent. As religions, however conceptualized, are cultural entities of major importance, cultural psychology seems a natural ally to research on religion. Containing a number of studies, both theoretical and empirical, this volume takes a step towards a rapprochement of cultural psychology and psychology of religion.Debating the Faith: Religion and Letter Writing in Great Britain, 1550-1800
By Anne Dunan-Page, Clotilde Prunier. 2012
The first book to address the role of correspondence in the study of religion, Debating the Faith: Religion and Letter…
Writing in Great Britain, 1550-1800 shows how letters shaped religious debate in early-modern and Enlightenment Britain, and discusses the materiality of the letters as well as questions of form and genre. Particular attention is paid to the contexts in which letters were composed, sent, read, distributed, and then destroyed, copied or printed, in periods of religious tolerance or persecution. The opening section, 'Protestant identities', examines the importance of letters in the shaping of British protestantism from the underground correspondence of Protestant martyrs in the reign of Mary I to dissident letters after the Act of Toleration. 'Representations of British Catholicism', explores the way English, Irish and Scottish Catholics, whether in exile or at home, defined their faith, established epistolary networks, and addressed political and religious allegiances in the face of adversity. The last part, 'Religion, science and philosophy', focuses on the religious content of correspondence between natural scientists and philosophers.Religion and Human Rights
By Hans-Georg Ziebertz, Gordan Črpić. 2015
This book examines the relationship between human rights and religiosity. It discusses whether the impact of religiosity on human rights…
is liberational or suppressive, and sheds light on the direction in which the relationship between religion and human rights is expected to develop. The questions explored in this volume are: Which are the rights that are currently debated or under pressure? What is the position on human rights that churches and religious communities represent? Are there tensions between churches, religious communities and the state? Which rights are especially relevant for young people and which relate to adolescents life-world experiences? Covering 17 countries, the book describes two separate, yet connected studies. The first study presents research by experts from individual countries describing the state of human rights and neuralgic points anticipated in individual societies. The other study presents specific findings on the relationship between these two social phenomena from empirical research in a population of high school students. Studying this particular population allows insights into social trends, value systems and attitudes on human rights, as well as an indication of the likely directions of development, and potential room for intervention.Human Rights and Religion in Educational Contexts
By Manfred L. Pirner, Johannes Lähnemann, Heiner Bielefeldt. 2016
What is the role of religion(s) in a human rights culture and in human rights education? How do human rights…
and religion relate in the context of public education? And what can religious education at public schools contribute to human rights education? These are the core questions addressed by this book. Stimulating deliberations, illuminating analyses and promising conceptual perspectives are offered by renowned experts from ten countries and diverse academic disciplines.Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium
By Youval Rotman. 2016
In the Roman and Byzantine Near East, the holy fool emerged in Christianity as a way of describing individuals whose…
apparent madness allowed them to achieve a higher level of spirituality. Youval Rotman examines how the figure of the mad saint or mystic was used as a means of individual and collective transformation prior to the rise is Islam.The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl
By Dorion Cairns, Lester Embree. 2012
The present volume containing the dissertation of Dorion Cairns is the first part of a comprehensive edition of the philosophical…
papers of one of the foremost disseminators and interpreters of Husserlian phenomenology in North-America. Based on his intimate knowledge of Husserl's published writings and unpublished manuscripts and on the many conversations and discussions he had with Husserl and Fink during his stay in Freiburg i. Br. in 1931-1932 Cairns's dissertation is a comprehensive exposition of the methodological foundations and the concrete phenomenological analyses of Husserl's transcendental phenomenology.The lucidity and precision of Cairns's presentation is remarkable and demonstrates the secure grasp he had of Husserl's philosophical intentions and phenomenological distinctions. Starting from the phenomenological reduction and Husserl's Idea of Philosophy, Cairns proceeds with a detailed analysis of intentionality and the intentional structures of consciousness. In its scope and in the depth and nuance of its understanding, Cairns's dissertation belongs beside the writings on Husserl by Levinas and Fink from the same period.Religion and Place
By Peter Hopkins, Elizabeth Olson, Lily Kong. 2012
This unique collection highlights the importance of landscape, politics and piety to our understandings of religion and place. The geographies…
of religion have developed rapidly in the last couple of decades and this book provides both a conceptual framing of the key issues and debates involved, and rich illustrations through empirical case studies. The chapters span the discipline of human geography and cover contexts as diverse as veiling in Turkey, religious landscapes in rural Peru, and refugees and faith in South Africa. A number of prominent scholars and emerging researchers examine topical themes in each engaging chapter with significant foci being: religious transnationalism and religious landscapes; gendering of religious identities and contexts; fashion, faith and the body; identity, resistance and belief; immigrant identities, citizenship and spaces of belief; alternative spiritualities and places of retreat and enchantment. Together they make a series of important contributions that illuminate the central role of geography to the meaning and implications of lived religion, public piety and religious embodiment. As such, this collection will be of much interest to researchers and students working on topics relating to religion and place, including human geographers, sociologists, religious studies and religious education scholars.Muslim Societies and the Challenge of Secularization: An Interdisciplinary Approach
By Gabriele Marranci. 2009
Scholars from various disciplines worked together to present the first interdisciplinary book to address the issue of Islam, secularism and…
globalization. The book has a clear structure which represents its interdisciplinary approach: the first section addresses the philosophical and historical discussion about Islam and secularism; the second section discusses the topic from an ethnographical and social anthropological viewpoint; and the final section addresses Islam, secularism and globalization from a political viewpoint. This unique collection not only offers innovative research and new material, it also provides empirical examples and theoretical debates, and could therefore also be used as a textbook for courses on Islam, globalization, anthropology, politics, sociology and law.Islam - Säkularismus - Religionsrecht
By Lothar Häberle, Johannes Hattler. 2011
Seit Gründung der Bundesrepublik ist die religiöse Zusammensetzung der Gesellschaft heterogener und konfliktreicher geworden: Zugenommen hat die Gruppe der Religionslosen,…
von denen einige aktiv für einen weltanschaulichen Säkularismus eintreten, und die der Muslime unterschiedlichen Bekenntnisses. Dem Islam selbst und seiner komplexen Beziehung zum Verfassungsstaat sind zwei Beiträge gewidmet, ein weiterer säkularistischen (bzw. laizistischen) Positionen. Mehrere Kapitel gehen der Frage nach, wie das staatliche Religionsrecht auf die Herausforderungen Islam und Säkularismus reagieren sollte und ob es einer Neujustierung bedarf. Abschließend werden zwei konträre Urteile des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte (EGMR) zu einem italienischen Schulkreuz-Fall analysiert.Spot What! Picture Hunt
By Nick Bryant. 2000
Spot What! Picture Hunt will challenge your mind, with hidden things for you to find! Follow the clues in the…
poems to find all the hidden objects, and when you've done that there are even more items to spot in the Spot What Challenge! Great fun for all the family!Spot What! Spectacular
By Nick Bryant. 2003
Spot What! Spectacular will challenge your mind, with hidden things for you to find! Follow the clues in the poems…
to find all the hidden objects, and when you've done that there are even more items to spot in the Spot What Challenge! Great fun for all the family!Secularization Revisited - Teaching of Religion and the State of Denmark
By Niels Reeh. 2016
Since 2001, history has proven the classic and once dominant theories of secularization wrong. Instead of abandoning the subject of…
secularization, Niels Reeh's Secularization Revisited demonstrates how the collapse of formerly dominant secularization theories indicates fundamental conceptual challenges within sociology. Through a historical sociological case study of the political decision-making concerning the teaching of religion in Denmark from 1721 to 2006, Reeh explains why sociology of religion and sociology more generally should pay more attention to interstate relations, state-form and state-agency. The Danish state's interest in its inhabitants' religion over the last three centuries responded not only to religious motives but to concerns about foreign relations and the survival of the state.Petrarch's 'Fragmenta': The Narrative and Theological Unity of 'Rerum vulgarium fragmenta'
By Thomas E Peterson. 2016
Petrarch's Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, a collection of lyric poems on sacred and profane love and other subjects, has traditionally been…
viewed as reflecting the conflicted nature of its author. However, award winning author Thomas E. Peterson argues that Petrarch's Fragmenta is an ordered and coherent work unified by narrative and theological structures.By concentrating on the poem's reliance on Christian tenets and distinguishing between author, narrator and character, Peterson exposes the underlying narrative and theological unity of the work. Building on recent Petrarch scholarship and broader studies of medieval poetics, poetic narrativity, and biblical intertextuality, Peterson conducts a rigorous examination of the Fragmenta's poetic language. This combination of stylistic and philological analysis recasts Petrarch's poetry in a new light revealing its radically innovative and liberating character.Free Markets and the Culture of Common Good
By Juan Andrés Mercado, Martin Schlag. 2011
Recent economic development and the financial and economic crisis require a change in our approach to business and finance. This…
book combines theology, economy and philosophy in order to examine in detail the idea that the functioning of a free market economy depends upon sound cultural and ethical foundations. The free market is a cultural achievement, not only an economic phenomenon subject to technical rules of trade and exchange. It is an achievement which lives by and depends upon the values and virtues shared by the majority of those who engage in economic activity. It is these values and virtues that we refer to as culture. Trust, credibility, loyalty, diligence, and entrepreneurship are the values inherent in commercial rules and law. But beyond law, there is also the need for ethical convictions and for global solidarity with developing countries. This book offers new ideas for future sustainable development and responds to an increasing need for a new sense of responsibility for the common good in societal institutions and good leadership.The Transnational and the Local in the Politics of Islam
By Delmus Puneri Salim. 2015
This book explores the relationship between transnational and local Islam as expressed in public discourse and policy-making, as represented in…
the local press. It does so against the background of local governments in majority Muslim regions across Indonesia promoting and passing regulations that mandate forms of social or economic behaviour seen to be compatible with Islam. The book situates the political construction of Islamic behaviour in West Sumatra, and in Indonesia more generally, within an historical context in which rulers have in some way engaged with aspects of Islamic practice since the Islamic kingdom era. The book shows that while formal local Islamic regulations of this kind constitute a new development, their introduction has been a product of the same kinds of interactions between international, national and local elements that have characterised the relationship between Islam and politics through the course of Indonesian history. The book challenges the scholarly tendency to over-emphasise local political concerns when explaining this phenomenon, arguing that it is necessary to forefront the complex relationship between local politics and developments in the wider Islamic world. To illustrate the relationship between transnational and local Islam, the book uses detailed case studies of four domains of regulation: Islamic finance, zakat, education and behaviour and dress, in a number of local government areas within the province.Problematizing Religious Freedom
By Arvind Sharma. 2011
The concept of religious freedom is the favoured modern human rights concept, with which the modern world hopes to tackle…
the phenomenon of religious pluralism, as our modern existence in an electronically shrinking globe comes to be increasingly characterised by this phenomenon. To begin with, the concept of religious freedom, as embodied in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, seems self-evident in nature. It is the claim of this book, however, that although emblematic on the one hand, the concept is also problematic on the other, and the implications of the concept of religious freedom are far from self-evident, despite the ready acceptance the term receives as embodying a worthwhile goal. This book therefore problematizes the concept along legal, constitutional, ethical and theological lines, and especially from the perspective of religious studies, so that religious freedom in the world could be enlarged in a way which promotes human flourishing.