Read Books Online and Download eBooks, EPub, PDF, Mobi, Kindle, Text Full Free.
Understanding Reality Religion
Download Understanding Reality Religion full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Understanding Reality Religion ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
Book Synopsis Exploring Reality by : J. C. Polkinghorne
Download or read book Exploring Reality written by J. C. Polkinghorne and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Involved for over thirty years in the politics of Iraq, Ali A. Allawi was a long-time opposition leader against the Baathist regime. In the post-Saddam years, he has held important government positions and participated in crucial national decisions and events. In this book, the former Minister of Defence and Finance draws on his unique personal experience, extensive relationships with members of the main political groups and parties in Iraq, and deep understanding of the history and society of his country to answer the baffling questions that persist about its current crises. What really led the United States to invade Iraq, and why have events failed to unfold as planned? The Occupation of Iraq examines what the U.S. did and didn't know at the time of the invasion, the reasons for the confused and contradictory policies that were enacted, and the emergence of the Iraqi political class during the difficult transition process. The book tracks the growth of the insurgency and illuminates the complex relationships among Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds. Bringing the discussion forward to the reconfiguration of political forces in 2006, Allawi provides in these pages the clearest view to date of the modern history of Iraq and the invasion that changed its course in unpredicted ways.
Book Synopsis Understanding Reality Religion by : Hiley Ward
Download or read book Understanding Reality Religion written by Hiley Ward and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2007-08 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You know the Big questions. When did it all begin? Before creation, what? Before that? Where was I 10,000 years ago? When will it all end? But I suppose that the question that bothers people most is: How can God, the omnipotent, the Creator, be good when there is so much evil in the world? Here is an attempt to face up to the eternal, unsolvable contradictory questions about God, Jesus, the church and the practice of faith in the Christian life. Without negating traditional religion concepts, God is embraced in all of his attributes. He has a dark side. He is jealous, egotistical, cruel, tyrannical, killer of innocent hordes. He is also recognized as a great deliverer, lover of good, supporter of mankind, and a generally good companion. The Christian opts to address this second image of God, the beneficent. The author has struggled with the definition and nature of God all his life. He has found that he can question God and acknowledge his/her dark side while at the same time love God and bask in his presence and love. Here is a new kind of spiritual journey -- intellectually honest and committed in faith.
Book Synopsis Reality’s Fugue by : F. Samuel Brainard
Download or read book Reality’s Fugue written by F. Samuel Brainard and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2017-09-21 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science, religion, philosophy: these three categories of thought have organized humankind’s search for meaning from time immemorial. Reality’s Fugue presents a compelling case that these ways of understanding, often seen as competing, are part of a larger puzzle that cannot be rendered by one account of reality alone. This book begins with an overview of the concept of reality and the philosophical difficulties associated with attempts to account for it through any single worldview. By clarifying the differences among first-person, third-person, and dualist understandings of reality, F. Samuel Brainard repurposes the three predominant ways of making sense of those differences: exclusionist (only one worldview can be right), inclusivist (viewing other worldviews through the lens of one in order to incorporate them all, and thus distorting them), and pluralist or relativist (holding that there are no universals, and truth is relative). His alternative mode of understanding uses Douglas Hofstadter’s metaphor of a musical fugue that allows different “voices” and “melodies” of worldviews to coexist in counterpoint and conversation, while each remains distinct, with none privileged above the others. Approaching reality in this way, Brainard argues, opens up the possibility for a multivoiced perspective that can overcome the skeptical challenges that metaphysical positions face. Engagingly argued by a lifelong scholar of philosophy and global religions, this edifying and accessible exploration of the nature of reality addresses deeply meaningful questions about belief, reconciliation, and being.
Book Synopsis Understanding Reality Religion by : Hiley Ward
Download or read book Understanding Reality Religion written by Hiley Ward and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2007-08-15 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You know the Big questions. When did it all begin? Before creation, what?Before that? Where was I 10,000 years ago? When will it all end? But I suppose that the question that bothers people most is: How can God, the omnipotent, the Creator, be good when there is so much evil in the world? Here is an attempt to face up to the eternal, unsolvable contradictory questions about God, Jesus, the church and the practice of faith in the Christian life.Without negating traditional religion concepts, God is embraced in all of hisattributes. He has a dark side. He is jealous, egotistical, cruel, tyrannical, killer of innocent hordes. He is also recognized as a great deliverer, lover of good, supporter of mankind, and a generally good companion. The Christian opts to address this second image of God, the beneficent. The author has struggled with the definition and nature of God all his life. He has found that he can question God and acknowledge his/her dark side while at the same time love God and bask in his presence and love. Here is a new kind of spiritual journey -- intellectually honest and committed in faith.
Book Synopsis Losing Reality by : Robert Jay Lifton
Download or read book Losing Reality written by Robert Jay Lifton and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A definitive account of the psychology of zealotry, from a National Book Award winner and a leading authority on the nature of cults, political absolutism, and mind control In this unique and timely volume Robert Jay Lifton, the National Book Award–winning psychiatrist, historian, and public intellectual proposes a radical idea: that the psychological relationship between extremist political movements and fanatical religious cults may be much closer than anyone thought. Exploring the most extreme manifestations of human zealotry, Lifton highlights an array of leaders—from Mao to Hitler to the Japanese apocalyptic cult leader Shōkō Asahara to Donald Trump—who have sought the control of human minds and the ownership of reality. Lifton has spent decades exploring psychological extremism. His pioneering concept of the "Eight Deadly Sins" of ideological totalism—originally devised to identify "brainwashing" (or "thought reform") in political movements—has been widely quoted in writings about cults, and embraced by members and former members of religious cults seeking to understand their experiences. In Losing Reality Lifton makes clear that the apocalyptic impulse—that of destroying the world in order to remake it in purified form—is not limited to religious groups but is prominent in extremist political movements such as Nazism and Chinese Communism, and also in groups surrounding Donald Trump. Lifton applies his concept of "malignant normality" to Trump's efforts to render his destructive falsehoods a routine part of American life. But Lifton sees the human species as capable of "regaining reality" by means of our "protean" psychological capacities and our ethical and political commitments as "witnessing professionals." Lifton weaves together some of his finest work with extensive new commentary to provide vital understanding of our struggle with mental predators. Losing Reality is a book not only of stunning scholarship, but also of huge relevance for these troubled times.
Book Synopsis Story and Reality by : Robert Paul Roth
Download or read book Story and Reality written by Robert Paul Roth and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2004-12-10 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No Christian will dispute the importance of properly understanding the gospel. And throughout the centuries the function of theology has been to aid that understanding. In good part, as the author of this challenging study indicates, theology has turned to philosophy, history, sociology, or yet other disciplines in an effort to make its own message clear; that is, theology has used philosophical or historical or sociological concepts of reality, and has then attempted to impose upon reality (so defined) a deeper theological significance. But that effort, Robert Roth believes, can never be completely successful, since each of these disciplines -- valuable as they are in themselves -- are compelled by their nature to reduce both reality and theology to the level of what is human, thus leaving out the very thing that theology is all about: God. Roth contends that theology must use as its model what he terms story, the kind of large, comprehensive tale or myth that takes into account the basic facts of the universe and human existence. The nature of story, he tells us, is essentially dramatic, filled with tension between opposing forces. The conflict between good and evil, for example, or between hope and despair, has always characterized great literature. And it is precisely those same conflicts that characterize reality. Little wonder that God's account of reality -- the gospel -- is cast in story form. 'Story and Reality' is an exciting and unusual approach to the question of what constitutes God's message to humanity; it offers as well new insights into the nature of literature, and the role story can play in helping us properly apprehend reality. Roth demands an effort on the part of his readers; but it is an effort that will be richly repaid.
Book Synopsis Faith Versus Fact by : Jerry A. Coyne
Download or read book Faith Versus Fact written by Jerry A. Coyne and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A superbly argued book.” —Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion The New York Times bestselling author of Why Evolution is True explains why any attempt to make religion compatible with science is doomed to fail In this provocative book, evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne lays out in clear, dispassionate detail why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion—including faith, dogma, and revelation—leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions. Coyne is responding to a national climate in which more than half of Americans don’t believe in evolution, members of Congress deny global warming, and long-conquered childhood diseases are reappearing because of religious objections to inoculation, and he warns that religious prejudices in politics, education, medicine, and social policy are on the rise. Extending the bestselling works of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, he demolishes the claims of religion to provide verifiable “truth” by subjecting those claims to the same tests we use to establish truth in science. Coyne irrefutably demonstrates the grave harm—to individuals and to our planet—in mistaking faith for fact in making the most important decisions about the world we live in. Praise for Faith Versus Fact: “A profound and lovely book . . . showing that the honest doubts of science are better . . . than the false certainties of religion.” —Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith
Book Synopsis Understanding Religious Life by : Frederick J. Streng
Download or read book Understanding Religious Life written by Frederick J. Streng and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text uses two basic themes to enhance student understanding: 1) the search for an understanding of religious life as an ongoing process; and 2) the need for recognizing a variety of ultimate realities when studying religious pluralism.
Download or read book Peirce and Religion written by Roger Ward and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Sanders Peirce is one of the most original voices in American philosophy. His scientific career and his goal of proving scientific logic provide rich material for philosophical development. Peirce was also a life-long Christian and member of the Episcopal Church. Roger Ward traces the impact of Peirce’s religion and Christianity on the development of Peirce’s philosophy. Peirce’s religious framework is a key to his development of pragmatism and normative science in terms of knowledge and moral transformation. Peirce’s argument for the reality of God is a culmination of both his religious devotion and his life-long philosophical development.
Book Synopsis The Essentials of Christian Thought by : Roger E. Olson
Download or read book The Essentials of Christian Thought written by Roger E. Olson and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Or at least, such an outlook should unite Christians of all theological and church backgrounds. However, alternate visions of reality often infect and corrupt Christians’ thinking. In The Essentials of Christian Thought, eminent theologian and church historian Roger Olson outlines the basic perspective on the world that all Christians, regardless of the place and time in which they are born, have historically held. This underlying metaphysic accords with all orthodox theologies, whether Calvinist or Arminian, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant, but it separates Christianity from other religious and secular perspectives. It is, quite simply, the essential requirement of a Christian view of the world. Bold and incisive, The Essentials of Christian Thought will prompt thoughtful readers and students to more consciously appropriate the core of their faith, guarding against ideas that subtly but necessarily invite compromise.
Book Synopsis Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality by : Ayon Maharaj
Download or read book Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality written by Ayon Maharaj and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sri Ramakrishna is widely known as a nineteenth-century Indian mystic who affirmed the harmony of all religions on the basis of his richly varied spiritual experiences and eclectic religious practices, both Hindu and non-Hindu. In Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality, Ayon Maharaj argues that Sri Ramakrishna was also a sophisticated philosopher of great contemporary relevance. Through a careful study of Sri Ramakrishna's recorded oral teachings in the original Bengali, Maharaj reconstructs his philosophical positions and analyzes them from a cross-cultural perspective. Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual journey culminated in the exalted state of "vijñana," his term for the "intimate knowledge" of God as the Infinite Reality that is both personal and impersonal, with and without form, immanent in the universe and beyond it. This expansive spiritual standpoint of vijñana, Maharaj contends, opens up a new paradigm for addressing central issues in cross-cultural philosophy of religion, including divine infinitude, religious pluralism, mystical experience, and the problem of evil. Sri Ramakrishna's vijñana-based religious pluralism--when grasped in all its subtlety--proves to have major philosophical advantages over dominant Western models. Moreover, his mystical testimony and teachings not only cut across long-standing debates about the nature of mystical experience but also bolster recent defenses of its epistemic value. Maharaj further demonstrates that Sri Ramakrishna's unique response to the problem of evil resonates strongly with Western "soul-making" theodicies and contemporary theories of skeptical theism. A pioneering interdisciplinary study of one of India's most important philosopher-mystics, Maharaj's book is essential reading for scholars and students in philosophy of religion, theology, religious studies, and Hindu studies.
Book Synopsis Reality and Mystical Experience by : F. Samuel Brainard
Download or read book Reality and Mystical Experience written by F. Samuel Brainard and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Responding to our modern disillusionment with any claims to absolute truth regarding morality or reality, this book offers a conceptual approach for discussing absolutes without denying either the relevance of divergent religious and philosophical teachings or the evidence supporting postmodern and poststructuralist critiques. Case studies of mysticism within Advaita-Vedānta Hinduism, Mādhyamika Buddhism, and Nicene Christianity demonstrate the value of this approach and offer many fresh insights into the metaphysical presuppositions of these religions as well as into the nature and value of mystical experience. Like Douglas Hofstadter's Gōdel, Escher, Bach, this book finds ultimate reality to be rationally graspable only as an eternal fugue of pattern and paradox. Yet it does not so much counter other philosophical views as provide a conceptual tool for understanding and classifying incommensurable views.
Book Synopsis A New Vision of Reality by : Bede Griffiths
Download or read book A New Vision of Reality written by Bede Griffiths and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author invites us to look afresh at Christianity in the context of modern physics on the one hand and Eastern mysticism on the other. Scientists now acknowledge that quantitative enquiry can reveal only one aspect of reality and to come to terms with a much deeper transcendent reality we must also be prepared to learn from Eastern traditions. The Western machanistic model of the universe, dating from the time of Galileo and Newton, must now be replaced with a new organic model -- this marks a return to the ancient traditional wisdom in which the universe was seen to consist not only of a physical dimension but also of psychological and spiritual dimensions, all of which are interrelated and interdependent. In exploring "the divine mystery behind human life" the author seeks to discover the basic unity which underlies all religion and discusses the concept of the Cosmic Person or Cosmic Lord as revealed in Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. He concludes that a radical vision of a new society and a universal religion in which "the essential values of Christianity will be preserved in living relationship with the other religious traditions of the world."
Book Synopsis The Vision of Islam by : Sachiko Murata
Download or read book The Vision of Islam written by Sachiko Murata and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-05-24 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is one of the many Islamic publications distributed by Mustafa Organization throughout the world in different languages with the aim of conveying the message of Islam to the people of the world. Mustafa Organization is a registered Organization that operates and is sustained through collaborative efforts of volunteers in many countries around the world, and it welcomes your involvement and support. Its objectives are numerous, yet its main goal is to spread the truth about the Islamic faith in general and the Shi`a School of Thought in particular due to the latter being misrepresented, misunderstood and its tenets often assaulted by many ignorant folks, Muslims and non-Muslims. Organization's purpose is to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge through a global medium, the Internet, to locations where such resources are not commonly or easily accessible or are resented, resisted and fought!
Book Synopsis God, Purpose, and Reality by : John Bishop
Download or read book God, Purpose, and Reality written by John Bishop and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What must reality be like if the God of Abrahamic theism exists? How could the worldview of Abrahamic theism be understood if not in terms of the existence of a supremely powerful, knowledgeable, and good personal being? John Bishop and Ken Perszyk argue that it is reasonable to reject what many analytic philosophers take to be the standard conception of God as the 'personal omniGod'. They argue that a version of a 'logical' Argument from Evil is still very much in play, contrary to the widely held view that this line of argument is bankrupt. This book provides a new presentation and defence of the alternative that Bishop and Perszyk have called euteleology. Its core claims are that reality is inherently purposive, and that the Universe exists ultimately because its overall end (telos), which is the supreme good, is made concretely real within it. There is no supreme agent ('standing by' while horrors take place); God is 'no-thing' in euteleology's basic ontology. Rather, talk of God-as-a-personal-being is a cognitive construction, treating ultimate reality by analogy with our ordinary ways of experiencing and talking about the world. But euteleological theism is also emphatically realist. Analogizing God-talk enables humans to align themselves with reality and is aptly deployed in prayer and worship-practices whose broad function is a human contribution to, and enjoyment of, the fulfilment of reality's inherent ultimate purpose.
Book Synopsis Religion and Realism by : Davor Džalto
Download or read book Religion and Realism written by Davor Džalto and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-11 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume revisits the concepts of reality and realism with regard to their relation to religion and the religious real. Religion remains one of the most significant social forces and cultural constituencies, and it can even be said that religion and religious truths are becoming increasingly important in these so-called “post-secular” times, when the sphere of the (secular) social/political and the sphere of the religious have to be reconsidered. The relevancy of religious truths and the way they structure our understanding of “reality” overcomes the sphere of theology and particular religious practices. Religion, truth, and reality, and the way these concepts are approached and understood, continue to be vital for a broader cultural discourse as well, from philosophy and science to politics, mass media and show-business. The book presents ten essays that offer methodologically diverse and intellectually challenging analyses of various aspects of the topics of Religion and Realism. The essays are based on papers presented at the international conference on Religion and Realism, which took place at the American University of Rome in 2014.
Book Synopsis Spiritual Understanding Giving Reality Awareness and Peace Love and Joy by : Raymond Wells
Download or read book Spiritual Understanding Giving Reality Awareness and Peace Love and Joy written by Raymond Wells and published by Raymond Wells. This book was released on 2022-05-12 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Truth of Love Divine Wisdom Reality Awareness Understanding Enlightenment Understand and Increase your Awareness of your Spiritual Reality (Spiritual Oneness with God), and then you can help your brethren to increase their Awareness of their Spiritual Reality.
