Invented Religions

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Invented Religions

Author : Carole M. Cusack
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131711325X
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis Invented Religions by : Carole M. Cusack

Download or read book Invented Religions written by Carole M. Cusack and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-06 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utilizing contemporary scholarship on secularization, individualism, and consumer capitalism, this book explores religious movements founded in the West which are intentionally fictional: Discordianism, the Church of All Worlds, the Church of the SubGenius, and Jediism. Their continued appeal and success, principally in America but gaining wider audience through the 1980s and 1990s, is chiefly as a result of underground publishing and the internet. This book deals with immensely popular subject matter: Jediism developed from George Lucas' Star Wars films; the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, founded by 26-year-old student Bobby Henderson in 2005 as a protest against the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools; Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius which retain strong followings and participation rates among college students. The Church of All Worlds' focus on Gaia theology and environmental issues makes it a popular focus of attention. The continued success of these groups of Invented Religions provide a unique opportunity to explore the nature of late/post-modern religious forms, including the use of fiction as part of a bricolage for spirituality, identity-formation, and personal orientation.

Invented Religions

Author : Carole M. Cusack
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317113268
Total Pages : 186 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis Invented Religions by : Carole M. Cusack

Download or read book Invented Religions written by Carole M. Cusack and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-06 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utilizing contemporary scholarship on secularization, individualism, and consumer capitalism, this book explores religious movements founded in the West which are intentionally fictional: Discordianism, the Church of All Worlds, the Church of the SubGenius, and Jediism. Their continued appeal and success, principally in America but gaining wider audience through the 1980s and 1990s, is chiefly as a result of underground publishing and the internet. This book deals with immensely popular subject matter: Jediism developed from George Lucas' Star Wars films; the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, founded by 26-year-old student Bobby Henderson in 2005 as a protest against the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools; Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius which retain strong followings and participation rates among college students. The Church of All Worlds' focus on Gaia theology and environmental issues makes it a popular focus of attention. The continued success of these groups of Invented Religions provide a unique opportunity to explore the nature of late/post-modern religious forms, including the use of fiction as part of a bricolage for spirituality, identity-formation, and personal orientation.

The Invention of Religion in Japan

Author : Jason Ānanda Josephson
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226412342
Total Pages : 402 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis The Invention of Religion in Japan by : Jason Ānanda Josephson

Download or read book The Invention of Religion in Japan written by Jason Ānanda Josephson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-10-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of what we call “religion.” There was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning. But when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this Western idea. In this book, Jason Ananda Josephson reveals how Japanese officials invented religion in Japan and traces the sweeping intellectual, legal, and cultural changes that followed. More than a tale of oppression or hegemony, Josephson’s account demonstrates that the process of articulating religion offered the Japanese state a valuable opportunity. In addition to carving out space for belief in Christianity and certain forms of Buddhism, Japanese officials excluded Shinto from the category. Instead, they enshrined it as a national ideology while relegating the popular practices of indigenous shamans and female mediums to the category of “superstitions”—and thus beyond the sphere of tolerance. Josephson argues that the invention of religion in Japan was a politically charged, boundary-drawing exercise that not only extensively reclassified the inherited materials of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto to lasting effect, but also reshaped, in subtle but significant ways, our own formulation of the concept of religion today. This ambitious and wide-ranging book contributes an important perspective to broader debates on the nature of religion, the secular, science, and superstition.

The Problem of Invented Religions

Author : Steven J. Sutcliffe
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317373359
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis The Problem of Invented Religions by : Steven J. Sutcliffe

Download or read book The Problem of Invented Religions written by Steven J. Sutcliffe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Invented religions have been described as modern religions which advertise their invented status and reject traditional strategies of authorisation. But what does it mean for a religious formation to be ‘made up’, and how might this status affect perceptions of its legitimacy or authenticity in wider society? Based in original fieldwork and archival sources, and in the secondary literature on invented and constructed formations, this volume explores the allure of, as well as the limits of, the invention of religion. Through a series of case studies, the contributors discuss strategies of mobilization and legitimation for new traditions at their point of emergence, as well as taking issue with simplistic interpretations of the phenomenon which neglect wider cultural and political dimensions. This book was originally published as a special issue of Culture and Religion.

The Invention of Religion

Author : Jan Assmann
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691203199
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis The Invention of Religion by : Jan Assmann

Download or read book The Invention of Religion written by Jan Assmann and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-24 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking account of how the Book of Exodus shaped fundamental aspects of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam The Book of Exodus may be the most consequential story ever told. But its spectacular moments of heaven-sent plagues and parting seas overshadow its true significance, says Jan Assmann, a leading historian of ancient religion. The story of Moses guiding the enslaved children of Israel out of captivity to become God's chosen people is the foundation of an entirely new idea of religion, one that lives on today in many of the world's faiths. First introduced in Exodus, new ideas of faith, revelation, and above all covenant transformed basic assumptions about humankind’s relationship to the divine and became the bedrock of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The Invention of Religions

Author : Daniel Dubuisson
Publisher : Equinox Publishing (UK)
ISBN 13 : 9781781798133
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (981 download)

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Book Synopsis The Invention of Religions by : Daniel Dubuisson

Download or read book The Invention of Religions written by Daniel Dubuisson and published by Equinox Publishing (UK). This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly thirty years, a scientific revolution has taken place in the religious studies departments of several North American and British universities--and the results are considerable, obliging us to envisage new ways of conceiving of this academic field. While the History of Religions tended to rest in the shade and guardianship of past authorities, this critical current has re-examined the discipline's a priori positions, its favourite arguments, its long prehistory within Euro/Christian culture, but also its numerous ethnocentric prejudices. The first part of the volume considers anew the origins and Christian history of the notion of religion. This starting point then allows us to identify dead ends and contradictions within the traditional History of Religions approach. The second part is dedicated to the synthetic presentation of the concepts, methods, and controversies, which distinguish this current. Following this are two related contributions devoted to two major case studies: "Colonialism and Cultural Imperialism" and "The Invention of Hinduism and Shintoism". Finally, in the third and last part of the book, this trend itself is critically examined. The author identifies some of the paradoxes, gaps, and aporias that this approach has already gathered during its short existence.

Invented Knowledge

Author : Ronald H. Fritze
Publisher : Reaktion Books
ISBN 13 : 1861896743
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (618 download)

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Book Synopsis Invented Knowledge by : Ronald H. Fritze

Download or read book Invented Knowledge written by Ronald H. Fritze and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2009-05-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This incredible exploration of the murky world of pseudo-history reveals the mix of proven facts, informed speculation, and pure fiction behind lost continents, ancient super-civilizations, and conspiratorial cover-ups—as well as the revisionist historical foundations of religions such as the Nation of Islam and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Drawing on the best scholarship available, Ronald H. Fritze shows that in spite of strong, mainstream historical evidence to the contrary, many of these ideas have proved durable and gained widespread acceptance. As the examples in Invented Knowledge reveal, pseudo-historians capitalize on and exploit anomalies in evidence to support their claims, rather than examining the preponderance of research as a whole.

The Invention of God

Author : Bill Lauritzen
Publisher : Earth360.com
ISBN 13 : 0978754336
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (787 download)

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Book Synopsis The Invention of God by : Bill Lauritzen

Download or read book The Invention of God written by Bill Lauritzen and published by Earth360.com. This book was released on 2011-01-15 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did mythology and religion first begin? Where did the ideas of “God,” “spirit” and “soul” come from? The author takes us to ancient times, showing us how early humans struggled to make sense of the world around them. Drawing on history, geology, volcanology, anthropology, chemistry, astronomy, archeology, oceanography, biology and cognitive science, the author reveals the surprising true meaning of our most sacred stories. “Bill Lauritzen is some kind of genius.” Sir Arthur C. Clarke. “Anyone interested in science and religion should read this book.” Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D., psychologist, UC Irvine. “Bill Lauritzen has systematically analyzed, from an original viewpoint, the historic sources related to the origins of religion. He summarized his research in this interesting and thought-provoking book.” Mamikon Mnatsakanian, Ph.D, astrophysicist and mathematician, California Institute of Technology.

Before Religion

Author : Brent Nongbri
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300154178
Total Pages : 315 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis Before Religion by : Brent Nongbri

Download or read book Before Religion written by Brent Nongbri and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-22 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining a wide array of ancient writings, Brent Nongbri dispels the commonly held idea that there is such a thing as ancient religion. Nongbri shows how misleading it is to speak as though religion was a concept native to pre-modern cultures.

Passwords to Paradise

Author : Nicholas Ostler
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1620405172
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis Passwords to Paradise by : Nicholas Ostler

Download or read book Passwords to Paradise written by Nicholas Ostler and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." So opens the Gospel of John, an ancient text translated into almost every language, at once a compelling and beguiling metaphor for the Christian story of the Beginning. To further complicate matters, the words we read now are in any number of languages that would have been unknown or unrecognizable at the time of their composition. The gospel may have been originally dictated or written in Aramaic, but our only written source for the story is in Greek. Today, as your average American reader of the New Testament picks up his or her Bible off the shelf, the phrase as it appears has been translated from various linguistic intermediaries before its current manifestation in modern English. How to understand these words then, when so many other translators, languages, and cultures have exercised some level of influence on them? Christian tradition is not unique in facing this problem. All religions--if they have global aspirations--have to change in order to spread their influence, and often language has been the most powerful agent thereof. Passwords to Paradise explores the effects that language difference and language conversion have wrought on the world's great faiths, spanning more than two thousand years. It is an original and intriguing perspective on the history of religion by a master linguistic historian.

Religion Explained

Author : Pascal Boyer
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 046500461X
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis Religion Explained by : Pascal Boyer

Download or read book Religion Explained written by Pascal Boyer and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2007-03-21 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of our questions about religion, says renowned anthropologist Pascal Boyer, are no longer mysteries. We are beginning to know how to answer questions such as "Why do people have religion?" Using findings from anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary biology, Religion Explained shows how this aspect of human consciousness is increasingly admissible to coherent, naturalistic explanation. This brilliant and controversial book gives readers the first scientific explanation for what religious feeling is really about, what it consists of, and where it comes from.

God

Author : Reza Aslan
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0553394738
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (533 download)

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Book Synopsis God by : Reza Aslan

Download or read book God written by Reza Aslan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Zealot and host of Believer explores humanity’s quest to make sense of the divine in this concise and fascinating history of our understanding of God. In Zealot, Reza Aslan replaced the staid, well-worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions. In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even more immense: God, writ large. In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes, “Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we’re believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves.” But this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature—our compassion, our thirst for justice—but all that is bad in it: our greed, our bigotry, our penchant for violence. All these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments. More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, God: A Human History will challenge the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives. Praise for God “Timely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.”—HuffPost “Tantalizing . . . Driven by [Reza] Aslan’s grace and curiosity, God . . . helps us pan out from our troubled times, while asking us to consider a more expansive view of the divine in contemporary life.”—The Seattle Times “A fascinating exploration of the interaction of our humanity and God.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “[Aslan’s] slim, yet ambitious book [is] the story of how humans have created God with a capital G, and it’s thoroughly mind-blowing.”—Los Angeles Review of Books “Aslan is a born storyteller, and there is much to enjoy in this intelligent survey.”—San Francisco Chronicle

History of Christianity

Author : Paul Johnson
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451688512
Total Pages : 816 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis History of Christianity by : Paul Johnson

Download or read book History of Christianity written by Paul Johnson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1976, Paul Johnson’s exceptional study of Christianity has been loved and widely hailed for its intensive research, writing, and magnitude—“a tour de force, one of the most ambitious surveys of the history of Christianity ever attempted and perhaps the most radical” (New York Review of Books). In a highly readable companion to books on faith and history, the scholar and author Johnson has illuminated the Christian world and its fascinating history in a way that no other has. Johnson takes off in the year AD 49 with his namesake the apostle Paul. Thus beginning an ambitious quest to paint the centuries since the founding of a little-known ‘Jesus Sect’, A History of Christianity explores to a great degree the evolution of the Western world. With an unbiased and overall optimistic tone, Johnson traces the fantastic scope of the consequent sects of Christianity and the people who followed them. Information drawn from extensive and varied sources from around the world makes this history as credible as it is reliable. Invaluable understanding of the framework of modern Christianity—and its trials and tribulations throughout history—has never before been contained in such a captivating work.

Was Hinduism Invented?

Author : Brian K. Pennington
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780198037293
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (372 download)

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Book Synopsis Was Hinduism Invented? by : Brian K. Pennington

Download or read book Was Hinduism Invented? written by Brian K. Pennington and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-04-28 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a large body of previously untapped literature, including documents from the Church Missionary Society and Bengali newspapers, Brian Pennington offers a fascinating portrait of the process by which "Hinduism" came into being. He argues against the common idea that the modern construction of religion in colonial India was simply a fabrication of Western Orientalists and missionaries. Rather, he says, it involved the active agency and engagement of Indian authors as well, who interacted, argued, and responded to British authors over key religious issues such as image-worship, sati, tolerance, and conversion.

The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology

Author : Mark D. Jordan
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226410401
Total Pages : 204 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology by : Mark D. Jordan

Download or read book The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology written by Mark D. Jordan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-10-15 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this reexamination of what it means to have a tradition, Catholic and otherwise, Mark D. Jordan offers a powerful and provocative study of the sin of erotic love between men. The Invention of Sodomy reveals the theological fabrication of arguments for categorizing genital acts between members of the same sex.

Fiction, Invention and Hyper-reality

Author : Carole M. Cusack
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1317135490
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis Fiction, Invention and Hyper-reality by : Carole M. Cusack

Download or read book Fiction, Invention and Hyper-reality written by Carole M. Cusack and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-11-18 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twentieth century was a period of rapid change for religion. Secularisation resulted in a dramatic fall in church attendance in the West, and the 1950s and 1960s saw the introduction of new religions including the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), the Church of Scientology, and the Children of God. New religions were regarded with suspicion by society in general and Religious Studies scholars alike until the 1990s, when the emergence of a second generation of 'new new' religions – based on popular cultural forms including films, novels, computer games and comic books – and highly individualistic spiritualities confirmed the utter transformation of the religio-spiritual landscape. Indeed, Scientology and ISKCON appeared almost traditional and conservative when compared to the radically de-institutionalised, eclectic, parodic, fun-loving and experimental fiction-based, invented and hyper-real religions. In this book, scholarly treatments of cutting-edge religious and spiritual trends are brought into conversation with contributions by representatives of Dudeism, the Church of All Worlds, the Temple of the Jedi Order and Tolkien spirituality groups. This book will simultaneously entertain, shock, challenge and delight scholars of religious studies, as well as those with a wider interest in new religious movements.

God Is Not Great

Author : Christopher Hitchens
Publisher : McClelland & Stewart
ISBN 13 : 1551991764
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (519 download)

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Book Synopsis God Is Not Great by : Christopher Hitchens

Download or read book God Is Not Great written by Christopher Hitchens and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2008-11-19 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.