Download or read book Belief and Bloodshed written by James K. Wellman and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intended for students as well as scholars of religion and violence, Belief and Bloodshed discusses how the relationship between religion and violence is not unique to a post-9/11 world_it has existed throughout all of recorded history and culture. The book makes clear the complex interactions between religion, violence, and politics to show that religion as always innocent or always evil is misguided, and that rationalizations by religion for political power and violence are not new. Chronologically organized, the book shows religiously motivated violence across a variety of historical periods and cultures, moving from the ancient to medieval to the modern world, ending with an essay comparing the speeches of an ancient king to the speeches of the current U.S. President.

Download or read book Beliefs Bloodshed written by Ragnhild Nordås and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Blood Theology written by Eugene F. Rogers, Jr and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unsettling language of blood has been invoked throughout the history of Christianity. But until now there has been no truly sustained treatment of how Christians use blood to think with. Eugene F. Rogers Jr. discusses in his much-anticipated new book the sheer, surprising strangeness of Christian blood-talk, exploring the many and varied ways in which it offers a language where Christians cooperate, sacrifice, grow and disagree. He asks too how it is that blood-talk dominates when other explanations would do, and how blood seeps into places where it seems hardly to belong. Reaching beyond academic disputes, to consider how religious debates fuel civil ones, he shows that it is not only theologians or clergy who engage in blood-talk, but also lawmakers, judges, generals, doctors and voters at large. Religious arguments have significant societal consequences, Rogers contends; and for that reason secular citizens must do their best to understand them.

Download or read book Baptized in Blood written by Charles Reagan Wilson and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 1980 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Reagan Wilson documents that for over half a century there existed not one, but two civil religions in the United States, the second not dedicated to honoring the American nation. Extensively researched in primary sources, Baptized in Blood is a significant and well-written study of the South’s civil religion, one of two public faiths in America. In his comparison, Wilson finds the Lost Cause offered defeated Southerners a sense of meaning and purpose and special identity as a precarious but distinct culture. Southerners may have abandoned their dream of a separate political nation after Appomattox, but they preserved their cultural identity by blending Christian rhetoric and symbols with the rhetoric and imagery of Confederate tradition. “Civil religion” has been defined as the religious dimension of a people that enables them to understand a historical experience in transcendent terms. In this light, Wilson explores the role of religion in postbellum southern culture and argues that the profound dislocations of Confederate defeat caused southerners to think in religious terms about the meaning of their unique and tragic experience. The defeat in a war deemed by some as religious in nature threw into question the South’s relationship to God; it was interpreted in part as a God-given trial, whereby suffering and pain would lead Southerners to greater virtue and strength and even prepare them for future crusades. From this reflection upon history emerged the civil religion of the Lost Cause. While recent work in southern religious history has focused on the Old South period, Wilson’s timely study adds to our developing understanding of the South after the Civil War. The Lost Cause movement was an organized effort to preserve the memory of the Confederacy. Historians have examined its political, literary, and social aspects, but Wilson uses the concepts of anthropology, sociology, and historiography to unveil the Lost Cause as an authentic expression of religion. The Lost Cause was celebrated and perpetuated with its own rituals, mythology, and theology; as key celebrants of the religion of the Lost Cause, Southern ministers forged it into a religious movement closely related to their own churches. In examining the role of civil religion in the cult of the military, in the New South ideology, and in the spirit of the Lost Cause colleges, as well as in other aspects, Wilson demonstrates effectively how the religion of the Lost Cause became the institutional embodiment of the South’s tragic experience.

Download or read book When Religion Becomes Evil written by Charles Kimball and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this thoroughly revised and updated edition, leading religion and Middle East expert Charles Kimball shows how all religious traditions are susceptible to these basic corruptions and why only authentic faith can prevent such evil. The Five Warning Signs of Corruption in Religion 1. Absolute Truth Claims 2. Blind Obedience 3. Establishing the "Ideal" Time 4. The End Justifies Any Means 5. Declaring Holy War

Download or read book Fields of Blood written by Karen Armstrong and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is the most persistent myth of our time: religion is the cause of all violence. But history suggests otherwise. Karen Armstrong, former Roman Catholic nun and one of our foremost scholars of religion, speaks out to disprove the link between religion and bloodshed. * Religion is as old as humanity: Fields of Blood goes back to the Stone Age hunter-gatherers and traces religion through the centuries, from medieval crusaders to modern-day jihadists. * The West today has a warped concept of religion: we regard faith as a personal and private matter, but for most of history faith has informed peopleâe(tm)s entire outlook on life, and often been inseparable from politics. * Humans undoubtedly have a natural propensity for aggression: the founders of the largest religions âe" Jesus, Buddha, the rabbis of early Judaism, the prophet Muhammad âe" aimed to curb violence and build a more peaceful and just society, but with our growing greed for money and wealth came collective violence and warfare. * With the arrival of the modern all-powerful, secular state humanityâe(tm)s destructive potential has begun to spiral out of control. Is humanity on the brink of destroying itself? Fields of Blood is a celebration of the ancient religious ideas and movements that have promoted peace and reconciliation across millennia of civilization.

Download or read book Blood and Belief written by David Biale and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-10-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blood contains extraordinary symbolic power in both Judaism and Christianity—as the blood of sacrifice, of Jesus, of the Jewish martyrs, of menstruation, and more. Yet, though they share the same literary, cultural, and religious origins, on the question of blood the two religions have followed quite different trajectories. For instance, while Judaism rejects the eating or drinking of blood, Christianity mandates its symbolic consumption as a central sacrament. How did these two traditions, both originating in the Hebrew Bible's cult of blood sacrifices, veer off in such different directions? With his characteristic wit and erudition, David Biale traces the continuing, changing, and often clashing roles of blood as both symbol and substance through the entire sweep of Jewish and Christian history from Biblical times to the present.

Download or read book Covered by the Blood of Jesus written by Rita Y. Jarrett and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The power of the bloodJesus blood sacrificed on the crossplays an important role in Christian beliefs. But when you actually think about it, do you know why its important? Or why God chose it as the cornerstone of Christianity? In Covered by the Blood of Jesus author Rita Y. Jarrett shares the results of her research on the knowledge of the blood sacrifice of Jesus. His blood, still alive and active, is our way back to our original place and position with God. The blood of Jesus is a divine entity, something with a real existence, and has all the attributes of the names and titles of the Lord. Learn why the blood of Jesus was the only medium of exchange qualified to save all humankind and provide salvation and redemption for the sin of the world. This book explains why the subject of the blood sacrifice of Jesus must be given its place of honor and recognition in order for us to become true worshippers and in a position to realize all its benefits and value. Jarrett provides you with all the information needed to give it its proper place in your faith.

Download or read book Fields of Blood written by Karen Armstrong and published by Mizan Pustaka. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berbagai peristiwa dunia belakangan ini diwarnai oleh kekerasan yang dilakukan oleh kelompok agama tertentu. Islamic State di Timur Tengah, Boko Haram dan Lord's Resistance Army di Afrika, ekstremis Buddha dan Hindu di Myanmar dan India. Ini memunculkan pandangan populer bahwa agama adalah sumber kekerasan dan bertanggung jawab atas rentetan terorisme yang kian kerap terjadi. Melalui buku ini Karen Armstrong memberikan tanggapannya terhadap pandangan tersebut. Karen melakukannya dengan menampilkan penjelajahan historis yang luas, mulai dari epik Gilgamesh hingga Al-Qaeda, merentang masa 3.000 tahun sebelum kelahiran Kristus hingga zaman sekarang. Mencakup masyarakat purba, bukan hanya Babilonia, melainkan juga India klasik, Cina, dan Israel. Dari penelusurannya, Karen menunjukkan bahwa alasan sesungguhnya bagi perang dan kekerasan yang terjadi sepanjang sejarah umat manusia sangat sedikit hubungannya dengan agama. Alih-alih berakar dari inti ajarannya, fenomena kekerasan merupakan reaksi terhadap kekuasaan negara, kapitalisme dan modernisme yang dibungkus dengan bahasa agama. Karen juga memperlihatkan bagaimana agama dapat meredakan kemarahan ini-dan harapan bagi perdamaian di antara orang-orang beragama berbeda di zaman kita. "Provokatif dan sangat enak dibaca … kajian komparatif [Armstrong] sangat menyegarkan .… Dengan berani, seperti biasanya, dia meliput sejarah agama di seluruh dunia dan sepanjang 4.000 tahun untuk menjelaskan hubungan agama dan kekerasan serta untuk menerangkan bagaimana agama juga digunakan untuk menentang kekerasan." -Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Datang pada saat yang tepat, ahli sejarah agama Karen Armstrong menghadirkan Fields of Blood .... Penuh dengan contoh-contoh … tujuan akhir [Armstrong] adalah meminta kita untuk sejenak berhenti. Pikirkan sebelum melompat ke dalam prasangka, katanya .... Di antara yang paling menarik dalam bukunya adalah dekonstruksinya atas stereotip Islam modern …. Pada bagian akhir, hal yang paling ditekankan oleh Armstrong adalah bahwa dengan menyalahkan agama atas kekerasan, kita secara sengaja dan berbahaya membutakan diri terhadap isu sesungguhnya di Timur Tengah dan Afrika." -Patricia Pearson, The Daily Beast "Elegan dan tangguh .… Akurat sekaligus cerdas, menakjubkan dalam keluasan pengetahuan dan perincian historisnya … [Armstrong] berupaya memperlihatkan bahwa, alih-alih menempatkan kesalahan pada gambaran kekejaman dan legenda-legenda dalam teks kitab suci dan sejarah agama, kita harus berfokus pada konteks politik yang membingkai agama." -Mark Juergensmeyer, The Washington Post "Dari Gilgamesh hingga bin Laden, [Armstrong merangkum] hampir lima milenium pengalaman umat manusia .… Memberikan konteks pada apa yang mungkin tampak seperti episode-episode kekerasan yang dimotivasi agama, untuk memperlihatkan bahwa agama bukanlah penyebab utama …. Dia tidak ragu untuk mengatakan bahwa agresi para jihadis modern tidak merepresentasikan esensi agama yang abadi, dan bahwa faktor-faktor politik, ekonomi, dan budaya lainnya sangat berperan dalam bagaimana dan mengapa orang-orang menjadi radikal." -Noel Malcolm, The Telegraph (UK) "Buku yang sangat penting ... terpuji karena keilmiahannya, dan memang sangat layak." -Maureen Fiedler, National Catholic Reporter "Berskala epik … kajian menyeluruh dan cerdas tentang sejarah kekerasan dalam hubungannya dengan agama … Armstrong dengan sabar menggiring pembaca melintasi sejarah … tulisannya jernih dan deskriptif, pendekatannya berimbang dan ilmiah … bacaan yang memukau, rujukan yang berguna, dan suara yang tegas dalam membela yang Ilahi dalam budaya manusia." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review) [Mizan Publishing, Agama, Kajian, Terjemahan, Keyakinan, Indonesia]

Download or read book Blood Beliefs and Ballots written by Robert W. Olson and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aftermath of the 22 July 2009 election : economic development versus language rights -- The closure cases against the AKP and DTP : Ergenekon and mother tongue education -- Islamists versus Kurdish nationalism -- Renewed intensified armed conflict -- Differences among Kurdish nationalist movements and increased campaign rhetoric -- The "war of words" takes center stage -- Into 2009 : Ergenekon atrocities and the election -- The Davos dèmarche and its aftermath -- The campaign heats up and spreads to the Kurdistan regional government -- Into the home stretch -- Week to go.

Download or read book The Blood Covenant written by Henry Clay Trumbull and published by . This book was released on 2019-11-16 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The early history of Christianity was marked by blood covenants - rituals involving the blood of believers or animals, which was used to bond worshippers and to symbolize the life of Jesus. Use of blood in religious rites and ceremonies has a long history, with examples present in the Middle East and Africa, and even in parts of Europe. While many of these practices pertained to ancient pagan beliefs - for instance between believers in the Norse God Odin - some instances of the blood covenant are Jewish in origin. Early Christian groups, in particular the Gnostics who worshipped Christ in a clandestine manner in Rome, are considered to have partaken in blood covenants to a limited extent. The notion of a blood covenant between two believers was as a bond between them; the strength of this bond was increased further by the symbolic presence of blood in the life of Jesus. However, knowledge of the practice reached the enemies of Jews and early Christians, who exaggerated the ceremonial use of blood as justification for religious persecutions. Henry Clay Trumbull was a Christian minister and author who had access to a wide range of sources; the fact that the blood covenant had hitherto been overlooked by scholars of Christianity spurred him to publish this book.

Download or read book Alchemical Belief written by Bruce Janacek and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-08-21 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did it mean to believe in alchemy in early modern England? In this book, Bruce Janacek considers alchemical beliefs in the context of the writings of Thomas Tymme, Robert Fludd, Francis Bacon, Sir Kenelm Digby, and Elias Ashmole. Rather than examine alchemy from a scientific or medical perspective, Janacek presents it as integrated into the broader political, philosophical, and religious upheavals of the first half of the seventeenth century, arguing that the interest of these elite figures in alchemy was part of an understanding that supported their national—and in some cases royalist—loyalty and theological orthodoxy. Janacek investigates how and why individuals who supported or were actually placed at the traditional center of power in England’s church and state believed in the relevance of alchemy at a time when their society, their government, their careers, and, in some cases, their very lives were at stake.

Download or read book Idolatry of Blood written by Frédéric Zûrcher and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2015-01-21 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The objective of the book is to explain how Christianity has failed to follow through with God's purpose, which is to heal sin and vanquish evil through love. The author argues that religion often lacks logic, but shows how God's message of faith and love can be found through intellectually understanding the Bible through logic, not mysticism.

Download or read book Even Unto Bloodshed written by Duane Boyce and published by Greg Kofford Books, Incorporated. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When carefully examined, both secular and scriptural arguments for pacifism ultimately fail. Once such pacifist arguments are considered, rebutted, and respectfully set aside, it is possible to construct a sound framework for a scriptural view of war, at least in general terms. Such a framework is not pacifist, but it is anything but aggressive, and includes the quality of heart-not to mention, the wisdom-expected of all disciples of Christ, whatever their task or circumstance. It was not an anomaly when the Lord instructed the Nephites to defend their families "even unto bloodshed;" comprehensively understood, the statement expresses a genuine, profound, and conceptually rich scriptural principle.

Download or read book Blood That Cries Out From the Earth written by James Jones and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-04-11 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious terrorism has become the scourge of the modern world. What causes a person to kill innocent strangers in the name of religion? As both a clinical psychologist and an authority on comparative religion, James W. Jones is uniquely qualified to address this increasingly urgent question. Research on the psychology of violence shows that several factors work to make ordinary people turn "evil." These include feelings of humiliation or shame, a tendency to see the world in black and white, and demonization or dehumanization of other people. Authoritarian religion or "fundamentalism," Jones shows, is a particularly rich source of such ideas and feelings, which he finds throughout the writings of Islamic jihadists, such as the 9/11 conspirators.Jones goes on to apply this model to two very different religious groups that have engaged in violence: Aum Shinrikyo, the Buddhist splinter group behind the sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subway system, and members of the extreme religious right in the U.S. who have advocated and committed violence against abortion providers. Jones notes that not every adherent of an authoritarian group will turn to violence, and he shows how theories of personality development can explain why certain individuals are easily recruited to perform terrorist acts.

Download or read book Hollywood Bloodshed written by James Kendrick and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2009-03-30 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Hollywood Bloodshed, James Kendrick presents a fascinating look into the political and ideological instabilities of the 1980s as studied through the lens of cinema violence. Kendrick uses in-depth case studies to reveal how dramatic changes in the film industry and its treatment of cinematic bloodshed during the Reagan era reflected shifting social tides as Hollywood struggled to find a balance between the lucrative necessity of screen violence and the rising surge of conservatism. As public opinion shifted toward the right and increasing emphasis was placed on issues such as higher military spending, family values, and “money culture,” film executives were faced with an epic dilemma: the violent aspects of cinema that had been the studios’ bread and butter were now almost universally rejected by mainstream audiences. Far from eliminating screen bloodshed altogether, studios found new ways of packaging violence that would allow them to continue to attract audiences without risking public outcry, ushering in a period of major transition in the film industry. Studios began to shy away from the revolutionary directors of the 1970s—many of whom had risen to fame through ideologically challenging films characterized by a more disturbing brand of violence—while simultaneously clearing the way for a new era in film. The 1980s would see the ascent of entertainment conglomerates and powerful producers and the meteoric rise of the blockbuster—a film with no less violence than its earlier counterparts, but with action-oriented thrills rather than more troubling images of brutality. Kendrick analyzes these and other radical cinematic changes born of the conservative social climate of the 1980s, including the disavowal of horror films in the effort to present a more acceptable public image; the creation of the PG-13 rating to designate the gray area of movie violence between PG and R ratings; and the complexity of marketing the violence of war movies for audience pleasure. The result is a riveting study of an often overlooked, yet nevertheless fascinating time in cinema history. While many volumes have focused on the violent films of the New American Cinema directors of the 1970s or the rise of icons such as Woo, Tarantino, and Rodriguez in the 1990s, Kendrick’s Hollywood Bloodshed bridges a major gap in film studies.This comprehensive volume offers much-needed perspective on a decade that altered the history of Hollywood—and American culture—forever.

Download or read book Divided by Faith written by Benjamin J. Kaplan and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-30 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As religious violence flares around the world, we are confronted with an acute dilemma: Can people coexist in peace when their basic beliefs are irreconcilable? Benjamin Kaplan responds by taking us back to early modern Europe, when the issue of religious toleration was no less pressing than it is today. Divided by Faith begins in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, when the unity of western Christendom was shattered, and takes us on a panoramic tour of Europe's religious landscape--and its deep fault lines--over the next three centuries. Kaplan's grand canvas reveals the patterns of conflict and toleration among Christians, Jews, and Muslims across the continent, from the British Isles to Poland. It lays bare the complex realities of day-to-day interactions and calls into question the received wisdom that toleration underwent an evolutionary rise as Europe grew more "enlightened." We are given vivid examples of the improvised arrangements that made peaceful coexistence possible, and shown how common folk contributed to toleration as significantly as did intellectuals and rulers. Bloodshed was prevented not by the high ideals of tolerance and individual rights upheld today, but by the pragmatism, charity, and social ties that continued to bind people divided by faith. Divided by Faith is both history from the bottom up and a much-needed challenge to our belief in the triumph of reason over faith. This compelling story reveals that toleration has taken many guises in the past and suggests that it may well do the same in the future.