Download or read book Freedom From Religion in 30 Days A REAL Wellness Approach to Critical Thinking Exuberance and Personal Freedoms written by Contributors include Annie Laurie Gaylor, Dan Barker, Gerrie Paino, Carol Ardell and 109 luminaries whose work is briefly cited to support or inform the material in the book and published by Donald B. Ardell. This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a 30 Day plan for gaining more freedom from religion. "Freedom From Religion in 30 Days" (FFR) is an antidote for anti-democratic tendencies, irrationality, tribalism and intolerance. It also offers relief from the mental constraints of dogmas, creeds, and superstitions. Religion, as promoted by Christian Nationalists, obstructs and threatens our wellbeing and freedoms. Christopher Hitchens best-seller, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," seems increasingly apt. In FFR, a case is made that religions poison not quite everything, but more than enough to make it a mental health and quality of life hazard. Whether you're a believer, a devout freethinker, or someone in-between, you will find each of the 30 days meets three standards: 1) engaging; 2) entertaining; and 3) informative. My goal is that FFR will hold your attention for a solid month, and benefit you even longer. WHY IT MATTERS FFR is about breaking away from the false claims and destructive effects of religion. It's also about the positive nature of a REAL wellness way to think more critically, live more exuberantly and enjoy more personal liberties. A large number of freedoms are available for the taking, once mental constraints of creeds and dogmas are eliminated. This book promotes: 1. Science-based critical thinking, using reason to guide important decisions. Few decisions are as important as what you believe about religions, especially the one in which you were indoctrinated. 2. Happiness, joy, fun, adventure, meaning and purpose in life. These are the key elements in the REAL wellness dimension of exuberance. 3. Freedom to live the kind of life you desire. This is the liberty dimension of REAL wellness. THE 30 DAY FORMAT All 30 essays address some aspect of religion as it affects mental freedoms that shape values, commitments, beliefs, behaviors and ultimately quality of life and wellbeing. The format is inspired by Wilfred Funk's, "30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary." Within the 30 essays are four self-evaluations focused upon reason, exuberance, personal liberties and management of stress. Over 30 topics are covered in the essays, though religion is a theme throughout. The topics, besides religion in general and Christianity in particular, include politics, heroic freethinkers, mountebanks, dubious and needed holidays, ethics, prayers, play, commandments, parenting, happiness, sexuality, doubt, aging and death. In addition to informing and entertaining, FFR advances skills and awareness needed to slow the frightful trends that threaten our national interests. THE PRISON OF BELIEF Although Christianity no longer has the power it wielded in the Middle Ages, and thus no longer engages in atrocities, such as the Inquisition's auto de fé carnival-like public executions of heretics, it has another insidious liability--it imprisons the brains of adherents, thereby diminishing our democracy and crippling our personal freedoms and opportunities for exuberant lives. James Haught put it this way: When people accept supernatural claims of a religion, their lives are altered. They commit themselves to belief in miracles, prophecies and similar magic, which orients their view of reality. It confines them—hindering their ability to consider other possibilities. This narrowed lifestyle can be called 'the prison of belief.' This book will delight you if you're no longer willing to go along with pablum babble in ritual blather, such as In God we trust, so help me God or God bless America. ================== TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION PRAISE FOR FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOREWORD INTRODUCTION THE 30 DAYS FOR FREEDOM FROM RELIGION Day 1 Questions To Guide A REAL Wellness Philosophy and Lifestyle Day 2 Religion and Wellbeing Day 3 Perspectives on Radical Islam and Christian Nationalism Day 4 Doubt: A Vital Quality for Effective Decision-Making Day 5 Why Catholics Should Consider Leaving the Church Day 6 An Upgrade from 10 Commandments to 10 REAL Commitments Day 7 Use Your Mind and You Will Find Nothing Fails Like Prayer Day 8 The National Day of Prayer Or a National Day of Reason Day 9 Exceptional People, the Winter Solstice and Christmas Day 10 Self-Evaluation to Estimate Your Experience of Reason Day 11 It's Difficult to be Well but, w/a Little Bit of Luck, You Might... Day 12 A REAL Wellness Take on Ethics Day 13 Robert G. Ingersoll Day 14 Play: An Under-Utilized Element in Education and Adult Life Day 15 Self-Evaluation of Stress Awareness and Management Day 16 Exuberant Skepticism: A Safeguard Against Pleasant Illusions Day 17 Dysfunctional Belief Systems and Anxieties, Magical Thinking Day 18 Life Is Meaningless: A Liberating REAL Wellness Perspective Day 19 Nothing Is Sacred Day 20 Self-Evaluation to Estimate Your Experience of Exuberance Day 21 Sexuality From a REAL Wellness Perspective Day 22 A REAL Perspective on the Satanic Temple Day 23 Real Wellness Or Religion: Choose Freedom, Not Dogma Day 24 Guiding Children Toward Critical Thinking and Mental Freedom Day 25 Happiness: REAL Wellness Perspectives on Enjoying Life Day 26 Reason-Based Alternatives To Alcoholics Anonymous Day 27 Which Will Come First: The Rapture Or the Demise of Religion Day 28 Celebrate Those Who Promote Reason & Science, Not Superstition Day 29 How to Die Healthy Day 30 Self-Evaluation to Estimate Experience of Personal Freedoms RECOMMENDED READING ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO EVERYONE, LIVING AND DEAD, WHOSE WORDS ARE QUOTED IN "FREEDOM FROM RELIGION IN 30 DAYS"
Download or read book Narratives of Wellbeing written by Tarryn Phillips and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sympathy for Jonah written by David Benjamin Blower and published by Resource Publications (CA). This book was released on 2016-07-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Jonah is sacred to all three Abrahamic faiths and remains a recognizable legend even in the most secularized corners of the West. And yet the maritime prophet's story has been trivialized as a quaint children's tale, his character has been blasted by unsympathetic commentators, and even his alleged tomb has now been destroyed by Islamic State militants who, in 2014, took the city of Mosul on the Nineveh Plains. Now that Nineveh is once again in the grip of tyrannical violence and communities across the West and the Middle East are deep in a time of discord and soul-searching, we might do well to recover the story of Jonah, a guiding light, who marches into the very heart of empire and confronts it with the radical politics of the kingdom of God, even as his own certainties are shaken to the core. ""David Blower has written a marvelous reflection on what may be the Bible's most subversive and misunderstood story. Not only are his insights incisive and needed, his writing is a delight to read."" --Brian D. McLaren, author/speaker/activist ""I picked it up, started to read it and couldn't stop. . . . It's an irresistible, fanciful, terrifying book: brilliant, beautiful, and colourful, but brutal, awful, and confronting. . . . This is The Gospel According To Jonah for today."" --Dave Andrews, Author of Plan Be, and Christi-Anarchy ""Elegaic in its writing and prophetic in its message, Blower's study brings the ancient Biblical myth of Jonah back to life with fresh relevance for our times, especially so with Jonah's city so much in the news, and for the same reasons as before: that to say, Nineveh, or Mosul in northern Iraq."" --Alastair McIntosh, Professor, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, author of Soil and Soul and Spiritual Activism ""Identifying the empire--not the big fish--as the real beast in the book, this powerful and poetic re-telling of the Jonah story brings a familiar tale to life in fresh ways, and invites readers to face the challenge of engaging creatively and vulnerably with the powers that be."" --Stuart Murray Williams, Author of The Naked Anabaptist, Multi-Voiced Church and Church After Christendom ""I'm still recovering from the prophetic body blow of Blower's first book, Kingdom vs. Empire, but here he is again, ready for round two. His latest is about as unsettling as it gets. I've been following David's work for some time now. I know how he operates, but he still catches me off guard. So put down whatever you're reading, pick up this book, and brace yourself!"" --Tim Nash, Nomad Podcast ""David Benjamin Blower brings us a renewed song of hope--in the shape of Jonah wrapped up in a whale. This is a work of imagination and erudition as well as an elegy that speaks of a way of being that for so long has eluded concerned Christians. At last God has given us a prophet who dares to tell us like it is. Listen up--let Jonah help us to see our task as Christians in troubled times. Read and listen to David Benjamin Blower if you dare--but with assurance that grace is so much in abundance our fretfulness will be transformed into passion."" --Ann Morisy, author of Beyond the Good Samaritan and Journeying Out David Benjamin Blower is a writer, musician, and theological agitator from Birmingham, UK. He is a prolific recording artist and the author of Kingdom vs. Empire (2013).
Download or read book High Level Wellness written by Donald B. Ardell and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Personhood and Health Care written by David C. Thomasma and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PERSONHOOD AND HEALTH CARE This book arose as a result of a pre-conference devoted to the topic held June 28, 1999 in Paris, France. The pre-conference preceded the Annual Congress of the International Academy ofLaw and Mental Health. Other chapters were solicited after the conference in order to more completely explore the relation of personhood to health care. The pre conference was held in honor of Yves Pelicier who led so many of our French colleagues in medicine, philosophy, and ethics as Christian Herve notes in his Tribute. As health care is aimed at healing persons, it is important to realize how difficult it is to construct a theory of personhood for health care, and thus, a theory of how healing in health care comes about or ought to occur. The book is divided into four parts, Concepts of the Person, Theories of Personhood in Relation to Health Care and Bioethics, Person and Identity, and Personhood and Hs Relations. Each section explores a critical arena in constructing the relation of personhood to health care. Although no exploration ofthis nature can be exhaustive, every effort was made to present both conflicting and complementary views of personhood from within similar and different philosophical and religious traditions. PART ONE: CONCEPTS OF THE PERSON Tracing the origins of the concept of person from antiquity through present day, Jean Delemeau provides an historical sketch of the development of a wide range of meanings.
Download or read book The Homosexual Agenda written by Alan Sears and published by B&H Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Equips Christians and even those outside the church who see the destructive power of this agenda to fight it and proclaim biblical truth.
Download or read book The Next Digital Decade written by Berin Szoka and published by TechFreedom. This book was released on 2011-06-10 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Transfeminist Perspectives in and beyond Transgender and Gender Studies written by Finn Enke and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-04 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lambda Literary Award for Best Book in Transgender Nonfiction, 2013 If feminist studies and transgender studies are so intimately connected, why are they not more deeply integrated? Offering multidisciplinary models for this assimilation, the vibrant essays in Transfeminist Perspectives in and beyond Transgender and Gender Studies suggest timely and necessary changes for institutions of higher learning. Responding to the more visible presence of transgender persons as well as gender theories, the contributing essayists focus on how gender is practiced in academia, health care, social services, and even national border patrols. Working from the premise that transgender is both material and cultural, the contributors address such aspects of the university as administration, sports, curriculum, pedagogy, and the appropriate location for transgender studies. Combining feminist theory, transgender studies, and activism centered on social diversity and justice, these essays examine how institutions as lived contexts shape everyday life.
Download or read book Animacies written by Mel Y. Chen and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rethinks the criteria governing agency and receptivity, health and toxicity, productivity and stillness
Download or read book The Skilled Helper written by Gerard Egan and published by Cengage Learning. This book was released on 2014 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Internationally recognised for its successful problem-management approach to effective helping, this book offers a step-by-step guide to the counselling process.
Download or read book Modest Witness Second Millennium FemaleMan Meets OncoMouse written by Donna J. Haraway and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-06-27 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the founders of the posthumanities, Donna J. Haraway is professor in the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Author of many books and widely read essays, including the now-classic essay "The Cyborg Manifesto," she received the J.D. Bernal Prize in 2000, a lifetime achievement award from the Society for Social Studies in Science. Thyrza Nicholas Goodeve is a professor of Art History at the School of Visual Arts.
Download or read book Transforming the Future Open Access written by Riel Miller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-27 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People are using the future to search for better ways to achieve sustainability, inclusiveness, prosperity, well-being and peace. In addition, the way the future is understood and used is changing in almost all domains, from social science to daily life. This book presents the results of significant research undertaken by UNESCO with a number of partners to detect and define the theory and practice of anticipation around the world today. It uses the concept of ‘Futures Literacy’ as a tool to define the understanding of anticipatory systems and processes – also known as the Discipline of Anticipation. This innovative title explores: • new topics such as Futures Literacy and the Discipline of Anticipation; • the evidence collected from over 30 Futures Literacy Laboratories and presented in 14 full case studies; • the need and opportunity for significant innovation in human decision-making systems. This book will be of great interest to scholars, researchers, policy-makers and students, as well as activists working on sustainability issues and innovation, future studies and anticipation studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351047999, has been made available under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO (CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license.
Download or read book Introducing Anthropology of Religion written by Jack David Eller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-08-07 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This lively and readable survey introduces students to key areas of the field and shows how to apply an anthropological approach to the study of contemporary world religions. Written by an experienced teacher, it covers all of the traditional topics of anthropology of religion, including definitions and theories, beliefs, symbols and language, and ritual and myth, and combines analytic and conceptual discussion with up-to-date ethnography and theory. Eller includes copious examples from religions around the world – both familiar and unfamiliar – and two mini-case studies in each chapter. He also explores classic and contemporary anthropological contributions to important but often overlooked issues such as violence and fundamentalism, morality, secularization, religion in America, and new religious movements. Introducing Anthropology of Religion demonstrates that anthropology is both relevant and essential for understanding the world we inhabit today.
Download or read book The Letters of Virginia Woolf written by Virginia Woolf and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 638 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Well Being and Higher Education written by Sally Pingree and published by . This book was released on 2016-08-16 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Well-Being and Higher Education explores the multiple connections of well-being to higher education and why those connections matter—for the individual lives of students and those who teach; for the institution; and for whether or not the unique promise of higher education to a democratic society can be advanced and realized. The publication's thirty-five original essays and provocations—by some of the most highly respected voices within and beyond the academy—address the theoretical underpinnings and practical expressions of these connections. Well-Being and Higher Education opens the discussion on learning's connection to well-being; responds to current challenges against the state of higher education today; and brings to the forefront a conversation considering the greater purposes of higher education and the need to preserve and revive the institution's role to look beyond itself to a greater good.
Download or read book Saving Normal written by Allen Frances, M.D. and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From "the most powerful psychiatrist in America" (New York Times) and "the man who wrote the book on mental illness" (Wired), a deeply fascinating and urgently important critique of the widespread medicalization of normality Anyone living a full, rich life experiences ups and downs, stresses, disappointments, sorrows, and setbacks. These challenges are a normal part of being human, and they should not be treated as psychiatric disease. However, today millions of people who are really no more than "worried well" are being diagnosed as having a mental disorder and are receiving unnecessary treatment. In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, warns that mislabeling everyday problems as mental illness has shocking implications for individuals and society: stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, misallocation of medical resources, and draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient and self-healing brains, which have kept us sane for hundreds of thousands of years, and into the hands of "Big Pharma," who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Frances cautions that the new edition of the "bible of psychiatry," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5), will turn our current diagnostic inflation into hyperinflation by converting millions of "normal" people into "mental patients." Alarmingly, in DSM-5, normal grief will become "Major Depressive Disorder"; the forgetting seen in old age is "Mild Neurocognitive Disorder"; temper tantrums are "Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder"; worrying about a medical illness is "Somatic Symptom Disorder"; gluttony is "Binge Eating Disorder"; and most of us will qualify for adult "Attention Deficit Disorder." What's more, all of these newly invented conditions will worsen the cruel paradox of the mental health industry: those who desperately need psychiatric help are left shamefully neglected, while the "worried well" are given the bulk of the treatment, often at their own detriment. Masterfully charting the history of psychiatric fads throughout history, Frances argues that whenever we arbitrarily label another aspect of the human condition a "disease," we further chip away at our human adaptability and diversity, dulling the full palette of what is normal and losing something fundamental of ourselves in the process. Saving Normal is a call to all of us to reclaim the full measure of our humanity.
Download or read book Next Generation Ethics written by Ali E. Abbas and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leaders from academia and industry offer guidance for professionals and general readers on ethical questions posed by modern technology.
