Download or read book Believers Faith in Human Nature written by Melvin Konner and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthropologist examines the nature of religiosity, and how it shapes and benefits humankind. Believers is a scientist’s answer to attacks on faith by some well-meaning scientists and philosophers. It is a firm rebuke of the “Four Horsemen”—Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens—known for writing about religion as something irrational and ultimately harmful. Anthropologist Melvin Konner, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew but has lived his adult life without such faith, explores the psychology, development, brain science, evolution, and even genetics of the varied religious impulses we experience as a species. Conceding that faith is not for everyone, he views religious people with a sympathetic eye; his own upbringing, his apprenticeship in the trance-dance religion of the African Bushmen, and his friends and explorations in Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and other faiths have all shaped his perspective. Faith has always manifested itself in different ways—some revelatory and comforting; some kind and good; some ecumenical and cosmopolitan; some bigoted, coercive, and violent. But the future, Konner argues, will both produce more nonbelievers, and incline the religious among us—holding their own by having larger families—to increasingly reject prejudice and aggression. A colorful weave of personal stories of religious—and irreligious—encounters, as well as new scientific research, Believers shows us that religion does much good as well as undoubted harm, and that for at least a large minority of humanity, the belief in things unseen neither can nor should go away.

Download or read book Human Development and Faith Second Edition written by Felicity Kelcourse and published by Chalice Press. This book was released on 2015-07-28 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updated with the latest research, this second edition approaches human development from a multidisciplinary perspective. Uniquely inclusive of the moral and faith dimensions of the life cycle, 'Human Development and Faith' examines the interplay of mind, body, family, community, and soul at every stage of development. (Back cover).

Download or read book Faith in God Versus Human Effort written by Avraham ben Mosheh Aharon Ṿinroṭ and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Making Sense of God written by Timothy Keller and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.

Download or read book Why We Believe written by Agustin Fuentes and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wide-ranging argument by a renowned anthropologist that the capacity to believe is what makes us human Why are so many humans religious? Why do we daydream, imagine, and hope? Philosophers, theologians, social scientists, and historians have offered explanations for centuries, but their accounts often ignore or even avoid human evolution. Evolutionary scientists answer with proposals for why ritual, religion, and faith make sense as adaptations to past challenges or as by-products of our hyper-complex cognitive capacities. But what if the focus on religion is too narrow? Renowned anthropologist Agustín Fuentes argues that the capacity to be religious is actually a small part of a larger and deeper human capacity to believe. Why believe in religion, economies, love? A fascinating intervention into some of the most common misconceptions about human nature, this book employs evolutionary, neurobiological, and anthropological evidence to argue that belief—the ability to commit passionately and wholeheartedly to an idea—is central to the human way of being in the world.

Download or read book The Language of God written by Francis Collins and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, is one of the world's leading scientists, working at the cutting edge of the study of DNA, the code of life. Yet he is also a man of unshakable faith in God. How does he reconcile the seemingly unreconcilable? In THE LANGUAGE OF GOD he explains his own journey from atheism to faith, and then takes the reader on a stunning tour of modern science to show that physics, chemistry and biology -- indeed, reason itself -- are not incompatible with belief. His book is essential reading for anyone who wonders about the deepest questions of all: why are we here? How did we get here? And what does life mean?

Download or read book Faith and Human Rights written by Richard Amesbury and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that the idea of human rights is not exclusively religious, but that its realization in practice requires urgent action on the part of people of all faiths, and of none. Acknowledging the ambiguous moral legacy of their own tradition, Christianity, the authors draw on christological themes to draft blueprints for a culturally sensitive "theology of human rights."

Download or read book Development on Purpose written by Lisa Hosack and published by . This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Development on Purpose: Faith and Human Behavior in the Social Environment provides both students and seasoned professionals with a coherent framework for considering HBSE from a Christian perspective.Courses in human behavior and the social environment (HBSE) raise important questions about the nature of persons and our multi-layered social world. The Christian faith offers answers to these deep questions about human nature and our relationships with one another and the world. Also, Christianity provides a compelling purpose for human development. As social workers, this grand purpose can rightly inform the trajectory of our own lives and sustain our work on behalf of those at risk in the world. The first half of Development on Purpose outlines a purpose for human development, examining biological, psychological, and social theories through the lens of faith. This includes chapters on: Biblical Themes to Ground Us A Theological Model for Understanding Human Behavior in the Social Environment (HBSE) The Perspectives of Social Work from the Lens of FaithThe Biological DimensionThe Psychological DimensionThe Social Dimension The second half of Development on Purpose then uses detailed case examples to illuminate the way that faith can relate to work with persons across the lifespan. This includes chapters on:Infancy: Early Growth toward God and OthersChildhood: Playing and Learning (ages 3-12)Adolescence: Leaning into Identity (ages 13-18)Emerging Adulthood: Feeling In-BetweenMiddle Adulthood: At the Intersection of Growth and DeclineOlder Adulthood: Finishing WellIn showing how a Christian understanding of humans can inform the study and practice of social work, the book's chapters can be used interchangeably, making this an excellent companion text for Human Behavior in the Social Environment and related courses in faith-based social work programs. Development On Purpose ccontains 12 chapters and more than 225 pages.

Download or read book God in the New World written by Lloyd Geering and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book MY HUMAN HEART written by Ron Tesoriero and published by . This book was released on 2021-10-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires 1996 - a communion host bled and became living human heart. This will create shock waves through Science, causing Darwin's downfall.

Download or read book Religion in Human Evolution written by Robert N. Bellah and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-08 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal

Download or read book In Defense of Faith written by David Brog and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious faith is under assault. In books and movies and on television, militant secular critics attack religion with a renewed vigor. These “new atheists” repeat a two-part mantra: that religious faith is hopelessly irrational and that those possessed of such faith are responsible for the hatred and bloodshed that has plagued humanity. Abandon religion, they urge us, and the world will at last live in peace. In Defense of Faith examines this proposition in the context of Western civilization and the Judeo-Christian tradition and asserts that, far from encouraging hatred and violence, the Judeo-Christian tradition has easily been the most effective curb upon the dark defects of human nature and our best tool in the struggle for humanity. From the Christian activists who fought to stop the genocide of Indians in South America and their ethnic cleansing in North America, to the abolition of African slavery on both sides of the Atlantic, and on to modern human rights activists from Martin Luther King Jr. to the rock star Bono—In Defense of Faith rebuts the fashionable arguments against religion and presents the strong and lasting record of the Judeo-Christian idea. History has not been as kind to the atheist model: every time it is put to the test, we have reverted to the most base, violent instincts of our selfish genes.

Download or read book Truly Human written by Kevin Scherer and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our first parents departed from what it means to be truly human when they ate from the forbidden tree. Ever since, humans have been working with corrupted minds and wills, employing a distorted approach to life. Kevin Scherer calls this "psycho-logic," and he knows how it can lead us on a downward spiral to misery. How do we get back to the Garden? By allowing Christ to renew our minds, using the tried-and-true spiritual practices of the Orthodox Faith.

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.

Download or read book Human Being written by Jocelyn Bryan and published by SCM Press. This book was released on 2016-06-27 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jocelyn Bryan provides a psychological perspective on key aspects of human nature and behaviour drawing on recent research and reflect on the issues this raises for theology and ministry. The aim is to introduce theology students, those studying practical theology and those engaged in ministerial formation or ministry to the significant current research in psychology which will deepen understanding of some of the core aspects of human nature. The interdisciplinary nature of the exercise aims to model the benefits of such an approach for both theology and ministerial practice and as such the book aims to cross traditional boundaries. The objective is to introduce the reader to new fields of academic psychology beyond those of counselling and psychoanalysis, dated personality psychology and the popular psychology which is often referred to in publications in the area of ministerial practice and enable the reader to engage with recent psychological research and developments.

Download or read book Modern Physics and Ancient Faith written by Stephen M. Barr and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2003-02-28 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A considerable amount of public debate and media print has been devoted to the “war between science and religion.” In his accessible and eminently readable new book, Stephen M. Barr demonstrates that what is really at war with religion is not science itself, but a philosophy called scientific materialism. Modern Physics and Ancient Faith argues that the great discoveries of modern physics are more compatible with the central teachings of Christianity and Judaism about God, the cosmos, and the human soul than with the atheistic viewpoint of scientific materialism. Scientific materialism grew out of scientific discoveries made from the time of Copernicus up to the beginning of the twentieth century. These discoveries led many thoughtful people to the conclusion that the universe has no cause or purpose, that the human race is an accidental by-product of blind material forces, and that the ultimate reality is matter itself. Barr contends that the revolutionary discoveries of the twentieth century run counter to this line of thought. He uses five of these discoveries—the Big Bang theory, unified field theories, anthropic coincidences, Gödel’s Theorem in mathematics, and quantum theory—to cast serious doubt on the materialist’s view of the world and to give greater credence to Judeo-Christian claims about God and the universe. Written in clear language, Barr’s rigorous and fair text explains modern physics to general readers without oversimplification. Using the insights of modern physics, he reveals that modern scientific discoveries and religious faith are deeply consonant. Anyone with an interest in science and religion will find Modern Physics and Ancient Faith invaluable.

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