Download or read book New Essays in Religious Naturalism written by Creighton Peden and published by Mercer University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The essays in this volume were selected from those presented at a Conference on American Religious Thought sponsored by the Highlands Institute for American Religious Thought, at Highlands, North Carolina." "The Highlands Institute is a community of productive scholars with diverse theological and philosophical perspectives. The Institute contributes to the academic study of religion through interpretive, critical, and constructive reflections whose principal focus is on distinctively American religious thought. It fosters broad discussion of relevant options through its sponsorship of conferences, seminars, workshops, and publications." "The work of the Institute emphasizes (1) the interface between theology and philosophy, especially where theological efforts have utilized the American philosophical tradition; (2) the history and development of liberal religious thought in America; (3) themes pertinent to the "Chicago School" of theology, and (4) naturalism in American theology and philosophy."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Download or read book Between Naturalism and Religion written by Jürgen Habermas and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two countervailing trends mark the intellectual tenor of our age – the spread of naturalistic worldviews and religious orthodoxies. Advances in biogenetics, brain research, and robotics are clearing the way for the penetration of an objective scientific self-understanding of persons into everyday life. For philosophy, this trend is associated with the challenge of scientific naturalism. At the same time, we are witnessing an unexpected revitalization of religious traditions and the politicization of religious communities across the world. From a philosophical perspective, this revival of religious energies poses the challenge of a fundamentalist critique of the principles underlying the modern Wests postmetaphysical understanding of itself. The tension between naturalism and religion is the central theme of this major new book by Jürgen Habermas. On the one hand he argues for an appropriate naturalistic understanding of cultural evolution that does justice to the normative character of the human mind. On the other hand, he calls for an appropriate interpretation of the secularizing effects of a process of social and cultural rationalization increasingly denounced by the champions of religious orthodoxies as a historical development peculiar to the West. These reflections on the enduring importance of religion and the limits of secularism under conditions of postmetaphysical reason set the scene for an extended treatment the political significance of religious tolerance and for a fresh contribution to current debates on cosmopolitanism and a constitution for international society.

Download or read book The Naturalness of Belief written by Paul Copan and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its name, “naturalism” as a world-view turns out to be rather unnatural in its strict and more consistent form of materialism and determinism. This is why a number of naturalists opt for a broadened version that includes objective moral values, intrinsic human dignity, consciousness, beauty, personal agency, and the like. But in doing so, broad naturalism begins to look more like theism. As many strict naturalists recognize, broad naturalism must borrow from the metaphysical resources of a theistic world-view, in which such features are very natural, common sensical, and quite “at home” in a theistic framework. The Naturalness of Belief begins with a naturalistic philosopher’s own perspective of naturalism and naturalness. The remaining chapters take a multifaceted approach in showing theism’s naturalness and greater explanatory power. They examine not only rational reasons for theism’s ability to account for consciousness, intentionality, beauty, human dignity, free will, rationality, and knowledge; they also look at common sensical, existential, psychological, and cultural reasons—in addition to the insights of the cognitive science of religion.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Religious Naturalism written by Donald A. Crosby and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-01 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecological crisis is being widely discussed in society today and therefore, the subject of religious naturalism has emerged as a major topic in religion. The Routledge Handbook of Religious Naturalism is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising thirty-four chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into seven parts: • Varieties of religious naturalism and its relations to other outlooks • Some earlier religious naturalists • Pantheism, materialism, and the value-ladenness of nature • Ecology, humans, and politics in naturalistic perspective • Religious naturalism and traditional religions • Putting religious naturalism into practice • Critical discussions of religious naturalism. Within these sections central issues, debates, and problems are examined, including: defining religious naturalism; religious underpinnings of ecology; natural piety; the religious-aesthetic; ecstatic naturalism as deep pantheism; spiritual ecology; African-American religious naturalism; Christian religious naturalism; Dao and water; Confucianism; environmental action; and practices in religious naturalism. The Routledge Handbook of Religious Naturalism is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, theology, and philosophy. The Handbook will also be useful for those in related fields, such as environmental ethics and ecology.

Download or read book The Naturalness of Belief written by Paul Copan and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume exposes naturalism's unnaturalness and defends theism's naturalness and greater explanatory power to account for wide-ranging phenomena in the world and human experience. A broadening of naturalism to accommodate these features means borrowing heavily from-and thus...

Download or read book Where the Conflict Really Lies written by Alvin Plantinga and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this long-awaited book, pre-eminent analytical philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord.

Download or read book Turning Images in Philosophy Science and Religion written by Charles Taliaferro and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2011-11-17 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This engaging collection of essays locates the debate between theism and naturalism in the broader context of reflection on imagination and aesthetics. The eleven original essays will be of interest to anyone who is fascinated by the power of imagination and the role of aesthetics in deciding between worldviews or philosophies of nature.

Download or read book Religion and Scientific Naturalism written by David Ray Griffin and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2000-05-18 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Articulates a metaphysical position capable of rendering both science and religious experience simultaneously and mutually intelligible.

Download or read book Naturalism Defeated written by James K. Beilby and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plantinga's argument is aimed at metaphysical naturalism or roughly the view that no supernatural beings exist. Naturalism is typically conjoined with evolution as an explanation of the existence and diversity of life. Plantinga's claim is that one who holds to the truth of both naturalism and evolution is irrational in doing so. More specifically, because the probability that unguided evolution would have produced reliable cognitive faculties is either low or inscrutable, one who holds both naturalism and evolution acquires a "defeater" for every belief he/she holds, including the beliefs associated with naturalism and evolution.

Download or read book God and Meaning written by Joshua W. Seachris and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-09-08 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest among analytic philosophers in the topic of life's meaning. What is striking about this surge of work is that nearly all of it is by naturalists theorizing from non-theistic starting points. This book answers the need for a theistic philosophical perspective on the meaning of life. Bringing together some of the leading thinkers in analytic philosophy of religion and theology, God and Meaning touches on important issues in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of religion, and biblical theology that intersect with life's meaning. In particular: What does the question ?What is the meaning of life?? mean? How can we know if life has meaning and what that meaning is? Might God enhance life's meaningfulness in some ways but detract from it in others? Is the most meaningful life one of perfect happiness? What is the relationship between eternity and life's meaning? How does the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes illumine the topic? Should we hope that a kind of transcendent meaning exists? Presenting a state-of-the-art assessment of current philosophical positions on these and many other questions, God and Meaning is an invaluable resource for all students and scholars of the philosophy of religion.

Download or read book Nature s Sublime written by Robert S. Corrington and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nature's Sublime uses a radical new form of phenomenology to probe into the deepest traits of the human process in its individual, social, religious, and aesthetic dimensions. Starting with the selving process the essay describes the role of signs and symbols in intra and interpersonal communication. At the heart of the human use of signs is a creative tension between religions symbols and the novel symbols created in the various arts. A contrast is made between natural communities, which flatten out and reject novel forms of semiosis, and communities of interpretation, which welcomes creative and enriched signs and symbols. The normative claim is made that religious sign/symbol systems have a tendency toward tribalism and violence, while the various spheres of the aesthetic are comparatively non-tribal, or even deliberatively anti-tribal. The concept/experience of beauty and the sublime is meant to replace that of religious revelation. The sublime is not merely an internal mode of attunement, contra Kant, but comes from the very depths of nature in the potencies of nature naturing.

Download or read book Religion and Rationality written by Jürgen Habermas and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-10-15 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important new volume brings together Habermas' key writing on religion and religious belief. Habermas explores the relations between Christian and Jewish thought, on the one hand, and the Western philosophical tradition on the other. In so doing, he examines a range of important figures, including Benjamin, Heidegger, Johann Baptist Metz and Gershom Scholem. In a new introduction written especially for this volume, Eduardo Mendieta places Habermas' engagement with religion in the context of his work as a whole. Mendieta also discusses Habermas' writings in relation to Jewish Messianism and the Frankfurt School, showing how the essays in Religion and Rationality, one of which is translated into English for the first time, foreground an important, yet often neglected, dimension of critical theory. The volume concludes with an original extended interview, also in English for the first time, in which Habermas develops his current views on religion in modern society. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in theology, religious studies and philosophy, as well as to all those already familiar with Habermas' work.

Download or read book Christianity and Naturalism written by Robert Shafer and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1926 edition.

Download or read book Black Lives and Sacred Humanity written by Carol Wayne White and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2016-05-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identifying African American religiosity as the ingenuity of a people constantly striving to inhabit their humanity and eke out a meaningful existence for themselves amid harrowing circumstances, Black Lives and Sacred Humanity constructs a concept of sacred humanity and grounds it in the writings of Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. Du Bois, and James Baldwin. Supported by current theories in science studies, critical theory, and religious naturalism, this concept, as Carol Wayne White demonstrates, offers a capacious view of humans as interconnected, social, value-laden organisms with the capacity to transform themselves and create nobler worlds wherein all sentient creatures flourish. Acknowledging the great harm wrought by divisive and problematic racial constructions in the United States, this book offers an alternative to theistic models of African American religiosity to inspire newer, conceptually compelling views of spirituality that address a classic, perennial religious question: What does it mean to be fully human and fully alive?

Download or read book Christianity and Naturalism written by Robert Shafer and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Meaningful Flesh written by Whitney A. Bauman and published by punctum books. This book was released on 2018 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion is much queerer than we ever imagined. Nature is as well. These are the two basic insights that have led to this volume: the authors included here hope to queerly go where no thinkers have gone before. The combination of queer theory and religion has been happening for at least 25 years. People such as John Boswell began to examine the history of religious traditions with a queer eye, and soon after we had the indecent theology of Marcella Althaus Ried. Jay Johnston, one of the authors in this issue, is among those who have used the queer eye to interrogate authority within Christian theological traditions. At the same time, there have been many queer interrogations of "nature," perhaps most notably in the works of Joan Roughgarden and Ann Fausto-Sterling, and more recently in the works of Catriona Sandilands and Timothy Morton (an author in this volume). However, the intersections of religion, nature, and queer theory have been largely left untouched. With the exception of Dan Spencer, who writes the introduction for this volume and is one of the early pioneers in this realm of thought with his book Gay and Gaia (Pilgrim Press, 1996), and the work of Greta Gaard in developing a queer ecofeminist thought, religion and nature, or religion and ecology, have largely ignored the realm of queer theory. In part, the blinders to queer theory on the part of eco-thinkers (religious or otherwise) are similar to the blinders eco-thinkers have when it comes to postmodern thought in general: namely, if there are no absolute foundations, how does one create an environmental ethic and a "nature" to save? For this reason and many others, this volume on religion, nature, and queer theory is groundbreaking. Though these essays span many different disciplines and themes, they are all held together by the triple focus on religion, nature, and queer theory. Each of these essays offers a unique contribution to the intersection of religion, nature, and queer theory, and all of them challenge strict boundaries proposed in religious rhetoric and many discourses surrounding "nature." Carol Wayne White's essay draws from a queer reading of James Baldwin to develop an African American religious naturalism, which highlights humans as polyamorous bastards. Jacob Erickson's essay examines Isabella Rossellini's "Green Porno" and Martin Luther's work to develop an irreverent theology. Jay Johnston draws from personal relationships with his late dog, and Master/Pup fetish-play to blur the boundaries between humans and other animals, specifically within ethical and theological discourse. Whitney Bauman reflects on how the very processes of globalization and climate change queer our identities and call for a queer and versatile planetary ethic. Finally, Timothy Morton leads us through a reflection on queer green sex toys to challenge the ontology of agrologistics. Each of these essays in their own way is concerned with fleshing out more meaningful encounters with the planetary community. Without being too ambitious, we hope that these sets of essays will help to open up a new trajectory of conversations at the intersection of religion, nature, and queer theory.

Download or read book Naturalism and Religion written by Kai Nielsen and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2011-04-29 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This elucidation and defense of naturalism argues that an uncompromising secular orientation is the best framework for the search for meaning and interprets religion in purely naturalistic terms. Part One seeks to demonstrate that religious symbols arise from facts about human beings and the societies in which they live, specifically our needs, fears, and aspirations. Part Two examines arguments for and against naturalism, including the defenses of naturalism by Sidney Hook, Ernest Nagel, Antony Flew, and critical reactions to their views. The forceful and rigorously analytical case made by Jean Hampton against naturalism is also examined, resulting in a clarification of the substantial and sound methodological grounds for naturalism and atheism. Part Three considers the strongest intellectual challenge to secularism and naturalism, namely that of Ludwig Wittgenstein and some of his followers - Norman Malcolm, D. Z. Phillips, Hilary Putnam, Rush Rhees, and Peter Winch. Nielsen concludes that none of these critiques diminish the cogency and viability of naturalism as the most reasonable basis for viewing our world today.