Download or read book Religion for Reluctant Believers written by Leonard J. Swidler and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-05-19 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a volume written for persons who live in the mental world of modernity--that is, in a world that cherishes (1) freedom as the core of being human; (2) critical-thinking reason as the arbiter of what to affirm or not; (3) history, process, and dynamism at the heart of human life and society; and (4) dialogue with those who think differently yet who sense that there is somehow more to life, to reality, than meets the eye: that there is a depth or spiritual dimension not captured in our everyday experiences, which is customarily called religion. Religion for Reluctant Believers explores the meaning of life: its joys, problems, and terrors, its pluses and minuses. In short, it asks the question, do you want to buy into Religion with a capital r, into a particular religion, or into no religion at all?
Download or read book Religion for Reluctant Believers written by Leonard J. Swidler and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-05-19 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a volume written for persons who live in the mental world of modernity--that is, in a world that cherishes (1) freedom as the core of being human; (2) critical-thinking reason as the arbiter of what to affirm or not; (3) history, process, and dynamism at the heart of human life and society; and (4) dialogue with those who think differently yet who sense that there is somehow more to life, to reality, than meets the eye: that there is a depth or spiritual dimension not captured in our everyday experiences, which is customarily called religion. Religion for Reluctant Believers explores the meaning of life: its joys, problems, and terrors, its pluses and minuses. In short, it asks the question, do you want to buy into Religion with a capital r, into a particular religion, or into no religion at all?
Download or read book Religion for Atheists written by Alain De Botton and published by Signal. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of The Architecture of Happiness, a deeply moving meditation on how we can still benefit, without believing, from the wisdom, the beauty, and the consolatory power that religion has to offer. Alain de Botton was brought up in a committedly atheistic household, and though he was powerfully swayed by his parents' views, he underwent, in his mid-twenties, a crisis of faithlessness. His feelings of doubt about atheism had their origins in listening to Bach's cantatas, were further developed in the presence of certain Bellini Madonnas, and became overwhelming with an introduction to Zen architecture. However, it was not until his father's death -- buried under a Hebrew headstone in a Jewish cemetery because he had intriguingly omitted to make more secular arrangements -- that Alain began to face the full degree of his ambivalence regarding the views of religion that he had dutifully accepted. Why are we presented with the curious choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle and effective rituals and practices for which there is no equivalent in secular society? Why do we bristle at the mention of the word "morality"? Flee from the idea that art should be uplifting, or have an ethical purpose? Why don't we build temples? What mechanisms do we have for expressing gratitude? The challenge that de Botton addresses in his book: how to separate ideas and practices from the religious institutions that have laid claim to them. In Religion for Atheists is an argument to free our soul-related needs from the particular influence of religions, even if it is, paradoxically, the study of religion that will allow us to rediscover and rearticulate those needs.
Download or read book The Most Reluctant Convert written by David C. Downing and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-05-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his teens, a young man wrote, “I believe in no religion. There is absolutely no proof for any of them.” After serving in the trenches of WW1, the same young man said, “I never sank so low as to pray.” To a religious friend, he wrote impatiently, “You can’t start with God. I don’t accept God!” This young man was C. S. Lewis, the “foul-mouthed atheist” who would become one of the most eloquent Christian writers of the twentieth century. David C. Downing offers a unique look at Lewis’s personal journey to faith and the profound influence it had on his life as a writer and eventual follower of Christ. This is the first book to focus on the period from Lewis’s childhood to his early thirties, a tumultuous journey of spiritual and intellectual exploration. It was not despite this journey but precisely because of it that Lewis understood the search for life’s meaning so well.
Download or read book The Reluctant Journey written by Richard Leslie Parrott and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2014-10-21 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine the God of the universe whispering in your ear, “What shall we create out of your life that will serve My purpose?” The path of authenticity is not a solo endeavor but a calling to a partnership with God that requires utter honesty, trust, commitment, and wisdom. God guides your path with a two-fold promise, “You know I love you as you are, but together, we can make of your life what I created you to be.” Following the petitions of our Lord’s Prayer, Dr. Richard Parrott examines a family of authentic partners, the family of Abraham and Sarah, their son Isaac, grandson Jacob, and great-grandson Joseph. This fresh telling of the story reveals practical answers to the question, “How can my partnership with God be genuine, mature, and significant?” The Reluctant Journey is an honest and practical guide for relating to God. As authentic Christians, we can live true in Christ and our love for him each day, choosing His best for us so that together, we advance His kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” Features include: Truths from the Lord’s Prayer Stories of the founders of our faith Thought-provoking questions for spiritual conversation or reflection
Download or read book The Empty Box and Other Stories for Reluctant Unbelievers written by Thomas A. Fudge and published by Lone Wolf Books. This book was released on 2002-07 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A discrete series of short essays forming a series of reflections on faith, living, and learning that offers a challenge both to "easy belief" systems and equally "easy doubt" commitments and calls the reader to find his or her own voice and to search one's own experience for the seeds of faith. The book offers an alternative to the churches and those forms of Christianity that too often produce only carbon copies of its ministers. The essays use the medium of story to engage readers, to communicate core values, and to function as a premise for posing hard questions and drawing the readers' attention to salient points. The core theme is around the idea of reluctant unbelievers; those who want to have faith but find it hard to believe; those who struggle with doubt; those who may identify as Christian but who privately question or wonder about how the rhetoric of the church relates honestly to the challenges of life. It is aimed at believers who do not go to church and to reluctant unbelievers who do. The goal of the book is to address challenges without adopting easy answers, or reverting to pious platitudes, or backing into a corner of having to defend the indefensible or arriving at an official (or endorsed) perspective. The book offers a call to its readers to avoid resignation to conformity with popular ideas, traditions, church-speak, and the pattern of reading and seeing things in the same way we/they always have. It is an invitation to embrace the unforeseen; to forsake the pasture and take to the pathways; and a summons to the life of a pilgrim rather than the existence of a settler. In this sense, the book is a bridge not a destination.
Download or read book Losing My Religion written by William Lobdell and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-03-06 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Lobdell's journey of faith—and doubt—may be the most compelling spiritual memoir of our time. Lobdell became a born-again Christian in his late 20s when personal problems—including a failed marriage—drove him to his knees in prayer. As a newly minted evangelical, Lobdell—a veteran journalist—noticed that religion wasn't covered well in the mainstream media, and he prayed for the Lord to put him on the religion beat at a major newspaper. In 1998, his prayers were answered when the Los Angeles Times asked him to write about faith. Yet what happened over the next eight years was a roller-coaster of inspiration, confusion, doubt, and soul-searching as his reporting and experiences slowly chipped away at his faith. While reporting on hundreds of stories, he witnessed a disturbing gap between the tenets of various religions and the behaviors of the faithful and their leaders. He investigated religious institutions that acted less ethically than corrupt Wall St. firms. He found few differences between the morals of Christians and atheists. As this evidence piled up, he started to fear that God didn't exist. He explored every doubt, every question—until, finally, his faith collapsed. After the paper agreed to reassign him, he wrote a personal essay in the summer of 2007 that became an international sensation for its honest exploration of doubt. Losing My Religion is a book about life's deepest questions that speaks to everyone: Lobdell understands the longings and satisfactions of the faithful, as well as the unrelenting power of doubt. How he faced that power, and wrestled with it, is must reading for people of faith and nonbelievers alike.
Download or read book God and Galileo written by David L. Block and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A devastating attack upon the dominance of atheism in science today." Giovanni Fazio, Senior Physicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics The debate over the ultimate source of truth in our world often pits science against faith. In fact, some high-profile scientists today would have us abandon God entirely as a source of truth about the universe. In this book, two professional astronomers push back against this notion, arguing that the science of today is not in a position to pronounce on the existence of God—rather, our notion of truth must include both the physical and spiritual domains. Incorporating excerpts from a letter written in 1615 by famed astronomer Galileo Galilei, the authors explore the relationship between science and faith, critiquing atheistic and secular understandings of science while reminding believers that science is an important source of truth about the physical world that God created.
Download or read book A Reluctant Agnostic written by Loren Bauman and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2020-11-06 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Reluctant Agnostic is a story about sincere, humble, joyous Christianity confronted by contradictory natural evidence—a tale of religious conviction at odds with science. The author grew up in the very unique Old German Baptist Brethren Church, where he was immersed in wholehearted fundamental faith, and he shares details of the Brethren experience with an insider’s affection. Yet for all their distinctiveness, these plain-living people nevertheless embrace the
Download or read book The Reluctant Mr Darwin An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution Great Discoveries written by David Quammen and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2007-07-17 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Quammen brilliantly and powerfully re-creates the 19th century naturalist's intellectual and spiritual journey."--Los Angeles Times Book Review Twenty-one years passed between Charles Darwin's epiphany that "natural selection" formed the basis of evolution and the scientist's publication of On the Origin of Species. Why did Darwin delay, and what happened during the course of those two decades? The human drama and scientific basis of these years constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that elucidates the character of a cautious naturalist who initiated an intellectual revolution.
Download or read book The Reluctant Evangelist written by Dave Kachele and published by Xulon Press. This book was released on 2015-01-28 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The call of every Christian is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with those around them, the Great Commission. Yet, having a reluctance to witness to others is a common trait among Christians everywhere for various reasons. In the new non-fiction book, THE RELUCTANT EVANGELIST: Embrace Your Gifts and Fulfill God's Purpose, author Dave Kachele addresses the inner struggles that prevent believers from sharing the Gospel with confidence and peace. The book is organized as a 50-Day Journey for individuals and/or groups with the purposes of deepening relationships with God, understanding how God made each of us, and helping Christians to use their own gifts and personalities to share the Gospel when God opens doors to do so. "Since coming to know the Lord in 1974, He has given me a heart to share the Gospel, make disciples, and teach others to do the same. Win and Grow Ministries, with THE RELUCTANT EVANGELIST: Embrace Your Gifts and Fulfill God's Purpose, is designed to inspire, encourage, and equip ALL Christians to share their faith confidently with their own God-given spiritual gifts, personalities, and passion." Dave Kachele is an ordained minister with the Association of Evangelical Gospel Assemblies (AEGA).
Download or read book Agnostic Ish written by Josh Buoy and published by . This book was released on 2016-04-09 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about science, religion, and the world in between. I was born into a Christian family, but fell out of religion and in love with the scientific method. I had little need of faith, I thought, when science could tell me so much more about the world, and ask so little of me in return. But as I aged into young adulthood, a new chapter of my story began. Did I really know why I believed what I believed? How could I be so certain of my convictions when I hadn't even honestly considered the evidence? This book traces my journey through the furthest reaches of thought, a journey that took me through the realms of psychology, biology, physics, and belief. Could I find a place for faith in the modern world? Or was I right to cast it off as I did?
Download or read book How Not to Speak of God written by Peter, Rollins and published by Paraclete Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With sensitivity to the Christian tradition and a rich understanding of postmodern thought, Peter Rollins argues that the movement known as the “emerging church” offers a singular, unprecedented message of transformation that has the potential to revolutionize the theological and moral architecture of Western Christianity. How (not) to Speak of God sets out to explore the theory and praxis of this contemporary expression of faith. Rollins offers a clear exploration of this embryonic movement and provides key resources for those involved in communities that are conversant with, and seeking to minister effectively to, the needs of a postmodern world. “Here in pregnant bud is the rose, the emerging new configuration, of a Christianity that is neither Roman nor Protestant, neither Eastern nor monastic; but rather is the re-formation of all of them. Here, in pregnant bud, is third-millennium Christendom.” —Phyllis Tickle “I am a raving fan of the book you are holding. I loved reading it. I have already begun widely recommending it. Reading it did good for my mind and for my soul. It helped me understand my own spiritual journey more clearly, and it gave me a sense of context for the work I’m involved in. In fact, I would say this is one of the two or three most rewarding books of theology I have read in ten years.” —Brian McLaren, from the Foreword
Download or read book The Reluctant Witness written by Don Everts and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Don Everts grew up assuming that spiritual conversations are always painful and awkward. But his surprising—and sometimes embarrassing—stories affirm what Scripture and the latest research reveal: spiritual conversations can actually be a delight. With original research from the Barna Group on spiritual conversations in the digital age, this book offers fresh insights and best practices for how to become eager conversationalists.
Download or read book Myth and Meaning in Jordan Peterson written by Ron Dart and published by Lexham Press. This book was released on 2020-03-25 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular philosopher Jordan Peterson has captured the imagination of Western world. For some, Peterson represents all that is wrong with patriarchal culture; for others, he is the Canadian academic prophet who has come to save civilization from dizzying confusion. Regardless of how one feels about him, his influence in North America--and beyond--is difficult to deny. While the "Peterson phenomenon" has motivated numerous articles and responses, much of what has been written is either excessively fawning or overly critical. Little has been produced that explores Peterson's thought--especially his immensely popular 12 Rules for Life--within the context of his overall context and scholarly output. How is one to understand the ascendency of Jordan Peterson and why he's become so popular? Does his earlier Maps of Meaning shed light on how one might understand his worldwide bestseller, 12 Rules for Life? In Myth and Meaning in Jordan Peterson, scholars across various disciplines explore various aspects of Jordan Peterson's thought from a Christian perspective. Both critical and charitable, sober-minded and generous, this collection of ten essays is a key resource for those looking to faithfully engage with Jordan Peterson's thought.
Download or read book The Galileo Connection written by Charles E. Hummel and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 1986-02-17 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Telling the fascinating stories of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton and Pascal, Charles E. Hummel provides a historical perspective on the relationship between science and Christianity.
Download or read book I m Fine with God It s Christians I Can t Stand written by Bruce Bickel and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A refreshingly honest and often humorous look at some believers' outlandish behaviors helps bridge the communication gap between Christians and non-Christians, helping Christians share their beliefs more freely without judgmental attitudes, hypocrisy, and condemnation. Original.
