Download or read book The Evolution of a Western God written by Maurice Webster and published by Hillcrest Publishing Group. This book was released on 2011 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Evolution of a Western God: 30,000 B.C.E. to the Now" is the story of an exploration into the beliefs, visualizations, and perceptions of God over the millennia. The story is limited to the influences affecting the dominant visions of God in Europe and the Americas. The book is in three parts. "Part One" looks at the many meanings together with the emotional and bias of critical words like spirit, myth, science, and religion. "Part Two" traces the visions of God(s) in the Middle East and Europe from the Neolithic through to the present. It traces the way people thought of God from the Great EarthMother of Old Europe, the beginning of the patriarchy, the single universal God, to the present complex mixtureof visions of God. "Part Three" is an analysis of current philosophies and visualizations of God found in Europe and the United States. It concludes with the hope that religions, sciences, politicians, and academics can work together to produce a set of proposals for sustainable, zero growth cultures on a stable planet.
Download or read book The Evolution of the West written by Nick Spencer and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2018-02-14 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What has Christianity ever done for us? A lot more than you might think, as Nick Spencer reveals in this fresh exploration of our cultural origins. Looking at the big ideas that characterize the West, such as human dignity, the rule of law, human rights, science, and even, paradoxically, atheism and secularism,he traces the varied ways in which many of our present values grew up and flourished in distinctively Christian soil. Always alert to the tensions and mess of history, and careful not to overstate or misstate the Christian role in shaping our present values, Spencer shows us how a better awareness of what we owe to Christianity can help us as we face new cultural challenges.
Download or read book God and Evolution written by Jay Wesley Richards and published by . This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is part of a series published by the Center for Science & Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle."--T.p. verso.
Download or read book A History of God written by Karen Armstrong and published by Gramercy. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the deity of the world's three dominant monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In a dynamic interplay between religion and society's ever-changing beliefs, values, and traditions, human beings' ideas about God have been transformed. Ideas about God have been molded to apply to the spiritual needs of the people who worship him in a particular place and time. The author explores and analyzes the development and progression of the various perceptions of God from the days of Abraham to present times--Adapted from book jacket.
Download or read book Passion of the Western Mind written by Richard Tarnas and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-10-19 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[This] magnificent critical survey, with its inherent respect for both the 'Westt's mainstream high culture' and the 'radically changing world' of the 1990s, offers a new breakthrough for lay and scholarly readers alike....Allows readers to grasp the big picture of Western culture for the first time." SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Here are the great minds of Western civilization and their pivotal ideas, from Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud. Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.
Download or read book Discovering God written by Rodney Stark and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2008 Christianity Today Award of Merit in Theology/Ethics The History of God In Discovering God, award-winning sociologist Rodney Stark presents a monumental history of the origins of the great religions from the Stone Age to the Modern Age and wrestles with the central questions of religion and belief.
Download or read book Americanism The Fourth Great Western Religion written by David Gelernter and published by Doubleday. This book was released on 2007-06-19 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to “believe” in America? Why do we always speak of our country as having a mission or purpose that is higher than other nations? Modern liberals have invested a great deal in the notion that America was founded as a secular state, with religion relegated to the private sphere. David Gelernter argues that America is not secular at all, but a powerful religious idea—indeed, a religion in its own right. Gelernter argues that what we have come to call “Americanism” is in fact a secular version of Zionism. Not the Zionism of the ancient Hebrews, but that of the Puritan founders who saw themselves as the new children of Israel, creating a new Jerusalem in a new world. Their faith-based ideals of liberty, equality, and democratic governance had a greater influence on the nation’s founders than the Enlightenment. Gelernter traces the development of the American religion from its roots in the Puritan Zionism of seventeenth-century New England to the idealistic fighting faith it has become, a militant creed dedicated to spreading freedom around the world. The central figures in this process were Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, who presided over the secularization of the American Zionist idea into the form we now know as Americanism. If America is a religion, it is a religion without a god, and it is a global religion. People who believe in America live all over the world. Its adherents have included oppressed and freedom-loving peoples everywhere—from the patriots of the Greek and Hungarian revolutions to the martyred Chinese dissidents of Tiananmen Square. Gelernter also shows that anti-Americanism, particularly the virulent kind that is found today in Europe, is a reaction against this religious conception of America on the part of those who adhere to a rival religion of pacifism and appeasement. A startlingly original argument about the religious meaning of America and why it is loved—and hated—with so much passion at home and abroad.
Download or read book The Evolution of God in Human Imagination written by Gersham A. Nelson and published by Archway Publishing. This book was released on 2018-11-21 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After empowering Christianity and becoming its titular head during the first quarter of the fourth century, Roman emperor Constantine played a greater role in determining the core belief and practice of this religion than any family member or disciple of the historical Jesus. Implications of this fact are many and should be of interest to all Christians and others with an interest in, or connections to, Western Civilization. The Evolution of God in Human Imagination addresses vital questions that many have asked for centuries, including how God became man and/or man became God. Professor Gersham A. Nelson examines the evolution of God from a Judeo-Christian perspective, first demonstrating how different regional cultures and mythologies seem to have influenced Judaism and Christianity, before showing how Christianity jettisoned the most fundamental concept of God held by Judaism and other ancient religions. Professor Nelson also argues that a close examination of the Church that emerged with the imperial patronage of Rome during the fourth century repudiated not only Judaism but also views attributed to the Jesus of history. Failure to re-examine the foundation of Christianity, including claims made by leaders regarding divine will and prerogative, after the Reformation, ensured that contradictions and confusion continue to plague one generation of Christians after another. Even when conspicuous flaws were identified in the worldview advocated by Christian teachings, adjustments would, at best, be slow and selective. Nevertheless, the growing capacity of human brings to explore, discover, and create new knowledge has continued to inspire new questions and is providing some unanticipated answers.
Download or read book Blue Sky God written by Don MacGregor and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2012-07-27 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blue Sky God interprets some new scientific theories with blue sky thinking to bring radical insights into God, Jesus and humanity, drawing also on some deep wells from the past in the writings of the early Christians. In an accessible style, it looks at science research and theories in areas such as quantum physics and consciousness, epigenetics, morphic resonance and the zero point field. From there, seeing God as the compassionate consciousness at the ground of being, it draws together strands to do with unitive consciousness and the Wisdom way of the heart. Throughout, it seeks to encourage an evolution in understanding of the Christian message by reinterpreting much of the theological language and meaning that has become ‘orthodoxy’ in the West. In doing so, it challenges many of the standard assumptions of Western Christianity. It outlines a spiritual path that includes elements from all of the world's great religions, is not exclusive, and yet has a place of centrality for Jesus the Christ as a Wisdom teacher of the path of transformative love. ,
Download or read book The Evolution of Faith written by Philip Gulley and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Noone raises provocative questions about Christianity more kindly than PhilipGulley. " —Diana Butler Bass,author of Christianity for the Rest of Us “Everyserious Christian ought to read this book, ponder it,wrestlewith it, but above all, be grateful for its presence in today's urgentconversation about what we are and are becoming as a people of God.” —Phyllis Tickle, author of The GreatEmergence RenownedQuaker minister Philip Gulley, bestselling author of If the Church WereChristian, delivers a practical, insightful guide to developing aliving, flexible, personal Christianity—a faith that allows you to confront theprofound challenges facing every believer in today’s difficult world.
Download or read book Roadside Religion written by Timothy Beal and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2006-05-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 2002, Timothy K. Beal loaded his family into a twenty-nine-foot-long motor home and hit the rural highways of America in search of roadside religious attractions-sites like the World's Largest Ten Commandments and Precious Moments Chapel. Roadside Religion tells of his attempts to understand the meaning of these places as expressions of religious imagination and experience, and to encounter faith in all its awesome absurdity.
Download or read book The Evolution of God written by Robert Wright and published by . This book was released on 2014-05-21 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sweeping narrative that takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains why spirituality has a role today, and why science, contrary to conventional wisdom, affirms the validity of the religious quest. And this previously unrecognized evolutionary logic points not toward continued religious extremism, but future harmony. Nearly a decade in the making, The Evolution of God is a breathtaking re-examination of the past, and a visionary look forward.
Download or read book How the West Really Lost God written by Mary Eberstadt and published by Templeton Foundation Press. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this magisterial work, leading cultural critic Mary Eberstadt delivers a powerful new theory about the decline of religion in the Western world. The conventional wisdom is that the West first experienced religious decline, followed by the decline of the family. Eberstadt turns this standard account on its head. Marshalling an impressive array of research, from fascinating historical data on family decline in pre-Revolutionary France to contemporary popular culture both in the United States and Europe, Eberstadt shows that the reverse has also been true: the undermining of the family has further undermined Christianity itself. Drawing on sociology, history, demography, theology, literature, and many other sources, Eberstadt shows that family decline and religious decline have gone hand in hand in the Western world in a way that has not been understood before—that they are, as she puts it in a striking new image summarizing the book’s thesis, “the double helix of society, each dependent on the strength of the other for successful reproduction.” In sobering final chapters, Eberstadt then lays out the enormous ramifications of the mutual demise of family and faith in the West. While it is fashionable in some circles to applaud the decline both of religion and the nuclear family, there are, as Eberstadt reveals, enormous social, economic, civic, and other costs attendant on both declines. Her conclusion considers this tantalizing question: whether the economic and demographic crisis now roiling Europe and spreading to America will have the inadvertent result of reviving the family as the most viable alternative to the failed welfare state—fallout that could also lay the groundwork for a religious revival as well. How the West Really Lost God is both a startlingly original account of how secularization happens and a sweeping brief about why everyone should care. A book written for agnostics as well as believers, atheists as well as “none of the above,” it will permanently change the way every reader understands the two institutions that have hitherto undergirded Western civilization as we know it—family and faith—and the real nature of the relationship between those two pillars of history.
Download or read book The Evolution of the Idea of God written by Grant Allen and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1897, The Evolution of the Idea of God is a study of humans' belief in God from primitive tribal religions to what Allen considered the more advanced Christian view. The main question explored here is "How did we arrive at our knowledge of God?" Rather than trying to prove or disprove any claims about the divine, Allen's method simply traces the psychological processes that led humans to religious belief, and further, from a belief in polytheism to monotheism. Students of religion, mythology, and human psychology will find this an intriguing work. Canadian writer GRANT ALLEN (1848-1899) attended university in the United Kingdom and taught at Queen's College in Jamaica. His many published books include mainly scientific books and popular novels, and in 1895 he published one of the first Canadian science fiction books, The British Barbarians.
Download or read book Finding Darwin s God written by Kenneth R. Miller and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 1999-11-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the ground-breaking and often controversial science of Charles Darwin, the author seeks to bridge the gulf between science and religion on the subject of human evolution.
Download or read book Philosophy of Religion written by Tim Bayne and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the philosophy of religion? How can we distinguish it from theology on the one hand and the psychology/sociology of religious belief on the other? What does it mean to describe God as eternal? And should religious people want there to be good arguments for the existence of God, or is religious belief only authentic in the absence of these good arguments? In this Very Short Introduction Tim Bayne introduces the field of philosophy of religion, and engages with some of the most burning questions that philosophers discuss. Considering how religion should be defined, and whether we even need to be able to define it in order to engage in the philosophy of religion, he goes on to discuss whether the existence of God matters. Exploring the problem of evil, Bayne also debates the connection between faith and reason, and the related question of what role reason should play in religious contexts. Shedding light on the relationship between science and religion, Bayne finishes by considering the topics of reincarnation and the afterlife. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
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
