Download or read book Faith Beyond Belief written by Margaret Placentra Johnston and published by Quest Books. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faith Beyond Belief gives a much-needed voice to the “good” people who have left their church but whose spirituality continues to mature. Johnston uses first-person stories as well as known spiritual authorities in describing various stages of religious growth. Some of these real-life accounts are by nonbelievers; others are by those among the growing numbers of the “spiritual but not religious.” All are thoughtful people with too much integrity to live what they consider a lie. The stories of the nonbelievers-including an ex-Catholic, a former Mormon, and a clandestine Muslim apostate who left his community after the attacks of 9/11-show how complete confidence in human reason can lead away from literal religious interpretation. But, while that step is a necessary one on the spiritual path, it is only intermediate. Her second set of stories are of people at the “mystic” level who can tolerate paradox and see truth and reality as multidimensional. Johnston’s book will help doubters to see things in a new light as well as those who are struggling to clarify their own spiritual vision. It also points beyond the atheist/believer controversy wrecking such divisive havoc in our culture today.

Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Elle Hardy and published by . This book was released on 2024-06-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating exposé of the global revolution you've never heard of: a deep-pocketed, tech-savvy Christian movement reshaping our societies from within. How has a Christian movement, founded at the turn of the twentieth century by the son of freed slaves, become the fastest-growing religion on Earth? Pentecostalism has 600 million followers; by 2050, they'll be one in ten people worldwide. This is the religion of the Holy Spirit, with believers directly experiencing God and His blessings: success for the mind, body, spirit and wallet. Pentecostalism is a social movement. It serves impoverished people in Africa and Latin America, and inspires anti-establishment leaders from Trump to Bolsonaro. In Australia, Europe and Korea, it throws itself into culture wars and social media, offering meaning and community to the rootless and marginalised in a fragmenting world. Reporting this revolution from twelve countries and six US states, Elle Hardy weaves a timeless tale of miracles, money and power, set in our volatile age of extremes. By turns troubling and entertaining, Beyond Beliefexposes the Pentecostal agenda: not just saving souls, but transforming societies and controlling politics. These modern prophets, embedded in our institutions, have the cash and the influence to wage their holy war.

Download or read book A God Beyond Belief written by Lance Moore and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-14 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Something has gone terribly wrong. We face a spiritual crisis, but the extremes of religious fundamentalism on one hand, and scientific atheism on the other, offer no cure. Scepticism is soaring, especially among Millennials. Daily, we read of scandals among our politicians, priests and Hollywood stars. Mass shootings are epidemic, yet entertainment media glorifies violence. Drugs, not 'religion' as Karl Marx claimed, are now the 'opiate of the masses'. 'Christian' TV preachers use donations to purchase private jets and mansions, while children starve. The White House has claimed that 'Truth is not the truth'. Our leaders and institutions have lost all moral authority. A common religious response to crisis is to thump the Bible harder and louder. This book challenges us to go beyond a simple, childish belief. Dr Lance Moore offers an intelligent faith rooted in a respect for Scripture, while taking a fresh look at calcified orthodoxies. He invites readers to embrace paradox, in Spirituality and in Science, to rediscover God for our Quantum Age.

Download or read book The God Beyond Belief written by Nick Trakakis and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-11-03 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of Professor William Rowe’s defense of atheism on the basis of evil assesses the literature that has developed in response to Rowe’s work, closely examining two strategies: mystery – the idea that God may have reasons beyond our comprehension for permitting evil; and theodicy - explanations as to why God allows evil to flourish. The book unearths difficulties in both, concluding that the God of theism must be "beyond belief."

Download or read book Wonder Beyond Belief written by Navid Kermani and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens when one of Germany's most important writers, himself a Muslim, immerses himself in the world of Christian art? In this book, Navid Kermani is awestruck by a religion full of sacrifice and lamentation, love and wonder, the irrational and the unfathomable, the deeply human and the divine – a Christianity that today’s Christians rarely speak of so earnestly, boldly and enthusiastically. With the open-minded curiosity of a non-believer – or rather a believer in another faith – Kermani engages with Christian art in its great richness and diversity. The result is an enchanting reflection which reinvests in Christianity both its spectacular beauty and its terror. Kermani struggles with the cross, falls in love at the sight of Mary, experiences the Orthodox Mass and appreciates the greatness of St Francis. He teaches us to see the questions of our present-day lives in the pictures of old masters such as Botticelli, Caravaggio and Rembrandt – not with lectures on art history or theology, but with an intelligent eye for the essential details and the underlying relations to seemingly remote worlds, to literature and to mystical Islam. Kermani's poetic school of seeing draws us in as we are carried along by his unique perspective on Christianity, rekindling our interest in great art at the same time. We are captivated by his unique and brilliant Islamic reading of the West.

Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Jack Sequeira and published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. This book was released on 1993 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pose the question, "What is the gospel?" to a group of Christians, and back comes the automatic response: "The gospel is the good news." Not to everyone, it isn't. To some Christians, the gospel seems almost hopelessly confusing. Is it justification--or sanctification--or both? What do those words really mean? And if the gospel is such good news, why isn't the church stirred, galvanized, electrified by it? The gospel is so much more than a spiritual warm fuzzy. Prepare yourself for a discovery that is truly Beyond Belief! - Preface. The Sin Problem. God's Redemptive Love. The Gospel Defined. Christ Our Substitute. The Two Adams: Romans 5. The Two Adams: 1 Corinthians 15. The Cross and the Great Controversy. The Cross and the Atonement. The Cross and the Human Race. Righteousness by Faith. Justification and Sanctification. The Joyous Experience of Salvation. The Principle of the Cross. The Work of the Holy Spirit. Spirit, Soul, and Body. Law and Grace-I. Law and Grace--II The Sabbath Rest. Appendix

Download or read book Beyond Belief to Convictions written by Josh McDowell and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2002 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If the church doesn't act now, we will lose a whole generation to postmodernism. Most young people believe that truth is relative to individual beliefs. McDowell insists that truth matters, and that truth changes who we are and how we act. McDowell introduces "relational apologetics, " proving that objective truth is founded on a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Cami Ostman and published by Seal Press. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With stories by women from a wide range of religious communities--including Evangelical Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Calvinist, Moonie, the Unification Church, and Jehovah's Witnesses--the writers in Beyond Belief pull back a heavy curtain to reveal what they love about their lives within these communities, along with the pain that comes from the rigid expectations and diminishment of women so often built into religious orthodoxy."--Back cover.

Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Elaine Pagels and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2004-05-04 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Beyond Belief, renowned religion scholar Elaine Pagels continues her groundbreaking examination of the earliest Christian texts, arguing for an ongoing assessment of faith and a questioning of religious orthodoxy. Spurred on by personal tragedy and new scholarship from an international group of researchers, Pagels returns to her investigation of the “secret” Gospel of Thomas, and breathes new life into writings once thought heretical. As she arrives at an ever-deeper conviction in her own faith, Pagels reveals how faith allows for a diversity of interpretations, and that the “rogue” voices of Christianity encourage and sustain “the recognition of the light within us all.”

Download or read book Beyond Belief written by V. S. Naipaul and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond Belief is a book about one of the more important and unsettling issues of our time: the effects of the Islamic conversion of Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia. It is not a book of opinion. It is - in the Naipaul way - a very rich and human book, full of people and stories. Islam is an Arab religion, and it makes imperial Arabizing demands on its converts. In this way it is more than a private faith, and it can become a neurosis. What has this Arab Islam done to the histories of these converted countries? How do the converted peoples, non-Arabs, view their past - and their future? In a follow-up to Among the Believers, his classic account of his travels through these countries, V. S. Naipaul returns after seventeen years to find out how and what the converted preach. In Indonesia he finds a pastoral people who have lost their history through a confluence of Islam and technology. In Iran he discovers a religious tyranny as oppressive as the secular one of the Shah, and he meets people weary of the religious rules that govern every aspect of their lives. Pakistan - in a tragic realization of a Muslim re-creation fantasy - inherited blood feuds, rotting palaces, antique cruelty; then President Zia installed religious terror with $100 million of Saudi money. In Malaysia, the Muslim Youth organization is alive and growing, and the people are mentally, physically, and geographically torn between two worlds, struggling to live the impossible dream of a true faith born out of a spiritual vacancy. A startling and revelatory addition to the Naipaul canon, Beyond Belief confirms the author's reputation as a masterly observer, a "finder-out" of stories, as well as a magnificent teller of them.

Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Johannes M. Luetz and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-03 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary book explores the science and spirituality nexus in the Pacific Islands Region and as such makes a critical contribution to sustainable climate change adaptation in Oceania. In addition to presenting case studies, literary analyses, field projects, and empirical research, the book describes faith-engaged approaches through the prism of: • Context: past, present, and future prospects• Theory: concepts, narratives, and theoretical frameworks• Practice: empirical research and praxis-informed case examples• Doctrine: scriptural contributions and perspectives• Engagement: enlisting religious stakeholders and constituencies Comprising peer-reviewed works by scholars, professionals, and practitioners from across Oceania, the book closes a critical gap in the literature and represents a groundbreaking contribution to holistic climate change adaptation in the Pacific Islands Region that is scientifically sound, spiritually attuned, locally meaningful, and contextually compelling.

Download or read book Beyond Belief written by James McDonald and published by Ithaca Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting from a neutral position, this book looks at claims made by Christian leaders over the centuries and analyses them in the light of modern scholarship. Erudite yet mischievous, the book's scope is wide, from early history to the present day, from America to China, and spanning many different disciplines. Many of the conclusions reached will shock devout believers, though all of them can be verified with reference to sympathetic works by biblical scholars and theologians. A recurring theme is that of open secrets - facts well known to historians and other academics in the Church, but kept from the faithful masses. These open secrets are not actively denied, just avoided so as not to cause offence to those who are familiar only with the Sunday-School version of events. Many Christians see their system of belief as dating from the earliest times, but this idea becomes difficult to sustain in the light of when and how key doctrines were established. Many ordinary Christians would be shocked to discover, for example, the prominent role played by violence and forgery in developing and promoting Christian doctrine. Whatever one's own religious beliefs, the Christian Churches provide huge amounts of material for the enquiring mind. Repercussions from crusades that happened over 900 years ago are still in evidence today. The division of the Roman Empire in early Christian times also reverberates to the present day. To a large extent, the history of the Western World over the last 2,000 years is the history of the Christian Church. Without a proper understanding of the role of the Church, it is not possible to truly understand the history of Europe, the Middle East, or indeed the Americas.

Download or read book Finding God Beyond Religion written by Tom Stella and published by SkyLight Paths Publishing. This book was released on 2013 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you describe yourself as spiritual but not religious? Whether young or old, church connected or not, are you spiritually restless for an authentic faith life but do not find conventional religious teachings pertinent to you? This accessible guide to a meaningful spiritual life is a salve for your soul. It reinterprets traditional religious teachings central to the Christian faith - God, Jesus, faith, prayer, morality and more - in ways that connect with people who have outgrown the beliefs and devotional practices that once made sense to them.

Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Hugh Mackay and published by Macmillan Publishers Aus.. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do people actually mean when they say 'God'? Around two-thirds of us say we believe in God or some 'higher power', but fewer than one in ten Australians attend church weekly. In Beyond Belief, Hugh Mackay presents this discrepancy as one of the great unexamined topics of our time. He argues that while our attachment to a traditional idea of God may be waning, our desire for a life of meaning remains as strong as ever. Mackay interviews dozens of Australians representing many different points on the spectrum of faith, including some who are part of the emerging 'spiritual but not religious' movement. He exposes the deep vein of ambivalence about religion that runs through our society: we may not actively worship, but we still like to see local churches operating in our midst, and we use 'our' church to marry, christen our babies, educate our children and commemorate our dead. He points out some uncomfortable truths, such as our tendency to call on God only in a crisis, and unpacks our human need for 'answers', even when science can't find them. He endorses the Christian ideal of the good life - a life lived for others - but acknowledges that there are many pathways to that same goal, not all of them religious. Written with all the insight and compassion we have come to expect of our leading chronicler of Australian life, Beyond Belief is an engrossing exploration of the ways we find spiritual fulfilment in an avowedly secular age.

Download or read book Faith Beyond Belief written by David Eberly and published by Brandylane Publishers Inc. This book was released on 2006 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Breaking the Spell written by Daniel C. Dennett and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-02-02 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller – a “crystal-clear, constantly engaging” (Jared Diamond) exploration of the role that religious belief plays in our lives and our interactions For all the thousands of books that have been written about religion, few until this one have attempted to examine it scientifically: to ask why—and how—it has shaped so many lives so strongly. Is religion a product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Is it truly the best way to live a moral life? Ranging through biology, history, and psychology, Daniel C. Dennett charts religion’s evolution from “wild” folk belief to “domesticated” dogma. Not an antireligious screed but an unblinking look beneath the veil of orthodoxy, Breaking the Spell will be read and debated by believers and skeptics alike.

Download or read book Parenting Beyond Belief written by Dale Mcgowan and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Gathering the perspectives of educators and psychologists, as well as wisdom from everyday parents, Parenting Beyond Belief offers insights and advice on a wide range of topics including instilling values, finding meaning and purpose, navigating holidays, coping with loss, finding community without religion, and more. The second edition of this secular parenting bestseller brings back reflections from such celebrated freethinkers as Richard Dawkins and Julia Sweeney, and adds new voices including journalist Wendy Thomas Russell, essayist Katherine Ozment, sociologist Phil Zuckerman, and many others" --