Download or read book The God Beyond Organized Religion written by Laurene Beth Bowers and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the death of her best friend since high school, a religion professor re-examines her own personal beliefs about god. She realizes she doesn't want to be consoled by a 'transactional' god who exchanges 'right' belief and 'good' behavior for services upon request. She explores the concept of a 'transformative' god, one not aligned with any particular religion, who equips people to adapt to challenges and to spiritually grow from crises and traumas. Out of our experiences, something positive can emerge which helps us to be more empathic toward the suffering of others. Her story demonstrates how grief can be an opportunity to ponder the great mysteries of life and make meaning of our existence. She describes this process as a journey up the side of a mountain to explore how a concept of god both reflects and impacts the way a society approaches its contemporary social problems, such as global warming, poverty, and inequality. In doing so, she encounters a god beyond organized religion.
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 The God Beyond Organized Religion written by Laurene Beth Bowers and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the death of her best friend since high school, a religion professor re-examines her own personal beliefs about god. She realizes she doesn't want to be consoled by a 'transactional' god who exchanges 'right' belief and 'good' behavior for services upon request. She explores the concept of a 'transformative' god, one not aligned with any particular religion, who equips people to adapt to challenges and to spiritually grow from crises and traumas. Out of our experiences, something positive can emerge which helps us to be more empathic toward the suffering of others. Her story demonstrates how grief can be an opportunity to ponder the great mysteries of life and make meaning of our existence. She describes this process as a journey up the side of a mountain to explore how a concept of god both reflects and impacts the way a society approaches its contemporary social problems, such as global warming, poverty, and inequality. In doing so, she encounters a god beyond organized religion.
Download or read book On the Outside Looking Up written by Elizabeth Massie and published by Valley House Books. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An increasing number of people are leaving their established religions behind. Some embrace atheism or agnosticism. Others, a more "New Age" spiritual pathway. Then there are those who have discovered their own personal God-centered religions that speak deeply yet don't necessarily match up to what they were taught within their houses of worship. These are the un-churched believers. They are out there. We are out here. And our love for God and our understandings of the Divine are as meaningful and beautiful as that of the churched. On the Outside Looking Up is part spiritual memoir, part musings on issues that religions tend to tackle, and part extended hand to un-churched believers to assure them they are not the only ones. Elizabeth Massie shares how the basic truth of God - that He Loves and it is His Will that we also love - is the Light that illuminates every topic and struggle we face and is available to all. On the Outside Looking Up invites un-churched, churched, and non-believers alike to give the word "religion" a break and encourages us to take on the profound task of finding our commonalities and loving one another. Elizabeth Massie is no minister, theology scholar, or spiritual leader. She's an ordinary, wondering-wandering un-churched believer who felt a Tap on her shoulder and decided not to ignore it. She has authored a wide variety of works including the Stoker-winning Sineater, the Scribe Award-winning The Tudors: Thy Will Be Done, the mainstream novel Homegrown, the meditative collection Night Benedictions, and more.
Download or read book Living Beyond Belief The God of No Religion written by N.B. Singh and published by N.B. Singh. This book was released on with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Living Beyond Belief: The God of No Religion" explores spirituality beyond traditional religious confines, advocating for a personal connection with the divine that transcends dogma. Through introspective reflections and philosophical insights, the book invites readers to embrace a liberated and inclusive approach to spirituality, emphasizing the universal essence of human connection and the limitless potential for personal growth outside the boundaries of organized religion.
Download or read book God Without Religion written by Śaṇkara Śaranam and published by The Pranayama Institute. This book was released on 2005 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disillusioned with organized religion, some people escape into New Age movements and others retreat from their spiritual moorings altogether. A more satisfying and transformative option is to embark on a quest to discover God on your own. Using time-tested tools of spiritual investigation, it becomes possible to examine your present beliefs, explore the nature of God and sense of self, and ultimately expand your identity. This book is a classic and introduces readers to an age-old approach to spiritual inquiry. Included are seventeen universal techniques for developing a personal relationship with God and broadening your view of yourself, others, and all of life.
Download or read book The God Con written by Lee Moller and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2017-06-24 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The crucifix is in! You can fool most of the people most of the time. In The God Con, Lee Moller, a life-long atheist and skeptic, looks at organized religion through the lens of the con. Organized religion has been selling an invisible product, that it never has to deliver, for thousands of years. It has given us bigotry, rampant pedophilia, terrorism, and bloodshed beyond imagining. And its acolytes have, in turn, given organized religion power over their bank accounts, their reproduction, and their very “souls”.
Download or read book Wide Open Spaces written by Jim Palmer and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2007-12-02 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jim Palmer's critically acclaimed Divine Nobodies was only half the story - the deconstruction and shedding of a religious mentality that hindered his knowing God. In his next book, Jim takes the reader along into the wide open spaces of exploring and experiencing God beyond religion. Jim writes, "It is no secret that God can be lost beneath the waving banner of religion. Divine Nobodies is my story of how this happened to me. Sometimes you have to disentangle God from religion, even Christ from Christianity, to find the truth. With the help of some unsuspecting nobodies, I uncovered a new starting line with God. As I've put one foot in front of another, I've experienced God in ways that are deeply transforming." Each chapter revolves around a central question related to knowing God on fresh terms: Is God a belief system? Is the Bible a landing strip or launching pad? Can what we're feeling inside be God? Are we too religiously minded to be any earthly good? Brian McLaren wrote, "I am tempted to say that Jim Palmer could well be the next Don Miller, but what they have in common, along with an honest spirituality and extraordinary skill as storytellers, is a unique voice." The Library Reviews said of him, "Jim Palmer's casual, yet compelling writing style cuts through the religious rhetoric and gets to the real issues...readers will love this author! His sense of humor is alternately mixed with shocking sentences and poignant moments. Laced throughout is a refreshing honesty that ties his ideas together with a ribbon of reality...each turn of the page strips away a little more of the contrived mystery of Christianity until the simplicity and sincerity of it stands in realistic splendor." More and more people seek a deeper spirituality beyond status-quo religion. Others are left empty and weary from a shallow and narrow pop-Christianity. Palmer says that God's kingdom of love, peace, and freedom can be a present reality in any person's life. He proclaims that God is indeed in the process of birthing something deep and wide among unlikely people in unconventional ways, which is changing the world...one "nobody" at a time.
Download or read book Beyond the Death of God written by Simone Raudino and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-05-26 with total page 661 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers a nuanced picture with specific instances of religion and politics in Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu contexts, broadly presenting the phenomenon of religion and politics via country and thematic case studies. Qualitative, quantitative, material, philosophical, and theological analyses draw upon social theory to show how (and why) religion matters deeply in each time and place. The authors and contributors demonstrate that religion is a significant force that drives societies and polities around the world, and that a radical change in the Western understanding of value-driven global politics is needed. Beyond the Death of God offers new, local voices to Western audiences—through essays that suggest the need for an appreciation of Divinity as a quintessence holding a significant place in the hearts, minds, social orders, and political organization of polities around the world.
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 Beyond Religion written by Allen J. Wineland and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-10-21 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Beyond Religion Allen Wineland reveals the essence of Christian spirituality and provides a guide for people who are searching for spiritual fulfillment beyond what they have found within organized religion or through their own efforts independent of any church. Wineland goes right to the scriptures of the Christian Bible to show what Jesus really taught about the nature of God and the role of God in our spiritual lives. It is an approach that will not be welcomed by some Christians but one that Jesus, Paul and even many of the writers of the Old Testament would wholeheartedly support because it is based on what they said, not on 2000 years of interpretation by religious institutions whose purposes have often been far from spiritual. Churches and church leaders, in their zeal to promote their own institutional and ideological agendas, have driven many people away from Christian spirituality. Wineland provides a way back for these people. They won't be disappointed.
Download or read book Divine Nobodies written by Jim Palmer and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2006-10-15 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does a Hip-Hop artist, Waffle House waitress, tire salesman, and disabled girl have to do with discovering spiritual truth? What if embracing authentic Christianity is a journey of unlearning? Welcome to Jim Palmer's world! Don Miller meets Anne Lamott meets Brian McLaren in this tale of shedding religion and plunging into uncharted depths of knowing God. Jim Palmer, emergent pastor, shares his compelling off-road spiritual journey and the unsuspecting people who became his guides. "Perhaps God's reason for wanting me," writes Palmer, "is much better than my reason for wanting him. Maybe God's idea of my salvation trumps the version I am too willing to settle for. Seeing I needed a little help to get this, God sent a variety pack of characters to awaken me." For all those hoping there's more to God and Christianity than what they've heard or experienced, each chapter of Divine Nobodies gives the reader permission and freedom to discover it for themselves. Sometimes comical, other times tragic, at times shocking, always honest; Jim Palmer's story offers an inspiring and profound glimpse into life with God beyond institutional church and conventional religion. "I am tempted to say that Jim Palmer could well be the next Donald Miller, but what they have in common, along with an honest spirituality and extraordinary skill as storytellers, is a unique voice . . . Divine Nobodies is a delight to read, and it was good for my soul to read it." -BRIAN MCLAREN Author of The Secret Message of Jesus "You hold in your hands an amazing story of a broken man finding freedom in all the right places-in God's work in the lives of some extraordinarily ordinary people around him. You will thrill to this delightful blend of gut-wrenching honesty and laugh-out-loud hilarity, and in the end you'll find God much closer, the body of Christ far bigger and your own journey far clearer than you ever dreamed." -WAYNE JACOBSEN Author of Authentic Relationships
Download or read book God on Your Own written by Joseph Dispenza and published by Wiley + ORM. This book was released on 2010-12-08 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this spiritual self-help memoir, a former Roman Catholic monk recounts his journey away from religion toward his own personal spirituality. After spending eight years in a monastery, Joseph Dispenza walked away from his life as a monk—and the religion of his youth—in search of a different kind of spiritual path. Outside the confines of organized religion, Dispenza was able to create a spiritual life that gives direction and meaning to all he does and all he is. God on Your Own is a book for anyone who has left (or is thinking of leaving) organized religion but wants to continue on a spiritual path. Dispenza, a noted author and retreat leader, provides a spiritual road map for those who want to make the transition from conventional religion toward a richer and more satisfying direct relationship with the Source, without rules, dogmas, or doctrines. Throughout the book, Dispenza offers wise, compassionate guidance, speaking as one seeker to another. He has made this journey himself, gleaning spiritual truth from across traditions and practices.
Download or read book Back Pocket God written by Melinda Lundquist Denton and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What do the religious and spiritual lives of American young people look like as they reach their mid-to-late twenties, enter the full-time job market, and start families? In Back Pocket God, Melinda Lundquist Denton and Richard Flory provide a look beyond conflicting stories that argue that emerging adults are either overwhelmingly leaving religion, or that they are earnest spiritual seekers maintaining a significant place in their lives for religion. Denton and Flory show that while the dominant trend among young people is a move away from religious beliefs and institutions, there is also a parallel trend in which a small, religiously committed group of emerging adults claim faith as an important fixture in their lives. Yet, whether religiously committed or not, emerging adults are increasingly personalizing, customizing and compartmentalizing religion in ways that suit their idiosyncratic desires. For emerging adults, God has become increasingly remote yet is highly personalized to meet their particular needs. In the process, they have transformed their conception of God from a powerful being or force that exists "out there" to their own personal Pocket God--a God that they can carry around with them, but that exerts little power or influence in their daily lives. God functions, in a sense, like a smartphone app-readily accessible, easy to control, and useful but only for limited purposes. Back Pocket God shows the changing relationship between emerging adults and religion, providing a window into the future of religion and more broadly, American culture"--
Download or read book God Without Religion written by Sankara Saranam and published by . This book was released on 2005-03 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In a groundbreaking approach to today's tough spiritual and social dilemmas, God without religion offers an intelligent and compassionate bridge from dogmatic belief systems to progressive spirituality. The son of self-exiled Iragi Jews, Sankara Saranam shows why organized religion has long been the cause of humanity's worst wars and most acute suffering-then guides us beyond our divisive history into more expansive perceptions capable of creating a unified, peaceful future. Through a series of penetrating inquiries and practices, readers are invited to examine their beliefs, turn inward, and develop a direct understanding of God."
Download or read book The God Con written by Lee Moller and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2017-06-28 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The crucifix is in! You can fool most of the people most of the time. In The God Con, Lee Moller, a life-long atheist and skeptic, looks at organized religion through the lens of the con. Organized religion has been selling an invisible product, that it never has to deliver, for thousands of years. It has given us bigotry, rampant pedophilia, terrorism, and bloodshed beyond imagining. And its acolytes have, in turn, given organized religion power over their bank accounts, their reproduction, and their very “souls”.
Download or read book Religion written by Hent de Vries and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 1024 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do we talk about when we talk about "religion"? Is it an array of empirical facts about historical human civilizations? Or is religion what is in essence unpredictable--perhaps the very emergence of the new? In what ways are the legacies of religion--its powers, words, things, and gestures--reconfiguring themselves as the elementary forms of life in the twenty-first century? Given the Latin roots of the word religion and its historical Christian uses, what sense, if any, does it make to talk about "religion" in other traditions? Where might we look for common elements that would enable us to do so? Has religion as an overarching concept lost all its currency, or does it ineluctably return--sometimes in unexpected ways--the moment we attempt to do without it? This book explores the difficulties and double binds that arise when we ask "What is religion?" Offering a marvelously rich and diverse array of perspectives, it begins the task of rethinking "religion" and "religious studies" in a contemporary world. Opening essays on the question "What is religion?" are followed by clusters exploring the relationships among religion, theology, and philosophy and the links between religion, politics, and law. Pedagogy is the focus of the following section. Religion is then examined in particular contexts, from classical times to the present Pentacostal revival, leading into an especially rich set of essays on religion, materiality, and mediatization. The final section grapples with the ever-changing forms that "religion" is taking, such as spirituality movements and responses to the ecological crisis. Featuring the work of leading scholars from a wide array of disciplines, traditions, and cultures, Religion: Beyond a Concept will help set the agenda for religious studies for years to come. It is the first of five volumes in a collection entitled The Future of the Religious Past, the fruit of a major international research initiative funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.
