Download or read book The Grand Paradox written by Ken Wytsma and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If we were made for relationship with God, why do we often feel lost and distant from Him? The life of Christian faith is and always has been a beautifully awkward reality. Following Jesus is done—can only be done—in the messiness of this world into which we were all born. Yet many Christians expect the walk of faith to be easier, neater, and relatively devoid of hassles. So perhaps it’s time for a frank conversation about the true nature of Christian faith. Maybe there are many desperately in need of a clear dialogue about how—despite living in a turbulent, chaotic world—our greatest joy is found in our pursuit of God. In The Grand Paradox, Ken Wytsma seeks to help readers understand that although God can be mysterious, He is in no way absent. God’s ways are contradictory and counter to the way the world tells us to pursue happiness. Doubt is okay, it will accompany in the life of faith. What looks like struggle can actually be the most important and meaningful season of our lives. This book is an exploration of the art of living by faith. It is a book for all those wrestling with the paradoxes that confront those who seek to walk with Christ. It’s an honest look at how faith works, here and now, in our culture, our time—and how to put down real roots and flourish in the midst of our messy lives.

Download or read book Plagues and the Paradox of Progress written by Thomas J. Bollyky and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why the news about the global decline of infectious diseases is not all good. Plagues and parasites have played a central role in world affairs, shaping the evolution of the modern state, the growth of cities, and the disparate fortunes of national economies. This book tells that story, but it is not about the resurgence of pestilence. It is the story of its decline. For the first time in recorded history, virus, bacteria, and other infectious diseases are not the leading cause of death or disability in any region of the world. People are living longer, and fewer mothers are giving birth to many children in the hopes that some might survive. And yet, the news is not all good. Recent reductions in infectious disease have not been accompanied by the same improvements in income, job opportunities, and governance that occurred with these changes in wealthier countries decades ago. There have also been unintended consequences. In this book, Thomas Bollyky explores the paradox in our fight against infectious disease: the world is getting healthier in ways that should make us worry. Bollyky interweaves a grand historical narrative about the rise and fall of plagues in human societies with contemporary case studies of the consequences. Bollyky visits Dhaka—one of the most densely populated places on the planet—to show how low-cost health tools helped enable the phenomenon of poor world megacities. He visits China and Kenya to illustrate how dramatic declines in plagues have affected national economies. Bollyky traces the role of infectious disease in the migrations from Ireland before the potato famine and to Europe from Africa and elsewhere today. Historic health achievements are remaking a world that is both worrisome and full of opportunities. Whether the peril or promise of that progress prevails, Bollyky explains, depends on what we do next. A Council on Foreign Relations Book

Download or read book Surprised by Paradox written by Jen Pollock Michel and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Word Guild Awards Shortlist — Apologetics/Evangelism Word Guild Award — Best Book Cover Award Christianity Today's Book of the Year Award of Merit - The Beautiful Orthodoxy What if certainty isn't the goal? In a world filled with ambiguity, many of us long for a belief system that provides straightforward answers to complex questions and clarity in the face of confusion. We want faith to act like an orderly set of truth-claims designed to solve the problems and pain that life throws at us. With signature candor and depth, Jen Pollock Michel helps readers imagine a Christian faith open to mystery. While there are certainties in Christian faith, at the heart of the Christian story is also paradox. Jesus invites us to abandon the polarities of either and or in order to embrace the difficult, wondrous dissonance of and. The incarnation—the paradox of God made human—teaches us to look for God in the and of body and spirit, heaven and earth. In the kingdom, God often hides in plain sight and announces his triumph on the back of a donkey. In the paradox of grace, we receive life eternal by actively participating in death. And lament, with its clear-eyed appraisal of suffering alongside its commitment to finding audience with God, is a paradoxical practice of faith. Each of these themes give us certainty about God while also leading us into greater curiosity about his nature and activity in the world. As Michel writes, "As soon as we think we have God figured out, we will have ceased to worship him as he is." With personal stories and reflection on Scripture, literature, and culture, Michel takes us deeper into mystery and into worship of the One who is Mystery and Love.

Download or read book The Human Paradox written by Ralph Heintzman and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2022-08-31 with total page 836 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is a human being? What does it mean to be human? How can you lead your life in ways that best fulfil your own nature? In The Human Paradox, Ralph Heintzman explores these vital questions and offers an exciting new vision of the nature of the human. The Human Paradox aims to counter or correct several contemporary assumptions about the nature of the human, especially the tendency of Western culture, since the seventeenth century, to identify the human with rationality and the rational mind. Using the lens of the virtues, The Human Paradox shows how rediscovering the nature of the human can help not just to understand one’s own paradoxical nature but to act in ways that are more consistent with its full reality. Offering accessible insight from both traditional and contemporary thought, The Human Paradox shows how a fuller, richer vision of the human can help address urgent contemporary problems, including the challenges of cultural and religious diversity, human migration and human rights, the role of the market, artificial intelligence, the future of democracy, and global climate change. This fresh perspective on the Western past will guide readers into what it means to be human and open new possibilities for the future.

Download or read book The Polio Paradox written by Richard L. Bruno and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2009-02-28 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the threat of polio ended with the Salk vaccine in 1954, many polio survivors are now experiencing the onset of post-polio syndrome (PPS), a complication with new but related symptoms such as chronic fatigue and joint pain.

Download or read book The Great Silence written by Milan M. Ćirković and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great Silence explores the multifaceted problem named after the great Italian physicist Enrico Fermi and his legendary 1950 lunchtime question "Where is everybody?" In many respects, Fermi's paradox is the richest and the most challenging problem for the entire field of astrobiology and the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) studies. This book shows how Fermi's paradox is intricately connected with many fields of learning, technology, arts, and even everyday life. It aims to establish the strongest possible version of the problem, to dispel many related confusions, obfuscations, and prejudices, as well as to offer a novel point of entry to the many solutions proposed in existing literature. Ćirković argues that any evolutionary worldview cannot avoid resolving the Great Silence problem in one guise or another.

Download or read book A Most Ingenious Paradox written by Gayden Wren and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most books written on Gilbert and Sullivan have focused on the authors rather than on their work. Examining all 14 operas in detail, this book offers a fresh look at the works themselves.

Download or read book Good and Real written by Gary L. Drescher and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining a series of provocative paradoxes about consciousness, choice, ethics, and other topics, Good and Real tries to reconcile a purely mechanical view of the universe with key aspects of our subjective impressions of our own existence. In Good and Real, Gary Drescher examines a series of provocative paradoxes about consciousness, choice, ethics, quantum mechanics, and other topics, in an effort to reconcile a purely mechanical view of the universe with key aspects of our subjective impressions of our own existence. Many scientists suspect that the universe can ultimately be described by a simple (perhaps even deterministic) formalism; all that is real unfolds mechanically according to that formalism. But how, then, is it possible for us to be conscious, or to make genuine choices? And how can there be an ethical dimension to such choices? Drescher sketches computational models of consciousness, choice, and subjunctive reasoning--what would happen if this or that were to occur? --to show how such phenomena are compatible with a mechanical, even deterministic universe. Analyses of Newcomb's Problem (a paradox about choice) and the Prisoner's Dilemma (a paradox about self-interest vs. altruism, arguably reducible to Newcomb's Problem) help bring the problems and proposed solutions into focus. Regarding quantum mechanics, Drescher builds on Everett's relative-state formulation--but presenting a simplified formalism, accessible to laypersons--to argue that, contrary to some popular impressions, quantum mechanics is compatible with an objective, deterministic physical reality, and that there is no special connection between quantum phenomena and consciousness. In each of several disparate but intertwined topics ranging from physics to ethics, Drescher argues that a missing technical linchpin can make the quest for objectivity seem impossible, until the elusive technical fix is at hand.

Download or read book True Paradox written by David Skeel and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword Review's Annual INDIEFAB Book of the Year Finalist How do we explain human consciousness? Where do we get our sense of beauty? Why do we recoil at suffering? Why do we have moral codes that none of us can meet? Why do we yearn for justice, yet seem incapable of establishing it? Any philosophy or worldview must make sense of the world as we actually experience it. We need to explain how we can discern qualities such as beauty and evil and account for our practices of morality and law. The complexity of the contemporary world is sometimes seen as an embarrassment for Christianity. But law professor David Skeel makes a fresh case for the plausibility and explanatory power of Christianity. The Christian faith offers plausible explanations for the central puzzles of our existence, such as our capacity for idea-making, our experience of beauty and suffering, and our inability to create a just social order. When compared with materialism or other sets of beliefs, Christianity provides a more comprehensive framework for understanding human life as we actually live it. We need not deny the complexities of life as we experience it. But the paradoxes of our existence can lead us to the possibility that the existence of God could make sense of it all.

Download or read book The Logos of Heraclitus written by Eva Brann and published by Paul Dry Books. This book was released on with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In this extraordinary meditation, Eva Brann takes us to the fierce core of Heraclitus's vision and shows us the music of his language. The thought and beautiful prose in The Logos of Heraclitus are a delight.”—Barry Mazur, Harvard University “An engaged solitary, an inward-turned observer of the world, inventor of the first of philosophical genres, the thought-compacted aphorism,” “teasingly obscure in reputation, but hard-hittingly clear in fact,” “now tersely mordant, now generously humane.” Thus Eva Brann introduces Heraclitus—in her view, the West’s first philosopher. The collected work of Heraclitus comprises 131 passages. Eva Brann sets out to understand Heraclitus as he is found in these passages and particularly in his key word, Logos, the order that is the cosmos. “Whoever is captivated by the revelatory riddlings and brilliant obscurities of what remains of Heraclitus has to begin anew—accepting help, to be sure, from previous readings—in a spirit of receptivity and reserve. But essentially everyone must pester the supposed obscurantist until he opens up. Heraclitus is no less and no more pregnantly dark than an oracle…The upshot is that no interpretation has prevailed; every question is wide open.”

Download or read book The Progress Paradox written by Gregg Easterbrook and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2004-11-09 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook draws upon three decades of wide-ranging research and thinking to make the persuasive assertion that almost all aspects of Western life have vastly improved in the past century–and yet today, most men and women feel less happy than in previous generations. Detailing the emerging science of “positive psychology,” which seeks to understand what causes a person’s sense of well-being, Easterbrook offers an alternative to our culture of crisis and complaint. He makes a compelling case that optimism, gratitude, and acts of forgiveness not only make modern life more fulfilling but are actually in our self-interest. An affirming and constructive way of seeing life anew, The Progress Paradox will change the way you think about your place in the world–and about our collective ability to make it better.

Download or read book Pursuing Justice written by Ken Wytsma and published by Thomas Nelson Inc. This book was released on 2013 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the concept of biblical justice and the meaning of righteousness, using evangelical theology and personal narratives to show the importance of giving one's life away and living with justice, mercy, and humility.

Download or read book Heaven s Queen written by Rachel Bach and published by Orbit. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Badass heroine Devi Morris returns for another action-packed space adventure in the thrilling conclusion to Rachel Bach's Paradox trilogy. From the moment she took a job on Captain Caldswell's doomed ship, Devi Morris's life has been one disaster after another: government conspiracies, two alien races out for her blood, an incurable virus that's eating her alive. Now, with the captain missing and everyone-even her own government-determined to hunt her down, things are going from bad to impossible. The sensible plan would be to hide and wait for things to blow over, but Devi's never been one to shy from a fight, and she's getting mighty sick of running. It's time to put this crisis on her terms and do what she knows is right. But with all human life hanging on her actions, the price of taking a stand might be more than she can pay.

Download or read book Happiness Around the World written by Carol Graham and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-19 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book reviews the theory and concepts of happiness, explaining how these concepts underpin a line of research that is both an attempt to understand the determinants of happiness and a tool for understanding the effects of a host of phenomena on human well being.

Download or read book The Paradox Men written by Charles L. Harness and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Demons in Eden written by Jonathan Silvertown and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the heart of evolution lies a bewildering paradox. Natural selection favors above all the individual that leaves the most offspring—a superorganism of sorts that Jonathan Silvertown here calls the "Darwinian demon." But if such a demon existed, this highly successful organism would populate the entire world with its own kind, beating out other species and eventually extinguishing biodiversity as we know it. Why then, if evolution favors this demon, is the world filled with so many different life forms? What keeps this Darwinian demon in check? If humankind is now the greatest threat to biodiversity on the planet, have we become the Darwinian demon? Demons in Eden considers these questions using the latest scientific discoveries from the plant world. Readers join Silvertown as he explores the astonishing diversity of plant life in regions as spectacular as the verdant climes of Japan, the lush grounds of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, the shallow wetlands and teeming freshwaters of Florida, the tropical rainforests of southeast Mexico, and the Canary Islands archipelago, whose evolutionary novelties—and exotic plant life—have earned it the sobriquet "the Galapagos of botany." Along the way, Silvertown looks closely at the evolution of plant diversity in these locales and explains why such variety persists in light of ecological patterns and evolutionary processes. In novel and useful ways, he also investigates the current state of plant diversity on the planet to show the ever-challenging threats posed by invasive species and humans. Bringing the secret life of plants into more colorful and vivid focus than ever before, Demons in Eden is an empathic and impassioned exploration of modern plant ecology that unlocks evolutionary mysteries of the natural world.

Download or read book Illustrated Special Relativity through Its Paradoxes A Fusion of Linear Algebra Graphics and Reality written by John dePillis and published by American Mathematical Soc.. This book was released on 2013-12-31 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Assuming a minimum of technical expertise beyond basic matrix theory, the authors introduce inertial frames and Minkowski diagrams to explain the nature of simultaneity, why faster-than-light travel is impossible, and the proper way to add velocities. We resolve the twin paradox, the train-in-tunnel paradox, the pra-shooter paradox along with the lesser-known bug-rivet paradox that shows how rigidity is incompatible with special relativity. Since Einstein in his seminal 1905 paper introducing special relativity, acknowledged his debt to Clerk Maxwell, we fully develop Maxwell's four equations that unify the theories of electricity, optics, and magnetism. These equations also lead to a simple calculation for the frame independent speed of electromagnetic waves in a vacuum."--Cover.