Download or read book The Sacred Neuron written by Bowker and published by . This book was released on 2005-02-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Sacred Neuron written by John Bowker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2005-02-25 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do we think that things happen in the way that they do? Why do we think that some things are beautiful, and other things ugly? Why do we think that some things are good, and other things evil? Why do we think that some things are true, and other things false? These are old and traditional questions. In the past they have been answered by separating our emotional from our rational responses. But recent work in the neurosciences suggests that the questions now deserve very different answers. In his fascinating and original new book, John Bowker shows that reason and emotion work much more closely together in forming human opinions and judgements than has previously been supposed. This discovery has stunning implications for the increasingly dangerous relationship between different religions and cultures, and also for the human sense of God. The Sacred Neuron is a masterful survey of some key topics in science and religion, which will be sure to amaze and delight the author's many admirers. 'Whether goodness will survive modernity is one of the most urgent questions of our age. In this lucid and erudite work, John Bowker discovers the surprising outlines of an answer.' - Bryan Appleyard, author and journalist 'Never was a book more timely for the world. Just when it seems that moral absolutes have either been swept away or have staged a frightening and unyielding comeback, John Bowker steps forward to explain how we can find some sure footing in the world of aesthetic and moral ambiguities. Citing the latest scientific research and drawing on cultural references that range from Stravinsky to Bertrand Russell, and from George Orwell to John Betjeman, he offers us new insights into how we can claim something is beautiful or something is good. Then with meticulous scholarship, he traces the origin of religions in the human community and explains how and why the need for them persists. The Sacred Neuron is a seriously impressive book.' – Joan Bakewell, writer and broadcaster 'Scholarship of this quality is so rare, particularly in the domain of "science and religion". Bowker's discussion of 'truth' and its relevance to an understanding of the world's religions and the animosities between them is replete with a poignant wisdom, born of his great understanding of so many religious traditions. The Sacred Neuron is an eloquent testimony to the value of informed interdisciplinary reflection.' - John Hedley Brooke, Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion, University of Oxford 'The Sacred Neuron is a rare mixture of intellectual, religious, aesthetic and ethical history and theology, all enhanced by John Bowker's special compound of meticulous scholarship and deep faith. The book is brave and broad. Reading it mingles fascination with pleasure.' - Peter Hennessy, Attlee Professor of Contemporary History, Queen Mary, University of London 'The Sacred Neuron is one of the first books to take seriously the impact of modern neuroscience on how our perception of the external world must affect our understanding of emotion, rationality, ethics and religion. With great charm and humour, and with extraordinary breadth of scholarship, Bowker shows how religious experience might be said to have meaning in the twenty-first century. His book will become a classic.' - Mark Williams, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Oxford

Download or read book The Sacred Neuron written by John Bowker and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Sacred Cosmos written by Terence L. Nichols and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2009-01-07 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this careful and closely argued book, Terence Nichols presents a vigorous challenge to naturalistic thinking. We are offered the persuasive vision of a world of many-leveled richness, whose Creator is continually active within its unfolding history." --John Polkinghorne, University of Cambridge "This is a uniquely valuable work for our time. The Sacred Cosmos takes on the ambitious task of a synthesis of the contributions of contemporary science, basic Thomistic philosophy of being and the human person, and basic themes of Christian theology on God, creation, and the relations between God and the world. The author, a theologian, brings to his task an amazing background and range of competence both in contemporary science and . . . Christian theology. . . . The most valuable part of the book is the author's powerful and cogent critique of the widely influencial 'scientific naturalism' of our day, which claims the only reliable way of knowing is that of modern science, and all that exists can be explained by the evolving interaction of material elements, leaving no place for anything of the spiritual order, like the human soul, moral values, or God." --W. Norris Clarke, S.J., Fordham University "In this sensible and solid reply to scientific atheism (or 'naturalism'), Nichols charts the way for a new harmony between science and spirituality. I recommend it to anyone interested in the interaction of religion and science." --Alan Padgett, author of Science and the Study of God: A Mutuality Model for Theology and Science

Download or read book The Sacred Depths of Nature written by Ursula Goodenough and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "When people talk about religion, most soon mention the major religious traditions of our times, but then, thinking further, most mention as well the religions of Indigenous peoples and of such vanished civilizations as ancient Greece and Egypt and Persia. That is, we have come to understand that there are-and have been-many different religions; anthropologists estimate the total in the thousands. They also estimate that there have been thousands of human cultures, which is to say that the making of a culture and the making of its religion go together: each religion is embedded in its cultural history. True, certain religions have attempted, and variously succeeded, in crossing cultural boundaries to "convert the heathens," but the invaded cultures usually put their unmistakable stamp on what they import, as evinced by the pulsating percussive Catholic masses sung in Africa. In the end, each of these religions addresses two fundamental human concerns: How Things Are and Which Things Matter. How Things Are is articulated as a Cosmology or Cosmos: How the natural world came to be, how humans came to be, what happens after we die, the origins of evil and tragedy and natural disaster and love. Which Things Matter becomes codified as a Morality or Ethos: the Judaic Ten Commandments, the Christian Sermon on the Mount, the Five Pillars of Islam, the Buddhist Vinaya, the Confucian Five Relations, and the understandings inherent in numerous Indigenous traditions. The role of a religion is to integrate the Cosmology and the Morality, to render the cosmological narrative so rich and compelling that it elicits our allegiance and our commitment to its attendant moral understandings. As a culture evolves, a distinctive Cosmos and Ethos appears in its co-evolving religion. For billions of us, back to the early humans, the stories, ceremonies and art associated with our religions-of-origin have been central to our lives. I stand in awe of these religions. I have no need to take on their contradictions or immiscibility, any more than I would quarrel with the fact that Scottish bagpipe ceremonies coexist with Japanese tea ceremonies. And indeed, the failure of Soviet Marxism to obliterate Russian Orthodoxy, and of Maoism to obliterate Buddhism, Confucianism, or Daoism, and of Christianity to obliterate Indigenous understandings, reminds us that projects designed to overthrow religious traditions face strong headwinds"--

Download or read book The Believing Brain written by Michael Shermer and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-05-24 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Believing Brain is bestselling author Michael Shermer's comprehensive and provocative theory on how beliefs are born, formed, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished. In this work synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist, historian of science, and the world's best-known skeptic Michael Shermer upends the traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first and explanations for beliefs follow. The brain, Shermer argues, is a belief engine. From sensory data flowing in through the senses, the brain naturally begins to look for and find patterns, and then infuses those patterns with meaning. Our brains connect the dots of our world into meaningful patterns that explain why things happen, and these patterns become beliefs. Once beliefs are formed the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive-feedback loop of belief confirmation. Shermer outlines the numerous cognitive tools our brains engage to reinforce our beliefs as truths. Interlaced with his theory of belief, Shermer provides countless real-world examples of how this process operates, from politics, economics, and religion to conspiracy theories, the supernatural, and the paranormal. Ultimately, he demonstrates why science is the best tool ever devised to determine whether or not a belief matches reality.

Download or read book The Sacred Balance written by David Suzuki and published by Greystone Books Ltd. This book was released on 2007 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation This special 10th-anniversary edition reexamines our place in the natural world in light of sweeping environmental changes and recent advances in scientific knowledge. Since The Sacred Balance was first published in 1997 global warming has become a major issue, with alarming effects being observed on all continents and in the world's oceans. Scientists have also made significant discoveries in various realms, including the state of world ecosystems, the science behind the mother/baby interaction, and the workings of the brain. In this new and extensively revised and amplified edition of his bestselling book, David Suzuki reflects on these changes and examines what they mean for our place in the world. His basic message remains the same: we are creatures of the Earth, utterly dependent on its elements, which are not just external factors, but incorporated into our very essence. All royalties from The Sacred Balance go to the David Suzuki Foundation.

Download or read book The Messenger of the Sacred Heart of Jesus written by and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page 1148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reinventing the Sacred written by Stuart A Kauffman and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-01-10 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consider the woven integrated complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awe-inspiring to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell, or to consider that the living organism was created by the evolving biosphere? As the eminent complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman explains in this ambitious and groundbreaking new book, people who do not believe in God have largely lost their sense of the sacred and the deep human legitimacy of our inherited spirituality. For those who believe in a Creator God, no science will ever disprove that belief. In Reinventing the Sacred, Kauffman argues that the science of complexity provides a way to move beyond reductionist science to something new: a unified culture where we see God in the creativity of the universe, biosphere, and humanity. Kauffman explains that the ceaseless natural creativity of the world can be a profound source of meaning, wonder, and further grounding of our place in the universe. His theory carries with it a new ethic for an emerging civilization and a reinterpretation of the divine. He asserts that we are impelled by the imperative of life itself to live with faith and courage-and the fact that we do so is indeed sublime. Reinventing the Sacred will change the way we all think about the evolution of humanity, the universe, faith, and reason.

Download or read book The NEURON Book written by Nicholas T. Carnevale and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-12 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authoritative reference on NEURON, the simulation environment for modeling biological neurons and neural networks that enjoys wide use in the experimental and computational neuroscience communities. This book shows how to use NEURON to construct and apply empirically based models. Written primarily for neuroscience investigators, teachers, and students, it assumes no previous knowledge of computer programming or numerical methods. Readers with a background in the physical sciences or mathematics, who have some knowledge about brain cells and circuits and are interested in computational modeling, will also find it helpful. The NEURON Book covers material that ranges from the inner workings of this program, to practical considerations involved in specifying the anatomical and biophysical properties that are to be represented in models. It uses a problem-solving approach, with many working examples that readers can try for themselves.

Download or read book Some Wine and Honey for Simon written by A. Joseph Ferrara and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-04-24 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume celebrates the life and work of the late Simon B. Parker (1940-2006), the Harrell F. Beck Scholar of Hebrew Scripture at the School of Theology and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Boston University. Contributors Edward L. Greenstein Mark S. Smith Karel van der Toorn Steve A. Wiggins N. Wyatt Katheryn Pfisterer Darr David Marcus Herbert B. Huffmon Bernard F. Batto Tim Koch F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp Amy Limpitlaw

Download or read book A Man of Many Parts written by Eugene E. Lemcio and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2015-03-19 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays by colleagues, former students, and friends illustrates something of the breadth and depth of subjects that have engaged the life and thought of the Reverend Doctor John Westerdale Bowker. His clerical and academic appointments in Cambridge, Lancaster, London, and North America further illustrate the integrative nature of his spiritual and intellectual way of being and acting.

Download or read book The Spirit of the Child written by David Hay and published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. This book was released on 2006-01-19 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spirituality is increasingly acknowledged to be an essential part of child development. David Hay argues for the inclusion of spiritual awareness as a cross-curricular element in the school syllabus to promote the development of morality and social cohesion. While culturally constructed pressures and the decline in institutional religion have led to the suppression of spiritual expression, children are, the author maintains, capable of profound and meaningful beliefs from an early age. A three-year research study into young children's spirituality and its survival value informs Hay's view that spirituality in education needs to overcome traditional approaches and should adopt a theory of spirituality that includes religion but is not confined to it. This stimulating book will encourage educators, parents and others involved in teaching children to consider new approaches to foster children's natural spiritual development.

Download or read book Minds Behind the Brain written by Stanley Finger and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illustrated with over a hundred halftones and drawings, this volume presents a series of profiles that trace the evolution of our knowledge about the brain. Beginning with the ancient Egyptian study of the marrow of the skull, it takes us on a journey from the classical world of Hippocrates to modern researchers such as Sperry.

Download or read book Neuroscience Exploring the Brain Enhanced Edition written by Mark Bear and published by Jones & Bartlett Learning. This book was released on 2020-03-25 with total page 1018 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed for its clear, friendly style, excellent illustrations, leading author team, and compelling theme of exploration, Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain, Fourth Edition takes a fresh, contemporary approach to the study of neuroscience, emphasizing the biological basis of behavior. The authors’ passion for the dynamic field of neuroscience is evident on every page, engaging students and helping them master the material. In just a few years, the field of neuroscience has been transformed by exciting new technologies and an explosion of knowledge about the brain. The human genome has been sequenced, sophisticated new methods have been developed for genetic engineering, and new methods have been introduced to enable visualization and stimulation of specific types of nerve cells and connections in the brain. The Fourth Edition has been fully updated to reflect these and other rapid advances in the field, while honoring its commitment to be student-friendly with striking new illustrati

Download or read book Religion and the Philosophy of Life written by Gavin Flood and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-14 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion and the Philosophy of Life considers how religion as the source of civilization transforms the fundamental bio-sociology of humans through language and the somatic exploration of religious ritual and prayer. Gavin Flood offers an integrative account of the nature of the human, based on what contemporary scientists tell us, especially evolutionary science and social neuroscience, as well as through the history of civilizations. Part one contemplates fundamental questions and assumptions: what the current state of knowledge is concerning life itself; what the philosophical issues are in that understanding; and how we can explain religion as the driving force of civilizations in the context of human development within an evolutionary perspective. It also addresses the question of the emergence of religion and presents a related study of sacrifice as fundamental to religions' views about life and its transformation. Part two offers a reading of religions in three civilizational blocks—India, China, and Europe/the Middle East—particularly as they came to formation in the medieval period. It traces the history of how these civilizations have thematised the idea of life itself. Part three then takes up the idea of a life force in part three and traces the theme of the philosophy of life through to modern times. On the one hand, the book presents a narrative account of life itself through the history of civilizations, and on the other presents an explanation of that narrative in terms of life.

Download or read book The Importance of Religion written by Gavin Flood and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-12-27 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Importance of Religion reveals the significance of religion in modern times, showing how it provides people with meaning to their lives and helps guide them in their everyday moral choices Provides readers with a new understanding of religion, demonstrating how in its actions, texts and world views religion is enduring and vividly engages with the mystery of the world Offers striking arguments about the relationship of religion to science, art and politics Engagingly written by a highly respected scholar of religion with an international reputation