Download or read book Beyond Belief written by James McDonald and published by Ithaca Press (GB). This book was released on 2009-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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."--Amazon website.
Download or read book No Sacred Place written by ivan hugh walters and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2011-09-12 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No Sacred Place offers a critical study of social injustice done at the behest of law and religion in the context of cultural politics in Christianized societies. Author Ivan Walters theorizes the causes of social injustice and oppression of marginalized peoples as found in the law and Christian theology in both modern and post-modern cultural politics. He advances a theory of redemption through a transgressive discourse that challenges most of the traditional assumptions of Eurocentric Christianity and jurisprudence. Walters sees law and religion as two powerful, politico-cultural institutions that must be kept in check in order to protect the rights of those who are marginalized by the society. History reveals a litany of horrors that have been perpetrated on marginalized peoples by both religious bigotry and the law. Through theological and jurisprudential theoretical inquiries, Walters advocates a thesis of at-one-ment through the historical Christus instead of the Christianitys bastardized version of the Christus. His thesis then is grounded in a theory of challenge and resistance to oppression and the advocacy of the possibilities for redemption from oppression. No Sacred Place challenges the church in particular and society in general to create a new social order and right the wrongs of the current system.
Download or read book Out on a Limb written by Andrew Sullivan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "collection of [the author's] greatest arguments on culture, politics, religion, and philosophy"--
Download or read book 24 Reasons to Abandon Christianity written by Charles Bufe and published by See Sharp Press. This book was released on 2022-05-01 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking up where Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great left off, 24 Reasons to Abandon Christianity reveals Christianity's cruelty, dishonesty, fear-mongering, hypocrisy, misogyny, homophobia, dogmatism, and authoritarianism, and all of the misery, destruction, and death caused by these things. 24 Reasons to Abandon Christianity also reveals the roots of these characteristics, and why Christianity leads to all of these evils. While the book treats serious topics, its tone—much like Hitchens' book—is analytical, but also breezy and biting.
Download or read book Beyond Belief written by V. S. Naipaul and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-03-22 with total page 535 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. But it is not a book of opinion. It is, in the Naipaul way, a very rich and human book, full of people and their stories: stories of family, both broken and whole; of religion and nation; and of the constant struggle to create a world of virtue and prosperity in equal measure. 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 the non-Arab Islamic states: Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia? How do the converted peoples 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 a gap of seventeen years, to find out how and what the converted preach. ‘Peerless . . . the human encounters are described minutely, superbly, picking up inconsistencies in people’s tales, catching the uncertainties and the nuances . . . there is a candour to his writing, a constant precision at its heart’ – Sunday Times
Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Colm O'gorman and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I was living in a world where a priest who spoke the words of God used me for sex, and there was no-one to tell. The world where this horror happened didn't exist for anyone else.' As a boy in Ireland where everyone -- from among his own neighbours to the powers of church and state -- chose to deny that a priest could sexually assault a child, Colm O'Gorman felt only shame, guilt and fear at the regular rape and abuse he suffered. But Colm would go on to make history, successfully suing the Roman Catholic Church, asking questions of the Pope himself and creating a watershed in history as hundreds more victims found the courage to report their abuse. Beyond Belief is a powerful story of a young man's shame turning to outrage, and demonstrates that -- whatever our past hurts -- there is hope for the future if we are prepared to stand for truth.
Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Jenna Miscavige Hill and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige, was raised as a Scientologist but left the controversial religion in 2005. In Beyond Belief, she shares her true story of life inside the upper ranks of the sect, details her experiences as a member Sea Org—the church's highest ministry, speaks of her "disconnection" from family outside of the organization, and tells the story of her ultimate escape. Piercing the veil of secrecy that has long shrouded the world of Scientology, this insider reveals unprecedented firsthand knowledge of the religion, its obscure rituals, and its mysterious leader—David Miscavige. From her prolonged separation from her parents as a small child to being indoctrinated to serve the greater good of the Church, from her lack of personal freedoms to the organization's emphasis on celebrity recruitment, Jenna goes behind the scenes of Scientology's oppressive and alienating culture, detailing an environment rooted in control in which the most devoted followers often face the harshest punishments when they fall out of line. Addressing some of the Church's most notorious practices in startling detail, she also describes a childhood of isolation and neglect—a childhood that, painful as it was, prepared her for a tough life in the Church's most devoted order, the Sea Org. Despite this hardship, it is only when her family approaches dissolution and her world begins to unravel that she is finally able to see the patterns of stifling conformity and psychological control that have ruled her life. Faced with a heartbreaking choice, she mounts a courageous escape, but not before being put through the ultimate test of family, faith, and love. At once captivating and disturbing, Beyond Belief is an eye-opening exploration of the limits of religion and the lengths to which one woman went to break free.
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 2000 Years and Beyond written by Paul Gifford and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed historical account of the emergence of economic history as an academic discipline in England told through a combination of biography, institutional change and the history of scientific thought and methodology.
Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Philip Stewart and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2014-09-24 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and why does faith so often fade away? Where does it go, and what do you hold on to when it is gone? Between the believer and the unbeliever lies a sort of communicational void--a cultural gap--usually marked by silence or, alternatively, by rage. This extended essay draws on history, literature, and theology as well as personal experience in an attempt to give some kind of account of the demise of belief in terms that a believer can perhaps understand and, in the process, to cover some of the principal reasons why the arguments usually put forward to buttress faith prove to be without force. In the end, faith can enrich a person's life only at the expense of the illusions on which it is based.
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 207 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 Women Beyond Belief written by Karen L. Garst and published by Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA). This book was released on 2016-10-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women have made great strides toward equal rights over the past hundred years, especially in the West. But when considering the ongoing fight over reproductive rights and equal pay—and the prevalence of sexual violence and domestic abuse—it is clear that a significant gap still exists. With scripture often cited as justification for the marginalization of women, it is time to acknowledge that one of the final barriers to full equality for women is religion. Much has been written about the great strides humankind has made in knocking down many long-held religious beliefs, whether related to the age of the earth or the origin of the species. But religion's negative impact on women has been less studied and discussed. This book is a step toward changing that. Twenty-two women from a variety of backgrounds and Judeo-Christian traditions share their personal stories about how they came to abandon organized religion, and how they discovered life after moving away from religious and supernatural beliefs. Their words serve both as a celebration of all who have taken similar steps under the weight of thousands of years of religious history—and as a source of inspiration for those individuals, especially women, who have deep doubts about their own belief traditions but who don't yet know how to embrace life without falling back on religion.
Download or read book Reasonable Faith written by William Lane Craig and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2008 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This updated edition by one of the world's leading apologists presents a systematic, positive case for Christianity that reflects the latest work in the contemporary hard sciences and humanities. Brilliant and accessible.
Download or read book Bad Faith written by Paul Offit and published by . This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Jesus said, “Suffer the children,” faith healing is not what he had in mind
Download or read book The Book of Immortality written by Adam Gollner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of one of the most universal human obsessions charts the rise of longevity science from its alchemical beginnings to modern-day genetic interventions and enters the world of those whose lives are shaped by a belief in immortality.
Download or read book God and the Folly of Faith written by Victor J. Stenger and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at both historical and contemporary contexts, the author argues that religion has played a major role in suppressing scientific pursuit.
Download or read book You Don t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right written by Brad Hirschfield and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2009-03-10 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conflict is an opportunity to learn and grow–and often to grow closer to one another. Brad Hirschfield knows what it means to be a fanatic; he was one. A former activist in the West Bank, he was committed to reconstructing the Jewish state within its biblical borders. Now he is devoted to teaching inclusiveness, celebrating diversity, and delivering a message of acceptance. In You Don’t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right, Rabbi Hirschfield uses his own spiritual journey to help people of all faiths find acceptance and tolerance, as well as a path to peace, understanding, and hope that will appeal to the common wisdom of all religions.
