Download or read book Beyond Religion and toward Ourselves written by John Martinez and published by Austin Macauley Publishers. This book was released on 2024-02-02 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book serves as a guide for those grappling with the complexities of religious faith, drawing from the author’s own profound journey through doubt and belief. It challenges the concept of an eternal, detachable soul, positing that our consciousness is entirely born of cerebral processes. The absence of such a soul, the book argues, casts significant doubt on the foundational promises of eternal life in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Furthermore, the book advocates for a life lived with full engagement of our human faculties. It suggests that authenticity in life is achieved by operating within our own realities and embracing the responsibility of fulfilling our own needs and desires. It is a call to live deliberately, using our innate attributes and experiences as the primary tools for navigating existence.
Download or read book Beyond Religion written by Dalai Lama XIV Bstan-ʼdzin-rgya-mtsho and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2011 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Beyond Religion" is a stirring call to move beyond religion for the guidance to improve human life on individual, community, and global levels--including a guided meditation practice for cultivating key human values.
Download or read book Beyond Religion and Toward Ourselves written by John Martinez and published by Austin Macauley. This book was released on 2024-02-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book serves as a guide for those grappling with the complexities of religious faith, drawing from the author's own profound journey through doubt and belief. It challenges the concept of an eternal, detachable soul, positing that our consciousness is entirely born of cerebral processes. The absence of such a soul, the book argues, casts significant doubt on the foundational promises of eternal life in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Furthermore, the book advocates for a life lived with full engagement of our human faculties. It suggests that authenticity in life is achieved by operating within our own realities and embracing the responsibility of fulfilling our own needs and desires. It is a call to live deliberately, using our innate attributes and experiences as the primary tools for navigating existence.
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 Religion Toward Spirituality written by Marvin X and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Beyond Religion written by William Irwin Thompson and published by Lindisfarne Books. This book was released on 2013-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an age of religious fundamentalist violence around the world, it is heartening to read poet and cultural historian William Irwin's Thompson's contention that a new form of post-religious spirituality is emerging in our planetary civilization, one that is more appropriate to our new electronic and globally interconnected noetic polities. This little book is a Vade Mecum of the cultural evolutionary news to keep in one's pocket to read along with the day's emotionally manipulative political news. Thompson shows us that, like a dying star in supernova, the explosion of religious violence is a sign of medieval religions' death and not their rebirth. The brilliant thirteenth-century Renaissance that gave us the Gothic Cathedrals and the Convivencia of Christian, Jews, and Muslims in southern Spain was followed by the Black Death and the Inquisition, but the Italian Renaissance still took off in fifteenth-century Florence, as Giotto was followed by Fra Angelico and the syncretic school of Chartres was followed by Cosimo di Medici's Florentine Academy. The Big Picture that the poet and cultural historian can provide enables us to participate in the larger processes of cultural transformation at work in our world. C O N T E N T S Foreword: "Thinking Otherwise on Religion" 1. Child Abuse and the Catholic Church 2. From Shamanism to Religion 3. From Religion to Post-religious Spirituality I 4. From Religion to Post-religious Spirituality II 5. Our Contemporary Cultural Evolution of Spirituality: Modern Integral Tantra Yoga Conclusion: "The End of the Age of Religion and the Emergence of Symbiotic Consciousness"
Download or read book Rethinking Secularism written by Craig Calhoun and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-25 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays examines how ''the secular'' is constituted and understood, and how new understandings of secularism and religion shape analytic perspectives in the social sciences, politics, and international affairs.
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" --
Download or read book Beyond Religion written by Robert Powell and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the need for religion, for a so-called spiritual orientation in life, at all? If living is a natural function, like breathing, then why interfere? Why can we not continue in our naturally more or less hedonistic way? This would be true if our minds were still functioning in their natural ways, free of complexity, flowing with life. This assumption, as we all know, is no longer valid—if it ever was. Our minds are heavily conditioned, fragmented and deep in contradiction. This deep conflict in the mind leads inevitably to conflict in society, and thus to chaos. True religion or spirituality is nothing other than the reversal of this whole process of chaos, conflict, to a state of simplicity, naturalness, and therefore order. —from Beyond Religion
Download or read book Beyond Religion and the Secular written by Wayne Hudson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-11-17 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deploying a distinctive disaggregative approach to the study of 'religion', this volume shows that spiritual movements with extensive counterfactual beliefs have been much more creative than one might expect. Specifically, Wayne Hudson explores the creativity of six spiritual movements: the Bahá'ís, a Persian movement; Soka Gakkai, a Japanese movement; Ananda Marga and the Brahma Kumaris, two reformed Hindu movements; and two controversial American churches, The Church Universal and Triumphant and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most of these movements have counterintuitive features that have led Western scholars making Enlightenment assumptions to dismiss them as irrational and/or inconsequential. However, this book reveals that these movements have responded to modernity in ways that are creative and practical, resulting in a wide range of social, educational and cultural initiatives. Building on research surrounding the ways in which spiritual movements engage in cultural productions, this book takes the international research in a new direction by exploring the utopian intentionality such cultural productions reveal.
Download or read book Beyond Theology written by Alan Watts and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A radical reinterpretation of Christianity by one of the twentieth century’s leading philosophers Today, Alan Watts is remembered mainly as an eloquent interpreter of Eastern philosophies such as Taoism and Zen Buddhism. Not everyone knows that Watts was also a formidable scholar of Christianity who worked as an Episcopal chaplain early in his career. He eventually left the church to find his own spiritual path, but his time there fueled a burst of literary creativity that culminated in Beyond Theology, originally published in 1964 and now back in print. In this landmark work, Watts asks whether a “rigorous, imperious, and invincibly self-righteous” religion such as Christianity can stay relevant in our modern, multicultural world. To answer that question, he deconstructs Christianity by using concepts borrowed from psychology, linguistics, science, and Eastern philosophy. In the process, he solves difficult problems of theology, traces the impact of Christianity on Western culture, and points the way to a new form of nondualistic spirituality. Playing the role of a philosophical jester, Watts artfully deploys paradoxes, riddles, and gently subversive humor to overturn conventional wisdom. His intention is not to hold sacred things up to ridicule but rather to expand our definition of the sacred. The ultimate aim is to help us see beyond the external trappings of religion — beyond ritual, myth, doctrine, and theology itself — to experience the divine within ourselves.
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 Religion Around Virginia Woolf written by Stephanie Paulsell and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2020-01-24 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virginia Woolf was not a religious person in any traditional sense, yet she lived and worked in an environment rich with religious thought, imagination, and debate. From her agnostic parents to her evangelical grandparents, an aunt who was a Quaker theologian, and her friendship with T. S. Eliot, Woolf’s personal circle was filled with atheists, agnostics, religious scholars, and Christian converts. In this book, Stephanie Paulsell considers how the religious milieu that Woolf inhabited shaped her writing in unexpected and innovative ways. Beginning with the religious forms and ideas that Woolf encountered in her family, friendships, travels, and reading, Paulsell explores the religious contexts of Woolf’s life. She shows that Woolf engaged with religion in many ways, by studying, reading, talking and debating, following controversies, and thinking about the relationship between religion and her own work. Paulsell examines the ideas about God that hover around Woolf’s writings and in the minds of her characters. She also considers how Woolf, drawing from religious language and themes in her novels and in her reflections on the practices of reading and writing, created a literature that did, and continues to do, a particular kind of religious work. A thought-provoking contribution to the literature on Woolf and religion, this book highlights Woolf’s relevance to our post-secular age. In addition to fans of Woolf, scholars and general readers interested in religious and literary studies will especially enjoy Paulsell’s well-researched narrative.
Download or read book Finding Purpose and Spirituality Beyond Religion written by Don Theldblocke and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finding Purpose and Spirituality Beyond Religion is about one man's journey of discovery that reveals common truths about what gives life meaning and how to live a more fulfilling life. It started as a letter to his two sons about what he believed about God, religion and spirituality and turned into book about his quest for the truth behind religion, what it really means to be spiritual and how he found out what he could believe in. Theldblocke ties together ancient and modern philosophies about life, as well as what science is learning about the nature of the universe, and shows how well they agree with each other. He weaves insights from ancient Vedic texts, Greek and modern philosophers, world religions, ground breaking psychologists, and the geniuses of modern science into a comprehensive view of the human condition and our relationship with the universe. Theldblocke has created a thought provoking perspective on religion, spirituality, and morality that leads to some amazing conclusions about how life can be lived to the fullest. He creates a modern perspective on spirituality and how it relates to belief in God and religion. Theldblocke realized that the lessons he learned from philosophy and Buddhism could be very useful to a growing world population that is moving away from organized religion. As more people in developed countries become unaffiliated with religion, there is a growing need to instill a common moral and spiritual foundation in today's youth. Many people are beginning to see religious dogma as outdated myths. The world needs a new model of spirituality that aligns with what science understands about the universe we live in. Theldblocke creates a profound concept of true spirituality that transcends classic religion. He describes a way to develop a healthy attitude toward life and how to live morally, ethically and spiritually This is a book you will read again and again, and maybe even give to your children some day.
Download or read book Beyond Religion written by Byron Dawson and published by Archway Publishing. This book was released on 2024-03-26 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond Religion is a thought provoking and critical look at religion and spirituality as concepts inherently embedded in the fabric of our society. Among others, one of the key impetuses of Beyond Religion is the author's view that faith, spirituality and even perspectives of God is due for a bit of reform. Religion and certain traditions must be updated to align contemporary social systems. The author leverages his deep fascination with the concepts of religion and spirituality, and more importantly how these concepts play out in our everyday life and our interaction with others to discuss relevant issues. Additionally, Beyond Religion explores influences of religion and spirituality within our culture, relationships, mental health, economy, and other social dynamics. The author masterfully and artfully uses the concept of Beyond Religion as the basis to engage key historical and cultural dynamics to discuss how the relationship, or lack thereof, between religion and spirituality influence our perspectives.
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.
Download or read book God on Your Own written by Joseph Dispenza and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-12-08 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 written for anyone who has left (or is thinking of leaving) organized religion but wants to continue on a spiritual path. Written by noted author and retreat leader Joseph Dispenza, this book 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.
