Download or read book The Significance of Religious Experience written by Howard Wettstein and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-12 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume of essays, Howard Wettstein explores the foundations of religious commitment. His orientation is broadly naturalistic, but not in the mode of reductionism or eliminativism. This collection explores questions of broad religious interest, but does so through a focus on the author's religious tradition, Judaism. Among the issues explored are the nature and role of awe, ritual, doctrine, religious experience; the distinction between belief and faith; problems of evil and suffering with special attention to the Book of Job and to the Akedah, the biblical story of the binding of Isaac; the virtue of forgiveness. One of the book's highlights is its literary (as opposed to philosophical) approach to theology that at the same time makes room for philosophical exploration of religion. Another is Wettstein's rejection of the usual picture that sees religious life as sitting atop a distinctive metaphysical foundation, one that stands in need of epistemological justification.
Download or read book Picturing Religious Experience written by Daniel W. Doerksen and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Picturing Religious Experience studies Herbert's poetry in relation to the writings of John Calvin and maintains that Herbert owes to his religious orientation not just themes or details, but an impulse to observe and depict the inner life, and scriptural patterns which significantly contribute to the substance and literary excellence of The Temple.
Download or read book The Varieties of Religious Experience A Study in Human Nature written by William James and published by Xist Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-04 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Best Nonfiction Masterpiece of the 20th Century? “There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other.” - William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature is not a book about a specific religion. The author, psychologist Williams James does not try to convince the reader one religion is better than the other. He doesn’t even make a case for atheism and the scientific approach. The book is in fact about human nature and how we experience religion at a psychological level. Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes
Download or read book Picturing Religious Experience written by Daniel Doerksen and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-10 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Little has been said about the relationship of Herbert’s writings to those of John Calvin, yet the latter were abundant and influential in Herbert’s Church of England. Accordingly Picturing Religious Experience studies Herbert’s poetry in relation to those writings, particularly regarding “spiritual conflicts,” which the poet himself said would be found depicted in his book of poems. Much more than is generally realized, Calvin wrote about the experience of living the Christian life—which is also Herbert’s subject in many of his poems. Altogether, this study maintains that Herbert owes to his religious orientation not just themes or details, but an impulse to observe and depict the inner life, and scriptural patterns which significantly contribute to the substance and literary excellence of The Temple. Published by University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
Download or read book The Varieties of Scientific Experience written by Carl Sagan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-11-02 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Ann Druyan has unearthed a treasure. It is a treasure of reason, compassion, and scientific awe. It should be the next book you read.” —Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith “A stunningly valuable legacy left to all of us by a great human being. I miss him so.” —Kurt Vonnegut Carl Sagan's prophetic vision of the tragic resurgence of fundamentalism and the hope-filled potential of the next great development in human spirituality The late great astronomer and astrophysicist describes his personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. Exhibiting a breadth of intellect nothing short of astounding, Sagan presents his views on a wide range of topics, including the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets, creationism and so-called intelligent design, and a new concept of science as "informed worship." Originally presented at the centennial celebration of the famous Gifford Lectures in Scotland in 1985 but never published, this book offers a unique encounter with one of the most remarkable minds of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Picturing Faith written by Colleen McDannell and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Henri Peyre (1901-1988), a giant figure in French studies, did more to introduce Americans to the modern literature and culture of French than any other person. Sterling Professor and chair of the French Department of Yale University for more than four decades, Peyre was also the author of forty-four books, a brilliant speaker, and a mentor to two generations of students. He left enormous legacies as both teacher and scholar. Peyre also left a large and fascinating body of correspondence. This collection of his letters documents the era in which he lived. His lively letters also bear witness to the vast network of his friends and colleagues, including such major post-war literary figures as Robert Penn Warren, Andre Gide, and Andre Malraux.
Download or read book The Wisdom to Doubt written by J. L. Schellenberg and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wisdom to Doubt is a major contribution to the contemporary literature on the epistemology of religious belief. Continuing the inquiry begun in his previous book, Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion, J. L. Schellenberg here argues that given our limitations and especially our immaturity as a species, there is no reasonable choice but to withhold judgment about the existence of an ultimate salvific reality. Schellenberg defends this conclusion against arguments from religious experience and naturalistic arguments that might seem to make either religious belief or religious disbelief preferable to his skeptical stance. In so doing, he canvasses virtually all of the important recent work on the epistemology of religion. Of particular interest is his call for at least skepticism about theism, the most common religious claim among philosophers. The Wisdom to Doubt expands the author's well-known hiddenness argument against theism and situates it within a larger atheistic argument, itself made to serve the purposes of his broader skeptical case. That case need not, on Schellenberg's view, lead to a dead end but rather functions as a gateway to important new insights about intellectual tasks and religious possibilities.
Download or read book Living with a Wild God written by Barbara Ehrenreich and published by Twelve. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed comes a brave, frank, and exquisitely written memoir that will change the way you see the world. Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the most important thinkers of our time. Educated as a scientist, she is an author, journalist, activist, and advocate for social justice. In Living With a Wild God, she recounts her quest-beginning in childhood-to find ""the Truth"" about the universe and everything else: What's really going on? Why are we here? In middle age, she rediscovered the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence, which records an event so strange, so cataclysmic, that she had never, in all the intervening years, written or spoken about it to anyone. It was the kind of event that people call a ""mystical experience""-and, to a steadfast atheist and rationalist, nothing less than shattering. In Living With a Wild God, Ehrenreich reconstructs her childhood mission, bringing an older woman's wry and erudite perspective to a young girl's impassioned obsession with the questions that, at one point or another, torment us all. The result is both deeply personal and cosmically sweeping-a searing memoir and a profound reflection on science, religion, and the human condition. With her signature combination of intellectual rigor and uninhibited imagination, Ehrenreich offers a true literary achievement-a work that has the power not only to entertain but amaze.
Download or read book Am I Just My Brain written by Sharon Dirckx and published by The Good Book Company. This book was released on 2019-05-01 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at the body, mind and soul to answer the question: What exactly is a human being? Modern research is uncovering more and more detail of what our brain is and how it works. We are living, thinking creatures who carry around with us an amazing organic supercomputer in our heads. But what is the relationship between our brains and our minds-and ultimately our sense of identity as a person? Are we more than machines? Is free-will an illusion? Do we have a soul? Brain Imaging Scientist Sharon Dirckx lays out the current understanding of who we are from biologists, philosophers, theologians and psychologists, and points towards a bigger picture that suggests answers to the fundamental questions of our existence. Not just "What am I?", but "Who am I?"-and "Why am I?" Read this book to gain valuable insight into what modern research is telling us about ourselves, or to give a sceptical friend to challenge the idea that we are merely material beings living in a material world.
Download or read book The Big Picture Making Sense Out of Life and Religion written by Sean Williams and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book points out the undeniable similarities between The Gospel of Thomas, the psychedelic experience, the mystic path, and the near death experience in order to put together the big picture and expose the truth about our existence. Can you put together the similarities and understand the TRUTH that organized religion and the government have sought to keep from us? Do you have the ears to HEAR?
Download or read book Perceiving God written by William P. Alston and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1993-09-29 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Perceiving God, William P. Alston offers a clear and provocative account of the epistemology of religious experience. He argues that the "perception of God"—his term for direct experiential awareness of God—makes a major contribution to the grounds of religious belief. Surveying the variety of reported direct experiences of God among laypersons and famous mystics, Alston demonstrates that a person can be justified in holding certain beliefs about God on the basis of mystical experience. Through the perception that God is sustaining one in being, for example, one can justifiably believe that God is indeed sustaining one in being. Alston offers a detailed discussion of our grounds for taking sense perception and other sources of belief—including introspection, memory, and mystical experience—to be reliable and to confer justification. He then uses this epistemic framework to explain how our perceptual beliefs about God can be justified. Alston carefully addresses objections to his chief claims, including problems posed by non-Christian religious traditions. He also examines the way in which mystical perception fits into the larger picture of grounds for religious belief. Suggesting that religious experience, rather than being a purely subjective phenomenon, has real cognitive value, Perceiving God will spark intense debate and will be indispensable reading for those interested in philosophy of religion, epistemology, and philosophy of mind, as well as for theologians.
Download or read book Varieties of African American Religious Experience written by Anthony B. Pinn and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2017-10-15 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty years ago, Anthony Pinn‘s engrossing survey highlighted the rich diversity of black religious life in America, revealing expressions of an ever-changing black religious quest. Based on extensive research, travel, and interviews, Pinn‘s work provides a fascinating look especially at Voodoo, Santeria, the Nation of Islam, and black humanism in the United States and uses the diversity of religious belief to begin formulation of a comparative black theology-the first of its kind. This twentieth-anniversary edition is an expanded version, including a new preface and a new concluding chapter. An important contribution to classroom studies!
Download or read book The Psychology of Religious Experience written by Edward Scribner Ames and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
Download or read book The Neuroscience of Religious Experience written by Patrick McNamara and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-11-06 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aimed at researchers and graduate students, this book describes how brain processes support religious expression and provides a current account of the neuroscience of religion.
Download or read book Imagining Religious Toleration written by Alison Conway and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Formerly a site of study reserved for intellectual historians and political philosophers, scholarship on religious toleration, from the perspective of literary scholars, is fairly limited. Largely ignored and understudied techniques employed by writers to influence cultural understandings of tolerance are rich for exploration. In investigating texts ranging from early modern to Romantic, Alison Conway, David Alvarez, and their contributors shed light on what literature can say about toleration, and how it can produce and manage feelings of tolerance and intolerance. Beginning with an overview of the historical debates surrounding the terms "toleration" and "tolerance," this book moves on to discuss the specific contributions that literature and literary modes have made to cultural history, studying the literary techniques that philosophers, theologians, and political theorists used to frame the questions central to the idea and practice of religious toleration. Tracing the rhetoric employed by a wide range of authors, the contributors delve into topics such as conversion as an instrument of power in Shakespeare; the relationship between religious toleration and the rise of Enlightenment satire; and the ways in which writing can act as a call for tolerance.
Download or read book Imagining Religious Communities written by Jennifer B. Saunders and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagining Religious Communities tells the story of the Gupta family through the personal and religious narratives they tell as they create and maintain their extended family and community across national borders. Based on ethnographic research, the book demonstrates the ways that transnational communities are involved in shaping their experiences through narrative performances. Jennifer B. Saunders demonstrates that narrative performances shape participants' social realities in multiple ways: they define identities, they create connections between community members living on opposite sides of national borders, and they help create new homes amidst increasing mobility. The narratives are religious and include epic narratives such as excerpts from the Ramayana as well as personal narratives with dharmic implications. Saunders' analysis combines scholarly understandings of the ways in which performances shape the contexts in which they are told, indigenous comprehension of the power that reciting certain narratives can have on those who hear them, and the theory that social imaginaries define new social realities through expressing the aspirations of communities. Imagining Religious Communities argues that this Hindu community's religious narrative performances significantly contribute to shaping their transnational lives.
Download or read book Picture World written by Rachel Teukolsky and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-08-15 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern media world came into being in the nineteenth century, when machines were harnessed to produce texts and images in unprecedented numbers. In the visual realm, new industrial techniques generated a deluge of affordable pictorial items, mass-printed photographs, posters, cartoons, and illustrations. These alluring objects of the Victorian parlor were miniaturized spectacles that served as portals onto phantasmagoric versions of 'the world.' Although new kinds of pictures transformed everyday life, these ephemeral items have received remarkably little scholarly attention. Picture World shines a welcome new light onto these critically neglected yet fascinating visual objects. They serve as entryways into the nineteenth century's key aesthetic concepts. Each chapter pairs a new type of picture with a foundational keyword in Victorian aesthetics, a familiar term reconceived through the lens of new media. 'Character' appears differently when considered with caricature, in the new comics and cartoons appearing in the mass press in the 1830s; likewise, the book approaches 'realism' through pictorial journalism; 'illustration' via illustrated Bibles; 'sensation' through carte-de-visite portrait photographs; 'the picturesque' by way of stereoscopic views; and 'decadence' through advertising posters. Picture World studies the aesthetic effects of the nineteenth century's media revolution: it uses the relics of a previous era's cultural life to interrogate the Victorian world's most deeply-held values, arriving at insights still relevant in our own media age.
