Beyond an Absence of Faith

Beyond an Absence of Faith PDF Author: Jonathan M. S. Pearce
Publisher: Onus Books
ISBN: 9780992600006
Category : Ex-church members
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
This anthology of 16 stories, written by former believers who have left their religions, is intended to shed light on what happens to a person, psychologically, emotionally, and even physically, who leaves his or her church. The stories explore the loss of family and friends, the difficulties in adjusting to new paradigms and the fear and relief in discovering one's responsibility for oneself.

Beyond an Absence of Faith

Beyond an Absence of Faith PDF Author: Jonathan M. S. Pearce
Publisher: Onus Books
ISBN: 9780992600006
Category : Ex-church members
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Get Book Here

Book Description
This anthology of 16 stories, written by former believers who have left their religions, is intended to shed light on what happens to a person, psychologically, emotionally, and even physically, who leaves his or her church. The stories explore the loss of family and friends, the difficulties in adjusting to new paradigms and the fear and relief in discovering one's responsibility for oneself.

Women Beyond Belief

Women Beyond Belief PDF Author: Karen L. Garst
Publisher: Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA)
ISBN: 1634310837
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
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.

Religion without God

Religion without God PDF Author: Ronald Dworkin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674728041
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 71

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Book Description
In his last book, Ronald Dworkin addresses questions that men and women have asked through the ages: What is religion and what is God’s place in it? What is death and what is immortality? Based on the 2011 Einstein Lectures, Religion without God is inspired by remarks Einstein made that if religion consists of awe toward mysteries which “manifest themselves in the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, and which our dull faculties can comprehend only in the most primitive forms,” then, he, Einstein, was a religious person. Dworkin joins Einstein’s sense of cosmic mystery and beauty to the claim that value is objective, independent of mind, and immanent in the world. He rejects the metaphysics of naturalism—that nothing is real except what can be studied by the natural sciences. Belief in God is one manifestation of this deeper worldview, but not the only one. The conviction that God underwrites value presupposes a prior commitment to the independent reality of that value—a commitment that is available to nonbelievers as well. So theists share a commitment with some atheists that is more fundamental than what divides them. Freedom of religion should flow not from a respect for belief in God but from the right to ethical independence. Dworkin hoped that this short book would contribute to rational conversation and the softening of religious fear and hatred. Religion without God is the work of a humanist who recognized both the possibilities and limitations of humanity.

A Theology of the Presence and Absence of God

A Theology of the Presence and Absence of God PDF Author: Anthony J. Godzieba
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814663826
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
In a consumer-driven and technologized world, can we still experience the mystery of God? This book answers yes by exploring the rich resources of the Christian tradition of thinking and speaking about God. Focusing on God’s dialectical character—divine availability (“presence”) and divine excess (“absence”)—and the belief that “God is love” (1 John 4:16), professor Anthony J. Godzieba tracks how God became a problem in Western culture, then responds by showing how human experience is open to divine transcendence and how that openness encounters the revelation of God as Trinity. The book’s contemporary edge comes from its insistence that belief as embodied performance is the most authentic way to participate in the mystery of God’s love, which is “the answer to the mystery of the world and human beings” (Walter Kasper).

My Bright Abyss

My Bright Abyss PDF Author: Christian Wiman
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374216789
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
A passionate meditation on the consolations and disappointments of religion and poetry

Reasonable Faith

Reasonable Faith PDF Author: William Lane Craig
Publisher: Crossway
ISBN: 1433501155
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
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.

A History of Creeds and Confessions of Faith in Christendom and Beyond

A History of Creeds and Confessions of Faith in Christendom and Beyond PDF Author: William Alexander Curtis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Creeds
Languages : en
Pages : 534

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Book Description


In the Absence of God

In the Absence of God PDF Author: Sam Keen
Publisher: Harmony
ISBN: 0307462315
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
In his new book, bestselling author Sam Keen challenges the notions and habits we’ve formed about religion over the centuries in order for us to build a deeper faith, that is relevant today. He asks: * How has religion failed us?. * Must we choose between dogmatic religion and atheism? * How might religion unite rather than divide us? The answers, Keen discovers, point the way back to the primal emotions, to the life-giving sense of dwelling in the presence of the sacred.. In the Absence of God sets out to recover the elemental experience of the sacred in everyday life. By appreciating emotions like wonder, gratitude, anxiety, joy, grief, reverence, compassion, outrage, hope and humility we may once again find ourselves in the presence of an unknowable but all present G-D. We may also regain the commonalities between Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other spirit traditions and end the contentious differences that have divided them and our world.

Beyond Belief

Beyond Belief PDF Author: V. S. Naipaul
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1447210638
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 535

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Book Description
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

Beyond Belief

Beyond Belief PDF Author: Robert P. Vande Kappelle
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1620324741
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
The current age marks the transition from modernity to postmodernity, a period as impactful to the Western sensibility as any previous era. The role of religion and the future of Christianity are at stake. At this time of transition, many thoughtful individuals find themselves at a quandary, having reached a critical stage in their spiritual journey. Prompted by academia, science, reason, culture, and their own experience, they feel compelled to choose between the beliefs they inherited as children and the claims of science, reason, pluralism, and secularism. Beyond Belief suggests that one need not take an either/or approach on these issues; there is a better way, one that embraces adventure and ambiguity, science and religion, reason and faith, evolution and creation, and finds ways to live creatively with realities for which there are no easy explanations. Building on a paradigmatic journey of faith that involves three stages (precritical, critical, and postcritical understanding), Beyond Belief describes the quest for God and for authentic faith in the twenty-first century. The key point for this understanding is to replace belief with faith, acknowledging that belief in doctrines is not central, since they are themselves unprovable. This new theological perspective requires rethinking many of our cherished doctrines, including our understanding of God, Jesus, Scripture, prayer, miracles, and revelation.