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Author: Rupert Shortt
Publisher: SPCK
ISBN: 0281078726
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 59
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Book Description
History is littered with wars and atrocities apparently inspired by religion, and today there seems no end to reports of cruelty and violence carried out in the name of God. But is it belief in God that motivates these evils? Or do they spring from other motives? At the same time, history testifies to numerous benefits to humanity brought about by religious individuals and movements. But despite these positive outcomes might it be true, as some atheists aver, that religion in general does more harm than good? Is religion itself inherently toxic? Or could it simply be that there is good religion and there is bad religion, and we just need to learn to tell the difference? Rupert Shortt's investigation of these questions will encourage both believers and unbelievers to discard the lazy thinking and easy assumptions that so often disfigure the arguments on either side of this debate. It will also facilitate a more sensitive, nuanced and honest approach to religious differences that today still lead to misunderstanding, hatred and violent conflict.
Author: Rupert Shortt
Publisher: SPCK
ISBN: 0281078726
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 59
Get Book Here
Book Description
History is littered with wars and atrocities apparently inspired by religion, and today there seems no end to reports of cruelty and violence carried out in the name of God. But is it belief in God that motivates these evils? Or do they spring from other motives? At the same time, history testifies to numerous benefits to humanity brought about by religious individuals and movements. But despite these positive outcomes might it be true, as some atheists aver, that religion in general does more harm than good? Is religion itself inherently toxic? Or could it simply be that there is good religion and there is bad religion, and we just need to learn to tell the difference? Rupert Shortt's investigation of these questions will encourage both believers and unbelievers to discard the lazy thinking and easy assumptions that so often disfigure the arguments on either side of this debate. It will also facilitate a more sensitive, nuanced and honest approach to religious differences that today still lead to misunderstanding, hatred and violent conflict.
Author: Nicky Gumbel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781909309128
Category : Christianity
Languages : en
Pages : 26
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Book Description
A Christian response to the question, 'Does religion do more harm than good?'
Author: Stephen T. Asma
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190469692
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
How we feel is as vital to our survival as how we think. This claim, based on the premise that emotions are largely adaptive, serves as the organizing theme of Why We Need Religion. This book is a novel pathway in a well-trodden field of religious studies and philosophy of religion. Stephen Asma argues that, like art, religion has direct access to our emotional lives in ways that science does not. Yes, science can give us emotional feelings of wonder and the sublime--we can feel the sacred depths of nature--but there are many forms of human suffering and vulnerability that are beyond the reach of help from science. Different emotional stresses require different kinds of rescue. Unlike secular authors who praise religion's ethical and civilizing function, Asma argues that its core value lies in its emotionally therapeutic power. No theorist of religion has failed to notice the importance of emotions in spiritual and ritual life, but truly systematic research has only recently delivered concrete data on the neurology, psychology, and anthropology of the emotional systems. This very recent "affective turn" has begun to map out a powerful territory of embodied cognition. Why We Need Religion incorporates new data from these affective sciences into the philosophy of religion. It goes on to describe the way in which religion manages those systems--rage, play, lust, care, grief, and so on. Finally, it argues that religion is still the best cultural apparatus for doing this adaptive work. In short, the book is a Darwinian defense of religious emotions and the cultural systems that manage them.
Author: Terri Daniel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780962306204
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
Author: Bruce Sheiman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101082275
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 221
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Book Description
A new perspective. Defending religion as a cultural institution in the face of resurgent atheistic thought For centuries, the theism-atheism debate has been dominated by two positions: stringent believers committed to the "yes, there is a God" argument, and atheists vehemently driven to repudiate not only God, but also religion as a cultural institution. To date, this is the first and only mainstream book in which a nonbeliever criticizes atheism and affirms religion. An Atheist Defends Religion persuasively argues that religion is overwhelmingly beneficial for humanity, regardless of whether God exists, based on a new paradigm of 10 affirmative dimensions that make up religious experience. It also puts to rest the theory that religion is behind most of the world's sectarian violence by showing that religion becomes evil when it is politicized. Readers will learn they do not have to be fundamentalists to be believers, and about the value and benefits of religion itself.
Author: Antony Loewenstein
Publisher: Macmillan Publishers Aus.
ISBN: 1743289138
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 359
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Book Description
Four Australian thinkers come together to ask and answer the big questions, such as: What is the nature of the universe? Doesn't religion cause most of the conflict in the world? and Where do we find hope? We are introduced to the detail of different belief systems - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - and to the argument that atheism, like organised religion, has its own compelling logic. And we gain insight into the life events that led each author to their current position. Jane Caro flirted briefly with spiritual belief, inspired by 19th century literary heroines such as Elizabeth Gaskell and the Brontë sisters. Antony Lowenstein is proudly culturally, yet unconventionally, Jewish. Simon Smart is firmly and resolutely a Christian, but one who has had some of his most profound spiritual moments while surfing. Rachel Woodlock grew up in the alternative embrace of Baha'i belief but became entranced by its older parent religion, Islam. Provocative, informative and passionately argued, For God's Sake encourages us to accept religious differences but to also challenge more vigorously the beliefs that create discord.
Author: Keith Ward
Publisher: Lion Books
ISBN: 0745959490
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Many commentators today claim that religion is dangerous and harmful. In addressing this question, Keith Ward begins by defining what religion actually is and how most human harm has been caused. He then looks at why people say that religion is dangerous, focusing particularly on religious wars and conflicts and on specific attacks on religion, such as the claims that God is wrathful, that religion is intolerant, that religious morality is primitive and cruel. Keith Ward argues that religion produces great good - for example, in terms of hospitals, the abolition of slavery, great art and music, moral heroism, and philosophy and science. Religion, he concludes, is the best rational basis for morality.
Author: Brian Leiter
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140085234X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 215
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Book Description
Why it's wrong to single out religious liberty for special legal protections This provocative book addresses one of the most enduring puzzles in political philosophy and constitutional theory—why is religion singled out for preferential treatment in both law and public discourse? Why are religious obligations that conflict with the law accorded special toleration while other obligations of conscience are not? In Why Tolerate Religion?, Brian Leiter shows why our reasons for tolerating religion are not specific to religion but apply to all claims of conscience, and why a government committed to liberty of conscience is not required by the principle of toleration to grant exemptions to laws that promote the general welfare.
Author: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551991764
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.
Author: Alister McGrath
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830868739
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 120
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Book Description
Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath present a reliable assessment of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, famed atheist and scientist, and the many questions this book raises--including, above all, the relevance of faith and the quest for meaning.
