Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering

Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering PDF Author: Scott Samuelson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022640711X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
This philosophical inquiry into the problem of human suffering is “insightful, informative and deeply humane . . . a genuine pleasure to read” (Times Higher Education). Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that has proved just as inescapable throughout the centuries: Why? In Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering, Scott Samuelson tackles this fundamental question. To do so, he travels through the history of philosophy and religion, while attending closely to the world we live in. Samuelson draws insight from sources that range from Confucius to Bugs Bunny, and from his time teaching philosophy to prisoners to Hannah Arendt’s attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust. Samuelson guides us through various attempts to explain why we suffer, explores the many ways we try to minimize or eliminate suffering, and examines people’s approaches to living with pointless suffering. Ultimately, Samuelson shows, to be fully human means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. And understanding that is itself a step towards acceptance.

Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering

Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering PDF Author: Scott Samuelson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022640711X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Get Book Here

Book Description
This philosophical inquiry into the problem of human suffering is “insightful, informative and deeply humane . . . a genuine pleasure to read” (Times Higher Education). Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that has proved just as inescapable throughout the centuries: Why? In Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering, Scott Samuelson tackles this fundamental question. To do so, he travels through the history of philosophy and religion, while attending closely to the world we live in. Samuelson draws insight from sources that range from Confucius to Bugs Bunny, and from his time teaching philosophy to prisoners to Hannah Arendt’s attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust. Samuelson guides us through various attempts to explain why we suffer, explores the many ways we try to minimize or eliminate suffering, and examines people’s approaches to living with pointless suffering. Ultimately, Samuelson shows, to be fully human means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. And understanding that is itself a step towards acceptance.

Meaningless Suffering

Meaningless Suffering PDF Author: David Goodman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003862926
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Does suffering have meaning? The leading scholars and practitioners in Meaningless Suffering engage with this haunting human question through the lenses of psychoanalytic, phenomenological and ethical discourse, all the while holding contemporary social concerns in full view. The authors seek to find ways of speaking about the lived realities and historical moments that make up our social narratives – from the murder of George Floyd to the bird watching incident in Central Park – in order to render visible the entangled forms of the effects of embodiment, ideology, race, social practice, and intersectionality. Meaningless Suffering is bookended by powerful pieces by Mari Ruti and Homi K. Bhabha and, in the intervening chapters, the reader traverses the ideas of Augustine, Judith Butler, Fanon, Foucault, Freud, Gendlin, Heidegger, Lacan, Levinas, and Wittgenstein to pass through the realms of classical thought, affect theory, phenomenology, linguistic studies, relational psychoanalysis, somatic studies, intersubjectivity theory, gender studies, critical theory, and philosophical hermeneutics. This book is essential reading for postgraduate students, scholars, and practitioners working at the intersection of psychoanalysis, race, politics, and culture, as well as students of cultural studies, the humanities, politics, psychology, psychosocial studies, sociology, and social work.

Nietzsche and the Horror of Existence

Nietzsche and the Horror of Existence PDF Author: Philip J. Kain
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739126943
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Nietzsche believed in the horror of existence: a world filled with meaningless sufferingA suffering for no reason at all. He also believed in eternal recurrence, the view that that our lives will repeat infinitely, and that in each life every detail will be exactly the same. Furthermore, it was not enough for Nietzsche that eternal recurrence simply be acceptedA he demanded that it be loved. Thus the philosopher who introduces eternal recurrence is the very same philosopher who also believes in the horror of existence. In this groundbreaking study, Philip Kain develops an insightful account of Nietzsche's strange and paradoxical view that a life of pain and suffering is perhaps the only life it really makes sense to want to live again.

Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality

Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality PDF Author: Richard Schacht
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520083189
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals has become a prominent text of recent Western philosophy. An influence on psychoanalysis, antihistoricism, and poststructuralism and an abiding challenge to ethical theory, the philosopher's book addressed many of the major philosophical problems and possibilities of modernity. In this collection of essays focusing on Nietzsche's book, twenty-five philosophers offer discussions of the book's central themes and concepts. They explore such notions as ressentiment, asceticism, "slave" and "master" moralities, and what Nietzsche calls "genealogy" and its relation to other forms of inquiry in his work.

The Scars That Have Shaped Me

The Scars That Have Shaped Me PDF Author: Vaneetha Rendall Risner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781941114292
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
21 surgeries by age 13. Years in the hospital. Verbal and physical bullying from schoolmates. Multiple miscarriages as a young wife. The death of a child. A debilitating progressive disease. Riveting pain. Abandonment. Unwanted divorce... Vaneetha begged God for grace that would deliver her. But God offered something better: his sustaining grace.

The ‘One Thing’ Is ­Three

The ‘One Thing’ Is ­Three PDF Author: Michael Gaitley, MIC
Publisher: Marian Press - Association of Marian Helpers
ISBN: 1596142766
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
With humor and ease, Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC, deftly unlocks the “one thing,” the key to the Church’s wisdom, and the greatest mystery of the Catholic faith: the Most Holy Trinity. Far from being an academic read, The ‘One Thing’ Is Three makes deep theology accessible to everyday Catholics. Further, it makes even what’s familiar or forgotten new, exciting, and relevant.

A Theology of Suffering

A Theology of Suffering PDF Author: J. Bryson Arthur
Publisher: Langham Publishing
ISBN: 1783687967
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
What if suffering were not arbitrary? Not meaningless, nor a sign of punishment or defeat, but a fundamental element of healing, growth, and triumph? What if suffering were positive? This book is a study and meditation on the nature, origin, and reality of suffering. Contemplating the suffering of Christ and other biblical figures, J. Bryson Arthur investigates a theology of suffering that testifies to its necessity within the plan of God. Bryson reminds us that the nature of suffering is to share fellowship with Christ – to take up one’s cross and follow him. Thus, suffering is not arbitrary but intrinsic to the path God has laid before our feet: a path leading to restoration, wholeness, and fullness of life. An important resource for students of theology, this is also a powerful and hopeful read for anyone seeking meaning in the midst of suffering.

Walking Through Fire

Walking Through Fire PDF Author: Vaneetha Rendall Risner
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 1400218128
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The astonishing, Job-like story of how an existence filled with loss, suffering, questioning, and anger became a life filled with shocking and incomprehensible peace and joy. Vaneetha Risner contracted polio as an infant, was misdiagnosed, and lived with widespread paralysis. She lived in and out of the hospital for ten years and, after each stay, would return to a life filled with bullying. When she became a Christian, though, she thought things would get easier, and they did: carefree college days, a dream job in Boston, and an MBA from Stanford where she met and married a classmate. But life unraveled. Again. She had four miscarriages. Her son died because of a doctor's mistake. And Vaneetha was diagnosed with post-polio syndrome, meaning she would likely become a quadriplegic. And then her husband betrayed her and moved out, leaving her to raise two adolescent daughters alone. This was not the abundant life she thought God had promised her. But, as Vaneetha discovered, everything she experienced was designed to draw her closer to Christ as she discovered "that intimacy with God in suffering can be breathtakingly beautiful."

The Courage to Be

The Courage to Be PDF Author: Paul Tillich
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
The Courage to Be introduced issues of theology and culture to a general readership. The book examines ontic, moral, and spiritual anxieties across history and in modernity. The author defines courage as the self-affirmation of one's being in spite of a threat of nonbeing. He relates courage to anxiety, anxiety being the threat of non-being and the courage to be what we use to combat that threat. Tillich outlines three types of anxiety and thus three ways to display the courage to be. Tillich writes that the ultimate source of the courage to be is the "God above God," which transcends the theistic idea of God and is the content of absolute faith (defined as "the accepting of the acceptance without somebody or something that accepts").

A Peculiar Glory

A Peculiar Glory PDF Author: John Piper
Publisher: Crossway
ISBN: 1433552663
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
God has provided a way for all people, not just scholars, to know that the Bible is the Word of God. John Piper has devoted his life to showing us that the glory of God is object of the soul’s happiness. Now, his burden in this book is to demonstrate that this same glory is the ground of the mind’s certainty. God’s peculiar glory shines through his Word. The Spirit of God enlightens the eyes of our hearts. And in one self-authenticating sight, our minds are sure and our hearts are satisfied. Justified certainty and solid joy meet in the peculiar glory of God.