Returning to Reality

Returning to Reality PDF Author: Paul Tyson
Publisher: Lutterworth Press
ISBN: 0718843541
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Could it be that we have lost touch with some basic human realities in our day of high-tech efficiency, frenetic competition, and ceaseless consumption? Have we turned from the moral, the spiritual, and even the physical realities that make our lives meaningful? These are metaphysical questions -questions about the nature of reality- but they are not abstract questions. These are very down to earth questions that concern power and the collective frameworks of belief and action governing our daily lives. This book is an introduction to the history, theory, and application of Christian metaphysics. Yet this book is not just an introduction, it is also a passionately argued call for a profound change in the contemporary Christian mind. Paul Tyson argues that as Western culture's Christian Platonist understanding of reality was replaced by modern pragmatic realism, we turned not just from one outlook on reality to another, but away from reality itself. This book seeks to show that if we can recover this ancient Christian outlook on reality, reframed for our day, then we will be able to recover a way of life that is in harmony with human and divine truth.

Returning to Reality

Returning to Reality PDF Author: Phillip M. Thompson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1620322528
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 135

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Book Description
This book synthesizes the diverse reflections on technology by monk and spiritual writer Thomas Merton to develop a compelling contemplative critique of the threats and challenges of nuclear war, communication technologies, and biotechnologies that may alter what it means to be human. At the core of his critique, Merton opposes a technological mentality that favors processes of efficiency and utility at the expense of our ultimate purpose, a quest for the wisdom to guide us to the divine source of our being and reality. To counter this modern idolatry, Merton's insights offer a path of reflection, balance, and community. More specifically, Merton offers some constructive approaches and healing possibilities through a balanced approach to work, a careful and intentional managing of technology, and an accessing of the recuperative dimensions of nature. In its conclusion the book brings the insights of these chapters together for a final reflection on how to maintain our humanity and our spiritual integrity in a technological world.

Returning to Reality

Returning to Reality PDF Author: Phillip M. Thompson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781498215589
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book synthesizes the diverse reflections on technology by monk and spiritual writer Thomas Merton to develop a compelling contemplative critique of the threats and challenges of nuclear war, communication technologies, and biotechnologies that may alter what it means to be human. At the core of his critique, Merton opposes a technological mentality that favors processes of efficiency and utility at the expense of our ultimate purpose, a quest for the wisdom to guide us to the divine source of our being and reality. To counter this modern idolatry, Merton's insights offer a path of reflection, balance, and community. More specifically, Merton offers some constructive approaches and healing possibilities through a balanced approach to work, a careful and intentional managing of technology, and an accessing of the recuperative dimensions of nature. In its conclusion the book brings the insights of these chapters together for a final reflection on how to maintain our humanity and our spiritual integrity in a technological world.

Christian Platonism

Christian Platonism PDF Author: Alexander J. B. Hampton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108676472
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 875

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Book Description
Platonism has played a central role in Christianity and is essential to a deep understanding of the Christian theological tradition. At times, Platonism has constituted an essential philosophical and theological resource, furnishing Christianity with an intellectual framework that has played a key role in its early development, and in subsequent periods of renewal. Alternatively, it has been considered a compromising influence, conflicting with the faith's revelatory foundations and distorting its inherent message. In both cases the fundamental importance of Platonism, as a force which Christianity defined itself by and against, is clear. Written by an international team of scholars, this landmark volume examines the history of Christian Platonism from antiquity to the present day, covers key concepts, and engages issues such as the environment, natural science and materialism.

My Reality

My Reality PDF Author: Melissa Rycroft
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451631634
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A memoir by Melissa Rycroft Strickland, star of "The Bachelor, Dancing with the Stars," and special correspondent for "Good Morning America."

The Return to Reality

The Return to Reality PDF Author: Reinhard Clifford Kuhn
Publisher: Librairie Droz
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description


Exploring Reality

Exploring Reality PDF Author: J. C. Polkinghorne
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300130643
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Involved for over thirty years in the politics of Iraq, Ali A. Allawi was a long-time opposition leader against the Baathist regime. In the post-Saddam years, he has held important government positions and participated in crucial national decisions and events. In this book, the former Minister of Defence and Finance draws on his unique personal experience, extensive relationships with members of the main political groups and parties in Iraq, and deep understanding of the history and society of his country to answer the baffling questions that persist about its current crises. What really led the United States to invade Iraq, and why have events failed to unfold as planned? The Occupation of Iraq examines what the U.S. did and didn't know at the time of the invasion, the reasons for the confused and contradictory policies that were enacted, and the emergence of the Iraqi political class during the difficult transition process. The book tracks the growth of the insurgency and illuminates the complex relationships among Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds. Bringing the discussion forward to the reconfiguration of political forces in 2006, Allawi provides in these pages the clearest view to date of the modern history of Iraq and the invasion that changed its course in unpredicted ways.

The Return of the Real

The Return of the Real PDF Author: Hal Foster
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262561075
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
In The Return of the Real Hal Foster discusses the development of art and theory since 1960, and reorders the relation between prewar and postwar avant-gardes. Opposed to the assumption that contemporary art is somehow belated, he argues that the avant-garde returns to us from the future, repositioned by innovative practice in the present. And he poses this retroactive model of art and theory against the reactionary undoing of progressive culture that is pervasive today. After the models of art-as-text in the 1970s and art-as-simulacrum in the 1980s, Foster suggests that we are now witness to a return to the real—to art and theory grounded in the materiality of actual bodies and social sites. If The Return of the Real begins with a new narrative of the historical avant-gard, it concludes with an original reading of this contemporary situation—and what it portends for future practices of art and theory, culture and politics.

BACK TO REALITY

BACK TO REALITY PDF Author: Arto Annila
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789529433643
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description
What is time? What is space? What is matter? What is life? What is consciousness? These fundamental questions may seem distinct, even unrelated. However, take a closer look, and you will find that there is an essential unity to Nature. As surprising as it may be, the same patterns are found everywhere. For instance, the lengths of words vary like the lengths of genes; the strengths of earthquakes vary like those of the impulses in the brain. Innovations spread like epidemics. Mollusk shells, flower heads, cyclones, and galaxies spiral in a similar way. Galileo long ago recognized the universality of these patterns, but the reason for them has remained a mystery until now. This Grand Regularity is explained by the fact that everything that exists is made up of the same primary constituents, quanta of light. Through this insight, we find answers to many foundational questions concerning anything from elementary particles to the expanding universe and from the evolution of biotas to the ascent of cultures. This profound view also sheds light on the fate of humankind. Can we question our beliefs? Can we discern the whole? Are we once again heading toward a new worldview? The author Arto Annila, former professor of biophysics at the University of Helsinki, provides plenty of food for thought with scientific realism, spiced up with personal experiences about the reality of science.

The Illusion of Reality

The Illusion of Reality PDF Author: Howard L. Resnikoff
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461234743
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
The Illusion of Reality was conceived during my tenure as director of the newly established Division of Information Science and Technology at the National Science Foundation in 1979-1981 as a partial response to the need for a textbook for students, both in and out of government, that would pro vide a comprehensive view of information science as a fundamental constitu ent of other more established disciplines with a unity and coherence distinct from computer science, cognitive science, and library science although it is related to all of them. Driven by the advances of information technology, the perception of information science has progressed rapidly: today it seems well understood that information processing biological organisms and informa tion processing electronic machines have something basic in common that may subsume the theory of computation, as well as fundamental parts of physics. This book is primarily intended as a text for an advanced undergraduate or a graduate introduction to information science. The multidisciplinary nature of the subject has naturally led to the inclusion of a considerable amount of background material in various fields. The reader is likely to fmd the treat ment relatively oversimplified in fields with which he is familiar and, perhaps, somewhat heavier sailing in less familiar waters. The theme of common principles among seemingly unrelated applications provides the connective tissue for the diverse topics covered in the text and, I hope, justifies the variable level of presentation. Some of the material appears here for the first time.