Banging Your Head Against Heaven

Banging Your Head Against Heaven PDF Author: Hal Harris
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0557574811
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Banging Your Head Against Heaven attempts to open a lighthearted, yet essential conversation by looking at the human endeavor of religion in a different light. Today, the human race not only possess the technology to destroy ourselves, but through religious fanaticism the ideal means to fulfill that destiny. Can we avoid annihilation? Using humor and natural curiosity as the guide, this book takes the reader on an inquisitive journey into the perplexing world of organized religion and the increasingly risky effect it has on society. It puts forth the notion that we must begin to free ourselves from the mire of believing that remarkable humans walk this earth in step with the mystical truth of the cosmos. And it shows how, for our own good, we must gain a new perspective on faith. Because if you envision the perfect tool humanity could offer terrorists and hate groups to assist them in wielding evil in the world'it couldn't get much better than organized religion.

Banging Your Head Against Heaven

Banging Your Head Against Heaven PDF Author: Hal Harris
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0557574811
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book

Book Description
Banging Your Head Against Heaven attempts to open a lighthearted, yet essential conversation by looking at the human endeavor of religion in a different light. Today, the human race not only possess the technology to destroy ourselves, but through religious fanaticism the ideal means to fulfill that destiny. Can we avoid annihilation? Using humor and natural curiosity as the guide, this book takes the reader on an inquisitive journey into the perplexing world of organized religion and the increasingly risky effect it has on society. It puts forth the notion that we must begin to free ourselves from the mire of believing that remarkable humans walk this earth in step with the mystical truth of the cosmos. And it shows how, for our own good, we must gain a new perspective on faith. Because if you envision the perfect tool humanity could offer terrorists and hate groups to assist them in wielding evil in the world'it couldn't get much better than organized religion.

Breasts and Eggs

Breasts and Eggs PDF Author: Mieko Kawakami
Publisher: Europa Editions
ISBN: 1609455886
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
A novel that “considers the agency . . . women exert over their bodies and charts the emotional underpinnings of physical changes . . . with humor and empathy” (The New Yorker). On a sweltering summer day, Makiko travels from Osaka to Tokyo, where her sister Natsu lives. She is in the company of her daughter, Midoriko, who has lately grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with adolescence. Over the course of their few days together in the capital, Midoriko’s silence will prove a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and family secrets. On yet another summer’s day eight years later, Natsu, during a journey back to her native city, confronts her anxieties about growing old alone and childless. Bestselling author Mieko Kawakami mixes stylistic inventiveness and riveting emotional depth to tell a story of contemporary womanhood in Japan. “Took my breath away.” —Haruki Murakami, #1 New York Times–bestselling author The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle “Kawakami lobbed a literary grenade into the fusty, male-dominated world of Japanese fiction with Breast and Eggs.” —The Economist “A sharply observed and heartbreaking portrait of what it means to be a woman.” —TIME “Raw, funny, mundane, heartbreaking.” —The Atlantic “A bracing, feminist exploration of daily life in Japan.” —Entertainment Weekly “Timely feminist themes; strange, surreal prose; and wonderful characters will transcend cultural barriers and enchant readers.” —The New York Observer “Bracing and evocative, tender yet unflinching.” —Publishers Weekly “Kawakami writes with unsettling precision about the body—its discomforts, its appetites, its smells and secretions. And she is especially good at capturing its longings.” —The New York Times Book Review

We Were Told There Would be Angels

We Were Told There Would be Angels PDF Author: Hal Harris
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1312953683
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Can any living human being speak for a deity? Are we squandering precious time and energy searching for unattainable wisdom via the promises of religion? More importantly, can we continue to tolerate openly dangerous ideas merely because they come swathed in the tinsel of faith? These are some of the pivotal concepts examined in We Were Told There Would be Angels. As a follow-up to Banging Your Head Against Heaven, this book again attempts to open a much-needed conversation by taking a lighthearted, commonsense look at the enormous influence organized religion exerts on our culture. Granting legitimacy to views that are unfounded and wholly open to interpretation unlocks an enormous danger to civilization, especially considering that the technology to bring about the destruction of the human race is now within reach. The collision between technology and religious extremism is inevitable. Can we alter the outcome? Or, are we on a nonstop flight to judgment day for humankind?

The mighty fight against heaven

The mighty fight against heaven PDF Author: Xu Ze gang
Publisher: Publicationsbooks
ISBN: 1304438481
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 2000

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Book Description
The white clouds in the sky are winding and comfortable, reflecting the light of the scorching sun. People in Little shilin town also start a busy day because of this weather.

Heaven

Heaven PDF Author: Mieko Kawakami
Publisher: Europa Editions
ISBN: 1609456300
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
“A raw, tender portrait of adolescent misery, reminiscent of Elena Ferrante’s fiction.” —NPR From the bestselling author of Breasts and Eggs, a sharp and illuminating novel about the impact of violence and the power of solidarity. Tormented by his peers because of his lazy eye, Kawakami’s protagonist suffers in silence. His only respite comes thanks to his friendship with a girl who is also the victim of relentless teasing. But what is the nature of a friendship if your shared bond is terror? Unflinching yet tender, intimate and multi-layered, Heaven is yet another dazzling testament to Kawakami’s uncontainable talent. “An argument in favor of meaning, of beauty, of life.” —The New York Times Book Review “If you enjoyed Mieko Kawakami’s brilliant Breasts and Eggs, you’re certain to be astonished by her latest novel exploring violence and bullying with fierce, feminist and damning candor.” —Ms. Magazine “This is the real magic of Heaven, which shows us how to think about morality as an ongoing, dramatic activity. It can be maddening and ruinous and isolating. But it can also be shared, enlivened . . . and momentarily redeemed through unheroic acts of solidarity.” —The New Yorker “Quietly devastating.” —TIME Magazine “Keen psychological insight, brilliant sensitivity, and compassionate understanding.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Raw and eloquent. . . . An unexpected classic.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “An incredible literary talent.” —Booklist, starred review “Kawakami writes with jagged, visceral beauty.” —Oprah Daily “Kawakami never lets us settle comfortably, which is a testament to her storytelling power.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “One of Japan’s brightest stars.” —Japan Times

Surprised by Hope

Surprised by Hope PDF Author: N. T. Wright
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0061551821
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
For years Christians have been asking, "If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?" It turns out that many believers have been giving the wrong answer. It is not heaven. Award-winning author N. T. Wright outlines the present confusion about a Christian's future hope and shows how it is deeply intertwined with how we live today. Wright, who is one of today's premier Bible scholars, asserts that Christianity's most distinctive idea is bodily resurrection. He provides a magisterial defense for a literal resurrection of Jesus and shows how this became the cornerstone for the Christian community's hope in the bodily resurrection of all people at the end of the age. Wright then explores our expectation of "new heavens and a new earth," revealing what happens to the dead until then and what will happen with the "second coming" of Jesus. For many, including many Christians, all this will come as a great surprise. Wright convincingly argues that what we believe about life after death directly affects what we believe about life before death. For if God intends to renew the whole creation—and if this has already begun in Jesus's resurrection—the church cannot stop at "saving souls" but must anticipate the eventual renewal by working for God's kingdom in the wider world, bringing healing and hope in the present life. Lively and accessible, this book will surprise and excite all who are interested in the meaning of life, not only after death but before it.

The Plot Against Heaven

The Plot Against Heaven PDF Author: Mark Kirkbride
Publisher: Crossroad Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
Hell-bent on confronting God after the death of wife Kate, Paul gate-crashes Heaven. With immigration problems and a wall, Heaven turns out to be nowhere near as welcoming as expected. Both Heaven and Hell are modern and militarized, and the cold war that exists between them is about to heat up, with him in the middle of it. Caught on the wrong side of Heaven, Paul faces an impossible choice if he's to have any hope of seeing his wife again. *** “Mark Kirkbride’s The Plot Against Heaven is a slick and cunning tale that moves with the speed of a smart, classy thriller; brimming with invention, it conjures up a vision of the afterlife uniquely its own with a smooth economy that never slows its pace.” -Simon Bestwick, author of And Cannot Come Again: Tales of Childhood, Regret, and Innocence Lost

From an Antique Land

From an Antique Land PDF Author: Carl S. Ehrlich
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 0742563472
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 523

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Book Description
Many of the world's first written records have been found in the area of the Ancient Near East, in what is today known as the Middle East. While many people are familiar with the ancient Israelite literature recorded in the Hebrew Bible, most Near Eastern literature remains a mystery. From an Antique Land lifts the veil from these fascinating writings, explaining the ancient stories in the context of their cultures. From the invention of writing through the conquest of Alexander the Great, expert scholars examine literature originally written in Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, Ugaritic, Canaanite, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Each chapter includes an overview of the culture, a discussion of literary genres, and descriptions and short analyses of the major literary works. Photos of archaeological remains further illustrate these people and their writings.

Monkey King

Monkey King PDF Author: Wu Cheng'en
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101600977
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
A Chinese Lord of the Rings and one of the all-time great fantasy novels--which Neil Gaiman has said "is in the DNA of 1.5 billion people"--now in a thrilling new one-volume translation A Penguin Classics Hardcover A shape-shifting trickster on a kung-fu quest for eternal life, Sun Wukong, or Monkey King, is one of the most memorable superheroes in world literature, known to legions of fans of the most popular anime of all time, Dragon Ball, and the world's largest e-sport, the video game League of Legends. High-spirited and omni-talented, he amasses dazzling weapons and skills on his journey to immortality: a gold-hooped staff that can grow as tall as the sky and shrink to the size of a needle; the ability to travel 108,000 miles in a single somersault. A master of subterfuge, he can transform himself into whomever or whatever he chooses and turn each of his body's 84,000 hairs into an army of clones. But his penchant for mischief repeatedly gets him into trouble, and when he raids Heaven's Orchard of Immortal Peaches and gorges himself on the elixirs of the gods, the Buddha pins him beneath a mountain, freeing him only five hundred years later for a chance to redeem himself: He is to protect the pious monk Tripitaka on his fourteen-year journey to India in search of precious Buddhist sutras that will bring enlightenment to the Chinese empire. Joined by two other fallen immortals--Pigsy, a rice-loving pig able to fly with its ears, and Sandy, a depressive man-eating river-sand monster--Monkey King undergoes eighty-one trials, doing battle with Red Boy, Princess Jade-Face, the Monstress Dowager, and all manner of dragons, ogres, wizards, and femmes fatales, navigating the perils of Fire-Cloud Cave, the River of Flowing Sand, the Water-Crystal Palace, and Casserole Mountain, and being serially captured, lacquered, sautéed, steamed, and liquefied, but always hatching an ingenious plan to get himself and his fellow pilgrims out of their latest jam. Monkey King: Journey to the West is at once a rollicking adventure, a comic satire of Chinese bureaucracy, and a spring of spiritual insight. With this new translation, the irrepressible rogue hero of one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature has the potential to vault, with his signature cloud-somersault and unerring sense for fun, into the hearts of millions of Americans.

Rock Obituaries: Knocking On Heaven's Door

Rock Obituaries: Knocking On Heaven's Door PDF Author: Nick Talevski
Publisher: Omnibus Press
ISBN: 0857121170
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 753

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Book Description
The fascination with tragedy and the subsequent theatre of voyeurism are part of human nature, especially when it involves our icons, celebrities and musicians. Knocking On Heaven's Door is the definitive book of rock 'n' roll, pop, R&B and blues deaths. Often, only the biggest selling artists are written about and sometimes it is the death of a personality that cements their iconic status. Knocking On Heaven's Door not only covers the rock legends who lived hard and died young, this detailed reference contains over 1,000 obituaries of music industry personalities, famous and obscure from mid-fifties to the present day. Alphabetical entries of all the important individuals, including: noteworthy producers, managers, songwriters, record company founders A&R men and even critics, puts all the information at your finger tips. Nick Talevski has spent a decade researching this comprehensive and authoritative reference book and it will be an indispensable and practical addition to every music library, full of irresistible and intriguing information.