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Author: Jerome I. Gellman
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801433207
Category : Experience (Religion)
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
Jerome I. Gellman observes that the mystic experience of God's presence, a sense of having direct contact with the divine, often compels belief in God's existence. On the basis of widely accepted principles connecting appearance with reality, Gellman contends, the claims people make of having experienced God show that belief in God is strongly rational, meaning that such claims are sufficient in number and variety to support a line of reasoning making it rational to believe that God exists and irrational to deny God's existence. Gellman considers challenges to his thinking based on epistemological grounds and challenges growing out of the diversity of religious experiences across the range of world religions. He thoroughly evaluates reductionist explanations of apparent experiences of God and finds them incapable of invalidating his view. Finally, he directs his attention to the two most compelling arguments against the existence of God: the charge that the idea of a perfect being is logically incoherent, and the threat to theism based on the existence of evil, in both its logical and probabilistic forms. Until and unless stronger objections come along, he concludes, personal experiences of God constitute sufficient evidence of God's existence.
Author: Jerome I. Gellman
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801433207
Category : Experience (Religion)
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
Jerome I. Gellman observes that the mystic experience of God's presence, a sense of having direct contact with the divine, often compels belief in God's existence. On the basis of widely accepted principles connecting appearance with reality, Gellman contends, the claims people make of having experienced God show that belief in God is strongly rational, meaning that such claims are sufficient in number and variety to support a line of reasoning making it rational to believe that God exists and irrational to deny God's existence. Gellman considers challenges to his thinking based on epistemological grounds and challenges growing out of the diversity of religious experiences across the range of world religions. He thoroughly evaluates reductionist explanations of apparent experiences of God and finds them incapable of invalidating his view. Finally, he directs his attention to the two most compelling arguments against the existence of God: the charge that the idea of a perfect being is logically incoherent, and the threat to theism based on the existence of evil, in both its logical and probabilistic forms. Until and unless stronger objections come along, he concludes, personal experiences of God constitute sufficient evidence of God's existence.
Author: Jerome P Baggett
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479867225
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 394
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Book Description
A fascinating exploration of the breadth of social, emotional, and spiritual experiences of atheists in America Self-identified atheists make up roughly 5 percent of the American religious landscape, comprising a larger population than Jehovah’s Witnesses, Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus combined. In spite of their relatively significant presence in society, atheists are one of the most stigmatized groups in the United States, frequently portrayed as immoral, unhappy, or even outright angry. Yet we know very little about what their lives are actually like as they live among their largely religious, and sometimes hostile, fellow citizens. In this book, Jerome P. Baggett listens to what atheists have to say about their own lives and viewpoints. Drawing on questionnaires and interviews with more than five hundred American atheists scattered across the country, The Varieties of Nonreligious Experience uncovers what they think about morality, what gives meaning to their lives, how they feel about religious people, and what they think and know about religion itself. Though the wider public routinely understands atheists in negative terms, as people who do not believe in God, Baggett pushes readers to view them in a different light. Rather than simply rejecting God and religion, atheists actually embrace something much more substantive—lives marked by greater integrity, open-mindedness, and progress. Beyond just talking about or to American atheists, the time is overdue to let them speak for themselves. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in joining the conversation.
Author: Jerome Beck
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791496090
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
The authors have produced the first "on the ground" study (not just clinical or chemical) of MDMA (3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine), or "ecstasy" as it is frequently designated. A psychoactive substance related to both the amphetamines and mescaline, MDMA has become popular in recent years as one of the new "designer" drugs. First used in therapeutic treatment, its recreational or street use has increased in recent years. The authors track the efforts (with psychiatrists and researchers in opposition) of the DEA to ban the drug.
Author: Eleonore Stump
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191056316
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 688
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Book Description
Only the most naïve or tendentious among us would deny the extent and intensity of suffering in the world. Can one hold, consistently with the common view of suffering in the world, that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God? This book argues that one can. Wandering in Darkness first presents the moral psychology and value theory within which one typical traditional theodicy, namely, that of Thomas Aquinas, is embedded. It explicates Aquinas's account of the good for human beings, including the nature of love and union among persons. Eleonore Stump also makes use of developments in neurobiology and developmental psychology to illuminate the nature of such union. Stump then turns to an examination of narratives. In a methodological section focused on epistemological issues, the book uses recent research involving autism spectrum disorder to argue that some philosophical problems are best considered in the context of narratives. Using the methodology argued for, the book gives detailed, innovative exegeses of the stories of Job, Samson, Abraham and Isaac, and Mary of Bethany. In the context of these stories and against the backdrop of Aquinas's other views, Stump presents Aquinas's own theodicy, and shows that Aquinas's theodicy gives a powerful explanation for God's allowing suffering. She concludes by arguing that this explanation constitutes a consistent and cogent defense for the problem of suffering.
Author: Jerome Jordan Pollitt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521096621
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
"delightful, readable, and scholarly. The volume is profusely and well illustrated, each art example is clearly labelled and dated, and superb supplementary references for illustrations and supplementary suggestions for further reading are added to complete the study." Choice
Author: Benjamin Arbour
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443862274
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 195
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Book Description
Recent formulations of the inductive, continual problem of evil require us to consider new responses to the charge that there is something irrational about believing in God, given the type and amount of evil in the world. Furthermore, fresh approaches to the problem of evil offer suggestive ways to enter a new line of inquiry, in regards to both theistic defences against various articulations of the problem of evil and also theodicy. Finally, developments in contemporary theology, especially analytic philosophical theology, likewise require new treatments of the problem of evil. This volume, on the problem on evil, presents a series of essays that incorporate responses to these developments. The articles fall into three broad sections. The first critiques and examines the analytic, inductive problem of evil on the basis of its modal underpinnings, the discourse of possible worlds, and issues related to hiddenness and vagueness. The second part presents a narrative response to the problem of evil. Its approaches attempt to show the way in which peculiar features of narrative such as dramatic irony, verisimilitude, and distinctions between person-type propositions offer fresh ways to encapsulate our feelings about evil and our response to the theological problems raised by encounters with evil. Such existential concerns are valuable for our thinking about these matters. The third section relates the problem of evil to developments in contemporary analytic theology, such as open theism, idealism and the felix culpa theodicy.
Author: Fiona Ellis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198796730
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
What does it mean to understand the world religiously? How is such understanding to be distinguished from scientific understanding? What does it have to do with religious practice, transfiguring love, and spiritual well-being? New Models of Religious Understanding investigates these questions to set a new and exciting agenda for philosophy of religion. Featuring contributions from leading scholars in the field, the volume cuts across the supposed divide between analytic and continental approaches to the subject and engages the interest of a broad range of philosophical and theological readers.
Author: Joy D. Osofsky
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1440852596
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 633
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Book Description
Explains the neurological, emotional, and behavioral impacts of violence and trauma experienced by newborns, infants, children, and teenagers. Traumatic events known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect children physically, mentally, and emotionally, sometimes with long-term health and behavioral effects. Abuse, neglect, exposure to community and domestic violence, and household dysfunction all have the potential to alter brain development and behavior, but few people are able to recognize or respond to trauma in children. Given the prevalence of childhood exposure to violence—with one in four children ages 5 to 15 living in households with only moderate levels of safety and nurturance and infants and children ages 0 to 3 comprising the highest percentage of those maltreated—it is imperative that students and professionals alike be able to identify types and consequences of violence and trauma. This book provides readers with the information they need in order to know how to detect and prevent ACEs and to help children who have lived through them.
Author: Omobolade Delano-Oriaran
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1506317251
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 990
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Book Description
Service-Learning and Civic Engagement: A Sourcebook focuses on historical, philosophical, social foundations, practices and models of service-learning and civic engagement. The title offers practical, jargon-free chapters applicable to any educational institution as well as community organizations that might consult the work. Key Features Practical, jargon-free chapters applicable to any educational institution as well as community organizations that might consult the work 58 signed chapters are organized into thematic parts, such as Concepts & Theoretical Approaches, Historical & Social Foundations, The Role of Service-Learning in Higher Education, The Role of the Community, Lessons Learned & Future Directions, etc. Thematic parts provide a practical sampling of syllabi, lesson plans, activities and resources, and online websites and databases supporting service-learning. Glossary (key terms commonly used in discussions and research on service-learning and civic engagement) Bibliography of sources consulted in production of the volume This Sourcebook is a scholarly source ideal for any educational institution and academic library as well as public libraries and community organizations that might consult the work on historical, philosophical social foundations, practices and models of service-learning and civic engagement.
Author: Hwarang Moon
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498220126
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 271
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Book Description
How does liturgy impact the formation of faith? The Protestant Church has traditionally emphasized human reason and doctrinal knowledge. But there is another method with great formative power--participation in liturgy. Human beings gain important knowledge not only through traditional, cognitively focused learning, but also through practice and participation. And because knowledge is wholistic, an inability to express an idea in language does not necessarily signify an absence of knowledge. This book shows how liturgy transmits knowledge that transcends human reason. We repeat the liturgy in weekly public worship, and its contents are inscribed on our minds and bodies. Contrary to common belief, this is also true for children and cognitively challenged individuals. They may be unable to verbally express the contents of their faith in a way that satisfies "normal" adult expectations, but these two groups of people are capable of rich religious experiences. This book explores how welcoming them into experience and practice of worship and sacrament can benefit children, cognitively challenged church members, their families, and the church community as a whole, and makes us all a more inclusive community in Christ.
