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Author: Tim Baker
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
ISBN: 9780785247630
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Presents brief descriptions of over one hundred world religions, secular worldviews, cults, and occult practices from a Christian point-of-view, covering the basic beliefs, a short history, and examples in pop culture.
Author: Kimberley Christine Patton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199723281
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 513
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Book Description
In many of the world's religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, a seemingly enigmatic and paradoxical image is found--that of the god who worships. Various interpretations of this seeming paradox have been advanced. Some suggest that it represents sacrifice to a higher deity. Proponents of anthropomorphic projection say that the gods are just "big people" and that images of human religious action are simply projected onto the deities. However, such explanations do not do justice to the complexity and diversity of this phenomenon. In Religion of the Gods, Kimberley C. Patton uses a comparative approach to take up anew a longstanding challenge in ancient Greek religious iconography: why are the Olympian gods depicted on classical pottery making libations? The sacrificing gods in ancient Greece are compared to gods who perform rituals in six other religious traditions: the Vedic gods, the heterodox god Zurvan of early Zoroastrianism, the Old Norse god Odin, the Christian God and Christ, the God of Judaism, and Islam's Allah. Patton examines the comparative evidence from a cultural and historical perspective, uncovering deep structural resonances while also revealing crucial differences. Instead of looking for invisible recipients or lost myths, Patton proposes the new category of "divine reflexivity." Divinely performed ritual is a self-reflexive, self-expressive action that signals the origin of ritual in the divine and not the human realm. Above all, divine ritual is generative, both instigating and inspiring human religious activity. The religion practiced by the gods is both like and unlike human religious action. Seen from within the religious tradition, gods are not "big people," but other than human. Human ritual is directed outward to a divine being, but the gods practice ritual on their own behalf. "Cultic time," the symbiotic performance of ritual both in heaven and on earth, collapses the distinction between cult and theology each time ritual is performed. Offering the first comprehensive study and a new theory of this fascinating phenomenon, Religion of the Gods is a significant contribution to the fields of classics and comparative religion. Patton shows that the god who performs religious action is not an anomaly, but holds a meaningful place in the category of ritual and points to a phenomenologically universal structure within religion itself.
Author: Tim Baker
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
ISBN: 9780785247630
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Presents brief descriptions of over one hundred world religions, secular worldviews, cults, and occult practices from a Christian point-of-view, covering the basic beliefs, a short history, and examples in pop culture.
Author: Suzanne Neusner
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589013315
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
Resisting the tendency to separate the study of religion and politics, editor Jacob Neusner pulls together a collection of ten essays in which various authors explain and explore the relationship between the world's major religions and political power. As William Scott Green writes in the introduction, "Because religion is so comprehensive, it is fundamentally about power; it therefore cannot avoid politics." Beginning with the classical sources and texts of Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism and Hinduism, God's Rule begins to explore the complex nature of how each religion shapes political power, and how religion shapes itself in relation to that power. The corresponding attention to differing theories of politics and views towards non-believers are important not only to studies in comparative religion, but to foreign policy, history and governance as well. From early Christianity's relationship to the Roman Empire to Hinduism's relationship to Gandhi and the caste system, God's Rule provides a basis of understanding from which undergraduates, seminarians and others can begin asking questions of relationships "both unavoidable and systematically uneasy."
Author: David W. Shenk
Publisher: Herald Press
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 416
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Book Description
David W. Shenk covers the major current human options for making meaning out of life. Shenk identifies more local religious options and four truly global options -- Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Marxism. Global Gods is a fresh approach to comparative religions. It is a substantial contribution to the developing literature and widespread interest concerning the role of religion in human society.
Author: Zeba A. Crook
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
ISBN: 9781781798065
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
In some ways, this book fits into the long tradition of textbooks on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It seeks to teach the basics both of the study of religion and the study of the religions themselves. For each religion, it presents the trajectories of development over time, the main theological debates and claims, the sacred writings, and the common practices and holy days. Yet, in other ways, this book is like no other introductory textbook on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Rather than claim to show the "essence" of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, this book shows the diversity within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic experience, theological dispute, and practice. Rather than rely solely on the traditional theorists of religion, the "giants," this book updates the approach, relying also on the newest critical thinkers on defining, classifying, and studying religion. Rather than present Latter-Day Saints and Baha'i Religion as among the New Religious Movements, this book treats them as part of the continuing history of religion, growing out of and within Christianity and Islam respectively. Religion, in other words, is not a thing of the past. It's happening right now, all around us.
Author: ERWIN W. LUTZER
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781881216490
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author: Glenn Stanfield Holland
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742562264
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Book Description
Explores the religious practices and traditions of ancient Middle Eastern cultures, discussing pyramids, tombs, and Egyptian temples, and describing the gods, rulers, beliefs about afterlife, and worship rituals of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Syria-Palestine.
Author: Ara Norenzayan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691169748
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Examines how the belief in gods has lead to cooperation and sometimes conflict between groups. The author also looks at how some cooperative societies have developed without belief in gods.
Author: Paul Froese
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199752605
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 278
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Book Description
Despite all the hype surrounding the "New Atheism," the United States remains one of the most religious nations on Earth. In fact, 95% of Americans believe in God--a level of agreement rarely seen in American life. The greatest divisions in America are not between atheists and believers, or even between people of different faiths. What divides us, this groundbreaking book shows, is how we conceive of God and the role He plays in our daily lives. America's Four Gods draws on the most wide-ranging, comprehensive, and illuminating survey of American's religious beliefs ever conducted to offer a systematic exploration of how Americans view God. Paul Froese and Christopher Bader argue that many of America's most intractable social and political divisions emerge from religious convictions that are deeply held but rarely openly discussed. Drawing upon original survey data from thousands of Americans and a wealth of in-depth interviews from all parts of the country, Froese and Bader trace America's cultural and political diversity to its ultimate source--differing opinions about God. They show that regardless of our religious tradition (or lack thereof), Americans worship four distinct types of God: The Authoritative God--who is both engaged in the world and judgmental; The Benevolent God--who loves and helps us in spite of our failings; The Critical God--who catalogs our sins but does not punish them (at least not in this life); and The Distant God--who stands apart from the world He created. The authors show that these four conceptions of God form the basis of our worldviews and are among the most powerful predictors of how we feel about the most contentious issues in American life. Accessible, insightful, and filled with the voices of ordinary Americans discussing their most personal religious beliefs, America's Four Gods provides an invaluable portrait of how we view God and therefore how we view virtually everything else.
Author: Nicholas Jay Demerath
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813532073
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
"Finally, Demerath places within a comparative context the commonly held view that America is the world's most religious nation and argues that our country is not "more religious" but "differently religious." He concludes that the United States represents a unique combination of congregational religion, religious pluralism, and civil religion."--Jacket.
