Religion in the Emergence of Civilization

Religion in the Emergence of Civilization PDF Author: Ian Hodder
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139492179
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents an interdisciplinary study of the role of spirituality and religious ritual in the emergence of complex societies. Involving an eminent group of natural scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and theologians, this volume examines Çatalhöyük as a case study. A nine-thousand-year old town in central Turkey, Çatalhöyük was first excavated in the 1960s and has since become integral to understanding the symbolic and ritual worlds of the early farmers and village-dwellers in the Middle East. It is thus an ideal location for exploring theories about the role of religion in early settled life. This book provides a unique overview of current debates concerning religion and its historical variations. Through exploration of themes including the integration of the spiritual and the material, the role of belief in religion, the cognitive bases for religion, and religion's social roles, this book situates the results from Çatalhöyük within a broader understanding of the Neolithic in the Middle East.

Religion in the Emergence of Civilization

Religion in the Emergence of Civilization PDF Author: Ian Hodder
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139492179
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents an interdisciplinary study of the role of spirituality and religious ritual in the emergence of complex societies. Involving an eminent group of natural scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and theologians, this volume examines Çatalhöyük as a case study. A nine-thousand-year old town in central Turkey, Çatalhöyük was first excavated in the 1960s and has since become integral to understanding the symbolic and ritual worlds of the early farmers and village-dwellers in the Middle East. It is thus an ideal location for exploring theories about the role of religion in early settled life. This book provides a unique overview of current debates concerning religion and its historical variations. Through exploration of themes including the integration of the spiritual and the material, the role of belief in religion, the cognitive bases for religion, and religion's social roles, this book situates the results from Çatalhöyük within a broader understanding of the Neolithic in the Middle East.

Religion at Work in a Neolithic Society

Religion at Work in a Neolithic Society PDF Author: Ian Hodder
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107047331
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 403

Get Book Here

Book Description
A unique collaboration between archaeologists and a range of specialists in ritual and religion, looking at the role of religion in early human societies.

Religion, History, and Place in the Origin of Settled Life

Religion, History, and Place in the Origin of Settled Life PDF Author: Ian Hodder
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607327376
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume explores the role of religion and ritual in the origin of settled life in the Middle East, focusing on the repetitive construction of houses or cult buildings in the same place. Prominent archaeologists, anthropologists, and scholars of religion working at several of the region’s most important sites—such as Çatalhöyük, Göbekli Tepe, Körtik Tepe, and Aşıklı Höyük—contend that religious factors significantly affected the timing and stability of settled economic structures. Contributors argue that the long-term social relationships characteristic of delayed-return agricultural systems must be based on historical ties to place and to ancestors. They define different forms of history-making, including nondiscursive routinized practices as well as commemorative memorialization. They consider the timing in the Neolithic of an emerging concern with history-making in place in relation to the adoption of farming and settled life in regional sequences. They explore whether such correlations indicate the causal processes in which history-making, ritual practices, agricultural intensification, population increase, and social competition all played a role. Religion, History, and Place in the Origin of Settled Life takes a major step forward in understanding the adoption of farming and a settled way of life in the Middle East by foregrounding the roles of history-making and religious ritual. This work is relevant to students and scholars of Near Eastern archaeology, as well as those interested in the origins of agriculture and social complexity or the social role of religion in the past. Contributors: Kurt W. Alt, Mark R. Anspach, Marion Benz, Lee Clare, Anna Belfer-Cohen, Morris Cohen, Oliver Dietrich, Güneş Duru, Yilmaz S. Erdal, Nigel Goring-Morris, Ian Hodder, Rosemary A. Joyce, Nicola Lercari, Wendy Matthews, Jens Notroff, Vecihi Özkaya, Feridun S. Şahin, F. Leron Shults, Devrim Sönmez, Christina Tsoraki, Wesley Wildman

Origin Story

Origin Story PDF Author: David Christian
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
ISBN: 0316392022
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Get Book Here

Book Description
This New York Times bestseller "elegantly weaves evidence and insights . . . into a single, accessible historical narrative" (Bill Gates) and presents a captivating history of the universe -- from the Big Bang to dinosaurs to mass globalization and beyond. Most historians study the smallest slivers of time, emphasizing specific dates, individuals, and documents. But what would it look like to study the whole of history, from the big bang through the present day -- and even into the remote future? How would looking at the full span of time change the way we perceive the universe, the earth, and our very existence? These were the questions David Christian set out to answer when he created the field of "Big History," the most exciting new approach to understanding where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. In Origin Story, Christian takes readers on a wild ride through the entire 13.8 billion years we've come to know as "history." By focusing on defining events (thresholds), major trends, and profound questions about our origins, Christian exposes the hidden threads that tie everything together -- from the creation of the planet to the advent of agriculture, nuclear war, and beyond. With stunning insights into the origin of the universe, the beginning of life, the emergence of humans, and what the future might bring, Origin Story boldly reframes our place in the cosmos.

The Market as God

The Market as God PDF Author: Harvey Cox
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674973151
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Get Book Here

Book Description
“Essential and thoroughly engaging...Harvey Cox’s ingenious sense of how market theology has developed a scripture, a liturgy, and sophisticated apologetics allow us to see old challenges in a remarkably fresh light.” —E. J. Dionne, Jr. We have fallen in thrall to the theology of supply and demand. According to its acolytes, the Market is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. It can raise nations and ruin households, and comes complete with its own doctrines, prophets, and evangelical zeal. Harvey Cox brings this theology out of the shadows, demonstrating that the way the world economy operates is shaped by a global system of values that can be best understood as a religion. Drawing on biblical sources and the work of social scientists, Cox points to many parallels between the development of Christianity and the Market economy. It is only by understanding how the Market reached its “divine” status that can we hope to restore it to its proper place as servant of humanity. “Cox argues that...we are now imprisoned by the dictates of a false god that we ourselves have created. We need to break free and reclaim our humanity.” —Forbes “Cox clears the space for a new generation of Christians to begin to develop a more public and egalitarian politics.” —The Nation

Bad Religion

Bad Religion PDF Author: Ross Douthat
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143917833X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
Traces the decline of Christianity in America since the 1950s, posing controversial arguments about the role of heresy in the nation's downfall while calling for a revival of traditional Christian practices.

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State PDF Author: Friedrich Engels
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Anthropology
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Dawkins Delusion?

The Dawkins Delusion? PDF Author: Alister McGrath
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830868739
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 120

Get Book Here

Book Description
Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath present a reliable assessment of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, famed atheist and scientist, and the many questions this book raises--including, above all, the relevance of faith and the quest for meaning.

An Introduction to the History of Religion

An Introduction to the History of Religion PDF Author: Frank Byron Jevons
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 464

Get Book Here

Book Description


Why Religion?

Why Religion? PDF Author: Elaine Pagels
Publisher: HarperLuxe
ISBN: 9780062860989
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
Why is religion still around in the twenty-first century? Why do so many still believe? And how do various traditions still shape the way people experience everything from sexuality to politics, whether they are religious or not? In Why Religion? Elaine Pagels looks to her own life to help address these questions. These questions took on a new urgency for Pagels when dealing with unimaginable loss—the death of her young son, followed a year later by the shocking loss of her husband. Here she interweaves a personal story with the work that she loves, illuminating how, for better and worse, religious traditions have shaped how we understand ourselves; how we relate to one another; and, most importantly, how to get through the most difficult challenges we face. Drawing upon the perspectives of neurologists, anthropologists, and historians, as well as her own research, Pagels opens unexpected ways of understanding persistent religious aspects of our culture. A provocative and deeply moving account from one of the most compelling religious thinkers at work today, Why Religion? explores the spiritual dimension of human experience.