Confronting the Predicament of Belief PDF Download

Author: James W. Walters
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 172528362X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Instead of suppressing doubts about religious claims, what if we engage them head-on? Imagine theologians who welcome the uncomfortable questions rather than immunizing their proposals from criticisms. What happens when discussions of the deepest issues—God and science, faith and doubt, suffering and evil, death and resurrection—are guided by the real-life challenges of believing and living in today’s world? The probing queries and constructive replies published here for the first time invite you into the living experience of doubt and faith, the spiritual quest of our age. They invite readers to consider not only what they believe, but also how they hold their beliefs . . . and what they do with them in everyday life.

Author: James W. Walters
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725283603
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Instead of suppressing doubts about religious claims, what if we engage them head-on? Imagine theologians who welcome the uncomfortable questions rather than immunizing their proposals from criticisms. What happens when discussions of the deepest issues—God and science, faith and doubt, suffering and evil, death and resurrection—are guided by the real-life challenges of believing and living in today’s world? The probing queries and constructive replies published here for the first time invite you into the living experience of doubt and faith, the spiritual quest of our age. They invite readers to consider not only what they believe, but also how they hold their beliefs . . . and what they do with them in everyday life.

Author: Philip Kitcher
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300210345
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Although there is no shortage of recent books arguing against religion, few offer a positive alternative—how anyone might live a fulfilling life without the support of religious beliefs. This enlightening book fills the gap. Philip Kitcher constructs an original and persuasive secular perspective, one that answers human needs, recognizes the objectivity of values, and provides for the universal desire for meaningfulness. Kitcher thoughtfully and sensitively considers how secularism can respond to the worries and challenges that all people confront, including the issue of mortality. He investigates how secular lives compare with those of people who adopt religious doctrines as literal truth, as well as those who embrace less literalistic versions of religion. Whereas religious belief has been important in past times, Kitcher concludes that evolution away from religion is now essential. He envisions the successors to religious life, when the senses of identity and community traditionally fostered by religion will instead draw on a broader range of cultural items—those provided by poets, filmmakers, musicians, artists, scientists, and others. With clarity and deep insight, Kitcher reveals the power of secular humanism to encourage fulfilling human lives built on ethical truth.

Author: Philip Clayton
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532649584
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
Philip Clayton is well known as a major thinker working at the interface of science, philosophy, and Christian theology. Here, for the first time, a representative selection of his far-reaching works have been brought together into one place. After a general introduction to the breadth of Clayton's writing, the book is divided into six main sections: 1) Science & Religion; 2) Science, Faith, & God; 3) Panentheistic Reflections on Science & Theology; 4) Science & Emergence; 5) Science, Spirit, & Divine Action; and 6) Progressive Theology. This introduction and reader will become the go-to text for all inquiries regarding Philip Clayton's expansive theology.

Author: Jerry DeWitt
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306822504
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Atheism's leading lights have long been intellectuals raised in the secular and academic worlds: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens. By contrast, Jerry DeWitt was born and bred into the church and was in fact a Pentecostal preacher before arriving at atheism through an extraordinary dialogue with faith that spanned more than a quarter of a century. Hope After Faith is his account of that journey. DeWitt was a pastor in the town of DeRidder, Louisiana, and was a fixture of the community. In private, however, he'd begun to question his faith. Late one night in May 2011, a member of his flock called seeking prayer for her brother who had been in a serious accident. As DeWitt searched for the right words to console her, speech failed him, and he found that the faith which once had formed the cornerstone of his life had finally crumbled to dust. When it became public knowledge that DeWitt was now an atheist, he found himself shunned by much of DeRidder's highly religious community, losing nearly everything he'd known. DeWitt's struggle for identity and meaning mirrors the one currently facing millions of people around the world. With both agnosticism and atheism entering the mainstream—one in five Americans now claim no religious affiliation, according to a recent study—the moment has arrived for a new atheist voice, one that is respectful of faith and religious traditions yet warmly embraces a life free of religion, finding not skepticism and cold doubt but rather profound meaning and hope. Hope After Faith is the story of one man's evolution toward a committed and considered atheism, one driven by humanism, a profound moral dimension, and a happiness and self-confidence obtained through living free of fear.

Author: Philip Clayton
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019162067X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Does it make sense - can it make sense - for someone who appreciates the explanatory power of modern science to continue believing in a traditional religious account of the ultimate nature and purpose of our universe? This book is intended for those who care about that question and are dissatisfied with the rigid dichotomies that dominate the contemporary debate. The extremists won't be interested - those who assume that science answers all the questions that matter, and those so certain of their religious faith that dialogue with science, philosophy, or other faith traditions seems unnecessary. But far more people today recognize that matters of faith are complex, that doubt is endemic to belief, and that dialogue is indispensable in our day. In eight probing chapters, the authors of The Predicament of Belief consider the most urgent reasons for doubting that religious claims - in particular, those embedded in the Christian tradition - are likely to be true. They develop a version of Christian faith that preserves the tradition's core insights but also gauges the varying degrees of certainty with which those insights can still be affirmed. Along the way, they address such questions as the ultimate origin of the universe, the existence of innocent suffering, the challenge of religious plurality, and how to understand the extraordinary claim that an ancient teacher rose from the dead. They end with a discussion of what their conclusions imply about the present state and future structure of churches and other communities in which Christian affirmations are made.

Author: David Benatar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190633832
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Are our lives meaningful, or meaningless? Is our inevitable death a bad thing? Would immortality be an improvement? Would it be better, all things considered, to hasten our deaths by suicide? Many people ask these big questions -- and some people are plagued by them. Surprisingly, analytic philosophers have said relatively little about these important questions about the meaning of life. When they have tackled the big questions, they have tended, like popular writers, to offer comforting, optimistic answers. The Human Predicament invites readers to take a clear-eyed and unfettered view of the human condition. David Benatar here offers a substantial, but not unmitigated, pessimism about the central questions of human existence. He argues that while our lives can have some meaning, we are ultimately the insignificant beings that we fear we might be. He maintains that the quality of life, although less bad for some than for others, leaves much to be desired in even the best cases. Worse, death is generally not a solution; in fact, it exacerbates rather than mitigates our cosmic meaninglessness. While it can release us from suffering, it imposes another cost - annihilation. This state of affairs has nuanced implications for how we should think about many things, including immortality and suicide, and how we should think about the possibility of deeper meaning in our lives. Ultimately, this thoughtful, provocative, and deeply candid treatment of life's big questions will interest anyone who has contemplated why we are here, and what the answer means for how we should live.

Author: Thomas D. Carroll
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
“I believe in a new humanity.” Evocative words spoken by Pope Francis to the assembled young people in Kraków, Poland during the final mass for World Youth Day on July 31, 2016. What was he thinking about? Where did this idea come from? This book answers these questions and examines for the first time an original way of thinking about our shared humanity, a way that was intimated sixty years ago and is still to be explored.

Author: Gerard Vanderhaar
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498234275
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
Spirituality is aligning our innermost being with the Way of the Cosmos. It's our effort to get our total beings right, ultimately right, or at least as right as we can at this time in our lives given everything we know. For those trying to live lives deeply influenced by Jesus of Nazareth, a spirituality based on active nonviolence is in harmony with his life and teachings. It is both a guide and support in times of stress, turmoil, terrorism, fear, and uncertainty. In this book, a compilation of much of his decades-long work on nonviolence, Vanderhaar explains how a spirituality of nonviolence provides methods and guidance in everyday activities such as speech, leadership, and dealing with difficult people or even those who might be seen as enemies. He outlines how this spirituality helps us to understand both our gifts and our shortcomings and to deal with the challenges of life in the twenty-first century. Understanding nonviolence can guide peacemakers to a practical spirituality based on the nonviolent Christ, our guide and inspiration.

Author: John Martinez
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
ISBN: 1035822717
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
This book serves as a guide for those grappling with the complexities of religious faith, drawing from the author’s own profound journey through doubt and belief. It challenges the concept of an eternal, detachable soul, positing that our consciousness is entirely born of cerebral processes. The absence of such a soul, the book argues, casts significant doubt on the foundational promises of eternal life in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Furthermore, the book advocates for a life lived with full engagement of our human faculties. It suggests that authenticity in life is achieved by operating within our own realities and embracing the responsibility of fulfilling our own needs and desires. It is a call to live deliberately, using our innate attributes and experiences as the primary tools for navigating existence.