A History of Religious Ideas, Volume 2 PDF Download

Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022602735X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 581

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Book Description
In volume 2 of this monumental work, Mircea Eliade continues his magisterial progress through the history of religious ideas. The religions of ancient China, Brahmanism and Hinduism, Buddha and his contemporaries, Roman religion, Celtic and German religions, Judaism, the Hellenistic period, the Iranian syntheses, and the birth of Christianity—all are encompassed in this volume.

Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226204055
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
Examines the religions of ancient China, Brahmanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Celtic and German religions, Judaism, and Christianity, and explores each one's philosophical concepts.

Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780156792011
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Famed historian of religion Mircea Eliade observes that even moderns who proclaim themselves residents of a completely profane world are still unconsciously nourished by the memory of the sacred. Eliade traces manifestations of the sacred from primitive to modern times in terms of space, time, nature, and the cosmos. In doing so he shows how the total human experience of the religious man compares with that of the nonreligious. This book serves as an excellent introduction to the history of religion, but its perspective also emcompasses philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology. It will appeal to anyone seeking to discover the potential dimensions of human existence. -- P. [4] of cover.

Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022614769X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
“Everyone who cares about the human adventure will find new information and new angles of vision.”—Martin E. Marty, The New York Times Book Review This extraordinary work delves into the subject of religion in the prehistoric and ancient worlds—humankind’s earliest quests for meaning. From Neanderthal burials to the mythology of the Iron Age, to the religions of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Israel, India, and beyond, it offers both an appreciation of the wide-ranging diversity of religious expression—and a consideration of the fundamental unity of religious phenomena. “Will arouse the interest of all historians of western religion, since it includes chapters on the religions of Canaan and Israel. However, the book must be read cover to cover if one wants to grasp the significance of its gigantic historical scope.”—Church History

Author: Pascal Boyer
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 046500461X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
Many of our questions about religion, says the internationally renowned anthropologist Pascal Boyer, were once mysteries, but they no longer are: we are beginning to know how to answer questions such as "Why do people have religion?" and "Why is religion the way it is?" Using findings from anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary biology, Boyer shows how one of the most fascinating aspects of human consciousness is increasingly admissible to coherent, naturalistic explanation. And Man Creates God tells readers, for the first time, what religious feeling is really about, what it consists of, and how it originates. It is a beautifully written, very accessible book by an anthropologist who is highly respected on both sides of the Atlantic. As a scientific explanation for religious feeling, it is sure to arouse controversy.

Author: Robert N. Bellah
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674252934
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 777

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Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal

Author: Gregg L. Frazer
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700620214
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Were America's Founders Christians or deists? Conservatives and secularists have taken each position respectively, mustering evidence to insist just how tall the wall separating church and state should be. Now Gregg Frazer puts their arguments to rest in the first comprehensive analysis of the Founders' beliefs as they themselves expressed them-showing that today's political right and left are both wrong. Going beyond church attendance or public pronouncements made for political ends, Frazer scrutinizes the Founders' candid declarations regarding religion found in their private writings. Distilling decades of research, he contends that these men were neither Christian nor deist but rather adherents of a system he labels "theistic rationalism," a hybrid belief system that combined elements of natural religion, Protestantism, and reason-with reason the decisive element. Frazer explains how this theological middle ground developed, what its core beliefs were, and how they were reflected in the thought of eight Founders: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington. He argues convincingly that Congregationalist Adams is the clearest example of theistic rationalism; that presumed deists Jefferson and Franklin are less secular than supposed; and that even the famously taciturn Washington adheres to this theology. He also shows that the Founders held genuinely religious beliefs that aligned with morality, republican government, natural rights, science, and progress. Frazer's careful explication helps readers better understand the case for revolutionary recruitment, the religious references in the Declaration of Independence, and the religious elements-and lack thereof-in the Constitution. He also reveals how influential clergymen, backing their theology of theistic rationalism with reinterpreted Scripture, preached and published liberal democratic theory to justify rebellion. Deftly blending history, religion, and political thought, Frazer succeeds in showing that the American experiment was neither a wholly secular venture nor an attempt to create a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. By showcasing the actual approach taken by these key Founders, he suggests a viable solution to the twenty-first-century standoff over the relationship between church and state-and challenges partisans on both sides to articulate their visions for America on their own merits without holding the Founders hostage to positions they never held.

Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691017648
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
In this landmark book the renowned scholar of religion Mircea Eliade lays the groundwork for a Western understanding of Yoga, exploring how its guiding principle, that of freedom, involves remaining in the world without letting oneself be exhausted by such "conditionings" as time and history. Drawing on years of study and experience in India, Eliade provides a comprehensive survey of Yoga in theory and practice from its earliest foreshadowings in the Vedas through the twentieth century. The subjects discussed include Patañjali, author of the Yoga-sutras; yogic techniques, such as concentration "on a Single Point," postures, and respiratory discipline; and Yoga in relation to Brahmanism, Buddhism, Tantrism, Oriental alchemy, mystical erotism, and shamanism.

Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691238340
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Mircea Eliade--one of the most renowned expositors of the psychology of religion, mythology, and magic--shows that myth and symbol constitute a mode of thought that not only came before that of discursive and logical reasoning, but is still an essential function of human consciousness. He describes and analyzes some of the most powerful and ubiquitous symbols that have ruled the mythological thinking of East and West in many times and at many levels of cultural development.

Author: Karen Armstrong
Publisher: Gramercy
ISBN: 9780517223123
Category : God
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A study of the deity of the world's three dominant monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In a dynamic interplay between religion and society's ever-changing beliefs, values, and traditions, human beings' ideas about God have been transformed. Ideas about God have been molded to apply to the spiritual needs of the people who worship him in a particular place and time. The author explores and analyzes the development and progression of the various perceptions of God from the days of Abraham to present times--Adapted from book jacket.