This volume presents an integrated collection of constructive essays by eminent Catholic scholars addressing the new challenges and opportunities facing religious believers under shifting conditions of secularity and "post-secularity."Using an innovative "keywords" approach, At the Limits of the Secular is an interdisciplinary effort to think through the implications of secular consciousness for the role of religion in public affairs. The book responds in some ways to Charles Taylor's magnum opus, A Secular Age, although it also stands on its own. It features an original essay by David Tracy -- the most prominent American Catholic theologian writing today -- and groundbreaking contributions by influential younger theologians such as Peter Casarella, William Cavanaugh, and Vincent Miller.CONTRIBUTORSWilliam A. Barbieri Jr.Peter CasarellaWilliam T. CavanaughMichele DillonMary DoakAnthony J. GodziebaSlavica JakelicJ. Paul MartinVincent J. MillerPhilip J. RossiRobert J. SchreiterDavid Tracy

For about three thousand years comedy has applied a welcome humanist perspective to the world's religious beliefs and practices. From the ancient Greek comedies of Aristophanes, the famous poem by Lucretius, and dialogues of Cicero to early modern and Enlightenment essays and philosophical texts, together with the inherent skepticism about life after death in tragicomedies by Plautus, Shakespeare, Moliere, and nineteenth-century novels by such as Dickens and Hugo, the literary critic and historian Alexander Welsh analyzes the prevalence of openness of mind and relieving good humor in Western thought. The Humanist Comedy concludes with close examination of a postmodern novel by the Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago.

The premise of this book is that the role of government is to look to the well-being of the people and to maintain and improve the quality of the environment. In other words, government is animal husbandry and ecosystem management - it is applied biology.
Following this line the author examines the physical and mental needs of human beings, including the special needs of children, and how governments might best provide for these needs.
He then brings a biologist's eye to the requirements for a healthy society; crime and punishment; and gods and religion.
The responsibility of governments as ecosystem managers is explored by examining the ability of the world to produce enough food to feed itself, both now and in the future: environmental problems and abuses that are and will limit food production, from both the land and the sea, are identified. Potential "nightmare scenarios" arising from global warming and climate change, population increase, acidic and oxygen-deficient oceans and the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are examined.

The publication of Human, all-too-Human extends over the period 1878-1880. Of the two divisions which constitute the Second Part, "Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions" appeared in 1879, and "The Wanderer and his Shadow" in 1880, Nietzsche being then in his thirty-sixth year. The Preface was added in 1886. The whole book forms Nietzsche's first lengthy contribution to literature. His previous works comprise only the philological treatises, The Birth of Tragedy, and the essays on Strauss, Schopenhauer, and Wagner in Thoughts out of Season. With the volumes of Human, all-too-Human Nietzsche appears for the first time in his true colours as philosopher. His purely scholarly publications, his essays in literary and musical criticism-especially the essay on Richard Wagner at Bayreuth-had, of course, foreshadowed his work as a thinker.

This book reflects the wide-spread belief that the twenty-first century is evolving in a significantly different way to the twentieth, which witnessed the advance of human rationality and technological progress, including urbanisation, and called into question the public and cultural significance of religion. In this century, by contrast, religion, faith communities and spiritual values have returned to the centre of public life, especially public policy, governance, and social identity. Rapidly diversifying urban locations are the best places to witness the emergence of new spaces in which religions and spiritual traditions are creating both new alliances but also bifurcations with secular sectors. "Postsecular Cities" examines how the built environment reflects these trends. Recognizing that the 'turn to the postsecular' is a contested and multifaceted trend, the authors offer a vigorous, open but structured dialogue between theory and practice, but even more excitingly, between the disciplines of human geography and theology. Both disciplines reflect on this powerful but enigmatic force shaping our urban humanity. This unique volume offers the first insight into these interdisciplinary and challenging debates. The relationship between religion and politics is both fascinating and challenging, and recent years have seen substantial changes in the way this relationship is studied.

Edward Said's Rhetoric of the Secular provides an important new reading of Edward W. Said's work, emphasizing not only the distinction but also the fuzzy borders between representations of 'the religious' and 'the secular' found within and throughout his oeuvre and at the core of some of his most customary rhetorical strategies. Mathieu Courville begins by examining Said's own reflections on his life, before moving on to key debates about Said's work within Religious Studies and Middle Eastern Studies, and his relationship to French critical theorists. Through close attention to Said's use of the literal and the figurative when dealing with religious, national and cultural matters, Courville discerns a pattern that illuminates what Said means by secular. Said's work shows that the secular is not the utter opposite of religion in the modern globalized world, but may exist in a productive tension with it.

Since 1947, the Supreme Court has promised government neutrality toward religion, but in a nation whose motto is "In God We Trust" and which pledges allegiance to "One Nation under God," the public square is anything but neutral a paradox not lost on a rapidly secularizing America and a point of contention among those who identify all expressions of religion by government as threats to a free society. Yeshiva student turned secularist, Bruce Ledewitz seeks common ground for believers and nonbelievers regarding the law of church and state. He argues that allowing government to promote higher law values through the use of religious imagery would resolve the current impasse in the interpretation of the Establishment Clause. It would offer secularism an escape from its current tendency toward relativism in its dismissal of all that religion represents and encourage a deepening of the expression of meaning in the public square without compromising secular conceptions of government."

This is an authoritative guide to contemporary debates and issues in the sociology of religion providing a clear examination of classical secularization and the post-secularization paradigm. "Secularization and Its Discontents" provides an illuminating overview of major current debates in the sociology of religion, exploring changing patterns of religious practice in the West during the past 150 years. Examining classical secularization theory as well as modified versions that allow for difference between national and social contexts, Rob Warner also explores the proposed post-secularization paradigm, as well as its close offshoot, rational choice theory. Possibilities for a spiritual revolution and the feminisation of religion are scrutinised, and also theories of the durability of conservative religion. The author goes on to develop a new interpretation of resilient religion from an analysis of 21st century trends in religious participation. These are categorised as entrepreneurial and experiential-therapeutic, before the volume finally focuses upon individual identity construction through autonomous religious consumption. This book provides a clear and penetrating overview of theoretical frameworks and develops a new theoretical synthesis derived from fresh examination of empirical data, and will be of interest to academics and students in religious studies, practical theology and the sociology of religion.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

In the twenty-first century, political correctness, cynicism, prag-matism, and the commodification of sex have reduced romantic love to a discredited myth or a recreational sport--"a cause for embarrassment," says Cristina Nehring. In "A Vindication of Love," Nehring wrests romantic love from the clutches of retrograde feminists and cutting-edge capitalists, thrill-seeking convenience shoppers and safe-sex moralists. With help from lovers ranging from Heloise and Abelard to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Nehring celebrates the wild, irreverent, and uncompromising models of love we have inherited--as she rediscovers romantic love's fearless and heroic provenance, and challenges readers to demand partnerships that fully engage body, heart, and mind.

"Honest story of personal devastation, healing and spiritual search. Wonderful blending: personal narrative, life lessons, poetry and philosophy, river and ocean as one; river of life flowing into the ocean. -"Brother Satyananda Self-Realization Fellowship
"This book is one of the noblest works that I have ever read. Its theme reveals the magic and inner beauty of the soul of a queen of beauty." -Ghada Samman, a writer, a poetess, and a novelist. Her work has been translated to many languages.
"I was enticed to read the book with an avid desire and taste its overwhelming grief, as though grief dwelt not in my life nor has it shrouded my heart's throbbing. It is a unique love story, pregnant with a cloud that pours down tears instead of water." -Jumanah Taha, a well-known creative writer and poetess
"This book is also an autobiography of the soul that triumphs over the alternating life's events and affairs; for the soul is but god's rays." -Dr. Issa Boullata, McGill University, Canada
"This is a concise autobiography, crafted in a charming style reminiscent of a novel, and full of poetic insights.This is the sotry of a woman of strong will and faith, able to pull herself out from the depths of a life of sorrow, anguish and the agony that haunted her following the loss of her beloved son and mother in a tragic accident. She made a conscious decision to continue to lead her peaceful life, fi nding meaning in raising her daughter with the same values she was raised by her own parents.
Her own keen instincts guided her to seek the works of the great spiritualists, and there she indulged herself in reading and learning much. I found it a joy to read Dr. Sylvie's bookand to learn of the wisdom derived from her own unique personal experiences."-Dr. Bassam Frangieh, Yale University

This is the second volume to appear in an edition that will be the first complete, critical, and annotated English translation of all of Nietzsche' s work. Volume 2: Unfashionable Observations, translated by Richard T. Gray, was published in 1995. The edition is a new English translation, by various hands, of the celebrated Colli-Montinari edition, which has been acclaimed as one of the most important works of scholarship in the humanities in the last quarter century. The original Italian edition was simultaneously published in French, German, and Japanese.
This volume of Human, All Too Human, the first of two parts, is the earliest of Nietzsche' s works in which his philosophical concerns and methodologies can be glimpsed. In this work Nietzsche began to establish the intellectual difference from his own cultural milieu and time that makes him our contemporary. Published in 1878, it marks both a stylistic and an intellectual shift away from Nietzsche' s own youthful affiliation with Romantic excesses of German thought and culture typified by Wagnerian opera.

French philosopher Henri Bergson produced four major works in his lifetime, the second of which, "Matter and Memory," is a philosophical and complex nineteenth century exploration of human nature and the spirituality of memory. In this work, Bergson investigates the function of the brain, and opposes the idea of memory being of a material nature, lodged within a particular part of the nervous system. He makes a claim early in this essay that Matter and Memory "is frankly dualistic," leading to a careful consideration of the problems in the relation of body and mind. His theories on sense, dualism, pure perception, concept of virtuality and famous image of the memory cone often make Bergson's essay a confusing and challenging existentialist work. However, the years of research and extensive pathological investigations spent in preparation for this and other essays have gained Bergson great distinction as a brilliant, though unjustly neglected, theorist and philosopher.

The question of religion, its contemporary and future significance and its role in society and state is currently perceived as an urgent one by many and is widely discussed within the public sphere. But it has also long been one of the core topics of the historically oriented social sciences. The immense stock of knowledge furnished by the history of religion and religious studies, theology, sociology and history has to be introduced into the public conscience today. This can promote greater awareness of the contemporary global religious situation and its links with politics and economics and counter rash syntheses such as the "clash of civilizations". This volume is concerned with the connections between religions and the social world and with the extent, limits, and future of secularization. The first part deals with major religious traditions and their explicit or implicit ideas about the individual, social and political order. The second part gives an overview of the religious situation in important geographical areas. Additional contributions analyze the legal organization of the relationship between state and religion in a global perspective and the role of the natural sciences in the process of secularization. The contributors are internationally renowned scholars like Winfried Brugger, Jose Casanova, Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, Hans Joas, Hans G. Kippenberg, Gudrun Kramer, David Martin, Eckart Otto and Rudolf Wagner.

The Meaning of the Creative Act is a seminal work for Nikolai Berdyaev. It adumbrates a number of crucially important themes that he develops in his later works, notably creative freedom as an essential element of human life and human creativeness as complementary to God's creativeness. Berdyaev's aim is to sketch out an "anthropodicy," a justification of man (as opposed to a theodicy, a justification of God); man is to be justified on the basis of his creative acts, inasmuch as he is a creature who is also a co-creator in God's work of creation. This is how Berdyaev puts it: "God awaits from us a creative act."

This is the second volume to appear in an edition that will be the first complete, critical, and annotated English translation of all of Nietzsche' s work. Volume 2: Unfashionable Observations, translated by Richard T. Gray, was published in 1995. The edition is a new English translation, by various hands, of the celebrated Colli-Montinari edition, which has been acclaimed as one of the most important works of scholarship in the humanities in the last quarter century. The original Italian edition was simultaneously published in French, German, and Japanese.
This volume of Human, All Too Human, the first of two parts, is the earliest of Nietzsche' s works in which his philosophical concerns and methodologies can be glimpsed. In this work Nietzsche began to establish the intellectual difference from his own cultural milieu and time that makes him our contemporary. Published in 1878, it marks both a stylistic and an intellectual shift away from Nietzsche' s own youthful affiliation with Romantic excesses of German thought and culture typified by Wagnerian opera.

Doorways to the Soul is a delightful collection of inspirational and insight-filled wisdom tales, parables, and anecdotes from around the globe. Designed for meditative reading, the book presents one story per week as guide-post and food for the soul. Questions for reflection complete this valuable tool for Christian educators, parents, clergy, teachers, and speakers.

A short summary of Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialism and Humanism which is designed to assist university and school-leaving students in acquiring knowledge and understanding of this key text in the philosophy of religion. The book closely adheres to Sartre's text, enabling the reader to follow each development in the argument as it occurs. Following the detailed summary, which page references the original and includes useful key quotes, is a shorter summary acting as an overview of Existentialism and Humanism, which is intended to aid memory. With a brief introduction to Sartre, and the period in which he wrote, and why Existentialism and Humanism is so significant, as well as suggestions for further reading and an extensive glossary of terms, this book is a perfect introduction to this important philosophical text by Jean-Paul Sartre.

An important Christian philosopher contends that if human energy is channeled in the right direction, "upward and outward," spiritual energy as a motor force in the universe will outdistance technological advance. Index. Translated by Rene Hague. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

First published in 1974, this book established itself as a seminal text of the magical revival--a thinking person's guide to the unthinkable.

For many years, both Baptists and humanists have been embroiled in heated controversy in the public square. Fundamentalist Baptists have leveled strong charges against humanists, especially secular humanists, accusing them of undermining the moral and social fabric of America. And secular humanists have, in turn, accused some Baptists of betraying democracy and working to establish a theocracy. Can there be common ground between Baptists and humanists?
At a historic dialogue convened at the University of Richmond, Virginia, Baptist and secular humanist scholars in theology, history, philosophy, and the social sciences, came together to define shared concerns and common values. The dialogue focused on major areas of concern: academic freedom; social, political, and religious tolerance; biblical scholarship; separation of church and state; the social agenda of the Christian Coalition and the Southern Baptist Convention; the danger of militant fundamentalism; freedom of conscience and the historic and current role of American Baptists; as well as the plight of pluralistic democracy.
The result of that historic meeting is Freedom of Conscience: A Baptist/Humanist Dialogue, which includes essays by Robert S. Alley, Joe Barnhart, Vern L. Bullough, Bernard C. Farr, George H. Shriver, Paul D. Simmons, George D. Smith, and Dan O. Via. The book concludes with "In Defense of Freedom of Conscience," a cooperative Baptist/Secular Humanist Declaration, authorized by twenty-two distinguished
humanist and Baptist leaders.

Does life have meaning if one rejects belief in God? This book responds affirmatively to that question. Paul Kurtz, America's leading secular humanist, provides a powerful defense of the humanist alternative, rejecting both religious spirituality and nihilism. In this inspirational book, Kurtz outlines the basic virtues of the secular humanist outlook. These virtues include "courage," not simply to be or to survive, but to overcome and "become"; that is, to fulfill our highest aspirations and ideals in the face of obstacles. The two other virtues Kurtz identifies are "cognition" (reason and science in establishing truth) and "moral caring" (compassion and benevolence in our relationships with others.) Kurtz offers an optimistic appraisal of the human prospect and outlines a philosophy both for the individual and the global community.