The New Atheists' claim that religion always leads to fanaticism is baseless. State-backed religion results in tyranny. Sacred humanists work to implement their highest values that will improve this world; separation of church and state, eliminating denigration of nonbelievers, assuring just governance, and preventing human trafficking.

The scriptures of the Faiths use models to depict what God is like; namely Father, Mother, Husband, Judge, Lover, Friend, shepherd and so on. Science also uses models to advance its knowledge, and in a scientific age a model of God as the Cosmic Scientist interacting with the traditional could communicate well. It would imply that the world is a laboratory created by God in order to test whether humanity will obey his laws and live up to the values which he embraces. Using material drawn from science and six world faiths, the book shows the difference and similarity between divine and human experiments and argues that God will bring the experiment to a successful conclusion.

Whether or not Jesus rose bodily from the dead remains perhaps the most critical and contentious issue in Christianity. Until now, argument has centred upon the veracity of explicit New Testament accounts of the events following Jesus's crucifixion, often ending in deadlock. In Richard Swinburne's approach, though, ascertaining the probable truth of the Resurrection requires a much broader approach to the nature of God and to the life and teaching of Jesus. The Resurrection can only have occurred if God intervened in history to raise to life a man dead for 36 hours. It is therefore crucial not only to weigh the evidence of natural theology for the existence of a God who has some reason so to intervene, but also to discover whether the life and teaching of Jesus show him to be uniquely the kind of person whom God would have raised Swinburne argues that God has reason to interfere in history by becoming incarnate, and that it is highly improbable that we would find the evidence we do for the life and teaching of Jesus, as well as the evidence from witnesses to his empty tomb and later appearances, if Jesus was not God incarnate and did not rise from the dead.

This work investigates crucial aspects of Kant's epistemology and ethics in relation to Kierkegaard's thinking. The challenge is taken up of developing a systematic reconstruction of Kant's and Kierkegaard's position. Kant forms a matrix for the interpretation of Kierkegaard, and considerable space is devoted to the exposition of Kant at those various points at which contact with Kierkegaard's thought is to be demonstrated. The burden of the argument is that Kierkegaard in his account of the stages is much closer to Kant than the texts initially reveal. It is possible, then, to arrive at a proper grasp of Kierkegaard's final position by seeing just how radically the stage of Christian faith (Religiousness B) departs from Kant.

Science, the Singular, and the Question of Theology explores the role that the singular plays in the theories of science of Robert Grosseteste, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Marsilius of Inghen, and Pierre d’Ailly. Confronting the scientific status of theology, Lee argues that the main issue is how to provide a “rational ground” for existing singulars. The book exposes how, on the eve of modernity, existing singulars were freed from the constraints of rational ground.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) was the first Ashkenazic chief rabbi of mandatory Palestine. Admired for the incredible diversity of his talents and interests--talmudist, halakhist, kabbalist, mystic, theologian, moralist, poet, and communal leader--Rav Kook's world outlook extolled breadth and derided narrow specialization. More than any other Orthodox thinker in modern times, he addressed, squarely and boldly, the confrontation between Judaism and the modern world. Kook serves as a natural model to those Jews who seek a religious understanding of and response to the culture and politics of the modern age.
These essays, most published here for the first time, offer a range of analyses and interpretations covering, in an accessible, systematic, and comprehensive fashion the major areas of Rav Kook's thought. Among the issues discussed are: his relationship to the Jewish mystical, philosophical, and halakhic traditions; poetry and spirituality; harmonism and pluralism; tolerance and its limits; Zionism, messianism, and politics; and Rav Kook today.

William A Graham, a leading international scholar in the field of Islamic Studies, gathers together his selected writings under three sections: 1.History and Interpretation of Islamic Religion; 2.The Qur'an as Scripture, and 3. Scripture in the History of Religion. Each section opens with a new introduction by Graham, and a bibliography of his works is included. Graham's work in Islamic studies focuses largely on the analysis and interpretation of the religious dimensions of ritual action, scriptural piety, textual authority/revelation, tradition, and major concepts, such as grace and transcendence. His work in the comparative history of religion has focused in particular on the 'problem' of scripture as a cross-cultural religious phenomenon that is more complex than simply 'sacred text'. This invaluable resource will be of primary interest to students of the Islamic tradition, especially as regards Qur'anic piety, Muslim 'ritual' practice, and fundamental structures of Islamic thought, and to students of the comparative history of religion, especially as regards the phenomenon of 'scripture' and its analogs.

The "Key Issues" series aims to make available the contemporary responses that met important books and debates on their first appearance. These take the form of journal articles, book extracts, public letters, sermons and pamphlets which provides an insight into the historical relevance and the social and political context in which a publication or particular topic emerged. Each volume brings together some of the key responses to the works. This is the second volume of a two-volume set containing important secondary literature on Hume on religion. This text focuses on general remarks on Hume's life and philosophy, his "Natural History of Religion", "Dialogues Concerning Natural religion", and his work on the immortality of the soul and suicide, containing material ranging from 1755 to 1907. Authors include: William Warburton, Henry O'Connor and George Giles.

In this work of philosophy, theology, and intellectual history, Duane Armitage offers a clear interpretation of Heidegger's enigmatic theology as uniquely Pauline and Lutheran. He argues that the real impetus, aim, and structure of Heidegger's philosophy of religion as well as his philosophy as a whole, are rooted in Pauline (and Lutheran) ontology. He thus demonstrates that continental philosophy of religion, and, to an extent, Continental Philosophy as a whole, is indebted to St. Paul and Martin Luther. This examination also shows how much of continental thinking itself is traceable to Heidegger's onto-theological critique and hence to Luther and St. Paul. Armitage argues that St. Paul and Luther, or at least Luther's specific reading of St. Paul, remain the un-thought origins of postmodern thinking on religion, and perhaps postmodern thinking in general.

Structured directly around the specification of the OCR, this is the definitive textbook for students of Advanced Subsidiary or Advanced Level courses. The updated third edition covers all the necessary topics for Philosophy of Religion in an enjoyable student-friendly fashion. Each chapter includes: a list of key issues OCR specification checklist explanations of key terminology overviews of key scholars and theories self-test review and exam practice questions. To maximise students' chances of success, the book contains a section dedicated to answering examination questions. It comes complete with diagrams and tables, lively illustrations, a comprehensive glossary and full bibliography. Additional resources are available via the companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/mayled.

David Brown explores the ways in which the symbolic associations of the body and what we do with it have helped shape religious experience and continue to do so. A Church narrowly focused on Christ's body wracked in pain needs to be reminded that the body as beautiful and sexual has also played a crucial role not only in other religions but also in the history of Christianity itself. Dance was one way in which the connection was expressed. The irony is not that such a connection has gone but that it now exists almost wholly outside the Church. Much the same could be said about music more generally, and Brown writes excitingly about the spiritual potential of not just classical music but also pop, jazz, musicals, and opera. Like Brown's much-praised earlier volumes, God and Enchantment of Place, Tradition and Imagination, and Discipleship and Imagination, the present book will enlarge horizons and challenge the narrowness of much theological thinking.

Rasmussen offers a novel interpretation of the relationship between religious concern and artistic creativity in the works of the self-styled "Christian poet and thinker" Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). Although Kierkegaard articulated neither a "Christology" in the sense that the term has for systematic theology, nor a generic "theory of poetry" in the sense that phrase has for literary criticism, this study makes the case that Kierkegaard's writings nevertheless do advance a "Christomorphic poetics," a tertium quid that resists conventional distinctions between theology and literature. The term "Christomorphic" signals that Kierkegaard's Christian view of the incarnation of God in Christ shapes his poetics in a fundamental way and that, therefore, Kierkegaard's authorship and his incarnational view of God in Christ should be understood together. Arguing that Kierkegaard's poetics takes shape in conversation with many of the major themes of early German Romanticism (irony, imaginative creativity, paradox, the relativization of imitation [mimesis], and erotic love), this book offers a fresh appreciation of the depth of Kierkegaard's engagement with Romanticism, and of the contours of his alternative to that literary movement. Chapter one analyzes Kierkegaard's reception of romantic irony, and demonstrates that the romantic tendency to fantasize subjective existence (at least on Kierkegaard's reading) motivates the critique of romantic poetry in Kierkegaard's early works. Chapters two and three identify and explicate Kierkegaard's alternative to romantic poetics, elucidating his distinctive Christomorphic poetics in terms of his view of God as divine poet. The fourth chapter demonstrates the way Kierkegaard's emphasis on the "imitation of Christ" challenges the romantic relativization of "mimesis," and signals a reversal of the romantic celebration of the ironic imagination. Finally, chapter five constructs a typology of Kierkegaard's three senses of the term "poet." By showing how these different senses of the one term function within Kierkegaard's larger poetics, this chapter makes clear the manner in which Kierkegaard as a "religious poet" distinguishes himself from the "secular poet" of romantic irony by fostering what he considers authentic Christian "witness" in the world according to the "Word" of the divine poet embodied in Christ.

This book sets out to change the starting point for theological conversation about the work of the Holy Spirit. Protestant theologians have associated the Spirit's work almost entirely with believers and/or the church. The Spirit's role is to apply Christ's atoning work to God's people. In contrast, early Christian reflection saw the Spirit's main role as bringing about the eschatological rule of God, which reaches beyond individuals or even the church and extends to all creation. This volume explores the shape pneumatology takes when we develop the theology of the Holy Spirit within an eschatological framework that has a universal scope and an unlimited history. When we do so, we find that pneumatology deriving from questions about what the Spirit does for us needs to give way to pneumatology that derives from questions about how the Spirit can draw us into the saving history of the triune God.

This short book is a lively dialogue between a religious believer and a skeptic. It covers all the main issues including different ideas of God, the good and bad in religion, religious experience and neuroscience, pain and suffering, death and life after death, and includes interesting autobiographical revelations.

Knowing that we are finite, how can we live to the fullest? Philosopher George Santayana suggested 'spirituality' enables us to enjoy what we have. This book clarifies and extends Santayana's account of spirituality, while suggesting how the detachment of spirituality can relieve human suffering, enrich our lives, and make us better human beings.

Rebirth and the Stream of Life explores the diversity as well as the ethical and religious significance of rebirth beliefs, focusing especially on Hindu and Buddhist traditions but also discussing indigenous religions and ancient Greek thought. Utilizing resources from religious studies, anthropology and theology, an expanded conception of philosophy of religion is exemplified, which takes seriously lived experience rather than treating religious beliefs in isolation from their place in believers' lives. Drawing upon his expertise in interdisciplinary working and Wittgenstein-influenced approaches, Mikel Burley examines several interrelated phenomena, including purported past-life memories, the relationship between metaphysics and ethics, efforts to 'demythologize' rebirth, and moral critiques of the doctrine of karma. This range of topics, with rebirth as a unifying theme, makes the book of value to anyone interested in philosophy, the study of religions, and what it means to believe that we undergo multiple lives.

Polls show that 45% of the American public believes that humans were created about 10,000 years ago and that evolution is a fictitious myth. Another 25% believes that changes in the natural world are directed by a supernatural being with a particular goal in mind. This thinking clashes head on with scientific findings from the past 150 years, and there is a dearth of public critical thinking about the natural world within a scientific framework.
Evolution and Religious Creation Myths seeks to educate and arm the public on the differences between myth and science, fiction and theory. The book begins with a whirlwind tour of creation stories from several religions. The authors then explore how certain forms of religious fundamentalism clash with the science of evolution. They review how creationists and intelligent design proponents misuse and misrepresent scientific terminology and conclusions to further their own agendas. How do scientists respond to this threat? Modern science, which includes a level of indeterminacy, or chance, cannot support the premise that a supernatural designer engineered nature for a particular purpose in a deterministic fashion. This holds true for the creation of the universe, the appearance of the first biological molecules, chemical evolution, and the evolution of life forms through mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift. Instead, human biological and cultural evolution is described within a genetic framework. Scientists use a barrage of genetic tests and DNA phylogenies to support the scientific basis for evolution. For anyone who has ever needed to argue why evolution and creationism are not both valid theories that deserve equal attention, this book clearly defines the difference between theory and myth. Scientists, teachers, and defenders of the truth should read this book in preparation for when they are called upon to respond.

Paul Tillich first presented his lecture series "Advanced Problems of Systematic Theology" between 1936 and 1938 at the Union Theological Seminary in New York and later repeated it in different variations on several occasions. We can regard these lectures as the "original version" of his "systematic theology" of 1951-1963, from which it differs in multiple respects.

Exploring some of the most fundamental issues facing religion at the present time, this concise study deals squarely with such problems as the existence of different religions, the relationship between science and religion, and religion versus reason in a pluralist society.

This book is a theory-informed, comparative and historical exploration of the notion of the public sphere within Western and Islamic traditions. It situates the emergence of the modern public sphere in a wider historical and theoretical context than usually done in conventional analyses. The work traces cross-cutting genealogies spanning conventional borders between tradition and modernity, and in particular between the Western and the Islamic world. This approach unsettles received, evolutionary views of the public sphere as an exclusive legacy of Western political cultures. The public sphere is finally reconceived as a complex platform for the modern cultivation of culturally diverse, competing, yet intersecting discourses.

Are Islam and Christianity essentially the same? Should we seek to overcome divisions by seeing Muslims and Christians as part of one family of Abrahamic faith? Andy Bannister shares his journey from the multicultural streets of inner-city London to being a Christian with a PhD in Qur'anic Studies. Along the way, he came to understand that far from being the same, Islam and Christianity are profoundly different. Get to the heart of what the world's two largest religions say about life's biggest questions-and discover the uniqueness of Christianity's answer to the question of who God really is.