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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > General > Philosophy of religion
What would you do if you only had only thirty days to live? What
if that time was shortened to twenty-four hours-or even one
hour?
You can't control the amount of time you have left, but you can
control how you spend that time. Timothy J. Brill, a pilot,
philosopher, and adventure seeker, examines the nature of existence
and humanity in a series of essays, considering how you can prevent
fear from dominating your life, avoid being a victim by seeking
answers, recognize the detrimental nature of feelings of
entitlement, and stand up for what is right.
We live in a world of increasing isolation, self-delusion and
hatred, where any moral voice is labeled as a freak. We only live
an illusion of freedom, and we need a new worldview that promotes
the dignity of every person and all of creation.
Join Tim as he explores how to create this new worldview with a
spirit of charity, love, and, most importantly, a whole new
attitude.
For generations, early Franciscan thought has been widely regarded
as unoriginal: a mere attempt to systematize the longstanding
intellectual tradition of Augustine in the face of the rising
popularity of Aristotle. This volume brings together leading
scholars in the field to undertake a major study of the major
doctrines and debates of the so-called Summa Halensis (1236-45),
which was collaboratively authored by the founding members of the
Franciscan school at Paris, above all, Alexander of Hales, and John
of La Rochelle, in an effort to lay down the Franciscan
intellectual tradition or the first time. The contributions will
highlight that this tradition, far from unoriginal, laid the
groundwork for later Franciscan thought, which is often regarded as
formative for modern thought. Furthermore, the volume shows the
role this Summa played in the development of the burgeoning field
of systematic theology, which has its origins in the young
university of Paris. This is a crucial and groundbreaking study for
those with interests in the history of western thought and theology
specifically.
Divinely Abused engages with the logical features of the experience
of divine abuse and the religious difficulties to which it gives
rise. Taking Jobs trial as a test case, Verbin explores the
relation between Jobs manner of understanding and responding to his
misfortunes and the responses of others such as rabbi Aqiva,
Kierkegaard and Simone Weil. She discusses the religious crisis to
which the experience of divine abuse gives rise and the possibility
of sustaining a minimal relationship with the God who is
experienced as an abuser by means of forgiving God.
The book re-examines the religious thought and receptions of the
Syrian poet Abu l-'Ala' al-Ma'arri (d.1057) and one of his best
known works - Luzum ma la yalzam (The Self-Imposed Unnecessity), a
collection of poems, which, although widely studied, needs a
thorough re-evaluation regarding matters of (un)belief. Given the
contradictory nature of al-Ma'arri's oeuvre and Luzum in
particular, there have been two major trends in assessing
al-Ma'arri's religious thought in modern scholarship. One presented
al-Ma'arri as an unbeliever and a freethinker arguing that through
contradictions, he practiced taqiya, i.e., dissimulation in order
to avoid persecution. The other, often apologetically, presented
al-Ma'arri as a sincere Muslim. This study proposes that the notion
of ambivalence is a more appropriate analytical tool to apply to
the reading of Luzum, specifically in matters of belief. This
ambivalence is directly conditioned by the historical and
intellectual circumstances al-Ma'arri lived in and he intentionally
left it unsolved and intense as a robust stance against claims of
certainty. Going beyond reductive interpretations, the notion of
ambivalence allows for an integrative paradigm in dealing with
contradictions and dissonance.
Are science and religion in accord or are they diametrically
opposed to each other? The common perspectives-for or against
religion-are based on the same question, "Do religion and science
fit together or not?" These arguments are usually stuck within a
preconceived notion of realism which assumes that there is a 'true
reality' that is independent of us and is that which we discover.
However, this context confuses our understanding of both science
and religion. The core concern is not the relation between science
and religion, it is realism in science and religion. Wittgenstein's
philosophy and developments in quantum theory can help us to untie
the knots in our preconceived realism and, as Wittgenstein would
say, show the fly out of the bottle. This point of view changes the
discussion from science and religion competing for the discovery of
the 'true reality' external to us (realism), and from claiming that
reality is simply whatever we pragmatically think it is
(nonrealism), to realizing the nature and interdependence of
reality, language, and information in science and religion.
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