How can human experience, vibrant with colours, sounds, flavours, emotions and meanings, arise from the skeletal dance of matter depicted in the physical sciences? Today the mind-body problem confronts not only metaphysicians and moral philosophers, but also workers in the fields of cognitive science, artificial intelligence and neuroscience. Paul Marshall offers a radical solution to the mind-body problem by rejecting the idea of a purely material world and asserting instead the primacy of experience. As many have recognized before, experience is not reducible to material bodies and processes alone. Marshall goes a step further and suggests that the matter investigated by modern science corresponds to structural features of an experiential universe that supports and includes our familiar experiences.

Today understanding of religion is essential to understanding many major news stories. This book examines how the media frequently miss or misunderstand these stories because they do not take religion seriously, and how they misunderstand religion when they do take it seriously. To the extent that journalists do not grasp events' religious dimensions, both global and local, the authors argue, they are hindered from, and sometimes incapable of, describing what is happening. However, on the national level the press is one of the most secular institutions in American society - not necessarily contemptuous of serious religion, just uncomprehending. The essays in this book examine nine specific news stories that were inadequately or incorrectly reported by major news sources because their religious dimension was ignored, overlooked, or misrepresented. These stories range from the 2004 U.S. presidential elections, to Iran, Iraq, and the papal succession. In each case the author demonstrates how the story might have been more effectively reported and concludes with specific suggestions for journalist. The authors include both scholars and experienced news analysts. Although it will be of particular interest to people of faith, the book offers all readers an interesting and balanced analysis of the news media's uneasy relationship with religion and religious issues.

The fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the 2005 Danish cartoon fracas awakened many people to the potency of blasphemy accusations in the Muslim world. Accusations and charges such as "blasphemy," "apostasy," "insulting Islam," or "hurting Muslims' religious feelings" pose a far greater danger than censorship of irreverent caricatures of Mohammad: they are increasingly used as key tools by authoritarian governments and extremist forces in the Muslim world to acquire and consolidate power. These charges, which draw on disputed interpretations of Islamic law and carry a traditional punishment of death, have proved effective in crushing or intimidating not only converts and heterodox groups, but also political and religious reformers. In fact, one reason for the recent growth of more repressive forms of Islam is their use of accusations of blasphemy, apostasy, and related charges to intimidate and silence their religious opponents and make any criticism of their own actions and ideas religiously suspect. The effect of such laws thus goes far beyond what might narrowly be called religious matters. This volume provides the first world survey of the range and effects of apostasy and blasphemy accusations in the contemporary Muslim world, in international organizations, and in the West. The authors argue that we need to understand the context, history, impact, and mechanics of the blasphemy phenomenon in modern Muslim societies and guidance on how to effectively respond. The book covers the persecution of Muslims who convert to another religion or decide that they have become agnostic or atheists, as well as 'heretics:' those who are accused of claiming a prophet after Mohammed, such as Baha'is and Ahmadis. It also documents the political effects in Muslim societies of blasphemy and apostasy laws, as well as non-governmental fatwas and vigilante violence. It describes the cases of hundreds of victims, including political dissidents, religious reformers, journalists, writers, artists, movie makers, and religious minorities throughout the Muslim world. Finally, it addresses the legal evolution toward new blasphemy laws in the West; the increasing use of laws on "toleration" in the West, which may become surrogate blasphemy laws; increasing pressure by Muslim governments to make Western countries and international organizations enforce laws to restrict speech; and the increasing use of violence to stifle expression in the West even in the absence of law. Its foreword is by Indonesia's late President Abdurrahman Wahid.

This book is the first general social analysis that seriously considers the daily experience of information disruption and software failure within contemporary Western society. Through an investigation of informationalism, defined as a contemporary form of capitalism, it describes the social processes producing informational disorder. While most social theory sees disorder as secondary, pathological or uninteresting, this book takes disordering processes as central to social life. The book engages with theories of information society which privilege information order, offering a strong counterpoint centred on "disinformation." Disorder and the Disinformation Society offers a practical agenda, arguing that difficulties in producing software are both inherent to the process of developing software and in the social dynamics of informationalism. It outlines the dynamics of software failure as they impinge on of information workers and on daily life, explores why computerized finance has become inherently self-disruptive, asks how digital enclosure and intellectual property create conflicts over cultural creativity and disrupt informational accuracy and scholarship, and reveals how social media can extend, but also distort, the development of social movements.

This book sketches the contours of a vision that moves beyond the dominant paradigm or worldview that underlies and governs modernity (and postmodernity). It does so by drawing on the remarkable leap in human consciousness that occurred during the Axial Age and on a cross-pollination of what are arguably the three most comprehensive integrative metatheories available today: Complex thought, integral theory and critical realism - i.e. a complex integral realism. By deploying the three integrative metatheories this book recounts how the seeds of a number of biases within the Western tradition - analytical over dialectical, epistemology over ontology, presence over absence and exterior over interior - were first sown in axial Greece, later consolidated in European modernity and then challenged throughout the 20th century. It then discusses the remedies provided by the three integrative philosophies, remedies that have paved the way for a new vision. Outlining a 'new axial vision' for the twenty-first century which integrates the best of premodernity, modernity and postmodernity within a complex integral realist framework, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of the Axial Age, critical realism, integral theory and complex thought. It will also appeal to those interested in a possible integration of the insights and knowledge gleaned by science, spirituality and philosophy.

The futures discussed in this book primarily arise from awareness of the potentially disruptive impact of climate change and ecological instability on human societies. Part of the paradox of cultural, social and ethical life in all societies is that it is directed towards a future that can never be observed, and never be directly acted upon, and yet is always interacting with us. As a result actions depend on imagination and political action. Future-loaded terms like 'anthropogenic climate change', 'food security', 'sustainability', 'energy security', and 'biodiversity' evoke a specific politics that privileges scientific or economic knowledge, while potentially suppressing the contestations within, and between, those knowledges. Remedies like carbon taxes, carbon trading, renewable energy and nature conservation risk obscuring forms of social and cultural difference in favour of the proposed moral unity of 'global humanity' on a threatened planet. These are 'holistic' projects that suppress parts of the world, or particular social dynamics, in favour of others.By contrast, this book's framework embraces an appreciation of difference and non-holism, as it is unlikely that one solution to the many disruptive futures perceived throughout the world can be found. Indeed any such 'one solution' may increase the disruptive effects found in local situations. Each chapter invites reflection on diverse ways of comprehending global warming and other manifestations of major environmental change, as well as on the forms, and shapers, of agency that influence people's understanding and response. In order to encourage the appreciation of the different future worlds either imagined and emergent in the present, the scope of the chapters extends beyond the usual geopolitical focus on the North Atlantic world, to encompass Nepal, islands in the Pacific, Sweden, coastal Scotland and remote, regional and urban Australia. The book is uniquely informed by empirically based and multidisciplinary social science modes of inquiry, together with a broad-ranging examination of the 'futures' based discourse, policy and politics that have become an intrinsic part of the contemporary world.It will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students in environmental anthropology, environmental studies, psychology and politics.

Is there room for religion in politics? In this insightfully written book, Paul Marshall argues that Christians can and should approach politics in a way informed by faith. Drawing on traditions of both Catholic and Protestant political thought, Marshall analyzes the ways in which religion influences our understanding of power, justice, and democracy. By exploring the biblical background of modern issues, Marshall provides an indispensable guide for Christians searching for a way to interject their religious convictions into their political actions. In an age when the relationship between politics and religion is becoming ever more important and ever more blurred both in America and beyond, God and the Constitution is essential reading for anyone interested in the intersection of faith and government."

The rise of modern science has brought with it increasing acceptance among intellectual elites of a worldview that conflicts sharply both with everyday human experience and with beliefs widely shared among the world's great cultural traditions. Most contemporary scientists and philosophers believe that reality is at bottom purely physical, and that human beings are nothing more than extremely complicated biological machines. On such views our everyday experiences of conscious decision-making, free will, and the self are illusory by-products of the grinding of our neural machinery. It follows that mind and personality are necessarily extinguished at death, and that there exists no deeper transpersonal or spiritual reality of any sort. Beyond Physicalism is the product of an unusual fellowship of scientists and humanities scholars who dispute these views. In their previous publication, Irreducible Mind, they argued that physicalism cannot accommodate various well-evidenced empirical phenomena including paranormal or psi phenomena, postmortem survival, and mystical experiences. In this new theory-oriented companion volume they go further by attempting to understand how the world must be constituted in order that these "rogue" phenomena can occur. Drawing upon empirical science, metaphysical philosophy, and the mystical traditions, the authors work toward an improved "big picture" of the general character of reality, one which strongly overlaps territory traditionally occupied by the world's institutional religions, and which attempts to reconcile science and spirituality by finding a middle path between the polarized fundamentalisms, religious and scientific, that have dominated recent public discourse. Contributions by: Harald Atmanspacher, Loriliai Biernacki, Bernard Carr, Wolfgang Fach, Michael Grosso, Michael Murphy, David E. Presti, Gregory Shaw, Henry P. Stapp, Eric M. Weiss, and Ian Whicher

"I'd struggle to overstate how much I enjoy and admire Al Ewing's work [...] A typical Ewing story is technically ambitious, ethically astute, and intellectually playful. In short; great fun." - Sequart Go on patrol and see Mega-City One - and beyond - through the eyes of Al Ewing (Immortal Hulk), one of the most original writers in comics, as Judge Dredd dispenses justice to mutants, laidback religious cults, the Sex Olympics and Santa Claus. But when polite ex-stripper Zombo appears in his dimension, has old Stoney Face finally met his match? Collecting many of Ewing's outrageous Dredd stories for the first time and featuring an all-star cast of artists, including Liam Sharp (Green Lantern, Wonder Woman), John Higgins (Dreadnoughts: Breaking Ground, Judge Dredd, Watchmen), Simon Fraser (Judge Dredd, Nikolai Dante) and Ben Willsher (Roy of the Rovers, Judge Dredd), this is an essential collection for fans of the Law.

Some experiences of the natural world bring a sense of unity, knowledge, self-transcendence, eternity, light, and love. This is the first detailed study of these intriguing phenomena. Paul Marshall explores the circumstances, characteristics, and after-effects of this important but relatively neglected type of mystical experience, and critiques explanations that range from the spiritual and metaphysical to the psychoanalytic, contextual, and neuropsychological. The theorists discussed include R. M. Bucke, Edward Carpenter, W. R. Inge, Evelyn Underhill, Rudolf Otto, Sigmund Freud, Aldous Huxley, R. C. Zaehner, W. T. Stace, Steven Katz, and Robert Forman, as well as contemporary neuroscientists. The book makes a significant contribution to current debates about the nature of mystical experience.

Over the past two decades there has been a remarkable explosion in the understanding of the biological basis of the brain and the impact of that on behaviour. Furthermore, developments in pharmacological therapeutic approaches continue at a tremendous rate. Yet, although there are many mental health nursing textbooks available, veryfew address this significant aspect of mental health in any depth. Clearly, in order to deliver informed holistic care, it is vital that practitioners appreciate the biological aspects of mental health problems and the associated implications for clients, families and the practitioner. This book aims to provide a broad overview of the neurobiological factors which may contribute to, and arise from, the development of mental health problems, and seeks to clearly identify issues relevant to mental health nursing practice. Key issues addressed include: The important role of homeostasis in maintaining physical and emotional well-being The important link between immunology and nutrition and mental health The co-ordinated role of neuro-function and endocrine function in influencing behaviour Adaptive and maladaptive responses of the body to stress and stressors Ageing process as a continuum of life and its relation to mental health Restorative function of sleepProvides unique integrated approach linking biological issues to psychological and social factors Clearly relevant to mental health practiceExcellent overview of neurobiological factors in mental health

This book sketches the contours of a vision that moves beyond the dominant paradigm or worldview that underlies and governs modernity (and postmodernity). It does so by drawing on the remarkable leap in human consciousness that occurred during the Axial Age and on a cross-pollination of what are arguably the three most comprehensive integrative metatheories available today: Complex thought, integral theory and critical realism - i.e. a complex integral realism. By deploying the three integrative metatheories this book recounts how the seeds of a number of biases within the Western tradition - analytical over dialectical, epistemology over ontology, presence over absence and exterior over interior - were first sown in axial Greece, later consolidated in European modernity and then challenged throughout the 20th century. It then discusses the remedies provided by the three integrative philosophies, remedies that have paved the way for a new vision. Outlining a 'new axial vision' for the twenty-first century which integrates the best of premodernity, modernity and postmodernity within a complex integral realist framework, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of the Axial Age, critical realism, integral theory and complex thought. It will also appeal to those interested in a possible integration of the insights and knowledge gleaned by science, spirituality and philosophy.

In 101/2 Lessons from Experience, Paul Marshall distils the experience of 35 years of investing, including over 20 years at Marshall Wace, the global equity hedge fund partnership. He describes the disconnect between academic theory and market practice, in particular the reality and persistence of 'skill' - the continuing ability of the best practitioners to beat the market. But he also underscores the prevalence of uncertainty and human fallibility, showing how a successful investment management business must steer a path which recognises both the persistence of skill and the pitfalls of cognitive bias, human fallibility and hubris.

Climate change makes fossil fuels unburnable, yet global coal production has almost doubled over the last 20 years. This book explores how the world can stop mining coal - the most prolific source of greenhouse gas emissions. It documents efforts at halting coal production, focusing specifically on how campaigners are trying to stop coal mining in India, Germany, and Australia. Through in-depth comparative ethnography, it shows how local people are fighting to save their homes, livelihoods, and environments, creating new constituencies and alliances for the transition from fossil fuels. The book relates these struggles to conflicts between global climate policy and the national coal-industrial complex. With coal's meaning transformed from an important asset to a threat, and the coal industry declining, it charts reasons for continuing coal dependence, and how this can be overcome. It will provide a source of inspiration for energy transition for researchers in environment, sustainability, and politics, as well as policymakers.

Dawn of Justice! In this volume of the best-selling Complete Case Files series, Dredd uncovers the House of Pain, a no-way-out, brutal torture prison for serial perps, and must stop Orlok from spreading a lethal bio-virus – from beyond the grave! And, after a mysterious package is delivered to the Grand Hall of Justice, Dredd ventures into the Cursed Earth in search of answers that will unveil the history of the Judges, and their ascent to total power. Written by John Wagner (A History of Violence), Gordon Rennie (Warhammer), John Smith (Devlin Waugh), and Simon Spurrier (Hellblazer, X-Men), with art by Colin MacNeil (Strontium Dog: The Final Solution), PJ Holden (Fearless), Laurence Campbell (BPRD: Hell on Earth), Simon Fraser (Nikolai Dante), Paul Marshall (Tharg’s Future Shocks), Peter Doherty (Superman/Batman: World’s Finest), Inaki Miranda (Fables), and Lee Garbett (Loki: Agent of Asgard).

In The West at War, Bradley C. S. Watson brings together renowned scholars and public policy experts to reflect on perhaps the most pressing problem of our time-the West's increasingly bloody conflict with forces that seek nothing less than its destruction. In eleven provocative chapters, contributors deal with the internal challenges and external conflicts facing Western civilization in the context of the 'war on terror.' Ranging from the nature of Islam and the West, to ethics and terror, to the western way of warfare, the volume deals thematically with major issues raised by this conflict in a way that no other single-volume does. Contributors bring to bear arguments on the philosophic, political, religious, ethical, and policy dimensions of the war. As the title of the book suggests, this conflict implicates all of Western civilization, demonstrating that this not merely an 'American' concern.

Christians are the world's most widely persecuted religious group, according to studies by the Pew Research Center, "Newsweek," and the "Economist," among others.

A woman is caught with a Bible and publicly shot to death. An elderly priest is abducted and never seen again. Three buses full of students and teachers are struck by roadside bombs. These are not casualties of a war. These are Christian believers being persecuted for their faith in the twenty-first century.

Many Americans do not understand that Christians today are victims in many parts of the world. Even many Western Christians, who worship and pray without fear of violent repercussions, are unaware that so many followers of Christ live under governments and among people who are often openly hostile to their faith. They think martyrdom became a rarity long ago.

"Persecuted" soundly refutes these assumptions. This book offers a glimpse at the modern-day life of Christians worldwide, recounting the ongoing attacks that rarely make international headlines.

As Western Christians pray for the future of Christ's church, it is vital that they understand a large part of the world's Christian believers live in danger. "Persecuted" gives documented accounts of the persecution of Christians in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and former Soviet nations. It contains vivid stories of men and women who suffer abuse because of their faith in Jesus Christ, and tells of their perseverance and courage..

Persecuted is far more than a thorough and moving study of this global pattern of violence--it is a cry for freedom and a call to action.

Climate change and ecological instability have the potential to disrupt human societies and their futures. Cultural, social and ethical life in all societies is directed towards a future that can never be observed, and never be directly acted upon, and yet is always interacting with us. Thinking and acting towards the future involves efforts of imagination that are linked to our sense of being in the world and the ecological pressures we experience. The three key ideas of this book - ecologies, ontologies and mythologies - help us understand the ways people in many different societies attempt to predict and shape their futures. Each chapter places a different emphasis on the linked domains of environmental change, embodied experience, myth and fantasy, politics, technology and intellectual reflection, in relation to imagined futures. The diverse geographic scope of the chapters includes rural Nepal, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, Sweden, coastal Scotland, North America, and remote, rural and urban Australia. This book will appeal to researchers and students in anthropology, sociology, environmental studies, cultural studies, psychology and politics.

This book is the first general social analysis that seriously considers the daily experience of information disruption and software failure within contemporary Western society. Through an investigation of informationalism, defined as a contemporary form of capitalism, it describes the social processes producing informational disorder. While most social theory sees disorder as secondary, pathological or uninteresting, this book takes disordering processes as central to social life. The book engages with theories of information society which privilege information order, offering a strong counterpoint centred on "disinformation." Disorder and the Disinformation Society offers a practical agenda, arguing that difficulties in producing software are both inherent to the process of developing software and in the social dynamics of informationalism. It outlines the dynamics of software failure as they impinge on of information workers and on daily life, explores why computerized finance has become inherently self-disruptive, asks how digital enclosure and intellectual property create conflicts over cultural creativity and disrupt informational accuracy and scholarship, and reveals how social media can extend, but also distort, the development of social movements.

"An unforgettable novel, written with pride and anger, with rebellion and tears." -- "Herald Tribune Book Review""Passionate, compelling . . . an impressive accomplishment." -- "Saturday Review""Remarkable for its courage, its color, and its natural control." "-- The New Yorker"Selina's mother wants to stay in Brooklyn and earn enough money to buy a brownstone row house, but her father dreams only of returning to his island home. Torn between a romantic nostalgia for the past and a driving ambition for the future, Selina also faces the everyday burdens of poverty and racism. Written by and about an African-American woman, this coming-of-age story unfolds during the Depression and World War II. Its setting -- a close-knit community of immigrants from Barbados -- is drawn from the author's own experience, as are the lilting accents and vivid idioms of the characters' speech. Paule Marshall's 1959 novel was among the first to portray the inner life of a young female African-American, as well as depicting the cross-cultural conflict between West Indians and American blacks. It remains a vibrant, compelling tale of self-discovery.

When Paul Marshall began to pay attention to his dreams, he could not have anticipated the transformative experience that would follow. A tremendous expansion of consciousness exposed the insignificance of his everyday self but also revealed unsuspected depths of mind and hinted at a deeper self that holds the universe within. In The Shape of the Soul, Marshall-now a mysticism scholar-draws on personal experiences, along with a wealth of religious, philosophical, and scientific ideas, to explore this deeper self, sometimes experienced in mystical and near-death states as spherical in form. Drawing inspiration from the philosophers Plotinus and Leibniz, Marshall takes mind to be more fundamental than matter and views the basic units of nature as perceptual beings. We ourselves are such beings, striving for fulfilment in a long evolutionary journey of soul-making. Bringing together mysticism, philosophy, biology, and even some physics, The Shape of the Soul offers a deeply integrated vision of the self and the universe. Addressing the mind-body problem, the origin of the world, evolution, reincarnation, suffering, and the nature of God, Marshall delivers what will surely prove an intellectual classic.

He's been a thorn in Dredd's side since the Apocalypse War, but will Orlok the Assassin finally be brought to justice? The latest in the best-selling series of Judge Dredd's adventures sees the future lawman and the Sov killer come face-to-face for what could be the last time. Will justice be served? Or will Orlok escape again? Meanwhile, Dredd investigates the twisted machinations of Judge Edgar, the Machiavellian head of the Public Surveillance Unit, and superstar writer Garth Ennis (Preacher, The Boys) returns to write his final Dredd story, drawn by John Higgins (Watchmen).