Believing And Seeing

"Nowadays, beliefs rule the day. "Personal truth" is more important than "the truth." In one study, more than 91 percent of the respondents couldn't tell the difference between opinion and fact. For them, in other words, opinions are facts and beliefs are truth. In Believing is Seeing, former ABC News Science Editor and Harvard physics instructor Dr. Michael Guillen explains how every aspect of the human experience, from science to religion, is powered by one thing: faith. That includes your worldview. Powered by faith -- by beliefs you can't prove -- it dictates how you see everything and everyone, all the time. Believing is seeing. Are your beliefs true or untrue? Is your faith enlightened or misguided? The answers to those questions reveal whether your current worldview is dangerous or dependable. As Dr. Guillen explains in the pages of this book, what you believe is not just a matter of what's true or not true; it's a matter of life and death"--

Is your worldview enlightened enough to accommodate both science and God at the same time? Dr. Michael Guillen, a best-selling author, Emmy award–winning journalist and former physics instructor at Harvard, used to be an Atheist—until science changed his mind. Once of the opinion that people of faith are weak, small-minded folks who just don’t understand science, Dr. Guillen ultimately concluded that not only does science itself depend on faith, but faith is actually the mightiest power in the universe. In Believing Is Seeing, Dr. Guillen recounts the fascinating story of his journey from Atheism to Christianity, citing the latest discoveries in neuroscience, physics, astronomy, and mathematics to pull back the curtain on the mystery of faith as no one ever has. Is it true that “seeing is believing?” Or is it possible that reality can be perceived most clearly with the eyes of faith—and that truth is bigger than proof? Let Dr. Guillen be your guide as he brilliantly argues for a large and enlightened worldview consistent with both God and modern science.

Academy Award–winning director Errol Morris turns his eye to the nature of truth in photography In his inimitable style, Errol Morris untangles the mysteries behind an eclectic range of documentary photographs. With his keen sense of irony, skepticism, and humor, Morris shows how photographs can obscure as much as they reveal, and how what we see is often determined by our beliefs. Each essay in this book is part detective story, part philosophical meditation, presenting readers with a conundrum, and investigates the relationship between photographs and the real world they supposedly record. Believing Is Seeing is a highly original exploration of photography and perception, from one of America’s most provocative observers.

My poems are a unique hybrid of what I call a realistic faith in Jesus Christ. My work doesnt overlook the problems, but I try to remind myself and my readers that God, through Jesus Christ, is greater than any problems that we have. He is not only the Savior who loved me too much to let me go to hell, both literally and symbolically, Hes the only way to heaven literally. But you have to commit your life to Him to receive His power to do His will and experience life in its fullness. Its my faith and hope that whether you know Jesus Christ or not, these poems will draw you to seek a closer relationship with Him. And I know if youre sincere, you will find Him. Without Him, youre lost, not God.

Vin swears he had nothing to do with the robbery--or the two people who were shot. But Sal saw Vin running from the scene. Even after Vin is arrested, Mike isn't sure who to believe. He's caught between his two friends--and believing one might mean losing the other . . .

Developments in medieval science that elevated sight above the other senses found religious expression in the Christian emphasis on miracles, relics, and elaborate structures. In his incisive survey of Gothic art and architecture, Roland Recht argues that this preoccupation with vision as a key to religious knowledge profoundly affected a broad range of late medieval works. In addition to the great cathedrals of France, Recht explores key religious buildings throughout Europe to reveal how their grand designs supported this profusion of images that made visible the signs of scripture. Metalworkers, for example, fashioned intricate monstrances and reliquaries for the presentation of sacred articles, and technical advances in stained glass production allowed for more expressive renderings of holy objects. Sculptors, meanwhile, created increasingly naturalistic works and painters used multihued palettes to enhance their subjects’ lifelike qualities. Reimagining these works as a link between devotional practices in the late Middle Ages and contemporaneous theories that deemed vision the basis of empirical truth, Recht provides students and scholars with a new and powerful lens through which to view Gothic art and architecture.

Break out of spiritual performance into a liberating relationship with Christ. Experience the reality of Jesus through the imaginative power of prayer.

Why are the paleolithic Venus of Willendorf, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes, and Marcel Duchamp's ready-made urinal all considered works of art? Why, strictly speaking, is a Cindy Sherman photograph more "art-like" than a Da Vinci portrait? How did the painters and sculptors of the Renaissance see their creations? And who decides what art is today? In the tradition of Marshall McLuhan and John Berger, this learned and deliciously subversive book gives us a new way of seeing our artistic heritage. Believing Is Seeing is a work of multicultural scope and glittering intelligence that bridges the gulf between classical Japanese painting and the films of Spike Lee, between high theory and pop culture. Probing beyond the rhetorical surface of standard art histories and drawing on a panoramic array of illustrative material, Mary Anne Staniszewski throws a fresh light on individual works and the often mystifying criteria by which they are valued.