Of Gods Humans And Beasts

Bold and irreverent, this is essentially a work of fiction, Arnold’s stories are a blend of humour, cynicism and terror. He extracts episodes from religious texts, personal observations and legends of faith that abound in the sphere of faith and spirituality. The stories project an amplified, yet truthful account of the terrible and the ridiculous. The book does not blaspheme any belief, for nothing he says is a departure from what is already woven into the written texts. Yet this remains a work of fiction with superstitions and reality blended into one disturbing narrative.

Consulting a wide range of key texts and source material, Animals, Gods and Humans covers 800 years and provides a detailed analysis of early Christian attitudes to, and the position of, animals in Greek and Roman life and thought. Both the pagan and Christian conceptions of animals are rich and multilayered, and Ingvild Sælid Gilhus expertly examines the dominant themes and developments in the conception of animals. Including study of: biographies of figures such as Apollonus of Tyana; natural history; the New Testament via Gnostic texts; the church fathers; and from pagan and Christian criticism of animal sacrifice, to the acts of martyrs, the source material and detailed analysis included in this volume make it a veritable feast of information for all classicists.

Wennberg arrives at his own conclusions through careful interaction with church history, Christian theology, the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and the best philosophical thought on the moral status of animals. Two compelling case studies - of factory farming and the other of painful animal research are also included."--BOOK JACKET.

Preface -- Speaking of dignity -- Being human -- Human dignity -- Birth and breeding -- Childhood -- Loyalties -- Death -- Personal dignity -- Confusions -- Equal persons.

A strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future." —Phillip Lopate “[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking. Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.

In The Political Animal in Medieval Philosophy Juhana Toivanen investigates the foundations of human social life through the Aristotelian notion of ‘political animal’, as it was used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

While Human-Animal Studies is a rapidly growing field in modern history, studies on this topic that focus on the Ancient World are few. The present volume aims at closing this gap. It investigates the relation between humans, animals, gods, and things with a special focus on the structure of these categories. An improved understanding of the ancient categories themselves is a precondition for any investigation into the relation between them. The focus of the volume lies on the Ancient Near East, but it also provides studies on Ancient Greece, Asia Minor, Mesoamerica, the Far East, and Arabia.

Creaturely Theology is a ground-breaking scholarly collection of essays that maps out the agenda for the future study of the theology of the non-human and the post-human. A wide range of first-rate contributors show that theological reflection on non-human animals and related issues are an important though hitherto neglected part of the agenda of Christian theology and related disciplines. The book offers a genuine interdisciplinary conversation between theologians, philosophers and scientists and will be a standard text on the theology of non-human animals for years to come. Contributors include: Esther D. Reed (Exeter), Rachel Muers (Leeds), Stephen Clark (Liverpool), Neil Messer (Lampeter), Peter Scott (Manchester), Michael Northcott (Edinburgh), Christopher Southgate (Exeter)