Searching For Eternity

Forced to move with his mother to the US from France, a young man finds a new life and solves the riddles of his past.

"What happens when we die? Do we simply cease to exist with our consciousness obliterated for all eternity? Or do we have an enduring soul that can continue to experience awareness and some form of ongoing 'life.' Does God exist? Without a creator, how can the universe exist? What is the purpose of the universe and what is its ultimate fate? Does our behavior in day-to-day life really influence what hapens to us after we die? Why do many people believe in a heaven and a hell? What is the basis of these beliefs? Should we be anxious about our death or just enjoy life in the here-and-now? Can these ultimate mysteries be solved by science? What does science already know about the mysteries of creation? Sooner or later, all of us will face the stark reality of death. Many people go through life with an increasing awareness -- and increasing anxiety -- about their eventual fate. Dr. Don Morse, a scientist who believed in the absolute finality of death, did, too. Then his near-death experience led him on a quest to uncover what science knows about the nature of death. Dr. Morse's subsequent spiritual journey led him through the entire realm of science and religious beliefs until he came to an inescapable conclusion: Some form of an afterlife must exist. Join Dr. Morse as he summarizes the vast research and data leading to this conclusion. Near-death and out-of-body experiences, experiments creating apparitions, research attempting to weight the soul, and the wide range of ancient and modern spiritual concepts are all covered in this masterful, comprehensive scientific quest for truth."--back cover.

From "the world's greatest tour guide," a deeply-researched, captivating journey through the rich history of Christianity and the winding paths of the French and Italian countryside that will feed mind, body, and soul (New York Times). "What a wondrous work! This beautifully written and totally clear-eyed account of his pilgrimage will have you wondering whether we should all embark on such a journey, either of the body, the soul or, as in Egan's case, both." --Cokie Roberts "Egan draws us in, making us feel frozen in the snow-covered Alps, joyful in valleys of trees with low-hanging fruit, skeptical of the relics of embalmed saints and hopeful for the healing of his encrusted toes, so worn and weathered from their walk."--The Washington Post Moved by his mother's death and his Irish Catholic family's complicated history with the church, Timothy Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity to explore the religion in the world that it created. Egan sets out along the Via Francigena, once the major medieval trail leading the devout to Rome, and travels overland via the alpine peaks and small mountain towns of France, Switzerland and Italy, accompanied by a quirky cast of fellow pilgrims and by some of the towering figures of the faith--Joan of Arc, Henry VIII, Martin Luther. The goal: walking to St. Peter's Square, in hopes of meeting the galvanizing pope who is struggling to hold together the church through the worst crisis in half a millennium. A thrilling journey, a family story, and a revealing history, A Pilgrimage to Eternity looks for our future in its search for God.

The untold story of the religious figures, philosophers, astronomers, geologists, physicists, and mathematicians who, for more than four hundred years, have pursued the answer to a fundamental question at the intersection of science and religion: When did the universe begin? The moment of the universe's conception is one of science's Holy Grails, investigated by some of the most brilliant and inquisitive minds across the ages. Few were more committed than Bishop James Ussher, who lost his sight during the fifty years it took him to compose his Annals of all known history, now famous only for one date: 4004 b.c. Ussher's date for the creation of the world was spectacularly inaccurate, but that didn't stop it from being so widely accepted that it was printed in early twentieth-century Bibles. As writer and documentary filmmaker Martin Gorst vividly illustrates in this captivating, character-driven narrative, theology let Ussher down just as it had thwarted Theophilus of Antioch and many before him. Geology was next to fail the test of time. In the eighteenth century, naturalist Comte de Buffon, working out the rate at which the earth was supposed to have cooled, came up with an age of 74,832 years, even though he suspected this was far too low. Biology then had a go in the hands of fossil hunter Johann Scheuchzer, who alleged to have found a specimen of a man drowned at the time of Noah's flood. Regrettably it was only the imprint of a large salamander. And so science inched forward via Darwinism, thermodynamics, radioactivity, and, most recently, the astronomers at the controls of the Hubble space telescope, who put the beginning of time at 13.4 billion years ago (give or take a billion). Taking the reader into the laboratories and salons of scholars and scientists, visionaries and eccentrics, Measuring Eternity is an engagingly written account of an epic, often quixotic quest, of how individuals who dedicated their lives to solving an enduring mystery advanced our knowledge of the universe.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Winner of the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Nonfiction Nominated for the Evergreen Award A powerful, moving memoir about what it's like to be a student of colour on a predominantly white campus. A booksmart kid from Toronto, Eternity Martis was excited to move away to Western University for her undergraduate degree. But as one of the few Black students there, she soon discovered that the campus experiences she'd seen in movies were far more complex in reality. Over the next four years, Eternity learned more about what someone like her brought out in other people than she did about herself. She was confronted by white students in blackface at parties, dealt with being the only person of colour in class and was tokenized by her romantic partners. She heard racial slurs in bars, on the street, and during lectures. And she gathered labels she never asked for: Abuse survivor. Token. Bad feminist. But, by graduation, she found an unshakeable sense of self--and a support network of other women of colour. Using her award-winning reporting skills, Eternity connects her own experience to the systemic issues plaguing students today. It's a memoir of pain, but also resilience.

The book attempts to present a new perspective to its readers for looking self and surrounding world. It tries to tell that we humans, all living beings and all non living things, moon, planets, stars, galaxies are made of the same matter particles. How everything is cosmically connected? How all matter, all space, all energy has been formed during the cosmic evolution? What are different ways to decipher such understanding? What are the scientific principles, laws and theories which help in explaining and understanding them? What are the tools and techniques which enable us to look, to experience and to test them? How vast is the universe and how small and insignificant we are? In short, the book provides a cosmic perspective for self realization to mankind. The Bhagavad Gita mentions one of the paths for salvation as Gyan Yoga (the path of knowledge for self realization). This book is a step forward in that direction. While giving brief account of cosmos, the book tries to soften human ego and expects its readers to keep our earthly differences aside and realize our cosmic connection.

"[A] fascinating account of the twisted threads of murder, ethnic violence and mob justice in 19th century Southern California." —Jill Leovy, author of Ghettoside: A History of Murder in America, in the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles is a city founded on blood. Once a small Mexican pueblo teeming with Californios, Indians, and Americans, all armed with Bowie knives and Colt revolvers, it was among the most murderous locales in the Californian frontier. In Eternity Street: Violence and Justice in Frontier Los Angeles, "a vivid, disturbing portrait of early Los Angeles" (Publishers Weekly), John Mack Faragher weaves a riveting narrative of murder and mayhem, featuring a cast of colorful characters vying for their piece of the city. These include a newspaper editor advocating for lynch laws to enact a crude manner of racial justice and a mob of Latinos preparing to ransack a county jail and murder a Texan outlaw. In this "groundbreaking" (True West) look at American history, Faragher shows us how the City of Angels went from a lawless outpost to the sprawling metropolis it is today.

Live with eternity in view! You were created with eternity in your heart. This is why you have an inner knowledge of a greater existence beyond this life on earth. This 40-day devotional is inspired by Driven by Eternity: Make Your Life Count Today and Forever by best-selling author John Bevere. In it he shares compelling principles on how to live with hope and assurance that will carry you through to eternity. Each day contains a devotional reading inspired by the book, additional Scriptures for study, an eternity truth, key action steps and points of reflection, and a personal prayer. It is easy to get stuck in the busyness of life and miss what’s most important. Everyone will stand before Jesus Christ at the end of time, and those who have followed Him will receive eternal rewards. Many will be shocked to learn that the majority of their time was spent on things that won’t matter. How can you be ready to stand confidently before Christ? This devotional will instruct you how to maintain an eternal perspective inspire you to work for the things that will endure till the end. Keep in sight the reward Christ has for you as you follow Him with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength.