The Idea Of God

What holds society together? How does civilization survive from collapsing in on itself? In this work, Kenneth A. Dobbs describes how religion is the cause of civilization’s rise and prosperity. Beginning with psychological theories on human nature, Dobbs establishes that humanity needs the religious values of truth, beauty, and goodness to flourish. He then proves this psychological theory by analyzing religion’s role in the historical developments of civilization in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Jerusalem, Greece, Rome, and Christendom. He also responds to rebuttals and objections against the thesis that religion is still necessary for modern civilization. The Idea of God explores the historical, political, and philosophical implications of both the implementation and rejection of religion within human civilization. Dobbs articulates religion’s necessary role in civilization, while also provocatively predicting Western civilization’s fate for rejecting religion: societal collapse. The book follows a long intellectual tradition of historians and philosophers who have argued a similar thesis including Polybius, St. Augustine, Arnold Toynbee, Russel Kirk, Richard M. Weaver, and Christopher Dawson. Dobbs reintroduces these classical ideas to the modern world.

God – the supernatural being, the perfect, the omnipotent and the omniscient originator, and ruler of the universe – is the object of worship in almost all religions across the world. Usually, people understand God through the religions they’re born in. This way, they get to learn how and why their Gods created reality and put them in it. But is this the only possible way to understand the entity? What if one takes an alternate route to understand God? What if one first understands the reality God created – the reality that everything and everyone’s a part of – and then identifies the entity itself? Reality includes everything around and inside it, and inevitably includes us. Understanding the reality requires a metaphysical analysis of life and the universe and metaphysics reaches an incredibly new level if the knowledge of the Western sciences is merged with the everlasting ideas of the Eastern spiritual philosophies! With multiple perspectives making the reader constantly inquisitive, The Concept of ‘God’ merges the knowledge of science and spirituality to understand the nature of life and reality and then finds out who the all-powerful God is!

On first publication in the 1960s, "Honest to God" did more than instigate a passionate debate about the nature of Christian belief in a secular revolution. It epitomised the revolutionary mood of the era and articulated the anxieties of a generation.

What is the philosophy of religion? How can we distinguish it from theology on the one hand and the psychology/sociology of religious belief on the other? What does it mean to describe God as eternal? And should religious people want there to be good arguments for the existence of God, or is religious belief only authentic in the absence of these good arguments? In this Very Short Introduction Tim Bayne introduces the field of philosophy of religion, and engages with some of the most burning questions that philosophers discuss. Considering how religion should be defined, and whether we even need to be able to define it in order to engage in the philosophy of religion, he goes on to discuss whether the existence of God matters. Exploring the problem of evil, Bayne also debates the connection between faith and reason, and the related question of what role reason should play in religious contexts. Shedding light on the relationship between science and religion, Bayne finishes by considering the topics of reincarnation and the afterlife. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A robust defence of the philosophy of Idealism - the view that all reality is based on Mind - which shows that this is strongly rooted in classical traditions of philosophy.

The five-volume series was designed for the World Exposition Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany to contribute to the dialogue of the world religions. After an introduction to the conflict of religion and the mission of a philosophy of the world religions, scholars of philosophy and religion from the east and west ring the three themes through the perspectives of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The 12 talks were presented to the first discourse, in Emden, German in September 1999. There is no subject index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR