The Paradox Of Human Nature And Religious Faith

This is a book for our time. The advent of Covid-19 is turning our world upside down and highlighting the paradoxical nature of human behaviour. A minority of thoughtless people are indulging in selfish activities that threaten our safety, whilst NHS workers heroically risk their own lives to save others. In South Africa members of rival drug gangs, who would normally kill each other without a second thought, have called a truce and are now working together in order to ensure that food is distributed to needy families. Human nature is paradoxical because it is capable of perceiving both the finite (secular) and infinite (spiritual) which are juxtaposed within the context of reality. What makes this book different is that spirituality is not considered to be other-worldly. What we refer to as the secular and the spiritual are viewed as ‘two sides of a coin’ that co-exist as part of one reality, within the context of temporality. Both contribute to what we perceive to be a sense of ‘self’. They are different perceptions of consciousness that influence human behaviour through conscious and subconscious processes. The aim of this book is to consider the factors that contribute to the paradoxical nature of being human and to explore the issues that cloud our perceptions and cause confusion. It proffers a vision of how a religious faith can be made intelligible at a time when the majority of people, living in our postmodern age, consider it to be irrelevant.

The Best Nonfiction Masterpiece of the 20th Century? “There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other.” - William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature is not a book about a specific religion. The author, psychologist Williams James does not try to convince the reader one religion is better than the other. He doesn’t even make a case for atheism and the scientific approach. The book is in fact about human nature and how we experience religion at a psychological level. Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes

Discusses questions such as, what is knowledge, what qualifies as knowledge, and what does not; what does it mean to say, "I know, I understand," what is truth, and what is certainty? When can we affirm and be certain that -- I know this or that, this or that is a universal truth I can rely upon, and I know that it so because I have a method and at least one criterion to determine that this or that is indeed a universal truth. Furthermore, how do knowledge and understanding compare with belief: Are there evidences so compelling that, in certain cases, propositions of the form 'I know that X' are indeed expressions of knowledge, and in other cases merely expressions of opinions and/or beliefs? Can the words 'belief', 'understanding', and 'knowledge' be used interchangeably? And by the way, what role does reason play in our endeavours to seek knowledge? And what role does human nature play in that endeavour?

Continuing Keith Ward's series on comparative religion, this book deals with religious views of human nature and destiny. The beliefs of six major traditions are presented: the view of Advaita Vedanta that there is one Supreme Self, unfolding into the illusion of individual existence; the Vaishnava belief that there is an infinite number of souls, whose destiny is to be released from material embodiment; the Buddhist view that there is no eternal Self; the Abrahamic belief that persons are essentially embodied souls; and the materialistic position that persons are complex material organisms. Indian ideas of rebirth, karma, and liberation from samsara are critically analysed and compared with semitic belief in the intermediate state of Sheol, Purgatory or Paradise, the Final Judgement and the resurrection of the body. The impact of scientific theories of cosmic and biological evolution on religious beliefs is assessed, and a form of 'soft emergent materialism' is defended, with regard to the soul. In this context, a Christian doctrine of original sin and atonement is presented, stressing the idea of soterial, as opposed to forensic, justice. Finally, a Christian view of personal immortality and the 'end of all things' is developed in conversation with Jewish and Muslim beliefs about judgement and resurrection.

The mysteries of the Church, a materialistic scientist once announced to an astonished world, are child’s play compared with the mysteries of nature. He was completely wrong, of course, yet there was every excuse for his mistake. For, as he himself tells us in effect, he found everywhere in that created nature which he knew so well, anomaly piled on anomaly and paradox on paradox, and he knew no more of theology than its simpler and more explicit statements. Aeterna Press

•"Prove to me that God does not exist." •"God has designed every being to be this way. Evolution is a farce." •"God's existence is proven by the Bible.” •"Hitler and Stalin were Atheists and look at what happened!" These are but a few of the comments you may hear from people who have faith in a god. We depart on a guided thought experiment to understand how religion came to be, why religion has been a mainstay in modernity and what armamentarium to use in our fight against religious zealots. If you are a theist, the purpose of this book is to reason you out of something you had no reason to believe in the first place. If you are already on the fence, I look to burn down that structure. As I plant the flag for all to see, we will journey through fables, morality, science, and sin and verify if religion can, in fact, be eradicated. Born in Brentwood, NY, Orlando Rodriguez has moved many times since his childhood. He settled down in Manhattan in 2002. In what can only be described as love at first sight, he met and married his wife in 2003 and has three children. After living in Manhattan for several years, they all moved to Freehold, NJ, where they enjoy the relaxed life on weekends. Orlando’s hobbies include astronomy, working out, playing the guitar and the violin. The True Nature Of Human Nature Is Orlando’s first published work. His next book will be called When Dinosaurs Fall.

Religion evokes strong emotions and raises hard questions. This volume addresses many of the contentious elements that religion provokes and challenges some of the easy answers contemporary society has produced. The frequent and often facile dictum about the separation of church and state, when examined closely, may prove to contribute to the erosion of some of our most cherished human values, rather than to their preservation. The science-versus-religion dichotomy is dogma for many, yet the empiricism that is the hallmark of scientific method and knowledge can be singularly absent from positions that claim to be science. The current spate of attacks against God and religion that are now commonplace, when critically scrutinized, often fail to provide compelling arguments or even to be as objective as their authors claim. These and other explorations are the focus of this book. From the Forward in which Charles Kimball challenges the West to re-evaluate its perspective and understanding of the East, particularly Islam, to the Afterword in which theologian Gregory Baum chronicles the extraordinary reversal of sociology’s estimation of religion, the invitation from this volume to all of us is to review our pieties and presuppositions as we reflect on the future of religion.