Essentials of Christian Theology


William C. PlacherRichard J. Mouw - 2003
    Himself giving an excellent discussion of the history and current state of each doctrinal issue, he allows the essays to explore and raise questions about their key elements—and the contemporary issues confronting them.

The Feasts of Israel


Chuck Missler - 1993
     The first three feasts in the 1st month point to the Messiah's First Coming; the last three feasts in the 7th month, to His Second Coming. The middle feast highlights the Church, in more ways than is generally recognized. This briefing reveals the rich background of these feasts with many surprises for the Biblical believer, and yet only scratches the surface. The first half of this briefing pack is taught by Chuck Missler with the later half taught by Dan Stolebarger.

Rationalist Spirituality: An Exploration of the Meaning of Life and Existence Informed by Logic and Science


Bernardo Kastrup - 2011
    Indeed, if God knows everything, why do we need to learn through pain and suffering? If God is omnipotent, why are we needed to do good? If the universe is fundamentally good, why are wars, crime, and injustice all around us? In modern society, orthodox science takes the rational high-ground and tackles these contradictions by denying the very need for, and the existence of, meaning. Indeed, many of us implicitly accept the notion that rationality somehow contradicts spirituality. That is a modern human tragedy, not only for its insidiousness, but for the fact that it is simply not true. In this book, the author constructs a coherent and logical argument for the meaning of existence, informed by science itself. A framework is laid out wherein all aspects of human existence have a logical, coherent reason and role, including the ones often perceived as negative. The powerful logic of this framework inescapably leads to insightful and inspiring guidelines for living a purposeful and meaningful life.

Buddhism: Buddhism for Beginners, A Guide to Buddhist Teachings, Meditation, Mindfulness, and Inner Peace


Gabriel Shaw - 2016
     This book will provide you an introduction to the history of Buddhism and its teachings and practices. Along with Buddhist philosophies there are many practices to incorporate into your daily life such as meditation and mindfulness to help calm your mind, reduce stress and anxiety. ☆☆“When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways - either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength. Thanks to the teachings of Buddha, I have been able to take this second way.” – The Dalai Lama☆☆ This is a guide to Buddhism for beginners but includes quotes and resources to guide you towards more advanced Buddhist teachings and writing if you wish to develop your own study of Buddhism further. Here Is A Preview Of What’s Included… An introduction to Buddhist Philosophies and Teachings The history of Buddhism and the Life of the Buddha Key Buddhism concepts such as Karma, suffering, Samsara and Nirvana The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism The Eightfold Path, The Five Precepts and The Middle Way Practicing Buddhism in every day life How to practice mindfulness to reduce stress and increase happiness Meditation practices apps, and resources Meditation to obtain calm and clarity over your thoughts Much, Much More! ☆☆ “Worrying doesn’t take away tomorrow’s trouble’s, it takes away today’s peace” – The Buddha ☆☆ KINDLE EDITION: NOTE: You do not need a kindle reader to read this, you can read this on smartphone or in a web browser ☆☆Download This Great Book Today! Available To Read On Your Computer, MAC, Smartphone, Kindle Reader, iPad, or Tablet!☆☆ ☆☆To purchase this book scroll to the top and select Buy now with 1 Click ☆☆ PAPERBACK EDITION: Kindle edition included for free with purchase of paperback To purchase the paper, click paperback at the top of this description to purchase.

American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon


Stephen R. Prothero - 2003
    Even as most Christian believers cleave to a traditional faith, other people give Jesus a leading role as folk hero, pitchman, and countercultural icon. And so it has been since the nation's founding--from Thomas Jefferson, who took scissors to his New Testament to sort out true from false Jesus material; to the Jews, Buddhists and Muslims who fit Jesus into their own traditions; to the people who adapt Jesus for stage and screen and the Holy Land theme park. American Jesus is a lively, illuminating and accessible survey that takes us into unexpected corners of our shared religious heritage (Dan Cryer, Newsday).

A Shorter Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica Edited and Explained for Beginners


Peter Kreeft
    The reason for the double shortening is pretty obvious: the original runs some 4000 pages! (The Summa of the Summa was just over 500.) The Summa is certainly the greatest, most ambitious, most rational book of theology ever written. In it, there is also much philosophy, which is selected, excerpted, arranged, introduced, and explained in footnotes here by Kreeft, a popular Thomist teacher and writer. St. Thomas Aquinas is universally recognized as one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived. His writings combine the two fundamental ideals of philosophical writing: clarity and profundity. He is a master of metaphysics and technical terminology, yet so full of both theoretical and practical wisdom. He is the master of common sense. The Summa Theologica is timeless, but particularly important today because of his synthesis of faith and reason, revelation and philosophy, and the Biblical and the classical Greco-Roman heritages. This little book is designed for beginners, either for classroom use or individually. It contains the most famous and influential passages of St. Thomas' philosophy with copious aids to understanding them.

Liberalism


John N. Gray - 1986
    In this new edition, John Gray argues that whereas liberalism was the political theory of modernity, it is ill-equipped to cope with the dilemmas of the postmodern condition. The task now, as Gray sees it, is to develop a pluralist theory, in which the liberal problem of finding a modus vivendi among rival communities and worldviews is solved in postliberal terms.Copublished with Open University Press

Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life: A Practical Guide to Prayer for Active People


Robert J. Spitzer - 2008
    Some develop very quickly, but do not achieve significant depth; while others develop quite slowly, but seem to be almost unending in the depth of wisdom, trust, hope, virtue, and love they engender. The best way of explaining this is to look at each of the pillars individually.Before doing this, however, it is indispensable for each of us to acknowledge (at least intellectually) the fundamental basis for Christian contemplation, namely, the unconditional Love of God. Jesus taught us to address God as Abba. If God really is Abba; if His love is like the father of the prodigal son; if Jesus' passion and Eucharist are confirmations of that unconditional Love; if God really did so love the world that He sent His only begotten Son into the world not to condemn us, but to save us and bring us to eternal life (Jn 3:16-19); if nothing really can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Rm 8:31-39); and if God really has prepared us "to grasp fully, with all the holy ones, the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ's love, and experience this love which surpasses all understanding, so that we may attain to the fullness of God Himself" (Eph 3:18-20), then God's love is unconditional, and it is, therefore, the foundation for unconditional trust and unconditional hope. There can be nothing more important than contemplating, affirming, appropriating, and living in this Unconditional Love. This is the purpose of contemplation; indeed, the purpose of the spiritual life itself.

The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected: A Natural Philosopher’s Quest for Trout and the Meaning of Everything


Marcelo Gleiser - 2016
    Now a world-famous theoretical physicist with hundreds of scientific articles and several books of popular science to his credit, he felt it was time to connect with nature in less theoretical ways. After seeing a fly-fishing class on the Dartmouth College green, he decided to learn to fly-fish, a hobby, he says, that teaches humility. In The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected, Gleiser travels the world to scientific conferences, fishing wherever he goes. At each stop, he ponders how in the myriad ways physics informs the act of fishing; how, in its turn, fishing serves as a lens into nature’s inner workings; and how science engages with questions of meaning and spirituality, inspiring a sense of mystery and awe of the not yet known. Personal and engaging, The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected is a scientist’s tribute to nature, an affirmation of humanity’s deep connection with and debt to Earth, and an exploration of the meaning of existence, from atom to trout to cosmos.

HOW THE 1 PERCENT PROVIDES THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF THE 99 PERCENT


George Reisman - 2015
    As they see matters, wealth in the form of means of production and wealth in the form of consumers’ goods are essentially indistinguishable. For all practical purposes, they have no awareness of the existence of capital and of its importance. Thus, capitalists are generally depicted as fat men, whose girth allegedly signifies an excessive consumption of food and of wealth in general, while their alleged victims, the wage earners, are typically depicted as substantially underweight, allegedly signifying their inability to consume, thanks to the allegedly starvation wages paid by the capitalists.The truth is that in a capitalist economic system, the wealth of the capitalists is not only overwhelmingly in the form of means of production, such as factory buildings, machinery, farms, mines, stores, warehouses, and means of transportation and communication, but all of this wealth is employed in producing for the market, where its benefit is made available to everyone in the economic system who is able to afford to buy its products.Consider. Whoever can afford to buy an automobile benefits from the existence of the automobile factory and its equipment where that car was made. He also benefits from the existence of all the other automobile factories, whose existence and competition served to reduce the price he had to pay for his automobile. He benefits from the existence of the steel mill that provided the steel for his car, and from the iron mine that provided the iron ore needed for the production of that steel, and, of course, from the existence of all the other steel mills and iron mines whose existence and competition served to hold down the prices of the steel and iron ore that contributed to the production of his car.And, thanks to the great magnitude of wealth employed as capital, the demand for labor, of which capital is the foundation, is great enough and thus wages are high enough that virtually everyone is able to afford to a substantial degree most of the products of the economic system. For the capital of the capitalists is the foundation both of the supply of products that everyone buys and of the demand for the labor that all wage earners sell. More capital—a greater amount of wealth in the possession of the capitalists—means a both a larger and better supply of products for wage earners to buy and a greater demand for the labor that wage earners sell. Everyone, wage earners and capitalists alike, benefits from the wealth of the capitalists, because, as I say, that wealth is the foundation of the supply of the products that everyone buys and of the demand for the labor that all wage earners sell. More capital in the hands of the capitalists always means a more abundant, better quality of goods and services offered for sale and a larger demand for labor. The further effect is lower prices and higher wages, and thus a higher standard of living for wage earners.Furthermore, the combination of the profit motive and competition operates continually to improve the products offered in the market and the efficiency with which they are produced, thus steadily further improving the standard of living of everyone.In the alleged conflict between the so-called 99 percent and the so-called 1 percent, the program of the 99 percent is to seize as far as possible the wealth of the 1 percent and consume it. To the extent that it is enacted, the effect of this program can only be to impoverish everyone, and the 99 percent to a far greater extent than the 1 percent. To the extent that the 1 percent loses its mansions, luxury cars, and champagne and caviar, 99 times as many people lose their houses, run-of-the mill cars, and steak and hamburger.

Coffee with Plato


Donald R. Moor - 2007
    Travel back to ancient Greece with Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Donald R. Moor and author Robert M. Pirsig ("Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance") to meet this legendary thinker. In addition to expanding upon his famous allegory of the cave, Plato talks about learning through dialogue, the primacy of good and the price of wrong doing, democracy, freedom and censorship, women's equality, love, and mathematics, and the search for truth.

Death


Todd May - 2009
    There are many ways to think about and deal with death. Among those ways, however, a good number of them are attempts to escape its grip. In this book, Todd May seeks to confront death in its power. He considers the possibility that our mortal deaths are the end of us, and asks what this might mean for our living. What lessons can we draw from our mortality? And how might we live as creatures who die, and who know we are going to die? Todd May is Kathryn and Calhoun Lemon Professor of Philosophy at Clemson University, North Carolina.

The Nature of Happiness


Desmond Morris - 2004
    He shows that there are many ways of achieving happiness; for example, there is the inherent happiness that comes with the love of a child; the competitive happiness of triumphing over your opponents; the sensual happiness of the hedonist. Rather than preaching a particular behavior or way of life, Morris provides knowledge that we can use, if we wish, to make ourselves happier.

The Way to Will Power


Henry Hazlitt - 2009
    And at the bottom of the page is the triangular clipping which you cut out and send for the book on how to acquire ...

The Heathen's Guide to World Religions: A Secular History of the 'One True Faiths'


William Hopper - 2000
    "Hopper represents the most lethal of organized religions many opponents: a curious, well-educated individual with a sharp wit." Queen's University Journal Review "Wickedly fun and informative." Toronto Star "The Heathen's Guide To World Religions has taken up permanent residence on my bookshelves... a masterfully written, wonderfully funny, and deliciously snarky trip down religious lane." Al Stefanelli, UNITED ATHEIST FRONT. "Like Monty Python in religious garb... easily one of the best places to invest your book buying dollar." Georgia Straight