Often the age-old customs, whose relevance is lost to modern times, are dismissed as meaningless superstitions. The truth, however, is that these practices reveal the philosophical and scientific approach to life that has characterized Hindu thought since ancient times; it is important to revive their original meanings today. This handy book tells the fascinating stories and explains the science behind the Hindu rites and rituals that we sometimes follow blindly. It is essential reading for anyone interested in India's cultural tradition.

    The larger, louder half of legendary magic act Penn & Teller, and New York Times bestselling author of GOD, NO!, is back with a new collection of spiritual rants and hilarious ravings -- the perfect year-round gift, when you consider that EVERY DAY IS AN ATHEIST HOLIDAY.

    No facility. No machines. Just two dudes and a tribe of thousands. Welcome to November Project’s world takeover.What started 4 years ago as a simple monthlong workout pact between two former Northeastern University oarsmen in Boston has grown into an international fitness phenomenon. November Project espouses free, public, all-weather, outdoor group sweats that turn strangers into friends and connect everyone to the city in which they live. It’s been described as everything from flashmob fitness to “the fight club of running clubs” and a cult. But November Project prides itself on defying categories.In November Project: The Book, Brogan Graham (a.k.a. BG) and Bojan Mandaric, in their own spicy, big-hearted words, chronicle, along with tribe member and writer Caleb Daniloff, their fitness movement’s genesis, evolution, operations, membership, “secret sauce,” and future―and along the way, show you how you can get fit and societally engaged. The book also includes illustrated workouts; the keys to meaningful civic engagement; information on using your city as a gym; advice on starting an NP tribe; tips on growing, sustaining, and invigorating membership through social media; and thoughts on the collective power of community.

    The method employed is to take the obscurantist vocabulary of monotheism and translate it into plain language. In doing so, the book attempts to show that god worshippers themselves do not understand the things they claim to believe, and by which they live their lives. For the reader who believes in god, this polemical little volume may help them to understand why secularists get so frustrated and infuriated when in debate with god worshippers. For the secularist, this book is a reminder that not everyone is susceptible to reasoned argument. The reminder is a timely one for those who live in an era of the resurgence of Islamic Jihad. A clear understanding of the irrationality of monotheism is something which matters urgently when confronted by the global rise of religious fascism. What is said in this little book will no doubt be found impolite and overly-provocative by those authoritarian people within the politically correct establishment who conflate morality with niceness. They will probably utter the familiar refrain that we ought not to denigrate other people’s deeply and sincerely held beliefs. Instead we should live in a permanent state of apology for the crime of having minds of our own. But religions are no more above criticism than any other ideologies. They have no entitlement to a privileged status. Besides which, large numbers of god worshippers feel free to denigrate and insult everyone else’s deeply and sincerely held beliefs, so why should they have special permission to be hypocrites? Topics covered: 01. God 02. Prayer 03. Worship 04. God the Infinite 05. Immortality and Heaven 06. Soul / Spirit 07. Salvation 08. Faith 09. Spreading The Word 10. Theocracy 11. Theocracy and Nuclear Armageddon 12. God, Guilty of Genocide 13. Religion and Morality are Mutually Exclusive 14. God worship is Immoral 15. God worship is Obscene 16. Everything is God’s Fault 17. If it’s in The Book, then it Must be True 18. Claiming Incomprehensible Beliefs 19. Is Islamism the New Fascism? 20. The Moderates

    

    John's books already knows how her stories come alive, and this account of her own life is no exception. Her powers of description make the story leap from the page and the reader is transported to far off places and times; and the people and the things she describes can almost be touched, smelled and seen. Patricia was not just a gifted story-teller, though; she was also a deeply committed follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose spiritual journey began when she was only six years old. 'My name is Patricia, ' she prayed, 'and if You are really calling me I want to come and be Yours. ' Out of that small beginning there issued a river of life and light and blessing that went on increasing right up to the end of her life. Although she always thought of herself as 'an ordinary sort of girl', her life was extraordinary because of her supreme love for Jesus Christ. The life portrayed here is not that of the self-conscious saint, concerned only with her own saintliness. On the contrary these pages offer us an inside view of someone utterly human, prone to mistakes and failures like the rest of us, yet suffused with the love of God and a contagious joy and peace that was like the bubbling up of a perpetual fountain.

    In that decision, the faith she had always talked about became the faith she was going to learn how to live. In the years since, God has given Angela a passionate desire . . . to live an amazing life, even while raising four kids as a single mom. In this book she shares her hard-earned wisdom on loneliness, dating, finances, and parenting, encouraging every solo mom. "As a gift to our children," she says, "we can become healthy moms who are strong and amazing women in spite of our circumstances."

    Join him on an existential, spiritual and rational journey that articulates powerful arguments for the existence of God, the Qur'an, the Prophethood of Muhammad and why we must know, love and worship God. He addresses academic and popular objections while showing how contemporary atheism is based on false assumptions about reality, which leads to incoherent answers to life's important questions.Does hope, happiness and human value make sense without the Divine? Do we have an ultimate purpose? Can we have consciousness and rational minds without God? Did the universe come from nothing? Does evil and suffering negate Divine mercy? Has scientific progress led to the denial of God? Are revelation and prophethood myths? Is God worthy of our worship? If you want to know how the Islamic intellectual and spiritual tradition answers these questions then this is the book for you.Hamza Andreas Tzortzis's new book presents a much needed comprehensive account of Islamic theism that draws upon Western and Islamic thought.

    With a new preface about the significance of the discovery of the Higgs particle, A Universe from Nothing uses Krauss’s characteristic wry humor and wonderfully clear explanations to take us back to the beginning of the beginning, presenting the most recent evidence for how our universe evolved—and the implications for how it’s going to end. Provocative, challenging, and delightfully readable, this is a game-changing look at the most basic underpinning of existence and a powerful antidote to outmoded philosophical, religious, and scientific thinking.

    Baseball Prospectus 2013 brings together an elite group of analysts to provide the definitive look at the upcoming season in critical essays and commentary on the thirty teams, their managers, and more than sixty players and prospects from each team.Contains critical essays on each of the thirty teams and player comments for some sixty players for each of those teamsProjects each player's stats for the coming season using the groundbreaking PECOTA projection system, which has been called "perhaps the game's most accurate projection model" (Sports Illustrated)From Baseball Prospectus, America's leading provider of statistical analysis for baseballNow in its eighteenth edition, this New York Times bestselling insider's guide remains hands down the most authoritative and entertaining book of its kind.

     Carl Sagan is considered one of the greatest scientific minds of our time. His remarkable ability to explain science in terms easily understandable to the layman in bestselling books such as Cosmos, The Dragons of Eden, and The Demon-Haunted World won him a Pulitzer Prize and placed him firmly next to Isaac Asimov, Stephen Jay Gould, and Oliver Sachs as one of the most important and enduring communicators of science. In December 2006 it will be the tenth anniversary of Sagan's death, and Ann Druyan, his widow and longtime collaborator, will mark the occasion by releasing Sagan's famous "Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology," The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God. The chance to give the Gifford Lectures is an honor reserved for the most distinguished scientists and philosophers of our civilization. In 1985, on the grand occasion of the centennial of the lectureship, Carl Sagan was invited to give them. He took the opportunity to set down in detail his thoughts on the relationship between religion and science as well as to describe his own personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. The Varieties of Scientific Experience, edited, updated and with an introduction by Ann Druyan, is a bit like eavesdropping on a delightfully intimate conversation with the late great astronomer and astrophysicist. In his charmingly down-to-earth voice, Sagan easily discusses his views on topics ranging from manic depression and the possibly chemical nature of transcendance to creationism and so-called intelligent design to the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets to the likelihood of nuclear annihilation of our own to a new concept of science as "informed worship." Exhibiting a breadth of intellect nothing short of astounding, he illuminates his explanations with examples from cosmology, physics, philosophy, literature, psychology, cultural anthropology, mythology, theology, and more. Sagan's humorous, wise, and at times stunningly prophetic observations on some of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos have the invigorating effect of stimulating the intellect, exciting the imagination, and reawakening us to the grandeur of life in the cosmos.

    That's the premise of this book: how to cook what Zen Buddhists call "the supreme meal"—life. It has to be nourishing, and it has to be shared. And we can use only the ingredients at hand. Inspired by the thirteenth-century manual of the same name by Dogen, the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen tradition, this book teaches us how we can "enlarge the family we're feeding" if we just use some imagination. Bernie Glassman founded Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, New York, in 1982 to employ those whom other companies deem unemployable—the homeless, ex-cons, recovering addicts, low-skill individuals—with the belief that investing in people, and not just products, does pay. He was right. Greyston has evolved into an $8 million-a-year business with clients all over New York City. It is the sole supplier of brownies to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, and has even sold cakes to the White House. But financial profit is only one of two bottom lines that Greyston is committed to. The other one is social impact, and this goal is certainly being met. The bakery enterprise has led to the creation of the Greyston Foundation, an integrated network of organizations that provide affordable housing, child care, counseling services, and health care to families in the community. Using entrepreneurship to solve the problems of the inner city, Greyston has become a national model for comprehensive community development. Its giving back is more than just sloughing off a percentage of its profits and donating it to charity; it's about working with the community's needs right from the beginning—bringing them from the margins to the core. As its company motto goes, "We don't hire people to bake brownies. We bake brownies to hire people." This book is as much a self-manual as a business manual, addressing such concepts as    • Beginner's mind    • The Middle Way of Sustainability    • The "hungry ghosts" of Buddhism as a picture of all humanity    • Working with our faults    • Indra's Net and the interconnectedness of life    • Leaving no trace

     Provides in-depth and cutting-edge treatment of natural theology's main arguments Includes contributions from first-rate philosophers well known for their work on the relevant topics Updates relevant arguments in light of the most current, state-of-the-art philosophical and scientific discussions Stands in useful contrast and opposition to the arguments of the 'new atheists'

    Years of listening to other people's stories of going through tough times, hoping to overcome difficult odds, or trying to find a way to make a difference in the world brought Edward Grinnan to the undersanding that personal change is vital to achieving success. In each chaper of this book, he weaves the tales of other people with his own story to reveal how each of us can learn about the keys to powerful personal change. He shows these principles at work in his own personal struggle with alcoholism, and how he has learned through his own missteps to accept change and become the person he was meant to be.

    Where the world stresses the importance of success, Bird invites readers to embrace nine specific failures in the areas of our personal lives, our relationships, and the church. Why? Because what human wisdom deems indispensable is so often an impediment to our spiritual growth, and what it deems insignificant is so often essential to it.With compelling examples from the Bible and today, Bird paints an enticing picture of the counterintuitive, countercultural life that God wants for us. He helps readers delight in all of the ways that Jesus turned the world upside-down, allowing us to experience true freedom, not from our weaknesses but in the midst of them.