God and Mankind: Comparative Religions by Professor Robert Oden is an ideal starting point for gaining some progress in considering these questions. And if you've been thinking about them for a while, as so many do, you will likely discover he has many fresh insights to offer you.Professor Oden, who holds degrees in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Theology, has taught at Harvard University and Dartmouth College over a long and exceptionally distinguished career as both teacher and college president.His lectures approach religious belief and ritual as possible answers to these most difficult and enduring questions, which have occupied humanity from the beginning.An Ideal Starting Point for InquiryThe lectures underscore both the unity and the diversity of religious approaches to life in a sweeping conceptual grasp.Professor Oden begins with a discussion of the nature and study of religion, distinguishing between religion as both a matter of faith and as an appropriate subject of intellectual and academic pursuit.In addition to discussing the four traditional views of religion, Professor Oden proposes another: a system of communication.This serves as a crucial conceptual framework for exploring the thoughts of Mircea Eliade, a historian of religion, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago, who proposed that the best way to understand religions is to examine their views of how the world came into being and how it operates on a daily basis.How Do We Reconcile Suffering and a Benevolent Deity?Professor Oden continues with an investigation of the problem of reconciling an all-powerful and benevolent deity with the suffering and evil that are part of human existence.You will also look at the dynamics of religious communities in general and the impact of the Puritan religious tradition on America.The introductory lecture lays out a framework for the study of religion, beginning with the "what" and "why" of the matter, and moving to how religions have been compared with history, science, psychology, and society.You learn that for religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism that see the world as old, salvation comes by escaping from the endless cycle of birth and rebirth. But Judaism and Christianity, however, see the world as relatively new, and the goal is to gain more chances at life, either collectively or individually.Professor Oden addresses the centrality of myth in making sense of religious cosmologies, and he places special emphasis on the birth narratives of religious heroes, particularly the unusual circumstances surrounding their conception and birth.Religious Heroes and Teachersin developing a framework for an extensive discussion of the ancient Sumerian myth, the Epic of Gilgamesh and its cosmological implications.You explore the notion of the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, later expanded by the American anthropologist Victor Turner, that the rite of passage theme must be understood as central for religious cosmologies in general.As with Gilgamesh, this lecture looks at the stories of Moses, Jesus, Krishna, and Gautama the Buddha, unearthing in each a key point that aptly reflects the cosmology of the religion in question.Professor Oden goes into a systematic analysis of the "theodicy" problem, which is: How can an all-powerful and benevolent deity allow innocent people to suffer while often success and happiness seem to come to those who are evil? All world religions have attempted to deal with this dilemma—and five answers have been produced.The discussion of theodicy continues by examining the most famous example in the Western religious tradition—the book of Job—and two of the main sources of Christian thinking on the topic, the Apostle Paul and the 16th-century Swiss theologian, John Calvin.By way of comparison, Professor Oden also discusses the Hindu and Buddhist responses to the theodicy question, including the Hindu doctrines of karmic law and transmigration of souls, and the Buddhist teaching that life is suffering, with the only release an acceptance of the impermanence of the universe and everything in it.Ritual, Sect, and ChurchIn examining ritual, Professor Oden places special emphasis on its nature, importance, and ramifications for the religious community, and then describes the dynamics of the development of two types of religious communities: sect and church.Professor Oden moves from the comparative sociology of religion to what might be termed the religious nature of a particular society: the United States. Drawing on the work of the Harvard scholar Sacvan Bercovitch, the lecture addresses the American identity with reference to its Puritan origins.Taking the theme of America and Americans being "God's elect" and the parallels between America and ancient Israel, Professor Oden proposes an American civil religion whose themes include:The "chosen" history of AmericaA strong notion of covenant, with America's fate emblematic of the world'sThe idea that, in America, the ultimate sovereignty is not the people's, but God's.In conclusion, Professor Oden discusses four aspects of today's American identity that seem to have come directly from the Puritan tradition:An anti-intellectual bias toward individualism rather than collective experience and theoryA bias against ritualThe strongest fundamentalist tradition in the advanced industrialized worldA uniquely American anxiety over vocational and occupational calling that is not found elsewhere in the world.8 lectures | 43 minutes each1 Why Nothing Is as Intriguing as the Study of Religion2 Orienting Humanity—Religions as Spiritual Compasses3 Religious Heroes 1—Gilgamesh and the Dawn of History4 Religious Heroes 2—Moses and Jesus5 Pondering Divine Justice—Do We Suffer for Naught?6 Defending Divine Justice—Religious Accounts of Suffering7 Religious Rituals and Communities8 Bringing It All Back Home

    In The Old Magic of Christmas you'll find a Christmas bestiary and a White Witch's herbal, as well as tips for delving more deeply into your relationship with the unseen. Bring the festivities into your home with cookie recipes and ornament making while brushing elbows with veiled spirits and discovering the true perils of elves. Rife with the more frightful characters from folklore and the season's most petulant ghosts, this book takes you on a spooky sleigh ride from the silvered firs of a winter forest to the mirrored halls of the Snow Queen.

    Now greatly expanded, the classic anthology of contemporary texts reexamines the phenomenon of witchcraft, taking into account the remarkable scholarship since the book's publication almost thirty years ago.Spanning the period from 400 to 1700, the second edition of Witchcraft in Europe assembles nearly twice as many primary documents as the first, many newly translated, along with new illustrations that trace the development of witch-beliefs from late Mediterranean antiquity through the Enlightenment. Trial records, inquisitors' reports, eyewitness statements, and witches' confessions, along with striking contemporary illustrations depicting the career of the Devil and his works, testify to the hundreds of years of terror that enslaved an entire continent.Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Thomas Hobbes, and other thinkers are quoted at length in order to determine the intellectual, perceptual, and legal processes by which folklore was transformed into systematic demonology and persecution. Together with explanatory notes, introductory essays--which have been revised to reflect current research--and a new bibliography, the documents gathered in Witchcraft in Europe vividly illumine the dark side of the European mind.

    This is an account of the world's greatest ‘intellectual virtuosos,' who are also humanity's greatest doubters and disbelievers, from the ancient Greek philosophers, Jesus, and the Eastern religions, to modern secular equivalents Marx, Freud and Darwin—and their attempts to reconcile the seeming meaninglessness of the universe with the human need for meaning,This remarkable book ranges from the early Greeks, Hebrew figures such as Job and Ecclesiastes, Eastern critical wisdom, Roman stoicism, Jesus as a man of doubt, Gnosticism and Christian mystics, medieval Islamic, Jewish and Christian skeptics, secularism, the rise of science, modern and contemporary critical thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, the existentialists.

    The authors introduce the general reader to some of the most important basic findings, concepts, and procedures of evolutionary biology, as it has developed since the first publications of Darwin and Wallace on the subject, over 140 years ago. They show how evolution provides a unifying set of principles for the whole of biology and sheds light on the relation of human beings to the universe and each other.

    A book that has definitions & explanation about numerous signs & symbols

    What are the true roots of these influences, however, and how do our interpretations of these aspects of the classics differ from their original reality? This introduction to the classics begins with a visit to the British Museum to view the frieze which once decorated the Apollo Temple a Bassae. Through these sculptures John Henderson and Mary Beard prompt us to consider the significance of the study of Classics as a means of discovery and enquiry, its value in terms of literature, philosophy, and culture, its source of imagery, and the reasons for the continuation of these images into and beyond the twentieth century. Designed for the general reader and student alike, A Very Short Introduction to Classics challenges readers to adopt a fresh approach to the Classics as a major cultural influence, both in the ancient world and twentieth-century--emphasizing the continuing need to understand and investigate this enduring subject.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    "To Ride a Silver Broomstick" presents both the science and religion of Witchcraft so you can become an active participant while growing at your own pace. This book is ideal for anyone, regardless of religious background: male or female, young or old, beginners and initiates.

    Turner demonstrates how the analysis of ritual behavior and symbolism may be used as a key to understanding social structure and processes. He extends Van Gennep's notion of the "liminal phase" of rites of passage to a more general level, and applies it to gain understanding of a wide range of social phenomena. Once thought to be the "vestigial" organs of social conservatism, rituals are now seen as arenas in which social change may emerge and be absorbed into social practice.As Roger Abrahams writes in his foreword to the revised edition: "Turner argued from specific field data. His special eloquence resided in his ability to lay open a sub-Saharan African system of belief and practice in terms that took the reader beyond the exotic features of the group among whom he carried out his fieldwork, translating his experience into the terms of contemporary Western perceptions. Reflecting Turner's range of intellectual interests, the book emerged as exceptional and eccentric in many ways: yet it achieved its place within the intellectual world because it so successfully synthesized continental theory with the practices of ethnographic reports."