Infinite Faith

Infinite Faith
Author: L. E. Waters
Publisher: Rock Castle Publishing
Total Pages: 607
Release: 2016-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0983911177

Maya continues to delve into her past lives after death, and strives to complete the tentative journey required to reunite with her loved ones in heaven. The darkest hour is just before dawn, and in Maya’s last hour, the test of faith proves darkest with two more incarnations: a young woman caught up fighting in the American Civil War, and a German woman institutionalized at the deadly rise of Hitler’s power as he plans to purge Germany of its mentally ill. Maya is tested to a breaking point as she learns the most ethereal of spiritual lessons: faith. Faith in herself, in others, in the future, to the path, and to a higher purpose, even when things don’t go as planned. Special Note: Infinite Faith is not a standalone; side effects of reading the series out-of-order include headache, confusion, and though extremely rare, disinterest in continuing the series.

Finite and Infinite Games

Finite and Infinite Games
Author: James Carse
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 155
Release: 2011-10-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1451657293

“There are at least two kinds of games,” states James P. Carse as he begins this extraordinary book. “One could be called finite; the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.” Finite games are the familiar contests of everyday life; they are played in order to be won, which is when they end. But infinite games are more mysterious. Their object is not winning, but ensuring the continuation of play. The rules may change, the boundaries may change, even the participants may change—as long as the game is never allowed to come to an end. What are infinite games? How do they affect the ways we play our finite games? What are we doing when we play—finitely or infinitely? And how can infinite games affect the ways in which we live our lives? Carse explores these questions with stunning elegance, teasing out of his distinctions a universe of observation and insight, noting where and why and how we play, finitely and infinitely. He surveys our world—from the finite games of the playing field and playing board to the infinite games found in culture and religion—leaving all we think we know illuminated and transformed. Along the way, Carse finds new ways of understanding everything, from how an actress portrays a role to how we engage in sex, from the nature of evil to the nature of science. Finite games, he shows, may offer wealth and status, power and glory, but infinite games offer something far more subtle and far grander. Carse has written a book rich in insight and aphorism. Already an international literary event, Finite and Infinite Games is certain to be argued about and celebrated for years to come. Reading it is the first step in learning to play the infinite game.

Faith

Faith
Author: Gerrit Immink
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2005
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780802827937

Addressing faith as it is lived, rather than as a system of doctrine, F. Gerrit Immink emphasizes that having faith means more than assenting to certain opinions about God; it involves a dynamic relationship, or dialogue, with God. As he investigates the practice of faith, Immink holds together the poles of divine activity and human experience, external Word and indwelling Spirit. At its heart, this book is about God. How can faithful people speak about God and understand God's presence? Well versed in both philosophical analysis and the theological tradition, the author argues for an understanding of God as a speaking, acting person, genuinely experienced in faith. In so doing, he issues a compelling plea to reevaluate the theoretical foundations of practical theology. Applying his work particularly to the theories of preaching and pastoral care, Immink brings to bear insights garnered from years as an academic theologian, as the dean of a theological seminary, and as a minister. Scholars, ministers, and seminary students alike will benefit from his careful reflections on the Christian life of faith.

The Faith

The Faith
Author: Louis A. Marini
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2022-04-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1662472560

Faith is a word frequently used these days as we continue to struggle through a pandemic that took the lives of over eight hundred thousand Americans and rising. Amid unsolved questions posed to the world of medicine in the throes of political and social unrest, the darkness of this nightmare has left many with a growing skepticism in the leadership of many traditional institutions of Church and State. Why are people so concerned over the existential issues of life and faith during these unprecedented times where the world seems to have gone topsy-turvy? Louis Marini suggests that faith has always been a multidimensional reality inherent in people’s lives. People have always aspired to faith to unite a nation in times of distress and social unrest. The human act of believing is the first step to walking in faith. Believing is always “believing in” another human being. Faith always necessitates and is sustained only in relationships whether faith is solely based upon human interaction or seeking communion with the Divine. These reflections open the possibility for discussions that faith is not just a human phenomenon but a natural gift that may transition into a relationship with the Divine. Faith, which is fundamentally a human reality, can become a divine mystery. This realization hopefully can console and heal us from the scars left from the angst of these uncertain times.

Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe

Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe
Author: Roger Penrose
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2024-10-22
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0691264317

Nobel Prize–winning physicist Roger Penrose questions some of the most fashionable ideas in physics today, including string theory What can fashionable ideas, blind faith, or pure fantasy possibly have to do with the scientific quest to understand the universe? Surely, theoretical physicists are immune to mere trends, dogmatic beliefs, or flights of fancy? In fact, acclaimed physicist and bestselling author Roger Penrose argues that researchers working at the extreme frontiers of physics are just as susceptible to these forces as anyone else. In this provocative book, he argues that fashion, faith, and fantasy, while sometimes productive and even essential in physics, may be leading today's researchers astray in three of the field's most important areas—string theory, quantum mechanics, and cosmology. Arguing that string theory has veered away from physical reality by positing six extra hidden dimensions, Penrose cautions that the fashionable nature of a theory can cloud our judgment of its plausibility. In the case of quantum mechanics, its stunning success in explaining the atomic universe has led to an uncritical faith that it must also apply to reasonably massive objects, and Penrose responds by suggesting possible changes in quantum theory. Turning to cosmology, he argues that most of the current fantastical ideas about the origins of the universe cannot be true, but that an even wilder reality may lie behind them. Finally, Penrose describes how fashion, faith, and fantasy have ironically also shaped his own work, from twistor theory, a possible alternative to string theory that is beginning to acquire a fashionable status, to "conformal cyclic cosmology," an idea so fantastic that it could be called "conformal crazy cosmology." The result is an important critique of some of the most significant developments in physics today from one of its most eminent figures.

Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard
Author: Sylvia Walsh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2009
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199208352

Kierkegaard was a Christian thinker perhaps best known for his devastating attack upon Christendom or the established order of his time. Sylvia Walsh explores his understanding of Christianity and the existential mode of thinking theologically appropriate to it in the context of the intellectual, cultural, and socio-political milieu of his time.

Faith and Philosophy

Faith and Philosophy
Author: D.G. Leahy
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 125
Release: 2021-11-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1351937278

This book examines how Christian faith has historically impacted the notion of Nous or divine mind in Western thought up to and including the present. Christian faith is seen to have inaugurated an essential transformation over time of the ancient notion of divine mind and of thought in general. Beginning with an examination of Aristotle’s notion of essence, Plato’s creation myth in the Timaeus, and Plotinus’ One, it is shown how faith in the hands of Augustine and Aquinas fundamentally reshaped Western thought and made possible in the modern period the radical subjectivity of Descartes brought to perfection by Kant and Hegel. The strenuous counter-thinking of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Levinas is closely compared to its disarming alternative, the thinking of Jefferson, Emerson, and C. S. Peirce, the father of American pragmatism.

Comparative Religion

Comparative Religion
Author: Kedar Nath Tiwari
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2014-01-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 8120802942

It provides a study of the prevailing religions of the world. By 'prevailing', it means 'living' and 'living religions', we mean such religions which are still observed and followed by a considerable number of people. Such religions include Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism. Some may have doubts in accepting Zoroastrianism as a living religion and their doubts may not be taken as totally unfounded. For, hardly a few people, and those also mostly in a corner of India, observe this religion at present. But still there is justification for taking this religion as living, at least, on the following two grounds „ (1) It is still being observed as a religion by some people, howsoever small their number may be, and (2) As a religion it exhibits certain such important features which are worth considering and which have exerted considerable influence upon some of the great living religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Towards the end (in the Appendix), the author has also included for our brief study of some of the ancient Asian religions like Taoism, Confucianism etc. These religions cannot, of course, be regarded as living religions, but still, in our opinion, they merit at least some of our attention due to the respect and regard they once commanded and the indelible impression they have left upon the minds of the people of the countries in which they once flourished. The subject of Comparative Religion as a scientific study of the various features of the different religions of the world in a comparative perspective is relatively a late development. It is hardly for a hundred years or so that the name Comparative Religion has gained currency and studies in this direction have been taken up in right earnest. Such a study requires an impartial, neutral and tolerant outlook and if at all there is any leaning or sympathy for any religion, it must be for religions other than one is own. Here the whole question regarding the methodology of a comparative study of religions may come up. We may see that at least two things seem necessary (though not sufficient) for collecting relevant materials which will make our study faithful and authentic: (1) A thorough study of the basic text or texts, along with the related works, belonging to a particular religion, and (2) An extensive dialogue with the followers of a particular religion along with a personal survey, both intensive and extensive, of the various religious practices carried on by them. The first one is easy to carry out. Perhaps most of the writers on comparative religion adopt this way. But adopting the second one in a serious and sincere spirit is not an easy task and therefore very few or hardly any adopt this method for studying religions. The aim of a study like this is partly to acquaint readers with the main aspects and features of the living religions of the world and partly to suggest the points of agreement and difference among the different religions.

Sociology of Religion

Sociology of Religion
Author: Roberto Cipriani
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2020-10-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 100015985X

In adopting an international perspective that goes beyond the conventional framework of western theology, this volume bridges the divide between European and North American scholars through its careful retrieval of their common theoretical and research interests. Cipriani provides a critical analysis of both classical thought and contemporary currents in this readable text, aimed at both experts and students. He has achieved a broadening in the scientific approach to the study of religion.

Senses of the Subject

Senses of the Subject
Author: Judith Butler
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2015-03-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0823264688

This book brings together a group of Judith Butler’s philosophical essays written over two decades that elaborate her reflections on the roles of the passions in subject formation through an engagement with Hegel, Kierkegaard, Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Merleau-Ponty, Freud, Irigaray, and Fanon. Drawing on her early work on Hegelian desire and her subsequent reflections on the psychic life of power and the possibility of self-narration, this book considers how passions such as desire, rage, love, and grief are bound up with becoming a subject within specific historical fields of power. Butler shows in different philosophical contexts how the self that seeks to make itself finds itself already affected and formed against its will by social and discursive powers. And yet, agency and action are not necessarily nullified by this primary impingement. Primary sense impressions register this dual situation of being acted on and acting, countering the idea that acting requires one to overcome the situation of being affected by others and the linguistic and social world. This dual structure of sense sheds light on the desire to live, the practice and peril of grieving, embodied resistance, love, and modes of enthrallment and dispossession. Working with theories of embodiment, desire, and relationality in conversation with philosophers as diverse as Hegel, Spinoza, Descartes, Merleau-Ponty, Freud, and Fanon, Butler reanimates and revises her basic propositions concerning the constitution and deconstitution of the subject within fields of power, taking up key issues of gender, sexuality, and race in several analyses. Taken together, these essays track the development of Butler’s embodied account of ethical relations.