From the Preface to I'm Faithful, But I'm Not Religious: "Some of my opinions have some basis. Most are my opinions just because they are my opinions, and I'm not particularly concerned with whether or not they have any basis." that having been said, Ed Sinclair offers opinions on just about anything and everything. For example: "Doing silly things only becomes problematic when doing so ceases to be a tribute to a good memory and, instead, becomes religiously institutionalized, routinized, regulated. I've said it before, and I'll say it again-religion has no place among the spiritually faithful. At least, that's my opinion."
Soren Kierkegaard is one of the prophets of the contemporary age, a man whose acute observations on life in nineteenth-century Copenhagen might have been written yesterday, whose work anticipated fundamental developments in psychoanalysis, philosophy, theology and the critique of mass culture by over a century. John Caputo offers a compelling account of Kierkegaard as a thinker of particular relevance in our postmodern times, who set off a revolution that numbers Martin Heidegger and Karl Barth among its heirs. His conceptions of truth as a self-transforming 'deed' and his haunting account of the 'single individual' seemed to have been written with us especially in mind. Extracts include Kierkegaard's classic reading of the story of Abraham and Isaac, the jolting theory that truth is subjectivity and his ground-breaking analysis of the concept of anxiety.
A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.
Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.
What you believe about God sets the foundation of the person you will become. In God Has a Name, pastor and New York Times bestselling author John Mark Comer invites you to rethink many of the prevalent myths and misconceptions about God and weigh them against what God actually tells us about himself. After all, what you believe about God will ultimately shape the type of person you become. We all live at the mercy of our ideas, and nowhere is this more true than our ideas about God. The problem is many of our ideas about God are wrong. Not all wrong, but wrong enough to form our souls in detrimental and disheartening ways. God Has a Name is a simple yet profound guide to understanding God in a new light--focusing on what God says about himself in the Bible. This one shift has the potential to radically alter how you relate to God, not as a doctrine, but as a relational being who responds to you in an elastic, back-and-forth way. John Mark Comer takes you line by line through Exodus 34:6-8--Yahweh's self-revelation on Mount Sinai, one of the most quoted passages in the Bible. Along the way, Comer addresses some of the most profound questions he came across as he studied these noted lines in Exodus, including: Why do we feel this gap between us and God? Could it be that a lot of what we think about God is wrong? Not all wrong, but wrong enough to mess up how we relate to him? What if our "God" is really a projection of our own identity, ideas, and desires? What if the real God is different, but far better than we could ever imagine? No matter where you are in your spiritual journey, God Has a Name invites you to step into a fresh and biblically rooted vision of who God is that has the potential to alter your life with God and shape who you become.
The protagonist narrates about her life, trying to develop logical reasoning skill for navigating her career path. The unpredicted ups and downs in her life are all serious, but her unique analysis on issues and situations are hilariously described. Many years ago, the protagonist's life and perspective on everything changed by a traumatic event, and now, she has to find a way to live on her own. This book is recommended to many readers who love to read mystery, comedy, and drama.
Four Australian thinkers come together to ask and answer the big questions, such as: What is the nature of the universe? Doesn't religion cause most of the conflict in the world? and Where do we find hope? We are introduced to the detail of different belief systems - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - and to the argument that atheism, like organised religion, has its own compelling logic. And we gain insight into the life events that led each author to their current position. Jane Caro flirted briefly with spiritual belief, inspired by 19th century literary heroines such as Elizabeth Gaskell and the Brontë sisters. Antony Lowenstein is proudly culturally, yet unconventionally, Jewish. Simon Smart is firmly and resolutely a Christian, but one who has had some of his most profound spiritual moments while surfing. Rachel Woodlock grew up in the alternative embrace of Baha'i belief but became entranced by its older parent religion, Islam. Provocative, informative and passionately argued, For God's Sake encourages us to accept religious differences but to also challenge more vigorously the beliefs that create discord.
December 2017. The horrifying event has been haunting and intriguing us as a nation ever since the story broke. Even though many of us now know what happened, there are still so many unanswered questions. What really happened over those two weeks? The Diary of Vanessa Rocoso grants an insight to the awful events by those who experienced them. It tells of the trials, tragedy, and trauma that they faced and inevitably had to overcome if they wanted to make it out with their lives. It involves piracy, slavery, and starvation. Most people wouldn’t survive, so how did they?
