The Faceless God
Author: E. M. Markoff
Publisher:
Published: 2022-08-27
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9780997195163
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God The Cult
Author: Seth Kinstle
Publisher: Seth Kinstle
Published: 2020-09-15
Total Pages: 108
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPeople submit to religions and commit to several concepts of morality. We decide who we like based on simple tastes. The communities of humanity seem split in many diverse cultures. Can we bridge the differences of our controversial preferences? When does love become a cash grab? When do forceful tendencies become psychologically unappealing? These are a few of the questions I challenge in this perceptual take on what it means to have a sense of community.
The Faceless One
Author: Mark Onspaugh
Publisher: Hydra
Published: 2013-10-28
Total Pages: 498
ISBN-13: 034554918X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom a brilliant new voice in horror comes a riveting nightmare of ancient evil unleashed—and the bravery and sacrifice of those called to combat it. In 1948, when he was just a boy, Jimmy Kalmaku trained with his uncle to be the shaman of his Tlingit village in Alaska. There he learned the old legends, the old myths, the old secrets. Chief among them was that of a mask locked in a prison of ice, and of the faceless god imprisoned within: a cruel and vengeful god called T'Nathluk, dedicated to the infliction of pain and suffering. Now all but forgotten in a Seattle retirement home, Jimmy finds his life turned upside down. For when an unwitting archaeologist pries the mask free of its icy tomb, he frees T’Nathluk as well. Stuck in spirit form, the Faceless One seeks a human to serve as a portal through which he can enter our reality. The Faceless One can control—and mercilessly torture—anyone who touches the mask, which means there is no shortage of slaves to ferry it across the country to its chosen host. Yet the Faceless One has foes as well: Stan Roberts, a tough New York cop whose pursuit of justice will lead him into a dark abyss of the soul; Steven, Liz, and Bobby, the family of the doomed archaeologist; and Jimmy Kalmaku, who must at last become the shaman of his boyhood dreams. Praise for The Faceless One “A stunning debut . . . With The Faceless One, Mark Onspaugh has given us a chilling dark fantasy with an Alaskan shamanic backdrop. The beauty of this weird world is as profound as its terror. I could not turn these pages fast enough!”—Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black “Mark Onspaugh’s writing captures that same eye-popping strangeness I loved so much in the works of Charles Beaumont and Fritz Leiber. The Faceless One is classic horror from an author who has earned his stripes and knows how to scare you blind.”—Joe McKinney, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Dead City and The Savage Dead “Spine-tingling . . . Onspaugh has swirled together the elements of great storytelling: odyssey, myth, duty, loss of innocence.”—Ensuing Chapters “The story line grabs you around the throat and keeps your eyes on the book. . . . Are you ready to go on a road trip with a demon? Get a copy and dig in.”—Journey of a Bookseller
Where Is God in All the Suffering?
Author: Amy Orr Ewing
Publisher: The Good Book Company
Published: 2020-09-01
Total Pages: 127
ISBN-13: 1784985503
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSuffering and evil affect us all, both at a general level, as we look at a world filled with injustice, natural disasters and poverty, and at a personal level, as we experience grief, pain and unfairness. And how we think about and process the reality of pain is at the heart of why many people reject God. Dr. Amy Orr-Ewing is no stranger to pain and gives a heartfelt yet academically rigorous examination of how different belief systems deal with the problem of pain. She explains the unique answer that is found in Christ and how he can give us hope in the reality of suffering. This empathetic, easy-to-read and powerful evangelistic book is good for both unbelievers and believers alike. It will help those hoping to answer one of life’s biggest questions as well as those who are either suffering personally or comforting others.
Lord of Light
Author: Roger Zelazny
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2004-05-11
Total Pages: 308
ISBN-13: 9780060567231
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEarth is long since dead. On a colony planet, a band of men has gained control of technology, made themselves immortal, and now rules their world as the gods of the Hindu pantheon. Only one dares oppose them: he who was once Siddhartha and is now Mahasamatman. Binder of Demons. Lord of Light.
How the West Really Lost God
Author: Mary Eberstadt
Publisher: Templeton Foundation Press
Published: 2013-04-01
Total Pages: 268
ISBN-13: 1599474298
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this magisterial work, leading cultural critic Mary Eberstadt delivers a powerful new theory about the decline of religion in the Western world. The conventional wisdom is that the West first experienced religious decline, followed by the decline of the family. Eberstadt turns this standard account on its head. Marshalling an impressive array of research, from fascinating historical data on family decline in pre-Revolutionary France to contemporary popular culture both in the United States and Europe, Eberstadt shows that the reverse has also been true: the undermining of the family has further undermined Christianity itself. Drawing on sociology, history, demography, theology, literature, and many other sources, Eberstadt shows that family decline and religious decline have gone hand in hand in the Western world in a way that has not been understood before—that they are, as she puts it in a striking new image summarizing the book’s thesis, “the double helix of society, each dependent on the strength of the other for successful reproduction.” In sobering final chapters, Eberstadt then lays out the enormous ramifications of the mutual demise of family and faith in the West. While it is fashionable in some circles to applaud the decline both of religion and the nuclear family, there are, as Eberstadt reveals, enormous social, economic, civic, and other costs attendant on both declines. Her conclusion considers this tantalizing question: whether the economic and demographic crisis now roiling Europe and spreading to America will have the inadvertent result of reviving the family as the most viable alternative to the failed welfare state—fallout that could also lay the groundwork for a religious revival as well. How the West Really Lost God is both a startlingly original account of how secularization happens and a sweeping brief about why everyone should care. A book written for agnostics as well as believers, atheists as well as “none of the above,” it will permanently change the way every reader understands the two institutions that have hitherto undergirded Western civilization as we know it—family and faith—and the real nature of the relationship between those two pillars of history.
God Land
Author: Lyz Lenz
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2019-07-19
Total Pages: 142
ISBN-13: 0253041546
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“Will resonate with any readers interested in understanding American landscapes where white, evangelical Christianity dominates both politics and culture.” —Publishers Weekly In the wake of the 2016 election, Lyz Lenz watched as her country and her marriage were torn apart by the competing forces of faith and politics. A mother of two, a Christian, and a lifelong resident of middle America, Lenz was bewildered by the pain and loss around her—the empty churches and the broken hearts. What was happening to faith in the heartland? From drugstores in Sydney, Iowa, to skeet shooting in rural Illinois, to the mega churches of Minneapolis, Lenz set out to discover the changing forces of faith and tradition in God’s country. Part journalism, part memoir, God Land is a journey into the heart of a deeply divided America. Lenz visits places of worship across the heartland and speaks to the everyday people who often struggle to keep their churches afloat and to cope in a land of instability. Through a thoughtful interrogation of the effects of faith and religion on our lives, our relationships, and our country, God Land investigates whether our divides can ever be bridged and if America can ever come together. “God Land, Lyz Lenz’s much-anticipated debut book, is a marvel. Not only is it a window into the middle America so many like to stereotype but fail to fully understand in all of its complexity, but it mixes reportage, memoir, and gorgeous prose so seamlessly I wanted to know how she did it.” —Sarah Weinman, author of The Real Lolita
Saving Face
Author: Professor Stephen Pattison
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2013-10-28
Total Pages: 217
ISBN-13: 147240419X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFaces are all around us and fundamentally shape both everyday experience and our understanding of people. To lose face is to be alienated and experience shame, to be enfaced is to enjoy the fullness of life. In theology as in many other disciplines faces, as both physical phenomena and symbols, have not received the critical, appreciative attention they deserve. This pioneering book explores the nature of face and enfacement, both human and divine. Pattison discusses questions concerning what face is, how important face is in human life and relationships, and how we might understand face, both as a physical phenomenon and as a series of socially-inflected symbols and metaphors about the self and the body. Examining what face means in terms of inclusion and exclusion in contemporary human society and how it is related to shame, Pattison reveals what the experience of people who have difficulties with faces tell us about our society, our understandings of, and our reactions to face. Exploring this ubiquitous yet ignored area of both contemporary human experience and of the Christian theological tradition, Pattison explains how Christian theology understands face, both human and divine, and the insights might it offer to understanding face and enfacement. Does God in any sense have a physically visible face? What is the significance of having an enfaced or faceless God for Christian life and practice? What does the vision of God mean now? If we want to take face and defacing shame seriously, and to get them properly into perspective, we may need to change our theology, thought and practice - changing our ways of thinking about God and about theology.
God, Human, Animal, Machine
Author: Meghan O'Gieblyn
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2022-07-12
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 0525562710
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future." —Phillip Lopate “[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking. Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.
The Big Guy Upstairs
Author: Rob Strong
Publisher: Jericho Books
Published: 2013-07-16
Total Pages: 153
ISBN-13: 1455527815
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhen Rob Strong tells people he's a pastor in Massachusetts--"the least churched state in the USA"--it sometimes stops them in their tracks, but Strong never lets his faith bar him from doing what matters most: building sincere relationships with people as, together, they question and explore the nature of The Big Guy Upstairs. Here he shares how approachable, interactive, and, above all, relevant God can be in readers' lives, without any of the trappings of religion or "Christianese" that make many of them suspicious. Filled with his inimitable brand of wit and humor, Strong offers readers a fresh take on the importance of understanding their own humanity and their purpose in life, how to disagree with but still respect the perspectives of others, and the role that God plays in every single facet of their lives--especially when they least expect it. From a "weed" that turned into a delicious peach tree to a miraculous pair of brown shoes, Strong will engage readers with insightful stories and biblical commentary that reveal why their lives are significant--and how God is more intentional, active, and closer than they realize.
