Why Believe? sees John Cottingham, a philosopher of searing intellectual honesty, examine our society's struggle with the concept of belief.Cottingham's carefully reasoned yet impassioned account shows how the religious outlook connects with our deepest human longings, how it links up with our moral and aesthetic experience, how it is integrally involved in the quest for self understanding, and how it is not after all in conflict with a scientific understanding of the worl...

In Why Believe? (Continuum) Professor John Cottingham argued that every human being possesses impulses and aspirations for which religious belief offers a home.His new book, How to Believe is concerned not so much with why we should believe as with what leads a person to become a believer. Cottingham challenges believers and non-believers alike to think afresh about the need to change their lives and about what such change might involve.Ma...

A compelling defense of the sacred from acclaimed philosopher Roger ScrutonIn The Soul of the World, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton defends the experience of the sacred against today's fashionable forms of atheism. He argues that our personal relationships, moral intuitions, and aesthetic judgments hint at a transcendent dimension that cannot be understood through the lens of science alone. To be fully alive—and to understand what we are—is to acknowle...

The work of René Girard is hugely influential in literature and cultural studies. But it is in understanding the relationship between religion and violence that his theory has created the greatest impact. Girard’s understanding of mimetic rivalry and conflict and of scapegoating are seen by many to be the key to a completely new understanding of Christianity.Girard’s name evokes curiosity and – often – strong feelings amongst devotees and sceptics. Discovering Girard is the first b...

Can the existence of God be proved by reason alone? Has scientific discovery destroyed the intellectual basis for religion? Does the presence of evil in the world mean that God does not care about us? And why does fundamentalism flourish in an age of progress? In Big Questions: God, Mark Vernon addresses these and many more perennial dilemmas, drawing on physics and philosophy, spiritual traditions and religious experience. He explores the place of religion in relation to science, in makin...

“A brilliant, wide ranging and powerful series of readings on the possibilities, problems and mysteries of faith. This book belongs on the shelf of every believer—and every serious skeptic.” — Rabbi David Wolpe, author of Why Faith Matters“This life-giving, faith-filled and hard-nosed collection reveals why, as St. Anselm wrote, true faith always seeks to understand.” — Rev. James Martin, author of My Life with the SaintsFrom Dr. Francis Collins, New York Times bestselling ...

'Full of human wisdom, this is a psychologically acute and absorbing approach to a very important subject' PHILIP PULLMANIn this inspiring work, Richard Holloway tackles the great theme of forgiveness. One of the most important books on this essential topic, On Forgiveness draws on the great philosophers and writers such as Frederick Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida and Nelson Mandela. Both timely and a timeless modern classic, On Forgiveness is a pertinent and fascinat...

This is a book about a remarkable man - yet in an important sense it is not about this man at all.Soren Kierkegaard died in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the age of forty-two in 1855. His writings had little influence in his lifetime and after his death, even with the translation of some of his works into German, he was barely known. Yet today, he is internationally accepted as one of the world's greatest thinkers and is often considered the father of existentialism....

This book is for anyone wanting to understand what religion is really about. Exploring all the key principles upon which religion is based and setting out the arguments for and against belief in a clear, accessible style, it examines religion against current issues such as terrorism, evolution, and our multi-cultural society.NOT GOT MUCH TIME?One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started.AUTHOR INSIGHTSLots of instant help with ...

In Faith Maps a theologian of great flair and originality ‘translates’ the voices of several leading thinkers into a series of reflections on faith and contemporary life and culture. The result is both a delightful introduction to theology and religion for students and general readers and a thought-provoking improvisation on familiar themes that will delight specialists.Gallagher devotes a separate chapter to each of ten writers who have explored the credibility of religious faith,...

This book is not about myths, but about approaches to myth, from all of the major disciplines, including science, religion, philosophy, literature, and psychology. The fate of the preternaturally beautiful Adonis is one of the main fables upon which Segal focuses, in an attempt to analyse the various different theories of myth. Where the theory does not work, he substitutes another myth, showing that, for all their claims to all-inclusiveness, certain theories, in fact, only apply to speci...

An exploration of what religion and spirituality mean to us as humans by the New York Times –bestselling author and social psychologist."A daring book to have cast into the midst of the world's excitements, for it will itself breed new excitements. . . . It is not a book to be missed by those interested in man's spiritual growth." — New York TimesIn 1950, Erich Fromm atte...