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Author | : J. Heath Atchley |
Publisher | : University of Virginia Press |
Total Pages | : 168 |
Release | : 2009-02-11 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 0813930413 |
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In Encountering the Secular, J. Heath Atchley proposes an alternative to the understanding of the secular as that which opposes the religious, and he turns to American and Continental philosophy to support his critique. Drawing from thinkers as disparate as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Gilles Deleuze, and engaging with contemporary literature and film, Atchley shows how the division of experience (individual, cultural, political) into the distinct realms of the religious and the secular overlooks the subtle ways in which value can emerge. Far from arguing that the religious and the secular are the same, he means instead to suggest that the dogmatic separation between these two realms gets in the way of experiencing an immanent value, a kind of value tied neither to a transcendent reality (e.g., a god or an ideal) nor to a self-centered reality (e.g., pleasure or knowledge). Each chapter cultivates a particular concept that challenges the breach between the secular and the religious, rendering that breach ambiguous. Such ambiguity, the author affirms, is relevant to a time when rigid and simplistic notions of religion and secularity are used to justify thoughtlessness and even violence. All too often the secular is thought of either as a triumph in "overcoming" the presumed irrationality and oppression of religion, or as lament in "losing" the meaning religion is thought once to have offered. Atchley suggests a view of the secular as an opportunity to experience an immanent value that is neither controlled by the human self nor conferred by a divine entity. Written in a prose that is lucid, lively, and provocative, Encountering the Secular shows how a philosophical endeavor might be understood as a spiritual practice.
Author | : J. Heath Atchley |
Publisher | : University of Virginia Press |
Total Pages | : 197 |
Release | : 2009-01-12 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 0813927811 |
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The author challenges the breach between the secular and the religious, rendering that breach ambiguous. Such ambiguity, the author affirms, is relevant to a time when rigid and simplistic notions of religion and secularity are used to justify thoughtlessness and even violence. All too often the secular is thought of either as a triumph in "overcoming" the presumed irrationality and oppression of religion, or as lament in "losing" the meaning religion is thought once to have offered. Atchley suggests a view of the secular as an opportunity to experience an immanent value that is neither controlled by the human self nor conferred by a divine entity.
Author | : Charles Taylor |
Publisher | : Harvard University Press |
Total Pages | : 889 |
Release | : 2018-09-17 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 0674986911 |
Download A Secular Age Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.
Author | : Tyler T. Roberts |
Publisher | : Columbia University Press |
Total Pages | : 318 |
Release | : 2013 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 023114752X |
Download Encountering Religion Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Tyler Roberts encourages scholars to abandon rigid conceptual oppositions between "secular" and "religious" to better understand how human beings actively and thoughtfully engage with their worlds and make meaning. The artificial distinction between a self-conscious and critical "academic study of religion" and an ideological and authoritarian "religion," he argues, only obscures the phenomenon. Instead, Roberts calls on intellectuals to approach the field as a site of "encounter" and "response," illuminating the agency, creativity, and critical awareness of religious actors. To respond to religion is to ask what religious behaviors and representations mean to us in our individual worlds, and scholars must confront questions of possibility and becoming that arise from testing their beliefs, imperatives, and practices. Roberts refers to the work of Hent de Vries, Eric Santner, and Stanley Cavell, each of whom exemplifies encounter and response in their writings as they traverse philosophy and religion to expose secular thinking to religious thought and practice. This approach highlights the resources religious discourse can offer to a fundamental reorientation of critical thought. In humanistic criticism after secularism, the lines separating the creative, the pious, and the critical themselves become the subject of question and experimentation.
Author | : Joseph Blankholm |
Publisher | : NYU Press |
Total Pages | : 312 |
Release | : 2022-06-07 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 1479809527 |
Download The Secular Paradox Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
A radically new way of understanding secularism which explains why being secular can seem so strangely religious For much of America’s rapidly growing secular population, religion is an inescapable source of skepticism and discomfort. It shows up in politics and in holidays, but also in common events like weddings and funerals. In The Secular Paradox, Joseph Blankholm argues that, despite their desire to avoid religion, nonbelievers often seem religious because Christianity influences the culture around them so deeply. Relying on several years of ethnographic research among secular activists and organized nonbelievers in the United States, the volume explores how very secular people are ambivalent toward belief, community, ritual, conversion, and tradition. As they try to embrace what they share, secular people encounter, again and again, that they are becoming too religious. And as they reject religion, they feel they have lost too much. Trying to strike the right balance, secular people alternate between the two sides of their ambiguous condition: absolutely not religious and part of a religion-like secular tradition. Blankholm relies heavily on the voices of women and people of color to understand what it means to live with the secular paradox. The struggles of secular misfits—the people who mis-fit normative secularism in the United States—show that becoming secular means rejecting parts of life that resemble Christianity and embracing a European tradition that emphasizes reason and avoids emotion. Women, people of color, and secular people who have left non-Christian religions work against the limits and contradictions of secularism to create new ways of being secular that are transforming the American religious landscape. They are pioneering the most interesting and important forms of secular “religiosity” in America today.
Author | : Herbert London |
Publisher | : ReadHowYouWant.com |
Total Pages | : 146 |
Release | : 2010 |
Genre | : Political Science |
ISBN | : 1458763552 |
Download America's Secular Challenge Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
In this timely and wide-ranging book, one of America's leading public intellectuals argues that the rise of radical secularism in the United States is a flaccid response to the challenge presented by the fanaticism of radical Islam. In the so-call...
Author | : Luca Mavelli |
Publisher | : Routledge |
Total Pages | : 236 |
Release | : 2013-03-01 |
Genre | : Political Science |
ISBN | : 1136448438 |
Download Europe's Encounter with Islam Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
In the last few years, the Muslim presence in Europe has been increasingly perceived as ‘problematic’. Events such as the French ban on headscarves in public schools, the publication of the so-called ‘Danish cartoons’, and the speech of Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg have hit the front pages of newspapers the world over, and prompted a number of scholarly debates on Muslims’ capacity to comply with the seemingly neutral and pluralistic rules of European secularity. Luca Mavelli argues that this perspective has prevented an in-depth reflection on the limits of Europe’s secular tradition and its role in Europe’s conflictual encounter with Islam. Through an original reading of Michel Foucault’s spiritual notion of knowledge and an engagement with key thinkers, from Thomas Aquinas to Jurgën Habermas, Mavelli articulates a contending genealogy of European secularity. While not denying the latter’s achievements in terms of pluralism and autonomy, he suggests that Europe’s secular tradition has also contributed to forms of isolation, which translate into Europe’s incapacity to perceive its encounter with Islam as an opportunity rather than a threat. Drawing on this theoretical perspective, Mavelli offers a contending account of some of the most important recent controversies surrounding Islam in Europe and investigates the ‘postsecular’ as a normative model to engage with the tensions at the heart of European secularity. Finally, he advances the possibility of a Europe willing to reconsider its established secular narratives which may identify in the encounter with Islam an opportunity to flourish and cultivate its democratic qualities and postnational commitments. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of religion and international relations, social and political theory, and Islam in Europe.
Author | : Robert L. Montgomery |
Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
Total Pages | : 144 |
Release | : 2018-08-14 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 1532657668 |
Download The Secular as Methodology Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Secularization is a process that has been taking place throughout the world, but especially in the West. It refers to limitations of various types to religious thoughts, activities, ownership, and power, but does not necessarily mean limitation on religious freedom. Because of this contested double effect, secularization is perceived both negatively and positively. I propose that the secular be viewed primarily as a methodology in various areas of life, beginning most clearly with science, but extending to many other areas of thought and activity. When this is done I believe people then have the clear option to apply their faith to all of their thought and action and at the same time to allow for correction and improvement to their thought and action. These corrections and improvements will be debated, but in the end, for Christians, they are dependent on interpretations of the Bible. Furthermore, I believe the broad result for all people is to clarify the choice to believe in God or rather that we are chosen by God revealed in the Bible who is seeking to have fellowship with us.
Author | : Bradley B. Onishi |
Publisher | : Columbia University Press |
Total Pages | : 247 |
Release | : 2018-04-24 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 0231545231 |
Download The Sacrality of the Secular Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Through a bold and historically rooted vision for the future of philosophy of religion, The Sacrality of the Secular maps new and compelling possibilities for a nonsecularist secularity. In recent decades, philosophers in the continental tradition have taken a notable interest in the return of religion, a departure from the supposed hegemony of the secular age that began with the Enlightenment. At the same time, anthropologists and sociologists have begun to reject the once-dominant secularization thesis, which both prescribed and described the demise of religion in modern societies. In The Sacrality of the Secular, Bradley B. Onishi reconsiders the role of religion at a time when secularity is more tenuous than it might seem. He demonstrates that philosophy’s entanglement with religion led, perhaps counterintuitively, to vibrant reconceptions of the secular well before the unraveling of the secularization thesis or the turn to religion. Through rich readings of Heidegger, Bataille, Weber, and others, Onishi rethinks what philosophy can contribute to our understanding of religion and the wider social and cultural world.
Author | : Timothy Keller |
Publisher | : Penguin |
Total Pages | : 338 |
Release | : 2016-09-20 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 0525954155 |
Download Making Sense of God Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.