Mostrando títulos en Agnosticismo

Another concise collection of selected short essays from Chris Highland, a freethinking humanist and former minister. With an inviting approach to the intersections of faith and freethought, the author presents a model for critical thinking beyond fearful faith and angry atheism. Companions along the way include: Sojourner Truth and John Muir, Margaret Fuller and Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin and Jesus of Nazareth, Charles Darwin and Booker T. Washington, Thomas Paine and Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Buber and Aldo Leopold. Many of these reflections come from the author's weekly "Highland ...

I grew up in the Assembly of God, product of small town charismatic Pentecostal pastors, terrifying televangelists and a rod not spared. My flavor of fundamentalism demanded love of a detestable deity and condemned critical thought, inflicting it’s scars with both the message and its mediators. Evangelist apologist in youth, tormented by purity culture and grasping at a Rapture pass, I couldn’t compartmentalize my thinking anymore at age 22, and left the Evangelicals. My journey from faith began with growing intrigue in the natural world, gnawing need to understand history, and ...

Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus is the founding stone of Western esotericism. Hermes is regarded as being the author of numerous philosophical and spiritual texts, including the Divine Pymander. Even though the historical existence of Hermes is not clear, he has been regarded as the master of wisdom and the initiator of the divine knowledge for centuries. The Divine Pymander is one of the ancient texts attributed to Hermes. The Divine Pymander explains a cosmology and philosophy which blends Egyptian, Greek, and Jewish mystical traditions.

In this first book of his Ten Tough Problems series, David Madison shares three critical problems in Christian belief. Problem One: God is invisible and silent. This fact forces humanity to rely on ineffective ways of knowing God — common knowledge, sacred books, visions, prayer, personal feelings, and theologians. But all these sources of God knowledge fall short as evidenced by a world of disagreement, not just between Christians and other religions, but within Christianity itself.

One of the greatest thinkers on the origins of Christianity and a renowned expert on Gnostic and Hermetic literature presents, in this snug volume first published in 1907, the lost teachings of Jesus. Not found in the canonical Gospels and, indeed, frequently dismissed as blasphemous or heretical or "reworked" by later editors to comply with perceived tradition, this beautiful hymn is not just of interest to Christian mystics but to anyone who values wise words well spoken. For those interested in mysticism, Gnosticism, and esoteric traditions.

Regarding your life and your brief existence on Earth, is that all there is? If you have ever felt that there is more here than an exclusively physical reality, you may be surprised to discover that scientific data from astronomy, quantum physics, biology, neuropsychology and cosmology actually confirms your intuition. With unusual clarity and humor, Dr. Shawn Adair Johnston reveals the utter failure of current science, based on an exclusively physical model of the universe, to account for the origin of the cosmos, human DNA, consciousness, free will or criminal behavior.

Because you know it's nonsense, but were never sure why.

A “funny, gently touching, and brutally honest” memoir, I Hope I Was Wrong About Eternal Damnation is a story about how to adjust when you realize that your life is built on false beliefs. In the 1990s, Evangelical culture was an outrageous mishmash of Christian ska concerts, sexual abstinence pledges, and mega-church worship services. Thrust into Christian leadership in his youth, Tim Mathis built his entire life around that sort of thing. By his twenties, religion provided his career path, his identity, and a tight-knit social circle of priests, missionaries, and evangelists. His only...

This work is the first letter to my friend Aloysius regarding the “Virtue of the Gods.” It has been made available to you the reader in what shall be multiple formats. In the letter, I discuss the first virtue required to be one with the gods, which is: “a god walks through fire.” This encompasses many ideas, including that a god fears not pain nor suffering, a god has confidence, self-belief, has concern for the present and future of humanity, a god has agency and intent. A god does not succumb to threats of hellfire. A god knows that faith is not a virtue – faith is lazy. ...

IS RELIGION DEAD?Who is this group called the Believing Unbelievers, and how do they affect me, my spiritual walk, and my church life? “IS RELIGION DEAD?” is book two in the “They Walk Among Us” series, where I address the growing epidemic of religion within and outside the church's walls. People who are Believing Unbelievers don’t possess genuine faith in God. They operate in mental assent that God is real, and Jesus Christ died for them. In essence, mental assent intellectually agrees with the Bible but does not have faith in God or His Word for salvation. It is a religious head...

Have you ever pondered how you came into existence, why you are here, the purpose of your life, and what awaits you after you depart from this world? These profound questions are a natural part of your existence, woven into the very fabric of your being by your creator, urging you to seek God and the meaning and purpose of your existence. The pursuit of meaning and purpose serves as a powerful driving force in your life.

Amor à maneira de Deus sugere respostas a essas questões. Em cinco capítulos, o Padre Júlio Lancellotti apresenta ao leitor o amor divino como um exercício de compaixão e de misericórdia. Aqui, o amor não é um sentimento, mas um compromisso. Não é exercício de força, mas demonstração de fraqueza. Não é uma abstração ingênua, mas a escolha de humanizar a vida dos vulneráveis e também dos poderosos.

In this essay, Ingersoll describes his religious education and the process of his arrival at the belief that agnosticism is the most reasonable world view.

Theism or Atheism, published in 1921, examines not only arguments for and against the existence of God, but also the practical usefulness of such a concept. The author writes, “Atheism would mean in practice an enormous concentration of energy upon purely human affairs, and a judgment of conduct in terms of human happiness and prosperity.”

Two thousand five hundred years ago, Confucius, Buddha, and Socrates all concluded, at slightly different times and thousands of miles apart, that a caring god simply did not exist. Then Abraham, Moses, and Jesus Christ (or rather the religion created in his name 334 years after his death) did their best to enslave humanity and hide that simple wisdom from us.

Humanity consists of coevolving software (our religion and culture), firmware (our hardcoded proclivities, such as language acquisition), and hardware (our brains). Ripping out a third of the equation has led to innumerous unintended—and typically negative—consequences. This book offers a guide to rebuilding or fortifying this increasingly neglected aspect of the human condition.

If you’re courageous enough to challenge what is for what will be and open your mind to an alternative vision of what being human can be, this book is for you. Self-Actualization in the Age of Crisis lays the foundation for the spiritual revolution humanity so desperately needs to transcend the deeply rooted struggles arising from our available systems of meaning and value. It’s time for a change, but all change begins with choice.

This is a passionate but breezy polemic that seeks to expose the harmful nature of religious orthodoxy, whether it be Christian, Jewish, or Moslem, which it contrasts with polytheism, specifically Greek polytheism, altogether a more relaxed system. It is also a forceful plea for the use of reason in pursuit of the biggest questions that confront us. An Ordinary Man’s Letter to God is not an attack on faith, nor does it advocate for atheism. It argues passionately for the use of reason to establish a universal doctrine of tolerance, decency, common sense, and love.

Atheists talk a lot about the importance of skepticism. But the truth is, they're not nearly skeptical enough. While atheists champion the importance of a critical stance toward religion, they often fail to take that same stance toward their own beliefs.

Russell once said, "Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric." His views on religion in general, and on Christianity in particular (as in this work), were considered "eccentric" by many of his contemporaries. So were his views on sex, which figures frequently as an example of the misery that Christian leaders and thinkers inflict, and for which he was often vilified. The lectures in this collection leave no doubt about his views on these and related subjects.