Philosophy & Religion
Click links to check availability.
by Liz Curtis Higgs (Get the Book)
The bestselling author (Bad Girls of the Bible) takes readers on a time travel trip to the biblical world of Ruth. Higgs's contemporary, conversational style provides insight into the themes of strong women, devotion, and faith found in the biblical book. A perfect blend of humor, extensive research, descriptive language, and insightful commentary brings to vibrant life Ruth and her relationships with mother-in-law Naomi and second husband Boaz. Breathe in the smells of ancient Bethlehem; hear the sounds of laborers threshing in the fields; see the emotions on the faces of these women; and understand how God walked with them through their lives. Readers view the events with the help of friendly tour guide Higgs, who provides extremely detailed information in a way that's enjoyable and memorable. Each chapter ends with a "Ruth in Real Life" feature, in which women share personal messages about their husbands, mothers, and daughters-in-law to emphasize the contemporary application of the biblical lesson. The text also includes a map, discussion questions, a study guide, and tips for further reading. --Publishers Weekly
by Jim Holt (Get the Book)
Aesthetically, wrote Wittgenstein, the miracle is that the world exists. In his lifelong quest to penetrate this miracle and, so, to explain why there is something rather than nothing, Holt has entertained deep thoughts. Here he invites readers to join him in the intellectual explorations that sustain such thoughts. Readers share in Holt's reflections on how the universe originated, pondering the cosmogonies found in Greek philosophy and Norse mythology and interrogating the theology of creation expounded by Anselm and Aquinas. Though Enlightenment thinkers such as Hume and Kant dismissed the entire question of cosmic origins as an irrelevance, Holt realizes that the modern theory of the big bang has pushed that question inescapably back into view. To cope with the difficulties inherent in modern explanations of cosmic beginnings, Holt seeks out living authorities, such as historian Adolf Grunbaum and physicist Steven Weinberg, probing their views with relentless curiosity. But Holt embeds these animated interviews in a profoundly personal narrative punctuated by insistent life events, such as the abrupt death of his mother. Winding its way to no reassuringly tidy conclusion, this narrative ultimately humanizes the huge metaphysical questions Holt confronts, endowing them with real-life significance. A potent synthesis of philosophy and autobiography. --Booklist
by R. J. Magill (Get the Book)
When Sarah Palin told a 2010 radio interviewer that she yearned to connect with the real people, the sincere people, few heard echoes of eighteenth-century romantic Jean-Jacques Rousseau. But Magill did. And here Magill explores the surprising implications of such echoes, tracing the tangled cultural history of sincerity as a moral and emotional ideal. That ideal, readers learn, first emerged in the theological firestorms of the sixteenth-century Reformation but metamorphosed when romantics (Rousseau and Diderot in France; Shelley and Byron in England) invested it with secular meanings in republican politics and emotive literature. But sincerity acquired dark, new connotations when Nietzsche reinterpreted it as a license for ruthless self-assertion, and Freud plumbed its depths for hidden lust and violence. Avoiding the depths, advertisers have transformed sincerity into a marketing formula, while self-help gurus have championed it as a success strategy. No wonder many artists and intellectuals have recast the question of sincerity as one of existential authenticity, while others have retreated into a cagey cynicism! Yet Magill sees Palin as just one of many twenty-first-century Americans on the Left and on the Right who still crave sincerity, even it if they must mask that craving with a hipster's protean irony. A wide-ranging and penetrating cultural inquiry. --Booklist
by Joyce Meyer. (Get the Book)
In her most popular bestseller ever, the beloved author and minister shows readers how to change their lives by changing their minds. This expanded commemorative edition features an additional Introduction and updated material. (Summary)
