Michael R. Licona (InterVarsity Press: Oct 2010), 720 pages.
Go
The question of the historicity of Jesus' resurrection has been repeatedly probed, investigated and debated. And the results have varied widely. Perhaps some now regard this issue as the burned-over district of New Testament scholarship. Could there be any new and promising approach to this problem? Yes, answers Michael Licona. And he convincingly points us to a significant deficiency in approaching this question: our historiographical orientation and practice. So he opens this study with an extensive consideration of historiography and the particular problem of investigating claims of miracles. This alone is a valuable contribution. But then Licona carefully applies his principles and methods to the question of Jesus' resurrection. In addition to determining and working from the most reliable sources and bedrock historical evidence, Licona critically weighs other prominent hypotheses. His own argument is a challenging and closely argued case for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. Any future approaches to dealing with this "prize puzzle" of New Testament study will need to be routed through The Resurrection of Jesus. ~ Synopsis
William A. Dembski, ed. (InterVarsity Press: 1998)
Go
Nineteen experts trained in mathematics, mechanical engineering, philosophy, astrophysics, ecology, evolutionary biology, and other disciplines challenge the reigning ideology of materialistic naturalism on both scientific and philosophical grounds, as they press their case for a radical thinking of established evolutionary assumptions. ~ Synopsis
Go
The place for resources and discussion on the cornucopia of religious varieties. Belief.net is itself non-partisan, but provides a space for pluralists and proponents of every faith to speak their peace on all manner of religious issues.
Charles Taylor (Belknap Press: Sep 20, 2007), 896 pages.
Go
In his characteristically erudite yet engaging fashion, Taylor, winner of the 2007 Templeton Prize, takes up where he left off in his magnificent Sources of the Self (1989) as he brilliantly traces the emergence of secularity and the processes of secularization in the modern age. Challenging the idea that the secular takes hold in a world where religion is experienced as a loss or where religions are subtracted from the culture, Taylor discovers the secular emerging in the midst of the religious. The Protestant Reformation, with its emphasis on breaking down the invidious political structures of the Catholic Church, provides the starting point down the road to the secular age. Taylor sweeps grandly and magisterially through the 18th and 19th centuries as he recreates the history of secularism and its parallel challenges to religion. He concludes that a focus on the religious has never been lost in Western culture, but that it is one among many stories striving for acceptance. Taylor's examination of the rise of unbelief in the 19th century is alone worth the price of the book and offers an essential reminder that the Victorian age, more than the Enlightenment, dominates our present view of the meanings of secularity. Taylor's inspired combination of philosophy and history sparkles in this must-read virtuoso performance.
Go
All of the following have all been shown as part of The Caleb Group's
"Movies Worth Talking About" series. However, please note: not all the
films listed are suitable for children or young people; and some adults
may consider a few to be offensive.
Go
Catapult magazine is an online publication that releases biweekly thematic issues on the implications of following Christ in and through all aspects of culture. catapult fosters collaborative thought on practically living out faith in all areas of life and inspires hopefulness and action through the experience of community and the acknowledgement of the Holy Spirit working through Kingdom servants here and now. Volunteers and staff connected to *culture is not optional have been publishing catapult since September 2002. ~ From the About Page Also see Catapult's "Backpage" for a stream of thematically relevant articles plucked from across the Web.
Atheist Delusions (Yale University Press: 2009), pp. 33-34.
Go
Hence modernity’s first great attempt to define itself: an 'age of reason' emerging from and overthrowing an 'age of faith'. Behind this definition lay a simple but thoroughly enchanting tale. Once upon a time, it went, Western humanity was the cosseted and incurious ward of Mother Church; during this, the age of faith, culture stagnated, science languished, wars of religion were routinely waged, witches were burned by inquisitors, and Western humanity labored in brutish subjugation to dogma. All was darkness. ¶ Then, in the wake of the ‘wars of religion’ that had torn Christendom apart, came the full flowing of the Enlightenment and with it the reign of reason and progress. The secular nation-state arose, reduced religion to an establishment of the state and thereby rescued Western humanity from the blood-steeped intolerance of religion. ¶ This is, as I say, a simple and enchanting tale, easily followed and utterly captivating in its explanatory tidiness; its sole defect is that it happens to be false in every identifiable detail. This tale of the birth of the modern world has largely disappeared from respectable academic literature and survives now principally at the level of folklore, 'intellectual journalism,' and vulgar legend.
Go
In its own words: Vridar is my doppelganger. The name comes from Vardis Fisher’s fictionalized biographical two-part novel “The Orphans of Gethsemane” and is a near-anagram of the author’s own name. To read this novel, or even his 1939 Harper prize winning “Children of God”, is to read my life too. Everything from boyhood, religion, women, fatherhood, personal growth to atheism is there. For info on who Vardis Fisher is check out Vardis Fisher (American Atheists site), Vardis Fisher (VardisFisher.com) and Vardis Fisher (wikipedia article). But if you’re really wanting to know where I’m coming from it might be easier to simply read my own odyssey from heavenly thrones down to earth.
My background is in history teaching, postgraduate educational studies and information science, academic librarian, metadata specialist with a project building regional university repositories in Australia and New Zealand, and digital repository manager.
Currently I am a Principal Librarian and Bibliographic Consultant to the Singapore National Library Board.
So the biblical studies interest is a hobby, although a serious one. I do like to check out the foundations of significant beliefs as thoroughly as my real-life commitments will allow.
Stephen Shapin (University of Chicago Press: 1998), 232 pages.
Go
TThere was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it," says Shapin, a professor of sociology at U.C., San Diego in his introduction, "There was, rather, a diverse array of cultural practices aimed at understanding explaining, and controlling the natural world." Shapin's treatise on the currents that engendered modern science is a combination of history and philosophy of science for the interested and educated layperson, and it is indeed considerably more readable than many of the other philosophy of science books currently available. Several puzzling aspects of the writings of 16th- and 17th-century scientists are put into new perspective in his section titled: "Science as Religion's Handmaid." There are three basic sections of the book: "What Was Known?" covers major differences between the "new knowledge" of the scientific revolution and received wisdom of the ancients. "How Was It Known?" covers sources of authority (e.g., books or experience) and some of the experimental groundwork of major players such as Boyle and Galileo. And "What Was The Knowledge For?" explores the interactions of the new science with the political, religious and cultural dimensions of the European society in which it was embedded. This slim book would have benefited from a deeper consideration of the rivalry between English and Continental science (and scientists) and the relationship of the new science to the design and production of war machines. But Shapin does help the reader understand the direct intellectual link between that time and our own. Illustrations, all taken from original sources, add a nice touch. ~ Publishers Weekly
Robert Audi (Oxford University Press: September, 1997), 320 pages.
Go
This book presents an ethical theory that uniquely integrates
naturalistic and rationalistic elements. Robert Audi develops his
theory in four areas: moral epistemology, the metaphysics of ethics,
moral psychology, and the foundations of ethics. Comprising both new
and published work, the book sets forth a moderate intuitionism,
clarifies the relation between reason and motivation, constructs a
theory of intrinsic value and its place in moral obligation, and
presents a sophisticated account of moral justification. The concluding
chapter articulates a new normative framework built from both Kantian
and intuitionist elements. Connecting ethics in novel ways to both the
theory of value and the philosophy of action, the essays explore topics
such as ethical intuition, reason and judgement, and virtue. Audi also
considers major views in the history of ethics, including those of
Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Mill, Moore, and W. D. Ross, and engages
contemporary work on autonomy, responsibility, objectivity, reasons,
and other issues. Clear and conceptually rich, this book makes vital
reading for students and scholars of ethics.