by F. B. Nieman ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 26, 2015
Although this book makes a good case for putting more reason in religion, it will fail to convince the skeptical.
A Catholic academic attempts to reconcile the concepts of reason and religion.
Nieman, who was for many years the dean of the School of Applied Theology’s graduate program in Berkeley, California, explores the leap of faith from reason to religion in this “brief study of religion and its place in human life.” Reason, he writes, is “a necessary intermediary between faith and truth,” but a belief in God, he says, makes it easier to understand morality. Though he admits that religion, like agnosticism, begins with uncertainty about the existence of God, he dismisses atheism outright as more speculation than belief, as a negative is harder to prove than a positive, according to logic theory. The intuition of God, which he says is evident even in primitive peoples, comes from man’s ability to reason, he argues, and “faith, like Jesus going to his death, and reason, like Socrates calmly drinking the hemlock, agree on life after death.” Though religion can’t be proved by the scientific method, truth isn’t limited to that avenue, he argues, and angels are no more outlandish than the concept of dark matter. While building a case for both reason and religion, he mainly concentrates on Christianity. He notes various positions that Christians have taken over the centuries that conflict with Christianity’s tenets. He notes that many conservative Christians endorse supporting wars, capital punishment, and greed, for example, but he also notes that the Roman Catholic Church has come to reject many of these contradictions. Although he says he wants to “dialogue” with all religions, he still attacks a few, declaring that “the whole religion” of Islam is “suspect.” Christianity, he concludes, is “uniquely compelling.” Indeed, this book might be better titled Christianity and Reason, as Nieman makes a far better case for the reasonableness of Christianity than he does other religions. He offers apt critiques of Christianity’s conflicts and takes an enlightened view of what a truly reasonable Christianity could be. However, his evangelical approach is too biased and limited to provide a comprehensive view. The book contains extensive footnotes and a bibliography, but it could use more citations, as when he describes the history of the Quran; sometimes, he merely cites movies as sources.
Although this book makes a good case for putting more reason in religion, it will fail to convince the skeptical.Pub Date: June 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4908-7972-7
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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by Albert Camus ; translated by Justin O'Brien & Sandra Smith
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by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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