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by Jerry Harmon ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 18, 2016
Awards & Accolades
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Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2016
A debut book offers a faithful exploration of the Creation story in light of the scientific age.
Harmon delivers one of the most thorough works on the question of biblical Creation in recent times. The author acknowledges the inherent conflict for modern Christians between traditional readings of Genesis and scientific proofs for the Big Bang and evolution. Confronted with the question of how to reconcile these views, Harmon, aided by others in a study group, began a lengthy process of scrutinizing the original Hebrew of the Creation stories in Genesis. Their analysis discovered that “there is considerable evidence to suggest that biblical creation occurred over an indefinite period of time.” Harmon provides a step-by-step approach in reaching this conclusion. He begins by examining the prevailing theories that dominate thought in the church on this subject and then surveys its past misunderstandings of science (flat Earth, geocentrism, etc.): “History shows that over the centuries the church has had a rather dismal record of dealing with scientific discovery.” Harmon then moves to the heart of his research, an in-depth look at the language found in Genesis 1 and 2. What he ascertains is that traditional readings of the Hebrew focus on definitive days instead of indefinite days and continuing processes. A detailed study of each day of Creation as described in the Bible lends meaningful weight to Harmon’s eventual findings. Though he is far from alone in trying to harmonize science and faith (for example, there’s Jeremy Campbell’s The Many Faces of God and Andrew Parker’s The Genesis Enigma), what he has done here is a unique achievement. Harmon contributes one of the most balanced, well-researched, and intellectually honest volumes on the subject. Without compromising his faith in a creating God, or in a divinely inspired text, he nevertheless takes scientific evidence just as seriously and systematically arrives at a genuine answer to how both sources can be reconciled. His work can be respected and accepted by proponents on both sides of the argument—a rarity indeed. An exceptional addition to the science/faith genre.
Pub Date: March 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5127-2664-0
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 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 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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