by JohnCottingham (Author)
Why Believe? sees John Cottingham, a philosopher of searing intellectual honesty, examine our society's struggle with the concept of belief. Religious belief, or its lack, is something that touches our integrity very deeply. It goes to the heart of who we are, what we take ourselves to be doing with our lives, and how we locate ourselves in relation to others. Much philosophy tackles belief in God as if it depended entirely on abstract intellectual argument, but John Cottingham's carefully reasoned yet impassioned account shows how the religious outlook connects with our deepest human longings, how it links up with our moral and aesthetic experience, how it is integrally involved in the quest for self-understanding, and how it is not after all in conflict with a scientific understanding of the world. Rigorously argued yet maximally accessible, this book cuts through the sterility of much modern debate and offers a new and exciting perspective on the conflict between secularism and spirituality.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Continuum Publishing Corporation
Published: 17 Mar 2011
ISBN 10: 144114305X
ISBN 13: 9781441143051
Himself a believing philosopher, Cottingham explains how he is able to meld his secular and religious inclinations. Sometimes, he warns, he gets a bit more rhetorical than is considered proper in an academic paper. He covers belief and its benefits; belief, reason, goodness; belief and the unknown; obstacles to belief; belief and meaning; learning to believe; and believing and living. -Eithne O'Leyne, BOOK NEWS, Inc.
'Wonderful crowd-dividing meditations'
'Wonderful crowd-dividing meditations'