The Plight of Western Religion: The Eclipse of the Other-Worldly, written by Paul Gifford

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-169
Author(s):  
Atola Longkumer
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Western Religion

Well, I’ll Be Damned!

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Jerome P. Baggett
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Influence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Western Religion

This chapter debunks three presumptions about atheism and three presumptions about American atheists themselves. Concerning atheism, it demonstrates that, rather than being something simple, atheism is actually quite complex and variegated. Rather than being new, it is actually a long-standing phenomenon, and to illustrate, this chapter focuses on various atheist roots, or styles of atheist thinking, that appear in ancient Greece. Instead of being something extrinsic to the development of Western religion and consciousness, atheism is actually a reflection of these. Concerning atheists in the United States, this chapter also demonstrates that they are generally not immoral, which they are widely presumed to be. Nor, on the other hand, are they necessarily more rational than their religious fellow citizens. Lastly, atheists are not an insignificant minority since the proportion of Americans who identify as atheist is larger than that of many well-known religious groups; in fact, their numbers and cultural influence seem to be growing.

The Plight of Western Religion

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Gifford
Keyword(s):  
World Order ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Mega Church ◽  
Western Religion ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Cognitive Shift

‘Religion’ can be used to mean all kinds of things, but a substantive definition––based on the premise of superhuman powers––can clarify much. It allows us to attempt to differentiate religion from culture, ethnicity, morality and politics.This definition of religion necessarily implies a perception of reality. Until recent centuries in the West, and in most cultures still, the ordinary, natural and immediate way of understanding and experiencing reality was in terms of otherworldly or spiritual forces. However, a cognitive shift has taken place through the rise of science and its subsequent technological application.This new consciousness has not disproved the existence of spiritual forces, but has led to the marginalization of the other-worldly, which even Western churches seem to accept. They persist, but increasingly as pressure groups promoting humanist values.Claims of ‘American exceptionalism’ in this regard are misleading. Obama’s religion, Evangelical support for Trump, and the mega-church message of success in the capitalist system can all be cultural and political phenomena. This eclipsing of the other-worldly constitutes a watershed in human history, with profound consequences not just for religious institutions but for our entire world order.

Western Religion and the Self-Canceling of Modernity

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustavo Benavides
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Extreme Character ◽  
Western Religion ◽  
The One

AbstractThe extreme character of western modernity is the result of the interaction of two contradictory processes. On the one hand, the cultivation of interiority, reflexivity, and thus of subjective freedom, which antedates Christianity, and which is also found in other cultures, but which Christianity intensified by equating religion with 'faith.' On the other, the need to assert one's freedom against the attempts on the part of a church, which, while promoting the exploration of the sinful subjectivity of all Christians—understood primarily as believers—sought to control all of reality, external and internal. While the emergence of a reflexive, tolerant self has led many in the West to the abandonment of its traditional institutional religion, that same tolerant reflexivity renders difficult dealing with the demands of groups—Christian and non-Christian—that seek to abolish modernity.

Stromatoporoids from the Famennian (Devonian) Wabamun Formation, Normandville oilfield, north–central Alberta, Canada

1988 ◽  
Vol 62 (03) ◽  
pp. 411-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin W. Stearn
Keyword(s):  
Patch Reef ◽  
Abundant Species ◽  
The Other ◽  
North Central ◽  
Biotic Crisis

Stromatoporoids are the principal framebuilding organisms in the patch reef that is part of the reservoir of the Normandville field. The reef is 10 m thick and 1.5 km2in area and demonstrates that stromatoporoids retained their ability to build reefal edifices into Famennian time despite the biotic crisis at the close of Frasnian time. The fauna is dominated by labechiids but includes three non-labechiid species. The most abundant species isStylostroma sinense(Dong) butLabechia palliseriStearn is also common. Both these species are highly variable and are described in terms of multiple phases that occur in a single skeleton. The other species described areClathrostromacf.C. jukkenseYavorsky,Gerronostromasp. (a columnar species), andStromatoporasp. The fauna belongs in Famennian/Strunian assemblage 2 as defined by Stearn et al. (1988).

D. The Line Spectrum of Pulsating Variable Stars

1967 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 207-244
Author(s):  
R. P. Kraft
Keyword(s):  
Variable Stars ◽  
The Other ◽  
Line Spectrum ◽  
Afternoon Session ◽  
Empirical Information ◽  
Pulsating Variable Stars ◽  
Almost Continuous ◽  
Informal Approach

(Ed. note:Encouraged by the success of the more informal approach in Christy's presentation, we tried an even more extreme experiment in this session, I-D. In essence, Kraft held the floor continuously all morning, and for the hour and a half afternoon session, serving as a combined Summary-Introductory speaker and a marathon-moderator of a running discussion on the line spectrum of cepheids. There was almost continuous interruption of his presentation; and most points raised from the floor were followed through in detail, no matter how digressive to the main presentation. This approach turned out to be much too extreme. It is wearing on the speaker, and the other members of the symposium feel more like an audience and less like participants in a dissective discussion. Because Kraft presented a compendious collection of empirical information, and, based on it, an exceedingly novel series of suggestions on the cepheid problem, these defects were probably aggravated by the first and alleviated by the second. I am much indebted to Kraft for working with me on a preliminary editing, to try to delete the side-excursions and to retain coherence about the main points. As usual, however, all responsibility for defects in final editing is wholly my own.)

C. The Continuous Spectrum of Pulsating Variable Stars

1967 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 177-206
Author(s):  
J. B. Oke ◽  
C. A. Whitney
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Spectrum ◽  
Variable Stars ◽  
Velocity Fields ◽  
The Other ◽  
Line Spectrum ◽  
Direct Information ◽  
Thermodynamic Structure ◽  
Diagnostic Interpretation ◽  
Pulsating Variable Stars ◽  
The Continuum

Pecker:The topic to be considered today is the continuous spectrum of certain stars, whose variability we attribute to a pulsation of some part of their structure. Obviously, this continuous spectrum provides a test of the pulsation theory to the extent that the continuum is completely and accurately observed and that we can analyse it to infer the structure of the star producing it. The continuum is one of the two possible spectral observations; the other is the line spectrum. It is obvious that from studies of the continuum alone, we obtain no direct information on the velocity fields in the star. We obtain information only on the thermodynamic structure of the photospheric layers of these stars–the photospheric layers being defined as those from which the observed continuum directly arises. So the problems arising in a study of the continuum are of two general kinds: completeness of observation, and adequacy of diagnostic interpretation. I will make a few comments on these, then turn the meeting over to Oke and Whitney.

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