The Unbearable Truth or How the World Changed and Nearly Left Anthropology Behind

1984 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 4-4
Author(s):  
Kirk Gray
Keyword(s):  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The Universe

IN THE BEGINNING … the earth was without form and void, with darkness over the face of knowledge of those who could neither read nor write, and a mighty wind called Anthropology swept over the surface of the waters of knowledge and understanding. Anthropology said let there be light on cultures not well understood by mere man and soon there was light. And Anthropology saw that the light was good, and we separated light from darkness. For a long while the light shone brightly, illuminating the corridors and halls and libraries of our learning. The sons and daughters of Anthropology were spread across the universe recording, documenting, theorizing.

‘A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust’: The World and Self in Thomas Hardy's Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Monika Szuba
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Recurrent Theme ◽  
Body Subject

The essay discusses selected poems from Thomas Hardy's vast body of poetry, focusing on representations of the self and the world. Employing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concepts such as the body-subject, wild being, flesh, and reversibility, the essay offers an analysis of Hardy's poems in the light of phenomenological philosophy. It argues that far from demonstrating ‘cosmic indifference’, Hardy's poetry offers a sympathetic vision of interrelations governing the universe. The attunement with voices of the Earth foregrounded in the poems enables the self's entanglement in the flesh of the world, a chiasmatic intertwining of beings inserted between the leaves of the world. The relation of the self with the world is established through the act of perception, mainly visual and aural, when the body becomes intertwined with the world, thus resulting in a powerful welding. Such moments of vision are brief and elusive, which enhances a sense of transitoriness, and, yet, they are also timeless as the self becomes immersed in the experience. As time is a recurrent theme in Hardy's poetry, this essay discusses it in the context of dwelling, the provisionality of which is demonstrated in the prevalent sense of temporality, marked by seasons and birdsong, which underline the rhythms of the world.

The Writings of Skryabin

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Nicholls ◽  
Michael Pushkin ◽  
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Creative Play ◽  
Religious Feeling ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Section Viii ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Final Text ◽  
Life Work

An introduction by Boris de Schloezer gives the genesis of the final text in the section, the Preliminary Action, and explains its relation to Skryabin’s projected life-work, the Mystery. Section I: an effusion of Orthodox religious feeling from teenage years. Sections II-VII: Around 1900, an expression of rejection of God in the face of disillusion is followed by the text of the choral finale of the First Symphony, declaring faith in the power of art. An unfinished opera libretto, symbolic in narrative, expressing belief in Art’s power to seduce and persuade. Three notebooks develop a world view in which the world is the result of the self’s creative activity. The creation of art and of the universe are identical. There is a higher self, identical with divinity. Forgetfulness of individuality leads to freedom and universal consciousness. Section VIII: The literary poem written during the composition of the symphonic Poem of Ecstasy summarises the scenario developed in the notebooks. Life starts with the desire to create, delight in creative play meets opposition, the creative goal is achieved and disappointment sets in. The process is repeated until it is realized that the struggle is itself joyful and self-affirmation is achieved. Section IX: The text of the Preliminary Action is symbolic in structure. Primal Male and Female Principles emerge; the Female is identified with Death. Life arises from the union of energies. Struggle and bloodshed follow. The conclusion is an impulse towards unification, the synthesis of experience and dematerialisation. Both the complete first draft and the incomplete revision are included.

II. The Question of God in the Struggle for Racial Justice

Horizons ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-194
Author(s):  
Christopher Pramuk
Keyword(s):  
Human Freedom ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face

In March 1943, having narrowly escaped Europe three years earlier, Abraham Joshua Heschel published “The Meaning of This War,” his first essay in an American publication. The essay shows, quite remarkably, his full command of literary English. It also shows, as biographer Edward Kaplan remarks, that Heschel “had found his militant voice.” “Emblazoned over the gates of the world in which we live,” the essay begins, “is the escutcheon of the demons. The mark of Cain in the face of man has come to overshadow the likeness of God. There have never been so much guilt and distress, agony and terror. At no time has the earth been so soaked with blood.” Heschel's extraordinary life's witness, his whole body of work, traverses precisely this anthropological and theological knife's edge: The mark of Cain in the face of man has come to overshadow the likeness of God. Where is God? Or better, Who is God? in relation to the rapacious misuse and idolatrous distortion of human freedom? Or simply, Is God?

scholarly journals III. On the nature and construction of the sun and fixed stars

1795 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 46-72 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Central Body ◽  
Planetary System ◽  
Considerable Progress ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Great Satisfaction ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Made In

Among the celestial bodies the sun is certainly the first which should attract our notice. It is a fountain of light that illuminates the world! it is the cause of that heat which main­tains the productive power of nature, and makes the earth a fit habitation for man! it is the central body of the planetary system; and what renders a knowledge of its nature still more interesting to us is, that the numberless stars which compose the universe, appear, by the strictest analogy, to be similar bodies. Their innate light is so intense, that it reaches the eye of the observer from the remotest regions of space, and forcibly claims his notice. Now, if we are convinced that an inquiry into the nature and properties of the sun is highly worthy of our notice, we may also with great satisfaction reflect on the considerable progress that has already been made in our knowledge of this eminent body. It would require a long detail to enumerate all the various discoveries which have been made on this subject; I shall, therefore, content myself with giving only the most capital of them.

scholarly journals XXIII. On the degree of salubrity of the common air at sea, compared with that of the sea-shore, and that of places far removed from the sea

1780 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 354-377 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Earth ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Common ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Bodies Of Water

Sir, As you had recommended to me the examination of the air at sea by the nitrous test, I followed your advice in my return to the Continent in the beginning of November last: and I embraced that opportunity with the more eagerness, as I knew that you had given credit to the account of several consumptive people having recovered their health by going on sea voyages, after the common means for curing that distemper had failed. I was in hopes likewise to find in this inquiry, a confirmation of what you conjectured in you Anniversary Discourse in the year 1773, viz . that great bodies of water, such as seas and lakes, are conducive to the health of animals, by purifying and cleansing the air contaminated by their breathing in it: so that the salutary gales, by which this infected air is conveyed to the waters, and by them returned again to the land, though they do rise now and then to storms and hurricanes, must nevertheless induce us to trace and to reverse in them the ways of a beneficent Being, who, not fortuitously, but with design, not in wrath, but in mercy, thus shakes the waters and the air together, to bury in the deep those pestilential effluvia which the vegetables upon the face of the earth are insufficient to consume.

Reconstructing the Crime

Impact! ◽  
1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerrit L. Verschuur
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Diversity ◽  
Blast Waves ◽  
Meteor Showers ◽  
Rapid Succession ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
Cretaceous Period ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Mind's Eye ◽  
The Universe

Just what happened to the dinosaurs? In the mind’s eye, travel back to the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. First, land in a region of the world that will someday be called Oklahoma. You are in the era of dinosaurs, although there are no longer as many species about, worldwide, as there were ten million or so years before. In all, 23 species roam their individual parts of the planet. It is their lack of spatial diversity that will make them vulnerable to the catastrophe that is about to befall the earth. So imagine you are there, together with triceratops, stegosaurus, velociraptors, and tyrannosaurus rex. Mostly they live off the land, and some of them live off each other. On this day none of the animals on earth can possibly have any awareness that they are about to disappear. Such a luxury will only be granted to a conscious species that has learned to explore the universe. For those who survive the initial impact explosion and its immediate consequences, the coming months will mark a terrible example of one of Cuvier’s “brief periods of terror.” In rapid succession, all life will be subject to a holocaust of staggering proportion, horrendous blast waves, searing winds, showers of molten matter from the sky, earthquakes, a terrible darkness that will cut out sunlight for a year, and freezing weather that will last a decade. The ozone layer will be destroyed, and acid rain will make life intolerable for species that survived the first few months after the impact. You are there and you have been observing an odd phenomenon in the sky. For thousands of years a great comet has loomed, repeatedly lighting up the heavens with its glorious tail and then fading away to reappear a few years later. Long ago it was seen to break into fragments, each of which was a spectacular sight in its own right. Sometimes one of those fragments seemed to loom ever so close to the earth. For thousands of years, spectacular meteor showers have been seen whenever the earth passed through the tail of one of those comets, and sometimes dust drifted down into the atmosphere and disturbed the climate.

Newton, Einstein and Scientific Theology

1972 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-250
Author(s):  
Thomas F. Torrance
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Human Science ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Church

Everything about us today tells us that we live in a world which will be increasingly dominated by empirical and theoretic science. This is the world in which the Church lives and proclaims its message about Jesus Christ. It is not an alien world, for it is in this world of space and time that God has planted us. He made the universe and endowed man with gifts to investigate and understand it. Just as he made life to produce itself, so he has made the universe with man as an essential constituent in it, that it may bring forth and articulate knowledge of itself. Regarded in this light the pursuit of science is one of the ways in which man exercises the dominion in the earth which he was given at his creation. That is how, for example, Francis Bacon understood the work of human science, as man's obedience to God. Science is a religious duty, while man as scientist can be spoken of as the priest of creation, whose task it is to interpret the books of nature, to understand the universe in its wonderful structures and harmonies, and to bring it all into orderly articulation, so that it fulfils its proper end as the vast theatre of glory in which the creator is worshipped and praised. Nature itself is dumb, but it is man's part to bring it to word, to be its mouth through which the whole universe gives voice to the glory and majesty of the living God.

scholarly journals Editorial

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. i-iv
Author(s):  
Katherine Bullock
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Poverty Relief ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Silver Lining ◽  
Hiv Aids

Just as the world united in grief after the tragic carnage of 9/11, so too hasthe world become one after the cataclysmic tsunami that has claimed,according to Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald (February 8, 2005),295,608 lives, and has affected 11 countries in the Indian Ocean region.The tsunami destroyed entire villages and families. Long after thehouses have been rebuilt and the people have returned to a kind of normalcyin their lives, the effects of this catastrophe will continue to be felt.Local economies and the infrastructures needed to support them will haveto be rebuilt, and there will be the continuing psychological impact on thesurvivors, who will always feel guilty for having survived and who willnever be free of the pain of losing their loved ones.No one has been unaffected by the tsunami, although some of us, bythe grace of God (swt), have not felt its devastation. As the English adagegoes, every cloud has a silver lining. And in the face of such an awesomenatural calamity, we have seen the best side of humanity, as people rush toprovide aid and assistance to the survivors.The tsunami has also allowed those working in poverty relief and aidprograms elsewhere to turn the spotlight on their efforts to avert othercalamities that are of the same magnitude but occur at a much slower pace.Among such people is Stephen Lewis, the UN Secretary-General’s SpecialEnvoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, who pointed out during an interview on CBCradio (January 12, 2005) that more than 2 million people in Africa die eachyear of AIDS. And then there is Rabbi Michael Lerner, who reminded us inhis essay in Tikkun (January 5, 2005) of a recent UN report that 29,000 childrendie every day from avoidable diseases and malnutrition.Calamities and their accompanying suffering and struggles are tests forhumanity. They remind us that we are not in control of the universe, andthus are a lesson in humility. They remind us that life is fragile and can betaken from us at a time and in a way that we do not expect, and thus are alesson in priorities and perspective, a check against the materialism andhedonism that is overtaking our consumer capitalist lives. Who wouldreally care that they do not own the latest iPod if they knew that they wereto die tomorrow? ...

scholarly journals Studi Kritik Teori Penciptaan Dalam Kejadian 1:1-2 (Suatu Kajian terhadap Argumentasi Teori Celah)

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-78
Author(s):  
Djonly J. R. Rosang
Keyword(s):  
The Earth ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Creatio Ex Nihilo ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Biblical Perspective ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Philosophic Perspective

The creation of the universe, according to the Holy Bible has actually done as said in Genesis 1-2. However, there are some people who are still struggling in order to search for the reason to question the process of how is this universe actually began, so that they will look for scientific consideration to find the “theoretical justification” over the biblical truth. This writing aims to give an answer to the gap theory in Genesis 1:1-2. The author, through the study Genesis 1:1-2, the result of this study concluded as follows. First, there is no exegesis background that is strong enough for gap theory to give an assumption that there was an unmeasurably period of time or age in the creation of the universe. Second, a biblical statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ... for in six days the LORD made heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1; Ex. 20:11) is an ultimate fact of God’s power and majesty in creating the earth from nothing to existence with His Word (creatio ex Nihilo). Third, the doctrine of world’s creation must be the foundation of faith that is tested in the authority of God’s words (2 Tim. 3:16) and the entire creation of God which become the medium of scientifical activity in the history of humanity must be according to the biblical perspective. Fourth, The statement of Genesis 1:1 appears to be refutation toward various scientific theories and human’s philosophic perspective that are opposite the biblical truth (Gen. 1-2, Ps. 33:4-9).Pernyataan Alkitab tentang penciptaan alam semesta sebenarnya sudah tuntas sebagaimana dikemukakan dalam Kejadian 1-2. Namun ada saja orang yang berusaha mencari alasan untuk mempertanyakan proses terjadinya alam semesta ini, sehingga mencoba mencari pertimbangan ilmiah untuk menemukan “pembenaran teoritis” atas kebenaran Alkitab. Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk memberi jawab terhadap teori celah (gap theory) dalam Kejadian 1:1-2, melalui studi biblika penulis mengemukakan argumentasi paham teori celah, dalam kajian metode induktif terhadap studi teks Kejadian 1:1-2. Hasil studi ini disimpulkan bahwa: Pertama, bahwa tidak ada dasar eksegesis yang kuat bagi teori celah untuk memberi ruang bagi asumsi adanya rentang waktu periode atau zaman yang tak terukur dalam proses penciptaan semesta. Kedua, pernyataan Alkitab, “Pada mulanya Allah menciptakan langit dan bumi ... dalam waktu enam hari lamanya” (Kej. 1:1, Kel. 20:11) adalah suatu fakta Alkitab yang tak terbantahkan sebagai tindakan kemahakuasaan dan keagungan Allah menciptakan dunia dari yang tidak ada menjadi ada dengan firman-Nya (creatio ex nihilo). Ketiga, doktrin penciptaan harus menjadi landasan iman Kristen yang  diuji dalam otoritas Firman Allah yang berkuasa (2 Tim. 3:16) serta dunia ciptaan Allah dan segala isinya menjadi arena kegiatan ilmiah dalam lintasan sejarah manusia haruslah berdasarkan perspektif Alkitab. Keempat,  pernyataan penciptaan Kejadian 1:1 merupakan sanggahan terhadap berbagai teori ilmu pengetahuan dan pandangan filsafat manusia yang bertentangan dengan kebenaran Alkitab (Kej. 1-2, Mzm. 33:4-9).

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