Lost Discoveries,Godless Universe,Genocide,Creation Myths,The Renaissance,Roman Revolution (eBook Compilation)

material included:

1. The Sacred and the Profane. The Nature of Religion - by Mircea Eliade (1968)

In the "Sacred and the Profane", Mircea Eliade describes two fundamentally different modes of experience: the traditional and the modern. Traditional man or "homo religious" is open to experiencing the world as sacred. Modern man however, is closed to these kinds of experiences. For him the world is experienced only as profane. It is the burden of the book to show in what these fundamentally opposed experiences consist. Traditional man often expresses this opposition as real vs. unreal or pseudoreal and he seeks as much as possible to live his life within the sacred, to saturate himself in reality.According to Eliade the sacred becomes known to man because it manifests itself as different from the profane world. This manifestation of the sacred Eliade calls "hierophany". For Eliade this is a fundamental concept in the study of the sacred and his book returns to it again and again.

The "Sacred and the Profane" is divided into four chapters dealing with space, time, nature, and man. To these is appended a "Chronological Survey Of the History of Religions as a Branch of Knowledge."

In CHAPTER ONE Eliade explores the "variety of religious experiences of space". Modern man tends to experience all space as the same. He has mathematsized space, homogenizing it by reducing every space to the equivalent of so many units of measurement. What differences there are between places are usually due only to experiences an individual associates with a place not the place itself, e.g. my birthplace, the place I fell in love, etc.

But religious man does not experience space in this way. For him some space is qualitatively different. It is sacred, therefore strong and meaningful. Other space is profane, chaotic, and meaningless. Traditional man is unable to live in a profane world, because he cannot orientate himself. In order to gain orientation he must first have a center. The center is not arrived at by speculation or arbitrary decision but is given. A revelation of the sacred, a hierophany establishes a center and the center establishes a world because all other space derives its' meaning from the center.

CHAPTER TWO deals with sacred time. Here Eliade treats briefly material he covers at greater length in "The Myth of the Eternal Return". As with his experience of space, religious man experiences time as both sacred and profane. Sacred time, the time of the festival, is a return to the mythic time at the beginning of things, what Eliade calls "in illo tempore" (Latin: "at that time"). Religious man wishes to always live in this strong time. This is a wish to "return to the presence of the gods, to recover the strong, fresh, pure world that existed "in illo tempore". According to Eliade sacred or festive time is not accessible to modern man, because he sees profane time as constituting the whole of his life and when he dies his life is annihilated.

CHAPTER THREE is entitled "The Sacredness of Nature and Cosmic Religion." Here Eliade explains that for religious man nature was never merely "natural" but always expresses something beyond itself. For him the world is symbolic or transparent; the world of the gods shines through his world. The universe is seen as an ordered whole which manifests different modalities of being and the sacred.

Eliade goes on to explores certain key symbols of the sacred: sky, waters, earth, vegetation, and the moon. Within these categories Eliade gives special attention to Christian baptism and the Tree of Life. Needless to say, modernity is characterized by a desacralization of nature.

The FOURTH and final CHAPTER covers the sanctification of human life. Sanctification allows religious man to live an "open existence." This means traditional man lives his life on two planes. He lives his everyday life, but he also shares in a life beyond the everyday, the life of the cosmos or the gods. This "twofold plane" of human and cosmic life is aptly expressed in traditional man's experience of himself and his dwelling as a microcosm or little universe.

Much of this chapter deals with the triplet "body-house-cosmos" and with the meaning of initiations. Initiation is the way traditional man sanctifies his life. It contains a uniquely religious view of the world, because he considers himself unfinished or imperfect. Thus his natural birth must be completed by a series of second or spiritual births. This is accomplished by "rites of passage" which are initiations An initiation is a kind of birth, but it is always accompanied by death to the state left behind.

The excellence of "The Sacred and the Profane" lies in its' combination of brevity and startling depth of insight. Eliade writes with simplicity and clarity about matters of profound import to human life. This is scholarship at its' best: one pauses often, not caught in a tangle of verbiage but lost in wonder.

2. Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe - by Erik J. Wielenberg 2005

Suppose there is no God. This supposition implies that human life is meaningless, that there are no moral obligations and hence people can do whatever they want, and that the notions of virtue and vice, right and wrong, and good and evil have no place in the universe. Erik J. Wielenberg believes this view to be utterly erroneous and, in this thought-provoking book, he explains the reasons why. He argues that, even if God does not exist, human life can still have meaning, humans do have moral obligations, and human virtue is still possible.

Wielenberg offers readers a cognent explanation of the ethical implications of naturalism--a view that denies the existence of the supernatural in human life. In his view virtue exists in a godless universe but it is significantly different from virtue in a Christian universe, and he develops naturalistic accounts of humility, charity, and hope. The overarching theme of Virtue and Value in a Godless Universe is what ethics might look like without God. Erik Wielenberg takes readers on an extraordinary tour of some of the central landmarks of this under-explored territory.

3. Lost Discoveries : The Ancient Roots of Modern Science--from the Babylonians to the Maya - by Dick Teresi 2002

Did Nicolas Copernicus steal his notion that the earth orbited the sun from an Islamic astronomer who lived three centuries earlier? Dick Teresi's innovative history of science, explores the unheralded scientific breakthroughs from peoples of the ancient world -- Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, Africans, New World and Oceanic tribes, among others -- and the non-European medieval world. They left an enormous heritage in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, physics, geology, chemistry, and technology.

The mathematical foundation of Western science is a gift from the Indians, Chinese, Arabs, Babylonians, and Maya. The ancient Egyptians developed the concept of the lowest common denominator, and they developed a fraction table that modern scholars estimate required 28,000 calculations to compile. The Babylonians developed the first written math and used a place-value number system. Our numerals, 0 through 9, were invented in ancient India; the Indians also boasted geometry, trigonometry, and a kind of calculus.

Planetary astronomy as well may have begun with the ancient Indians, who correctly identified the relative distances of the known planets from the sun, and knew the moon was nearer to the earth than the sun was. The Chinese observed, reported, dated, recorded, and interpreted eclipses between 1400 and 1200 b.c. Most of the names of our stars and constellations are Arabic. Arabs built the first observatories.

Five thousand years ago, the Sumerians said the earth was circular. In the sixth century, a Hindu astronomer taught that the daily rotation of the earth on its axis provided the rising and setting of the sun. Chinese and Arab scholars were the first to use fossils scientifically to trace earth's history.

Chinese alchemists realized that most physical substances were merely combinations of other substances, which could be mixed in different proportions. Islamic scholars are legendary for translating scientific texts of many languages into Arabic, a tradition that began with alchemical books. In the eleventh century, Avicenna of Persia divined that outward qualities of metals were of little value in classification, and he stressed internal structure, a notion anticipating Mendeleyev's periodic chart of elements.

4. Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery - by John Waller 2002

With respect to Pasteur, Millikan, and Eddington, at this stage I should like to make one further observation. The twentieth-century philosopher of science Karl Popper made a useful distinction between discovery and verification in the development of scientific knowledge. A committed and eloquent believer in the ability of scientists to make sense of the world, he nonetheless saw that the discovery stage may be much less rigorous and disciplined than the point at which other scientists become involved and begin the process of verification by trying to ‘falsify’ the original researcher’s ideas. ‘The question how it happens that a new idea occurs to a man—whether it is a musical theme, or a dramatic conflict, or a scientific theory—may be of great interest to empirical psychology; but it is irrelevant to the logical analysis of scientific knowledge’ is how Popper put it in 1959. Science only becomes reliable knowledge, he argued, after its validity has been extensively tested over the course of many years. Indeed, he was ‘inclined to think that scientific discovery is impossible without faith in ideas which are of a purely speculative kind, and sometimes even quite hazy’.

5. Genocide in the Age of the Nation State: Volume 1: The Meaning of Genocide - by Mark Levene 2005

How should we understand genocide in the modern world? As an aberration from the norms of a dominant liberal international society? Or rather as a guide to the very dysfunctional nature of the international system itself? This is the first book to consider the phenomenon within a broad context of world historical development. In this first volume, Mark Levene sets out the conceptual issues in the study of genocide and the historical linkage between the rise of the West, in both its modern and early modern domestic and colonial settings, and increasing tendencies to physically annihilate native peoples or religiously heterodox communal groups who stood as obstacles in its path.

6. Genocide in the Age of the Nation State: Volume 2: The Rise of the West and Coming Genocide - by Mark Levene 2005

Most books on genocide consider it primarily as a twentieth century phenomenon. In The Rise of the West and the Coming of Genocide, Mark Levene argues that this approach fails to grasp its true origins. Genocide developed out of modernity and the striving for the nation-state, both essentially Western experiences. It was European expansion into all hemispheres between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries that provided the main stimulus to its pre-1914 manifestations.One critical outcome, on the cusp of modernity, was the French revolutionary destruction of the Vendee. Levene finishes this volume at the 1914 watershed with the destabilising effects of the 'rise of the West' on older Ottoman, Chinese, Russian and Austrian empires, with devastating consequences for peoples such as the Armenians, and the East European Jews.

7. The Roman Revolution - by Ronald Syme 2002 (djvu format)

The Roman Revolution is a profound and unconventional treatment of a great theme - the fall of the Republic and the decline of freedom in Rome between 60 BC and AD 14, and the rise to power of the greatest of the Roman Emperors, Augustus. The transformation of state and society, the violent transference of power and property, and the establishment of Augustus' rule are presented in an unconventional narrative, which quotes from ancient evidence, refers seldomly to modern authorities, and states controversial opinions quite openly. The result is a book which is both fresh and compelling.

8. The Renaissance (Questions and Analysis in History) by Jocelyn Hunt 2005

The term is most commonly used when discussing fine art, and it is in this sense that most of us are familiar with it. Yet revisionist historians argue that art was its least important aspect, and the one which was least discussed by contemporaries. The emphasis on art dates back only to the mid-nineteenth century and the writings of Jacob Burckhardt, and we should instead focus on the development of humanism and the classical studies of the universities . The assumption that Florence was pre-eminent is similarly Burckhardtian, since, it is argued, the scholars of the Renaissance were based in Rome, and in the other universities. On the other hand, the names most clearly associated with the Renaissance remain those of artists, and indeed, artists from Florence.

9. Philosophy in the Modern World: A New History of Western Philosophy, volume 4 - by Anthony Kenny 2007

Sir Anthony Kenny tells the fascinating story of the development of philosophy in the modern world, from the early nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. Alongside (and intertwined with) extraordinary scientific advances, cultural changes, and political upheavals, the last two centuries have seen some of the most intriguing and original developments in philosophical thinking, which have transformed our understanding of ourselves and our world.
In the first part of the book Kenny offers a lively narrative introducing the major thinkers in their historical context. He then proceeds to guide the reader lucidly through the nine main areas of philosophical work in the period, offering a serious engagement with the ideas and arguments. Among those we meet are the great figures of continental European philosophy, from Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche to Heidegger and Sartre; the Pragmatists who first developed a distinctively American philosophical tradition; Marx, Darwin, and Freud, the non-philosophers whose influence on philosophy was immense; Wittgenstein and Russell, friends and colleagues who set the agenda for analytic philosophy in the twentieth century. Philosophy in the Modern World brings to completion Kenny's magisterial New History of Western Philosophy.

The four volumes have been designed to dovetail with each other: they offer a unified overview of the entire development of philosophy, allowing readers to trace themes through the centuries, from antiquity to the present day. The story is illuminated by a selection of intriguing and beautiful illustrations.

10. Evolution and Religious Creation Myths: How Scientists Respond - by Paul F. Lurquin, Linda Stone 2007

Polls show that 45% of the American public believes that humans were created about 10,000 years ago and that evolution is a fictitious myth. Another 25% believes that changes in the natural world are directed by a supernatural being with a particular goal in mind. This thinking clashes head on with scientific findings from the past 150 years, and there is a dearth of public critical thinking about the natural world within a scientific framework.

Evolution and Religious Creation Myths seeks to educate and arm the public on the differences between myth and science, fiction and theory. The book begins with a whirlwind tour of creation stories from several religions. The authors then explore how certain forms of religious fundamentalism clash with the science of evolution. They review how creationists and intelligent design proponents misuse and misrepresent scientific terminology and conclusions to further their own agendas. How do scientists respond to this threat? Modern science, which includes a level of indeterminacy, or chance, cannot support the premise that a supernatural designer engineered nature for a particular purpose in a deterministic fashion. This holds true for the creation of the universe, the appearance of the first biological molecules, chemical evolution, and the evolution of life forms through mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift. Instead, human biological and cultural evolution is described within a genetic framework. Scientists use a barrage of genetic tests and DNA phylogenies to support the scientific basis for evolution.

For anyone who has ever needed to argue why evolution and creationism are not both valid theories that deserve equal attention, this book clearly defines the difference between theory and myth. Scientists, teachers, and defenders of the truth should read this book in preparation for when they are called upon to respond.