The monotheists

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David Liepert

Virtually every other religious book portrays the act of believing-the decision a believer makes to accept that his or her own religion's particular assumptions and explanations are true-as if it is a good thing. Frankly, I think believing is dangerous. ... The thrust of my argument is simple: All of us think that our religion is "good" and that those in apparent (and often politically motivated) opposition to it are "bad." But the real truth is that all of our religions are equally guilty of being used to promote violence, and-thanks to centuries of political manipulation that have distorted the way we read our holy books-all of us are equally guilty of not following what our religions really say. ... The later chapters of this book explore belief and human nature in a new light to explain how Freud's theories of the subconscious and quantum physics' model of the subatomic universe offer some of the best proof we have that God exists; show us a way to restore religion to its rightful role in our lives and our world; and conclude that we're all a lot closer to where we should be than we think.

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Eliza Griswold

Award-winning investigative journalist and poet, Eliza Griswold has spent the past seven years traveling between the equator and the tenth parallel: in Nigeria, the Sudan, and Somalia, and in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The stories she tells in "The Tenth Parallel" show us that religious conflicts are also conflicts about land, water, oil, and other natural resources, and that local and tribal issues are often shaped by religious ideas. Above all, she makes clear that, for the people she writes about, one's sense of God is shaped by one's place on earth; along the tenth parallel, faith is geographic and demographic.

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Ali Hassan Zaidi

"This book discloses a largely unnoticed dialogue between Muslim and Western social thought on the search for meaning and transcendence in the human sciences. The disclosure is accomplished by a comparative reading of contemporary Muslim debates on secular knowledge on the one hand, and of a foundational Western debate on the demise of metaphysics in the human sciences on the other hand. The comparative reading is grounded in a dialogical hermeneutic approach; that is, a hermeneutic approach to texts and cultural traditions that draws upon the work of Hans Georg Gadamer and also upon the insights of inter-religious dialogue"-- "This book serves as a "translation service" between Muslim and Western social thought on the search for meaning and transcendence in the human sciences. The translation is accomplished by a comparative reading of contemporary Muslim debates on secular knowledge on the one hand and of a foundational Western debate on the demise of metaphysics in the human sciences on the other hand. The book challenges contemporary Muslim critics who regard the modern human sciences as leading inevitably toward nihilism, and Western critics who regard religious thought as inimical to the human sciences. It also expands the realm of social theory beyond the Western canon, and contributes to the new and growing field of comparative social theory"--

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Joseph Ratzinger

"Cardinal Ratzinger seeks to deepen our understanding of the Bible's most fundamental principle. The covenant defines religion for Christians and Jews. We cannot discern God's design or his will if we do not meditate upon his covenant."--BOOK JACKET.