This is an anthology of my work in short stories, essays, poems, and scripts about someone who grapples with his existential angst. There are eternal problems from the dawn of man to be solved philosophically, but there are always special problems in each era that require our immediate attention due to the lifestyles we choose and the way that families, societies, culture, and civilizations come together and sometimes break apart. It is during those moments of the day when the residue of what we have said and done falls from grace and is distilled and bottled under our particular brand that makes the existence of our marvelous species worthwhile and ready to pass on to the next generation. This book is dedicated to those that are young in spirit and romantic to the furthest reaches of our mortality.

America stands in the throes of an anxiety epidemic, yet Americans live in one of the most religious countries in the world? Shouldn't people with deep spiritual roots be less vulnerable to emotional suffering? Such an enigma stands at the center of this book, but the enigma turns out to be more apparent than real. The overt religiosity so characteristic of modern American society ironically serves to foster the anxiety epidemic by locking people into a disenchanted secular mindset, leaving them cut off from the deep spiritual resources they so desperately need in the face of mounting anxiety. Based on the author's own journey through the darkness of anxiety in conversation with the psychology of Carl Jung, this book argues that transcending religious identity and submitting to the greater wisdom of the cosmic story holds a powerful key to resolving anxiety and creating a more just and sustainable world. Surprisingly, the Islamic tradition may provide one of the best models for how to accomplish this.

This book offers an original phenomenological description of mindfulness and related phenomena, such as concentration (samādhi) and the practice of insight (vipassanā). It demonstrates that phenomenological method has the power to reanimate ancient Buddhist texts, giving new life to the phenomena at which those texts point. Beginning with descriptions of how mindfulness is encountered in everyday, pre-philosophical life, the book moves on to an analysis of how the Pali Nikāyas of Theravada Buddhism define mindfulness and the practice of cultivating it. It then offers a critique of the contemporary attempts to explain mindfulness as a kind of attention. The author argues that mindfulness is not attention, nor can it be understood as a mere modification of the attentive process. Rather, becoming mindful involves a radical shift in perspective. According to the author’s account, being mindful is the feeling of being tuned-in to the open horizon, which is contrasted with Edmund Husserl’s transcendental horizon. The book also elucidates the difference between the practice of cultivating mindfulness with the practice of the phenomenological epoché, which reveals new possibilities for the practice of phenomenology itself. Phenomenological Reflections on Mindfulness in the Buddhist Tradition will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in phenomenology, Buddhist philosophy, and comparative philosophy.

Examine the fascinating details of the daily lives of the ancient Aztecs through this innovative study of their social history, culture, and continuing influence, written from the perspective of the history of religions. Utilizing insights from the discipline known as the history of religions, as well as new discoveries in archaeology, pictorial manuscripts, and ritual practices, Daily Life of the Aztecs, Second Edition weaves together a narrative describing life from the bottom of the Aztec social pyramid to its top. This new and surprising interpretation of the Aztecs puts a human face on an ancient people who created beautiful art and architecture, wrote beautiful poetry, and loved their children profoundly, while also making war and human sacrifice fundamental parts of their world. The book describes the interaction between the material and the imaginative worlds of the Aztecs, offering insights into their communities, games, education, foodways, and arts, as well as the sacrificial rituals they performed. The authors also detail the evolution of the Aztec state and explores the continuity and changes in Aztec symbols, myths, and ritual practices into the present day.

The papers in this collection are concerned with the epistemology of religious belief. The contributors disagree on such issues as whether philosophers have a role to play in determining the reasonableness or intelligibility of religious beliefs, or whether philosophy properly understood is a descriptive task. But all the papers are informed by the belief that philosophical discussion should proceed by giving attention to the character of the religious beliefs and practices under consideration.

Title first published in 2003. John Macquarrie has been a major contributor in the theological world for more than forty years, but as yet very little secondary material on his work has appeared. This book offers an insightful introduction to Macquarrie's theology, arguing that at its heart is a systematic theology of gift. Tracing the development of his thought from its early existentialism to the social and world-affirming perspectives of later writings, this book shows how these developments emerge in dialogue with contemporary thinkers. Morley demonstrates how Macquarrie's theology mediates between two traditionally opposing theologies of gift and being, centring on the doctrines of God and of human being, and reaching its fullest expression in Christology, with Christ as the focal point of two personal movements of self-giving - divine and human. Macquarrie himself contributes a Foreword.

What does it mean to flourish? Human flourishing lies at the heart of the good news of the gospel, and yet contemporary theologies know not only one way of speaking about what it means to flourish. If we embed our theological grammars of flourishing in the doctrine of salvation, as the doctrine in which theological flourishing talk is arguably rooted and from which rich fruit may be borne, there is not one but various ways in which to speak about what it means to flourish. Yet what governs our speaking? Why do we speak of flourishing as we do? The various conceptions of human flourishing that are outlined in this book – piety, joy, and comfort; being fully alive, healing, and dignity; grace, happiness, and blessing – represent a collection of attempts not only to imagine human flourishing, but also to imagine ways of speaking about human flourishing. Perhaps what theology could offer to the vibrant and robust conversations on human flourishing lies exactly in the reminder to take care about how we speak about that which is truly and deeply human: our longing to flourish.

Seven Moralities of Human Resource Management analyses morality of HRM from the perspective of American psychologist Laurence Kohlberg. This book examines and makes value judgements on whether or not HRM is moral from the viewpoint of Kohlberg's seven stages of morality as a follow-up study of the author's 2012 book, Seven Management Moralities.

This book provides a historical map of 20th philosophy of religion from absolute idealism to feminism and postmodernism. Dividing the 20th into four eras and eighteen primary strands, the book provides the historical context for the more specialized volumes that follow. This first volume is of interest to those working in the fields of philosophy of religion and theology.

In the world’s most developed democracies, anxiety about the future of democracy is palpable. The tension between moral aspiration and moral despair has reached a point of crisis. Christian realism arose during a similar time of crisis, when Reinhold Niebuhr used the insights of the Christian tradition to interpret the clash between democracy and totalitarianism. Beginning with Robin Lovin’s account of Christian realism as a nuanced blend of theological, moral, and political realisms, The Future of Christian Realism addresses fundamental topics in theology, ethics, and politics. The contributors come from different traditions, span five continents, and together present a case for the continuing relevance of Christian realism. By paying close attention to many of the most pressing moral challenges facing societies today, the authors illustrate and evaluate the enduring relevance of Christian realism.