The Attraction of Religion

The Attraction of Religion
Author: D. Jason Slone
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2015-02-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1472531728

Religion is an evolutionary puzzle. It involves beliefs in counterfactual worlds and engagement in costly rituals. Yet religion is widespread across all human cultures and eras. This begs the question, why are so many people attracted to religion? In The Attraction of Religion, essays by leading scholars in evolutionary psychology, anthropology, and religious studies demonstrate how religion may be related to evolutionary adaptations because religious commitments involve fitness-enhancing behaviours that promote reproduction, kinship, and social solidarity. Could it be that religion is wide-spread, at least in the modern world, because it helps to facilitate cooperative breeding? International contributors explore the philosophical and theoretical arguments for and against the use of costly signalling, sexual selection, and related theories to explain religion, and empirical findings that support or disconfirm such claims. The first book-length treatment that focuses specifically on costly signalling, sexual selection, and related evolutionary theories to explain religion, The Attraction of Religion will be an important contribution to the field and will be of interest to researchers in the fields of evolutionary psychology, religion and science, the psychology of religion, and anthropology of religion.

Using the Psychology of Attraction in Christian Outreach

Using the Psychology of Attraction in Christian Outreach
Author: Wendy L. Patrick
Publisher: American University Studies
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Communication
ISBN: 9781433122149

Drawing on her experience as a sex crimes prosecutor and a review of relevant research, this book exposes five powerful social and psychological techniques used successfully within both the dark side by criminals and on the positive side of interpersonal influence by those with selfless motives seeking to benefit others that capitalize on the power of attraction.

Called to Attraction

Called to Attraction
Author: Brendan Thomas Sammon
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 113
Release: 2017-10-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532614187

What if there is more to beauty than meets the eye? What if beauty named more than the human response to a thing's appearance, but instead named the very presence of God in the world? And what if beauty provided a power enabling human beings to think in novel and creative ways, to see with new eyes? This book explores the various ways in which the Christian theological tradition has provided responses to these questions. Taking its starting point from the view that beauty is above all a divine name, this book explores the consequences that such a starting point has not only for the human experience of beauty but also for the way in which beauty penetrates to the very heart of human nature, uplifting and inspiring human thought and action to ever new frontiers of existence. In its experience of beauty, so this book argues, the human spirit encounters the divine presence in unexpected and transformative ways, such that one may come to see that not only is God beautiful, but God is beauty itself!

Roadside Religion

Roadside Religion
Author: Timothy Beal
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2006-05-01
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 9780807010631

In the summer of 2002, Timothy K. Beal loaded his family into a twenty-nine-foot-long motor home and hit the rural highways of America in search of roadside religious attractions-sites like the World's Largest Ten Commandments and Precious Moments Chapel. Roadside Religion tells of his attempts to understand the meaning of these places as expressions of religious imagination and experience, and to encounter faith in all its awesome absurdity.

Attraction and Danger of Alien Religion

Attraction and Danger of Alien Religion
Author: Karl-Gustav Sandelin
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2012
Genre: Christianity and culture
ISBN: 9783161517426

Early Judaism and early Christianity emerged during the Hellenistic and early Roman imperial era. They were, naturally, confronted with the Hellenistic and the Roman religion. The question therefore arose as to whether Jews or Christians were free to participate in religious activities alien to the religious heritage of their own. In his articles, Karl-Gustav Sandelin presents documentary material showing that this problem was a burning issue within Judaism from the beginning of the Hellenistic period until the end of the first century C.E. Several Jewish individuals converted to the Hellenistic or the Roman religion. Such behavior was also discussed and generally condemned, for example by the Books of Maccabees and authors such as Philo of Alexandria and Flavius Josephus. A similar problem is to be found in the New Testament, notably in the letters of Paul, especially in the first letter to the Corinthians and in the Revelation of John.

Same-Sex Attraction and the Church

Same-Sex Attraction and the Church
Author: Ed Shaw
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2015-11-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830899790

When Christians have same-sex attraction, how should the church respond? Pastor Ed Shaw experiences same-sex attraction, and yet he is committed to Scripture and the church's traditional position on sexuality. In this honest book, he shares his own experiences and shows us that obedience to Jesus is ultimately the only way to experience life to the full.

Single, Gay, Christian

Single, Gay, Christian
Author: Gregory Coles
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2017-08-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830890939

In an age where neither society nor the church knows what to do with gay Christians, Greg Coles shares his story—a story about a boy in love with Jesus who, at the fateful onset of puberty, realized his sexual attractions were persistently and exclusively for other guys. This honest, hopeful account shows life through one man's eyes and assures all people: "You are not a mistake."

Who am I?

Who am I?
Author: Steven Reiss
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2002-03-05
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780425183403

What do we want? What makes us tick? From acceptance to vengeance to curiosity, this book explains the 16 basic and universal desires that shape our behavior—and shows how the ways we prioritize them determines our personalities. Grounded in up-to-date psychological research, this book can help parents comprehend their children’s needs and behavior couples understand each other better employers motivate their employees employees become more effective in their work YOU achieve greater satisfaction and happiness in life