Kirjahaku

This title charts the path of humankind's great spiritual odyssey: the search for God. Along this ancient and much-debated route, the reader will encounter philosophers from Plato to Wittgenstein and religions from Judaism to the Hindu tradition, interspersed with diverse influences from Classical Greece, Romantic poetry, and the occasional scene from "Alien". Leading the way through this minefield is philosopher-theologian Keith Ward, blending the sublime and the eclectic in a narrative which offers wit, erudition and moments of genuine pathos.

This is a perceptive and witty introduction to the history of ideas about God, drawing on sources as diverse as the ancient tales of the Greek gods, the ideas of Nietzsche and Marx and the insights offered by Romantic poetry.

In this, his first new book since the best-selling God: A Guide for the Perplexed (Oneworld, 2002), Keith Ward turns his attention to the role - and the validity of religion over the centuries and in the world today. His erudite yet informative and factual narrative outlines the various attempts that have been made throughout history to explain religion, including the anthropological, psychological, sociological and philosophical theories of key thinkers from Immanuel Kant to Sigmund Freud. Adopting a comparative approach, the book covers all the religious traditions from West and East alike, concluding in a compelling manner that not only are the world faiths much more than a series of theoretical perspectives, but that, in the face of discord and violence, religious understanding retains more resonance than ever before within our global community.

Argues against belief systems that support literal interpretations of the Bible, explaining how Christianity has undergone major and necessary changes throughout history, in a detailed study that illustrates the human role played in theology while explaining how believers must be open to change in order to be receptive to God. Original.