Winner of the Michael Ramsay Prize 2016 Dementia is one of the most feared diseases in Western society today. Some have even gone so far as to suggest euthanasia as a solution to the perceived indignity of memory loss and the disorientation that accompanies it. Here, John Swinton develops a practical theology of dementia for caregivers, people with dementia, ministers, hospital chaplains, and medical practitioners as he explores two primary questions: • Who am I when I’ve forgotten who I am? • What does it mean to love God and be loved by God when I have forgotten who God is? Offering compassionate and carefully considered theological and pastoral responses to dementia and forgetfulness, Swinton’s Dementia redefines dementia in light of the transformative counter story that is the gospel.

The gift of grace, coming to us as beauty, cannot be ordered or owned, only acknowledged and served. When events take on a mythical dimension and reverberate in the soul, then we feel grace. The three images of divinity guiding this book express the often unconscious pagan grace present in our daily lives. With this book, Ginette Paris continues the work of Pagan Meditations in reviving individual, cultural, and social life by reawakening their archetypal roots.

The ongoing battle between free individuals and our moribund institutions for the control of information resources, information technology and information systems began with the sexual gods. The chief god Atum, controller of Cosmos, declared sex ungodly and messy, outcomes unpredictable. A sexless god, Atum, though supreme, was unable to control Ra, Thoth, and the seven other sexual gods. With Atumic frustration Atum confined the sexual gods to the Solar System, but with a dire warning: if their activities destabilized the Cosmos they would feel the full force of Atumic wrath. Sibling squabbles between Ra and Thoth spawned endless conflict. Fear for their godly survival forced Ra and Thoth to confine their fight to the Earthly environment. One outcome: Homo Saps, a unique species combining Thought-processing with godlike features and hominid-animal sexuality. Both Ra and Thoth used Homo Saps as foot soldiers. Thoth invented Information Technology/Information System or ITIS (pronounced eye-tis) tools as weapons to help them free themselves from Ras inhibiting controls. Homo Saps used the ITIS tools in establishing, controlling and stabilizing the first Earthly civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient India, and Ancient China at the direction of the gods. Homo Saps increasing skills with the ITIS tools allowed them to develop independent Thought processing and break free of godly controls. The Ancient Greek Homo Sap Aristotle and his philosopher predecessors captured the moment by developing their own ITIS applications and demonstrated Homo Saps Thought processing freedoms. They developed the first user-friendly ITIS tool that would change their Earthly reality forever: the 22-letter alphabet. Dear Jim: Our History of IT IS traces the development of the ITIS tools OralITIS, ImageITIS, CalendarITIS, WritingITIS, and AlphabetITIS and their impact on civilizations before the death of Aristotle.

Religions and mythologies from around the world teach that God or gods created humans. Atheist, humanist, and materialist critics, meanwhile, have attempted to turn theology on its head, claiming that religion is a human invention. In this book, E. Fuller Torrey draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to propose a startling answer to the ultimate question. Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods locates the origin of gods within the human brain, arguing that religious belief is a by-product of evolution. Based on an idea originally proposed by Charles Darwin, Torrey marshals evidence that the emergence of gods was an incidental consequence of several evolutionary factors. Using data ranging from ancient skulls and artifacts to brain imaging, primatology, and child development studies, this book traces how new cognitive abilities gave rise to new behaviors. For instance, autobiographical memory, the ability to project ourselves backward and forward in time, gave Homo sapiens a competitive advantage. However, it also led to comprehension of mortality, spurring belief in an alternative to death. Torrey details the neurobiological sequence that explains why the gods appeared when they did, connecting archaeological findings including clothing, art, farming, and urbanization to cognitive developments. This book does not dismiss belief but rather presents religious belief as an inevitable outcome of brain evolution. Providing clear and accessible explanations of evolutionary neuroscience, Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods will shed new light on the mechanics of our deepest mysteries.

Explores the mythology of memory, involuntary memory, and the relation between time and memory in the context of questions prominent in contemporary thought.

It is hard to overestimate the importance of the work of Augustine of Hippo, both in his own period and in the subsequent history of Western philosophy. Until the thirteenth century, when he may have had a competitor in Thomas Aquinas, he was the most important philosopher of the medieval period. Many of his views, including his theory of the just war, his account of time and eternity, his understanding of the will, his attempted resolution of the problem of evil, and his approach to the relation of faith and reason, have continued to be influential up to the present time. In this 2001 volume of specially-commissioned essays, sixteen scholars provide a wide-ranging and stimulating contribution to our understanding of Augustine, covering all the major areas of his philosophy and theology.

In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Brittany, seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that the god of Death has blessed her with dangerous gifts--and a violent destiny.