Christianity without God : moving beyond the dogmas and retrieving the epic moral narrative / Daniel C. Maguire.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maguire, Daniel C., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christianity--Controversial literature.

Christianity.

Jesus Christ--Rationalistic interpretations.

Jesus Christ.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (234 p.)

Place of Publication:

Albany, New York : SUNY Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Christianity without an omnipotent god, without a divine savior, without an afterlife? In this bold and hopeful book, theologian Daniel C. Maguire writes that traditional, supernatural aspects of Christianity can be comforting, but are increasingly questionable. A century of scholarly research has not been supportive of the dogmatic triad of personal god, incarnate savior, and life after death. Demonstrating that these beliefs have questionable roots in historical traditions, Maguire argues for a return to that brilliant and revolutionary moral epic of the Hebrew and Christian Bible. Rescued from god, Christianity can offer a realistic global ethic to heal a planet sinking under the effects of our ungrateful mismanagement.

Contents:

""Contents""; ""Part I. God""; ""Chapter 1. Overture""; ""Critique and Promise""; ""Religions Run Riot""; ""Religion�s Flawed Immune System""; ""Audiatur Altera Pars�Let the Other Side Be Heard""; ""Distracted by God: Atheists and Theists United""; ""Literalism Strips Metaphor Bare""; ""Atheists Defined by Their Opponents""; ""Religion as a Response to the Sacred""; ""Notice, No God-Talk There. Not a Bit of It""; ""The Separability of Dogmas and Morals""; ""Chapter 2. Deification""; ""Agnostic Theists""; ""The Lubricity of “God�""; ""The Apophatic Hideaway""

""Humpty Dumpty Semantics""""Escape Routes""; ""The Bible""; ""Good God, Bad God""; ""Analogy to the Rescue""; ""Compartmentalizing the Bad God""; ""Morality and God-Talk""; ""The Abstract and Neutered God Solution""; ""Closeted Agnostics""; ""Can Jesus Help?""; ""Chapter 3. Proliferation""; ""Godly Sex Change""; ""God as Time-Traveler and Mutant Metaphor""; ""The Perils of Travel""; ""Proliferation and the Christian Gods""; ""Good God, Bad Dualism""; ""Chapter 4. The Beginning That Wasn�t""; ""Back to the Agnostic Theists""; ""Elan Vital""; ""Defending God""; ""Back to the Nonbeginning""

""Chance Versus Intelligent Design: And the Winner Is?""""Chance or Designer, the False Dichotomy""; ""The Alternative to Chance""; ""God and Billiards""; ""Part II. The Divinity of Jesus""; ""Chapter 5. The Greatest Story Never Told""; ""Once Upon a Time""; ""The Perils of Anachronism""; ""Which Jesus?""; ""The Docetist Escape""; ""Flaws Creep In""; ""Was the Church Jesus� Idea?""; ""Roman or Christian?""; ""The Constructed Jesus""; ""Could Anything Good Come Out of Nicaea?""; ""Bible to the Rescue?""; ""Jesus as Christological Nuisance""; ""Chapter 6. From Jesus to Christ""

""Jesus Confused?""""Pope Peter?""; ""Competitive Deifications""; ""Gods Dying and Eaten""; ""But Why Did the Romans Crucify Him?""; ""Divinity as a Demotion""; ""The Fallacy of Misplaced Abstractness""; ""The Sequel""; ""The Art of Subversion""; ""About Turning That Other Cheek""; ""Turning the other Cheek""; ""Getting Sued for Your Clothing""; ""Walk the Extra Mile""; ""Chapter 7. From Christianity to Cross-tianity""; ""The Pains and Gains of God-Making""; ""Seeds of Democratic Theory""; ""Jesus� Trek through History""; ""Bloodshed as Salvific""; ""The Fish That Got Away""

""How Easily Things Are Broken""""Safety in Atheism?""; ""Part III. The Living Dead""; ""Chapter 8. From Hell to Jiggledeegreen""; ""Imagination Unbound""; ""The Bible on Afterlife""; ""Something Borrowed, Something New""; ""Problems with Resurrected Bodies""; ""Paul�s Bottom Line""; ""Lost in the Clouds""; ""Rapture""; ""Heaven Here, Not Heaven Above""; ""How to Go to Hell""; ""Jiggledeegreen""; ""Afterlife as Metaphor and Apartheid""; ""Modern Agnosticism, Implicit and Explicit""; ""Immortality and the Evolution of Species""; ""Part IV. The Quest for a Global Ethic""

""Chapter 9. When We Are as Remote as Charlemagne""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781438454061

1438454066

OCLC:

890756756