Minds and Gods - The Cognitive Foundations of Religion
Around the world and throughout history, in cultures as diverse as ancient Mesopotamia and modern America, human beings have been compelled by belief in gods and developed complex religions around them. But why? What makes belief in supernatural beings so widespread? And why are the gods of so many different people so similar in nature? This provocative book explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas by looking through the lens of science at the common structures and functions of human thought.
Stross' novel follows several generations of the Macx family through the rapidly transforming, Internet-enabled global economy of the early twenty-first century to the human and transhuman populated worlds of the outer solar system a half century later. The saga begins with Macx patriarch Manfred, a freelance "venture altruist," giving away patentable high-tech ideas in exchange for endless handouts while looking forward to the day when nanotech-programmed smart matter surpasses humanity in intelligence and productivity.
China's Culture gives a brief insight into Chinese culture covering topics such as China's ideology, ethics, morality, political and religious ideas, economic thought, ideas on obtaining material wealth, customs, science and technology, education, and literature and arts. China has a glorious history of civilization that spans thousands of years. Its culture is rich in content and heritage. Of the four ancient civilizations in the world, only the Chinese civilization has witnessed cultural continuity. The long-term continuation of the Chinese civilization has benefited from the three great processes of openness and integration.
Martin Heidegger paved the road trod on by the existentialists with the 1927 publication of Being and Time. His encyclopedic knowledge of philosophy from ancient to modern times led him to rethink the most basic concepts underlying our thinking about ourselves. Emphasizing the "sense of being" (dasein) over other interpretations of conscious existence, he argued that specific and concrete ideas form the bases of our perceptions, and that thinking about abstractions leads to confusion at best. Thus, for example, "time" is only meaningful as it is experienced: the time it takes to drive to work, eat lunch, or read a book is real to us; the concept of "time" is not.
The narratives I examine in this book use contemporary ideas about love and womanhood but at the same time criticize and challenge such normative trajectories of female development. Understandably, not all women accepted or praised this concept of love’s “evolution”; ideas about love were treated in a variety of ways.
