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eBook Something There: The Biology of the Human Spirit download

by David Hay

ISBN: 0232526370
Author: David Hay
Publisher: Darton Longman and Todd (May 1, 2007)
Language: English
Pages: 336
ePub: 1708 kb
Fb2: 1349 kb
Rating: 4.1
Other formats: txt mbr mobi lit
Category: Religious
Subcategory: Religious Studies

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This book has investigated the origin and function of wonder in human lives by drawing on a number of academic disciplines from evolutionary biology and developmental psychology to historical biography religion. This chapter explores how wonder, considered as a prototypical category of human experience, predisposes us to a religious sensibility something along the lines of what.

Something There: The Biology of the Human Spirit. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2007. Robert C. Fuller, "David Hay, Something There: The Biology of the Human Spirit," The Journal of Religion 88, no. 4 (October 2008): 559-559. Of all published articles, the following were the most read within the past 12 months. The Apostle Paul in Arabia. Stephen's Defense before the Sanhedrin. Some Characteristics of Hinduism as a Religion. The Ethical Theory of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Interpretations and Misinterpretations.

David Hay, Religious Experience Today, London: Mowbray, 1990, p. 7. oogle Scholar. David Hay, Something There: The Biology of the Human Spirit, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2006Google Scholar. 3. Michael Paffard, The Unattended Moment, London: SCM Press, 1976Google Scholar. Alister Hardy, The Spiritual Nature of Man, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979Google Scholar. Meg Maxwell and Verena Tschudin, eds, Seeing the Invisible: Modern Religious and Other Transcendent Experiences, London: Arkana (Penguin Books), 1990Google Scholar. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating . т 3637. She Never Was Afraid. Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist. You Belong to Me, Hayes, Samantha. Fleeing the terrors of her former life, Isabel has lef. т 450.

Coauthors & Alternates.

Ullswater through the centuries. by David Hay. ISBN 9780950462912 (978-504629-1-2) Softcover, Friends of the Lake District, 1978. Find signed collectible books: 'Ullswater through the centuries'. Coauthors & Alternates.

Something there, Hay, David. Варианты приобретения. These are the signature trademarks of Donna Hay’s bestselling cookbooks. Описание: Simple recipes. Streamlined techniques. Her minimalist approach to cooking, combined with simplicity and elegance, has inspired home cooks the world over. Modern Classics is her latest addition to the cookbook shelf.

He was born in Aberdeen, son of John, a merchant seaman, and Isabel, an upholsterer. David later became the director of the unit and led many studies testing out Hardy’s idea. He published numerous articles and books on religious experience, including Exploring Inner Space: Scientists and Religious Experience (1987); Religious Experience Today: Studying the Facts (1990); The Spirit of the Child (2006, with Rebecca Nye), and Something There: the Biology of the Human Spirit (2006).

Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF).

Despite the decline of institutional religion, a remarkable new phenomenon is emerging. Survey figures show that interest in spirituality, often expressed as the awareness of 'something there', is rising right across the developed world. An astonishing upsurge of interest in spirituality is taking place across the Western world. David Hay, a zoologist who has directed much of the investigation on this subject in Britain, explains the biological roots of spiritual awareness and the importance this has for the future of both religion and society in the West. Research in the biological, psychological and social sciences strongly suggests that spiritual awareness is a genuine and deep-seated aspect of what it is to be human. David Hay's interviews with hundreds of 'ordinary' people, who claim no formal religious affiliation, backs up the view that spirituality is hard-wired into our biological make-up and evolves through natural selection because it has survival value. It is what enables people to relate ethically to other human beings and to their environment. By applying scientific method to religious enquiry, David Hay offers a new account of the importance of spirituality for human well-being.

Comments: (6)

Marelyne

The book is well described both by the editorial reviewers above and by the (so far) two readers who offered comments. I like the book and intend to use it for my classes in the problem of belief as a counter to Sam Harris's END OF FAITH. So why does it leave me sad? Because while I agree with the premise of the book that we are "naturally" spiritual beings and, further, that the individualistic and skeptical trend of Western civilization since the 17th century (or so) has left us without grounding and without a reason for treating each other with love, he offers no real solution. Yes, the great religious traditions are letting us down, and yes, the traditions that are actually growing (in the US, though this book focuses on the UK) are fundamentalist and, for Hay, really part of the problem, where does that leave us? It's hard to believe that mainstream Christianity will reform itself along the lines he proposes. Catholicism had a chance to do that 40 years ago after Vatican II, but it didn't really work. We now have a conservative reactionary regime that doesn't seem to be attracting too much enthusiasm outside of the "usual suspects" in Europe or the USA. There is plenty of spirituality here in the USA, but as Hay might point out, it's fairly individualistic and politically powerless. One of the ironies of the book is that the individualism that Hay blames as the cause of our woes and the enemy of religion is precisely what fundamentalist Christians regard as God-ordained. An economic system which regards greed as a kind of virtue is so ingrained that after 9/11 all a deeply Christian President could recommend to Americans was to go out shopping and spur the economy. That Christians should regard this as compatible with the teachings of Jesus is unfortunate, and hard to understand ("Woe to you rich," as Jesus put it in Luke), but it seems not likely to go away any time soon. So: I'm still sad.

Flocton

David Hay, a zoologist by training, is a researcher in divinity and religious studies. The most remarkable thing about this exceptionally accessible and stimulating book is that Hay maintains an equivocal stance towards religion: he wishes it would be more relevant to today's needs but concedes its shortcomings. Hay seeks the locus of spirituality by a combination of means; he interviewed a wide cross-section of volunteers expressing views across the spectrum of belief from the orthodox religious to the outright atheist. He attributes the erosion of spiritual awareness and relational consciousness to the growth of individualism - typically regarded as a product of the Enlightenment but expressed more by Hay in terms of the influence of Hobbes on critical reasoning. Hay is no closet theist; he makes his belief clear and offers the following civil but poignant demolition of one modern materialist position: "I believe that the dogmatic assertions of the mechanistic biologists, put forward with such confidence as if they were the voice of true science, where they are in reality the blind acceptance of an unproven hypothesis, are as damaging to the peace of mind of humanity as was the belief in everyday miracles in the middle ages."

Hay convincingly asserts that spirituality and openness to meditation and contemplative prayer, far from being the result of indoctrination, are tendencies found quite naturally in the young; he develops this theme to show that relational consciousness is a natural human state from which we have been enticed by the myths of postmodernism: "our neurobiology ensures that subjective experience is by no means arbitrary ... it is thinking that feels like something." Another reviewer expressed disappointment that the book did not offer solutions for the malaise that Hay describes; I did not see it that way. Hay discusses Yoshikawa's four types of cross-cultural communication (ethnocentric, control, dialectical, and dialogical) and leaves the reader in no doubt that the dialogical route is the favored one - an example of the equivocation towards religion of which I spoke earlier. Combined with his reference to the "global brain" school of thought I felt it clear that Hay was advocating a combination of traditional theistic values with modern thinking on entanglement. I felt a connection with the ideas of Ervin Laszlo and others - none has found the ultimate destination but Hay at least erects a signpost.

The book is not a dry, research tome, but a very enjoyable read from an author respectful of all points of view. It dispenses evidence aplenty but without giving offence and accompanied by personal interest stories and relevant quotations. I recommend it to anyone interested in consciousness, spirituality, or the relationship between religion and science.

WUNDERKIND

This is a book about what many of us know deep down inside, but find difficult to impossible to put into words. Penetrating and eloquent, this is a crowning achievement for David Hay. It also is a tribute to his mentor Alister Hardy. For some, reading it will be a life-changing experience.

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