Download Free Love And The Dignity Of Human Life Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Love And The Dignity Of Human Life and write the review.

What does it mean to love someone? What does the concept of human dignity mean, and what are its consequences? What marks the end of a person's life? Is personhood more than consciousness? These perplexing questions lurk beneath the surface of everyday life, surfacing only to demand urgent attention in crises. Renowned German philosopher Robert Spaemann addresses these and other foundational enigmas in three eloquent short essays. Speaking wisdom to controversy, he offers carefully considered, novel approaches to key philosophical and theological questions about the nature of human love ("The Paradoxes of Love"), dignity ("Human Dignity and Human Nature"), and death ("Is Brain Death the Death of a Human Person?").
There is perhaps no more important value than fundamental human equality. And yet, despite large percentages of people affirming the value, the resources available to explain and defend the basis for such equality are few and far between. In his newest book Charles Camosy provides a thoughtful defense of human dignity. Telling personal stories like those of Jahi McMath, Terri Schiavo, and Alfie Evans, Camosy, a noted bioethicist and theologian, uses an engaging style to show how the influence of secularized medicine is undermining fundamental human equality in the broader culture. And in a disturbing final chapter, Camosy sounds the alarm about the next population to fall if we stay on our current trajectory: dozens of millions of human beings with dementia. Heeding this alarm, Camosy argues, means doing two things. First, making urgent and genuine attempts to dialogue with a secularized culture which cannot see how it is undermining one of its most foundational values. Second, religious communities which hold the Imago Dei sacred must mobilize their existing institutions (and create new ones) to care for a new set of human beings our throwaway culture may deem non-persons.
From Human Dignity to Natural Law shows how the whole of the natural law, as understood in the Aristotelian Thomistic tradition, is contained implicitly in human dignity. Human dignity means existing for one’s own good (the common good as well as one’s individual good), and not as a mere means to an alien good. But what is the true human good? This question is answered with a careful analysis of Aristotle’s definition of happiness. The natural law can then be understood as the precepts that guide us in achieving happiness. To show that human dignity is a reality in the nature of things and not a mere human invention, it is necessary to show that human beings exist by nature for the achievement of the properly human good in which happiness is found. This implies finality in nature. Since contemporary natural science does not recognize final causality, the book explains why living things, as least, must exist for a purpose and why the scientific method, as currently understood, is not able to deal with this question. These reflections will also enable us to respond to a common criticism of natural law theory: that it attempts to derive statements of what ought to be from statements about what is. After defining the natural law and relating it to human or positive law, Richard Berquist considers Aquinas’s formulation of the first principle of the natural law. It then discusses the love commandments to love God above all things and to love one’s neighbor as oneself as the first precepts of the natural law. Subsequent chapters are devoted to clarifying and defending natural law precepts concerned with the life issues, with sexual morality and marriage, and with fundamental natural rights. From Human Dignity to Natural Law concludes with a discussion of alternatives to the natural law.
In everything from philosophical ethics to legal argument to public activism, it has become commonplace to appeal to the idea of human dignity. In such contexts, the concept of dignity typically signifies something like the fundamental moral status belonging to all humans. Remarkably, however, it is only in the last century that this meaning of the term has become standardized. Before this, dignity was instead a concept associated with social status. Unfortunately, this transformation remains something of a mystery in existing scholarship. Exactly when and why did "dignity" change its meaning? And before this change, was it truly the case that we lacked a conception of human worth akin to the one that "dignity" now represents? In this volume, leading scholars across a range of disciplines attempt to answer such questions by clarifying the presently murky history of "dignity," from classical Greek thought through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment to the present day.
Why the call to Love Thy Body? To counter a pervasive hostility toward the body and biology that drives today's headline stories: Transgenderism: Activists detach gender from biology. Kids down to kindergarten are being taught their bodies are irrelevant. Is this affirming--or does it demean the body? Homosexuality: Advocates disconnect sexuality from biological identity. Is this liberating--or does it denigrate biology? Abortion: Supporters deny the fetus is a person, though it is biologically human. Does this mean equality for women--or does it threaten the intrinsic value of all humans? Euthanasia: Those who lack certain cognitive abilities are said to be no longer persons. Is this compassionate--or does it ultimately put everyone at risk? In Love Thy Body, bestselling author Nancy Pearcey goes beyond politically correct slogans with a riveting exposé of the dehumanizing worldview that shapes current watershed moral issues. Pearcey then turns the tables on media boilerplate that misportrays Christianity as harsh or hateful. A former agnostic, she makes a surprising and persuasive case that Christianity is holistic, sustaining the dignity of the body and biology. Throughout she entrances readers with compassionate stories of people wrestling with hard questions in their own lives--their pain, their struggles, their triumphs. "Liberal secularist ideology rests on a mistake and Nancy Pearcey in her terrific new book puts her finger right on it. In embracing abortion, euthanasia, homosexual conduct and relationships, transgenderism, and the like, liberal secularism . . . is philosophically as well as theologically untenable."--Robert P. George, Princeton University "Wonderful guide."--Sam Allberry, author, Is God Anti-Gay? "A must-read."--Rosaria Butterfield, former professor, Syracuse University; author, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert "An astute but accessible analysis of the intellectual roots of the most important moral ills facing us today: abortion, euthanasia, and redefining the family."--Richard Weikart, California State University, Stanislaus "Highly readable, insightful, and informative."--Mary Poplin, Claremont Graduate University; author, Is Reality Secular? "Unmasks the far-reaching practical consequences of mind-body dualism better than anyone I have ever seen."--Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president, The Ruth Institute "Love Thy Body richly enhances the treasure box that is Pearcey's collective work."--Glenn T. Stanton, Focus on the Family "Essential reading . . . Love Thy Body brings clarity and understanding to the multitude of complex and confusing views in discussions about love and sexuality."--Becky Norton Dunlop, Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow, The Heritage Foundation "Pearcey gets straight to the issue of our day: What makes humans valuable in the first place? You must get this book. Don't just read it. Master it."--Scott Klusendorf, president, Life Training Institute
Pope John Paul II's discussion of family life and sexual morality, first published in 1960, which defends Catholic tradition and draws upon physiological and psychological research regarding the sexual urge, love, chastity, and sexology and ethics.
Indivisibility and Hierarchy among Human Rights -- Notes -- References -- Index
The Hope and Despair of Human Bioenhancement is a virtual dialogue between Transhumanists of the “Oxford School” and the thought of Joseph Ratzinger. Set in the key of hope and despair, it considers whether or not the transhumanist interpretation of human limitations is correct, and whether their confidence in the methods of human enhancement, especially through biotechnology, corresponds to genuine hope. To this end, it investigates the philosophical foundations of transhumanism in modernity’s rejection of metaphysics, the triumph of positivism, and the universalism of the theory of evolution, which when applied to anthropology becomes the materialist reduction of the human person. Ratzinger calls into question this absolutization of positive reason and its limitation of hope to what human beings can produce, naming it a pathology of reason, a mutilation of human dignity, and a façade of a world without hope. In its place, he offers a richer concept of hope that acknowledges our contingence and limitations.
The book you are holding results from years of research carried out as I traveled the world as a rock musician followed by living abroad as a minister. Did you know that all the music ever created in the West has its origin in just twelve sounds? From rock to bluegrass, to gospel to the intricate arrangements of classical, it all came from only twelve notes. That happened because musicians found an infinite number of tonal combinations to use within the twelve-note scale. What today’s social ills have in common with music is that they exist because of a failure on our part to have a similar vision for the Ten Commandments. That vision is one of limitless applications for them. This book approaches the Ten Commandments in the same manner that musicians approach the twelve-note scale—with a desire to create something fresh, building on what has come before. This book uses the “ten sounds” to create a different melody to sing in the areas of racial injustice, disability, gender inequality, and to bring healing to the wounds that linger on in some communities because of unjust activities engaged in by some of our forebearers.