Buddhist scholars like Kenneth Ch’en thought that filial piety was a special feature of Chinese Buddhism. Later, John Strong employed “popular Buddhist stories” to show that filial piety was also important in Indian Buddhism, but he asserted that it was “a Buddhist compromise with the Brāhmanical ethics of filiality operating at the popular level.” On the other hand, Gregory Schopen, who mainly...

Two popular, yet highly controversial concepts of non-human agency from two different fields of knowledge are compared in this essay: the theory of the selfish gene, introduced into neo-Darwinian evolutionary biology by Richard Dawkins, and actor-network theory, as brought forward in science & technology studies by Bruno Latour. It is argued that the two theories, despite all apparent differenc...

We’ve all been there: a conflict-ridden situation suddenly finds us in confrontation where we feel angry and defensive. When frustrations run high, the words use with ourselves others can really hurt. Our lack of self-awareness inability to communicate effectively lead increased abuse pain. Alternatively, right skill set, make inroads that build bridges compassion, trust, connection even while ...

In this book Mike Rutter sets out to explain how genes might influence behaviour and how this might be important in understanding the causal pathways leading to various behavioural traits and psychiatric disorders. This is an ambitious and challenging project, not just because the issues themselves are so complex and our current understanding so rudimentary, but also because this area has suffe...

This exploratory research focused on the structural context of working poverty, thereby transcending its individual or behavioral aspects. Two major questions guided this study: (1) How are the working poor different compared to the working nonpoor? (2) How do structural conditions affect the chances of one being working poor? Central findings of the study were that four primary sets of factors...

Struensee (1737-1772). The son of a Lutheran Pietist clergyman in Halle, Struensee studied medicine at the university there and learned early on the particular brand of reforming spirit that trusts in the righteousness of its own cause. But Struensee, whose active career of reform began after 1757, no longer felt bound to any religious motivation and moved in circles whose scepticism and politi...

This paper explores the teachings of the Buddha regarding Self and No-Self. Because he focused his efforts on the alleviation of suffering rather than metaphysical enlightenment, the Buddha’s teachings are often cryptic and subject to misinterpretation. One such misinterpretation is that the Buddha identified the five skandhas as the Self. Another is that he taught a nihilistic doctrine of No-S...

Originality in Bonhoeffer studies is no small achievement these days, yet placing Bonhoeffer's tantalizing allusions to ‘unconscious Christianity’ center stage, Eleanor McLaughlin offers a notable contribution the field that turn stimulates thinking around broader issues for contemporary Christianity. There are four quite different references unconscious Christianity (Unbewußtes Christentum) co...

In late 2020, a collection of leading political scientists wrote brief in Science on what they characterized as the “fierce urgency” fighting growing sectarianism United States (Finkel et al., p. 536). Among their recommendations for reforming our increasingly toxic and combative culture, authors called promoting intellectual humility: by developing commitment to nuance an awareness own cogniti...

ion of the metaphysical concept of divine being is thus overcome, and the concrete unity of God as Spirit for Hegel, the trinitarian conception is ultimately embraced. What is thus advocated, and what emerges ultimately from this Calvary of absolute Spirit, is meant to be a deeper and purified conception of God. The result is that spiritual transcendence is no longer distinct from immanence, bu...