In this 2007 volume, eighteen of the world's leading scholars present original essays on various aspects of atheism: its history, both ancient and modern, defense and implications. The topic is examined in terms of its implications for a wide range of disciplines including philosophy, religion, feminism, postmodernism, sociology and psychology. In its defense, both classical and contemporary theistic arguments are criticized, and, the argument from evil, and impossibility arguments, along with a non religious basis for morality are defended. These essays give a broad understanding of atheism...

Each of the figures examined in this study John Dee, John Donne, Sir Kenelm Digby, Henry and Thomas Vaughan, and Jane Lead is concerned with the ways in which God can be approached or experienced. Michael Martin analyzes the ways in which the encounter with God is figured among these early modern writers who inhabit the shared cultural space of poets and preachers, mystics and scientists. The three main themes that inform this study are Cura animarum, the care of souls, and the diminished role of spiritual direction in post-Reformation religious life; the rise of scientific rationality; and...

Michael Martin's Meditations in Times of Wonder is a collection of what might be called "postmodern metaphysical poetry." It inhabits a space characterized by love and anger, by pathos and laughter, by perplexity and grace.

"Michael Martin's poetry, like that of St. John of the Cross, is animated by a true mysticism which penetrates the mist of mystery and heals the schism that rends faith from reason." -- Joseph Pearce

"Meditations in Times of Wonder hums the harmonies between the mundane and transcendent, between the natural and the divine, between time-bound and timeless truths. The...

The history of education can easily be described as theme and variation on one motif: reform. From Plato's critique of the Sophists in Protagoras to John Henry Newman's considerations of education in The Idea of a University in 1854, from the educational projects of Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, and Loris Malaguzzi in the 20th century to Kieran Egan's call for a reimagination of education in the 21st, educators and philosophers have regularly turned to two fundamental questions: "What is the purpose of an education?" and "How is it to be achieved?" This is the essence of Friedrich...