Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este Trabalho busca refletir sobre a proposta de Gianni Vattimo para o Cristianismo contemporâneo, que se fundamenta em uma Ontologia fraca, dentro do processo de desconstrução das estruturas fortes da Metafísica no Ocidente. Analisa, portanto, a possibilidade de uma nova interpretação da Fé Cristã, na Pós-modernidade, tematizada pela Filosofia de uma espiritualidade pós-metafísica e pós-religiosa. A Pesquisa considera as diversas formatações religiosas, contidas no interior da cultura ocidental, desenvolvendo uma avaliação crítica das proposições cristãs de uma espiritualidade, sem Religião, na Contemporaneidade. / This paper reflects on the proposal for Gianni Vattimo to contemporary Christianity, whichis based on a weak ontology, in the process of deconstruction of the strongest structures of metaphysics in the West. Analysis, therefore, the possibility of a new interpretation of Christian faith in postmodern, themed by the philosophy of a post-metaphysical spirituality and post-religious. The research considers the various religious formatting contained within the Western culture, developing a critical evaluation of the propositions of a Christian religion without religion in contemporary society.

This essay analyses the temporal structure that Rosenzweig develops mainly in his work The Star of Redemption in order to locate, on one hand, a messianic principle that organizes a specific theologico-political realm, and on the other, to understand the way in which certain terms from the judaic prophetic tradition are refunctionalized to activate in a concrete form a system of thought based on the premise of otherness. / Este ensayo hace un análisis de la estructura de la temporalidad que Rosenzweig desarrolla sobre todo en su obra La estrella de la redención con el fin de ubicar, por una parte, un principio mesiánico con el que se organiza un ámbito teológico-político específico, y por otra, comprender la manera en que se refuncionalizan ciertos términos de la tradición profética judía para activar de manera concreta un sistema de pensamiento filosófico basado en la premisa de la otredad.

Does Yahweh exist? What is the ontological status of Yahweh-as-depicted in the Old Testament texts? Is the deity merely a character of fiction or does He also exist in extra-textual reality? According to the viewpoint of the devil’s advocate whose perspective on the issue is articulated in this thesis, the answer to the question is simply, no – Yahweh does not exist. He may seem real to those who believe in him and in the world of the text but he has no extra-textual and extra-psychical counterpart. To prove such a controversial claim, the philosophy of religion has been utilised as auxiliary discipline within Old Testament studies in the form of philosophicalcritical analysis (philosophical criticism / philosophy of Old Testament religion). A devil’s advocate's case against realism in Old Testament theology has been reconstructed in the form of seven arguments against the existence of Yahweh. According to the argument from theological pluralism, one element of the depiction of Yahweh in the text that is rather suspicious is the fact that Yahweh is characterised in ways that blatantly contradict each other. Both synchronic and diachronic perspectives on the theological contradictions suggest that there is no coherent biblical view of what Yahweh is actually like, what his will is and what he supposedly did. This deconstructs realism since the same actually existing entity cannot have discrepant attributes, hold mutually exclusive moral beliefs and have a history of both doing something and not doing the same thing at the same time. From the perspective of the argument from unorthodox theology, it is apparent that Yahweh is often depicted in ways most unorthodox from the point of view of Christian philosophical theology. Some texts appear to suggest he may not be eternal, single, omnipotent, omniscient, precognisant, immutable, omnipresent or wholly uninvolved in the actualisation of evil. If there is a God and if this God has all the attributes assigned to him by popular classical Christian philosophical theology, it follows that unorthodox depictions of Yahweh must be fictitious. In the view of the argument from polymorphic projection, everything about the god Yahweh appears suspiciously all-too-human. What Yahweh believes about the world, his self-talk, what he considers morally right and wrong and the way in which his own abode is run are all uncannily similar to the worldview and superstitions of the Iron Age Levant. The divine variables never transcend this all-too-local and all-too-cultural matrix and even change along with it. This unmasks Yahweh as ananthropomorphic, sociomorphic and sychomorphic projection – a character of fiction who does not exist outside the minds of those who created him in their image. The argument from mythology and syncretism demonstrates that the discourse of Yahweh’s religion and the sacred stories and poems in which he features contain numerous parallels to the myths, legends, folklore and superstitions found in other pagan religions. There are also marked traces of syncretism between the cult and theology of Yahweh and the ideologies of the Israelites' neighbours which, in each case, predates Yahwism. This suggests that Yahweh’s ontological status may very well not be all that different from that of El, Baal, Zeus or Maduk. From the perspective of the argument from fictitious cosmography, the world in the text where Yahweh is depicted as existing, acting and in which his abode is located and of which he is the creator, does not exist. Yahweh’s world and his worldview are demonstrably fictitious. Since the Old Testament depicts Yahweh as being “up there” in the sky and since we know that he is demonstrably not there, Yahweh-as-depicted stands unmasked as a character of fiction. The argument from fictitious history asserts that the Old Testament is filled with historical fiction. For a variety of reasons, it can be demonstrated that many of the depictions of supposed historical scenarios are completely fictitious in that they never happened in the way the details of the accounts imply were the case. Since what was intended as history is actually fiction and no god literally appeared, acted and spoke as Yahweh is depicted as doing, it follows that Yahweh as thus depicted is a character of fiction. He does not exist. Finally, the argument from meta-textual history shows that, on the one hand, the all-too-recent and all-too-local origins of the worship of Yahweh on a historical and cosmic scale unmask it as a wholly human enterprise. On the other hand, the Old Testament texts themselves have all-too-human origins rather than being the result of actual divine revelation. The Old Testament appears not to be the Word of God but human words about an allegedly existing deity. The development of Yahwism and its derivatives (Judaism and Christianity) seems not to have been determined by progressive revelation but by socio-cultural paradigm shifts and a history of repressed anti-realist tendencies. From such a meta-textual historical perspective it becomes obvious that Yahweh-as-depicted in the text is indeed no more than a product of human ideological imagination. In other words, he does not really exist. Though not all seven of these devil’s advocate’s arguments may be equally devastating when viewed in isolation, in the form of a cumulative argument against realism, they constitute seemingly irrefutable proof that Yahweh-as-depicted in the text does not exist. Consequently, realism collapses not only in Old Testament theology but also in any form of theism somehow related to, rooted in and/or dependent on realism in its discourse. / Thesis (PhD (Old Testament Science))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Old Testament Studies / unrestricted

People of the Jewish faith base their belief on the written word of the Torah. Presented in this paper are fine artists that produce work within these laws. The Torah sets guidelines for life and morality. The belief system within this domain is that visual images have an impact on the viewers, and artists are accountable for what they produce. This is in opposition with art education, where freedom of expression takes precedence over morality. The results of this study will form the basis for a curriculum for the community college. The researcher's area of inquiry is directed to painting and sculpture made by artists of the Jewish faith who follow the Torah, meaning those who are observant of their faith and practices. Their skills and perceptions will be presented to educate the viewer about their visions. The research questions were posed to rabbinical authorities and artists in order to establish a clear and defined statement of what the Jewish law is regarding the fine arts. The evidence presented was obtained by questionnaires, personal interviews, articles, and opinions from Jewish scholars. Four rabbis were selected based on their erudition on Torah law, and their strong leadership positions in Jewish educational institutions. The ten artists were selected based on recommendations from art historians, and art and gallery directors. The artists and the rabbis were mailed questionnaires, which was followed by an interview. The conclusion from this study is that fine artists are encouraged to use their talents, this is supported by the Torah text, and rabbinic explanation. The restriction for the Jewish artist is in making a replication of a realistic full-scale figure, making a visual rendition of G-d, a nude, or violent image. Art is made by the observant Jew with the intention of enhancing the world with visions inspired by their belief in the Torah. A crucial belief in Judaism is that there is but one G-d, and all man-made images should reflect the majesty of G-d's creations.

This research is a historical-exegetical analysis of Hegel’s reformulation of Kant’s regulative principle of teleology into a constitutive principle. Kant ascribes teleology to the faculty of reflective judgment where it is employed as a guide to regulate inquiry, but does not constitute actual knowledge. Hegel argues that if Kant made teleology into a constitutive principle then it would be a much more comprehensive theory capable of overcoming contingency in natural science, and hence, bridging the gap between natural science and theology. In this paper I argue that Hegel’s defense of the transition from natural science to theology is ultimately unsuccessful because it is built upon on an instinct of reason, which is the instinctive feature of human rationality to transition beyond the contingency remaining in our empirical understanding of nature, to a theological understanding of nature, in which all aspects of nature are necessarily related.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:12:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 sebastiao_hugo_brandao_lima.pdf: 1454826 bytes, checksum: 563ca2b8873b1420e81b94a9fa5a8d22 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-01-23 / Partimos nesta pesquisa tentando entender parte do pensamento de Friedrich Nietzsche: sua crítica à Religião cristã, no tocante a seu discurso acerca da morte de Deus , e a recepção da sua filosofia no cenário religioso pós-moderno. Buscamos apresentar o seu discurso da morte de Deus partindo da obra Gaia Ciência, discurso que relaciona-se com a desvalorização do mundo metafísico e a perda de crédito no Deus cristão. A fé em Deus perdeu plausibilidade, instaurando o niilismo. Problematizamos a crítica de Nietzsche a Religião cristã, mas, sobretudo, crítica à cultura de sua época. Ele critica uma sociedade edificada sob o ideário cristão que está amparado em uma moral que, por séculos, foi usada como mecanismo de domínio e manutenção de poder. Nietzsche entende o Cristianismo enquanto negação da vida e/ou Religião da decadência. A crítica de Nietzsche ao Cristianismo tem como alvo o sujeito enquanto agente moral. Todavia, não é necessariamente uma crítica a Jesus, o Cristo, visto que, Nietzsche considerava Paulo o verdadeiro fundador do Cristianismo. Nesta pesquisa analisamos alguns aspectos da Religião na pós-modernidade e a recepção do pensamento de Nietzsche neste cenário. Hoje, com a pós-modernidade, a Religião, ao menos suas representações institucionais, tornou-se coadjuvante no debate sobre temas relevantes, porém, a humanidade prossegue vivendo dimensões religiosas, cada vez mais particulares e subjetivas. Dialogamos no decorrer da pesquisa com vários autores que discorrem sobre a Religião na pósmodernidade de forma positiva e que, de alguma forma, dialogam com Nietzsche. Com a pós-modernidade e seu processo de secularização, a Religião não se encerra, ao contrário, ela ressurge e se difunde. Mesmo não tendo o protagonismo que exercia antes, a Religião continua exercendo papel importante na pós-modernidade, estando presente em todas as áreas do desenvolvimento humano.

The problem of this study is to determine the religious attitudes of the people of Escalante, Utah, according to age groups, with an idea of determining whether the opinions which are held by the people are different for various age groups and to determine if possible, the causes for this difference, if there be any.

The dominance of the White Christ in Latin America has been used to lend “theological” support for social, racial, and colonial hierarchies of the Spanish in Ecuador. The rhetoric used to justify the blanqueamiento process continues to play an enormous role in Ecuadorian social mobility, and also determines how various ethnicities in Ecuador are governed and treated. The Indigenous and Afroecuadorian populations of Ecuador are subjected to significantly higher rates of violence, poverty, and disease than their Mestizo and White counterparts. Against the tide of this theological distortion, I will argue that the Black Christ of Daule subverts the dominant image of a White Christ along with its implied oppressive hierarchies, instead paving the way for a vision of liberation for Ecuadorian Catholics.

A field survey was conducted to investigate differences in attitudes toward religious changes in a population of church-going Roman Catholics. An attitude scale comprising twenty items referring to changes in the Catholic Church was prepared during pilot studies. Half of the items referred to changes already occurring, and half to proposed or possible future changes. The attitude scale was administered to a sample of parishes in the Roman Catholic diocese of Baker, Oregon. It was administered during regular Sunday services to take advantage of the saliency effect of group membership. A response to an item of the scale indicating the subject's agreement with the change was operationally defined as a liberal response. A response indicating disagreement with change was considered a conservative response. It was hypothesized that churchgoing Catholics would be more liberal or accepting of changes already instituted in the Church than they would be of merely possible changes. The results supported this hypothesis. Total scores on the scale were correlated with the age and education of the respondents. The results support the hypothesis that attitudes toward religious changes covary with age and education much like other social attitudes, as the younger and more educated respondents showed more liberalism or acceptance of change than did older and less educated respondents. A detailed analysis of several items shows a wide divergence between parishoners' attitudes and ecclesiastical dogma. The results of the research also indicate that in the population surveyed there was a great deal of intragroup variation in attitudes toward religious changes.

It was the purpose of this study (1) to present selected aspects of Ernest Ligon's view of the learning process as it applies to religious knowledge; (2) to present selected aspects of Paul Tillich's view of the learning process as it applies to religious knowledge; (3) to compare Ernest Ligon's view of the learning process as it applies to religious knowledge with Paul Tillich's view.