Amidst expanding interest in local food and agriculture, food banks and allied organizations across the United States have increasingly engaged in diverse gleaning, gardening, and farming activities. Some of these programs reinforce food banks’ traditional role in distributing surplus commodities, and most extend food banks’ reliance on middle class volunteers and charitable donations. But some gleaning and especially gardening and farming programs seek to build poor people’s and communities’ capacity to meet more of their own food needs, signaling new roles (...) for some food banks in promoting community food security and food justice. This article reports the results of a national survey and in-depth case studies of the ways in which food banks are engaging in and with local agriculture and how this influences food banks’ roles in community and regional food systems. The patterns it reveals reflect broader tensions in debates about hunger relief and food security. (shrink)

This article explores the attempts, possibilities, and future of ecumenical initiatives in Christianity.

Knjiga, ki ji je posvečena pričujoča recenzija, prinaša prevod dveh krajših Bonaventurovih del, O trojni poti (De triplici via) in Kako se različne umetnosti zvajajo na teologijo (De reductione artium ad theologiam). Prevedla ju je filozofinja in klasična filologinja Nena Bobovnik, ki na KU Leuven pripravlja doktorat iz srednjeveške filozofije. Poleg spremne besede z naslovom »Zaris srednjeveške in skicaBonaventurove filozofije« sta še dva uvoda v piščevo misel. Najprej tri kateheze, ki jih je papež Benedikt XVI. – ki se je na (...) Bonaventurovo teologijo zgodovine osredotočil v habilitacijski nalogi – spomladi leta 2010 posvetil svojemu »prijatelju«, kot se sam izrazi; nato pa še esej »Teološko-filozofska hermenevtika pri sv. Bonaventuru in njen pomen za današnji čas«, ki ga je pripravil Branko Klun s Teološke fakultete UL. (shrink)

Im Verlauf des 6. Jahrhunderts fanden unter den ostgotischen Königen die ersten päpstlich-kaiserlichen Treffen in Konstantinopel statt, die die religiösen Auseinandersetzungen und die politischen und diplomatischen Beziehungen zwischen Ostgoten und Byzanz klären sollten. Der erste Papst, der auf Befehl Theoderichs als Leiter einer Gesandtschaft in die östliche Hauptstadt reiste (Ende 525 oder Anfang 526), war Johannes I.; er sollte sich dort für die arianische Kirche einsetzen. Der ‚Anonymus Valesianus‘ berichtet, daß der Kaiser Justinos I. dem ankommenden Papst Johannes als Anführer (...) einer Delegation von Senatoren ita occurrit ac si beato Petro. Mit einem ähnlichen Ausdruck hatte der Anonymus auch die Beschreibung des adventus Theoderichs in Rom (Jahr 500) eingeführt: Der ostgotische König occurrit beato Petro devotissimus ac si catholicus. Im Falle von Justinos sind mit dieser Formulierung wahrscheinlich sämtliche Ehren gemeint, welche dem Papst erwiesen wurden. Diese werden in dem wesentlich detaillierteren Bericht des ‚Liber Pontificalis‘ geschildert: … occurrerunt beato Iohanni a miliario XV [XII] omnes civitas cum cereos et cruces in honore beatorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli. Qui veteres Grecorum hoc testificabantur dicentes a tempore Constantini Augusti a beato Silvestro episcopo sedis apostolicae, Iustini Augusti temporibus meruisse parte Greciarum beati Petri apostoli vicarium suscepisse cum gloria. Tunc Iustinus Augustus, dans honorem Deo, humiliavit se pronus et adoravit beatissimum Iohannem papam. (shrink)

CHAPTER Structure and function In physical systems made by a large number of basic constituents one can observe collective properties which find their ...

The documented low levels of reliability of the peer review process present a serious challenge to editors who must often base their publication decisions on conflicting referee recommendations. The purpose of this article is to discuss this process and examine ways to produce a more reliable and useful peer review system.

Razprava se ukvarja z analizo prvega pisma iz Hieronimove korespondence. Avtor je imel do njega očitno ambivalenten odnos, kar kliče k iskanju večplastne sporočilnosti spisa. Po poskusu datacije, retorični in slogovni analizi ter predstavitvi osnovne zgodbe, ki je vključena vanj, se pokaže, da je pismo kljub navidezni hagiografski šablonskosti vsebinsko bogato. Analiza se zato nadaljuje na dveh področjih. Kraj dogajanja, poznoantično mesto, ne more preživeti brez nove vodilne osebnosti, škofa. Je s pismom Hieronim želel tlakovati pot na vercelski škofovski sedež (...) prijatelju Evagriju iz Antiohije? Ob analizi nejasnih spolnih identitet obeh glavnih oseb iz zgodbe, nemoškega mladeniča in moško neuklonljive ženske, se pokaže, da je Hieronim v novem času iskal nov krščanski ideal, meništvo, ki ga je preko te zgodbe umestil v kontinuiteto z mučeništvom. (shrink)

This book, containing excerpts from the author's book Secularism in India and other articles and papers, answers the questions: What is the meaning of secularism? Where did secularism originate? What were the main landmarks in the history of the development of secularism? and How did secularism come to be one of the most dominating concepts of modern society?

In this paper I attempt to dissolve two confused ideas inherent in scientific studies of learning: That the locus of learning processes lies hidden inside the mind/brain, and also that this putatively hidden phenomenon causes learned actions. I attempt this dissolution through conceptual argument and data analysis, first by contrasting the use of the concept ‘learning’ in ordinary and scientific interaction, followed by a Wittgenstein-inspired conversation analysis of a micro-longitudinal case of learning interaction — a biochemist teaching lab techniques to (...) a technician — in order to demonstrate that learning processes are inherently social. I conclude that the scientific view of learning processes as hidden is misconceived through its misuse of the concept “learning”. The empirical results demonstrate that learning processes are indeed public and manifest in an indefinite number of forms, and whatever may be found in the brain associated with learning are concomitant factors, not learning itself. (shrink)

Religious violence is a function of deep philosophical and psychological belief-behavior. This article explores the issue in light of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Psychology of evil.

Beyond the Shadows and Other Essays is a collection of over 70 articles by Domenic Marbaniang on themes ranging from History, Indiology, Philosophy, Religion, to Theology, Language, Society, and Biblical Exposition.

Rational epistemics is the line of reasoning inclined to reason separated from reliance on experience that ultimately leads to monism or non-dualism.

In this paper we analyse the conditions for attributing to AI autonomous systems the ontological status of “artificial moral agents”, in the context of the “distributed responsibility” between humans and machines in Machine Ethics (ME). In order to address the fundamental issue in ME of the unavoidable “opacity” of their decisions with ethical/legal relevance, we start from the neuroethical evidence in cognitive science. In humans, the “transparency” and then the “ethical accountability” of their actions as responsible moral agents is not (...) in contradiction with the unavoidable “opacity” (unawareness) of the brain process by which they perform their moral judgements on the right action to execute. In fact, the moral accountability of our actions depends on what is immediately before and after our “moral judgements” on the right action to execute (formally, deontic first order logic (FOL) decisions). I.e., our moral accountability depends on the “ethical constraints” we imposed to our judgement before performing it in an opaque way. Anyway, our moral accountability depends overall on the “ethical assessment” or explicit “moral reasoning” after and over the moral judgement before executing our actions (deontic higher order logic (HOL) assessment). In this way, in the light of the AI “imitation game”, the consistent attribution of the status of ethically accountable artificial moral agents to autonomous AI systems depends on two similar conditions. Firstly, it depends on the presence of “ethical constraints” to be satisfied in their Machine Learning (ML) supervised optimization algorithm during its training phase, to give the system ethical skills (“competences”) in its decisions. Secondly – and definitely—, it depends on the presence in an AI autonomous system of a deontic HOL “ethical reasoner” to perform an automatic, and fully transparent assessment (metalogical deontic valuation) about the decisions taken by the ethically skilled ML algorithm about the right action to execute, before executing it. Finally, we show that the proper deontic FOL and HOL for this class of artificial moral agents is Kripke’s modal relational logic, in its algebraic topological formalization. This is naturally implemented in the dissipative QFT unsupervised deep learning of our brains, based on the “doubling of the degrees of freedom” (DDF), and then in the so-called “deep-belief” artificial neural networks for the statistical data pre-processing. This unsupervised learning procedure is also compliant with the usage of the “maximin fairness principle”, used as a balancing aggregation principle of the statistical variables in Sen’s formal theory of fairness. (shrink)

Introduction he eleventh chapter of Hebrews has been one of the most inspiring chapters of faith in the Bible throughout the history of Christianity. ...

Perspectives on Indian Secularism condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seemed to stand for blind belief and reaction, ...

The article surveys few of the most important philosophical contributions by Christians in the 21st century. Those surveyed include Francis Schaeffer, Alvin Plantinga, Norman Geisler, and Ravi Zacharias.

Sometimes philosophers have been misunderstood. It could be because the philosopher's communication was vague. It could also be because the philosopher didn't use Ockham's razor and multiplied terms unnecessarily forcing reviewers to impose the razor, with the result that what needs to be cut is not cut and what was essential is taken out of the equation. This article cites two cases, one of the Indian thinker M.M. Thomas and other of Peter Van Inwagen, who claimed that their thoughts were (...) misrepresented by some other well known thinker. (shrink)

Psychology of religion tries to understand the cause-effect relationships of religious experiences and religious consciousness so as to be able to predict behaviors. It aims to study the religious consciousness with investigations in religious behavior patterns. -/- The major systems of psychology are: structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and Gestalt School of Psychology. Obviously, each system has its own way of understanding religious consciousness.

Forty four years after the publication of Harvey Cox‟s The Secular City that celebrated “the progressive secularization of the world as the logical outcome of Biblical religion” (Newsweek)1, we almost feel the bones of religious fundamentalism cracking under the pressure of secularization. At the same time, however, the Hegelian dialectic holds ground as both refuse to be crushed by either; and any compromising stance only begets another rival; to the effect, that it can be said that fundamentalism is never a (...) phenomenon that may be extinguished. (shrink)

This book gives latest research updates on ancient Hinduism. It surveys the Pre-vedic religion of ancient India as found in the Indus Valley or Harappan civilization, then takes a dip into the world of Vedas to discover the religion of that age. The book uncovers astounding facts about ancient Hinduism.

Interreligious dialogue for social harmony and peace is a crucial topic in our times. Comparative religious studies helps to facilitate the peace building process. This book looks at a few comparative themes in some of the Karmic and Abrahamic faiths. Karmic religions include Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism that have one central connecting theme, the concept of karma. Similarly, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are connected through the story of Abraham. So, they are called Abrahamic religions.

The book is a study of the theology of revelation in the writings of seven modern theologians, viz, Charles Hodge, Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Harold DeWolf, Millard J. Erickson, J. Rodman Williams, and Donald G. Bloesch. It also includes a concluding chapter by the author on the theology of revelation.

This is a handy booklet that gives a quick glance at the major doctrines of Christianity. Doctrines such as Bibliology, Theology Proper, Christology, Pneumatology, Trinity, Creation, Anthropology, Angelology and Demonology, Atonement, Soteriology, Ecclesiology, and Eschatology are neatly adumbrated with scriptural references. It is a great tool for pastoral teachers as well as teachers and students of theology in seminaries.

Lo ʻreligiosoʼ como doble relación: vertical con Dios, horizontal con el mundo. La crisis del mundo antiguo causada por el venir a menos de la primera relación: los dioses no se ocupan del mundo humano (Epicuro). El mundo ʻsalvadoʼ por el Dios de amor de la buena nueva cristiana. Sólo un Dios omnipotente puede ʻsalvarʼ(guardar) el mundo; pero la omnipotencia, ni siquiera delimitable por el amor, no es garantía de salvación más de cuanto no sea peligro de abanadono. El mundo (...) moderno busca en el sujeto el fundamento absoluto de sí (Descartes). Pero el sujeto, en cuanto fundamento absoluto, es como el Dios omnipotente, no es un ente, definible, sino una pura X (Kant). Kénosis del logos y nihilismo: el misterio horizonte último de la religión cristiana. Ninguna petición de garantía: ser en el mundo, no del mundo. (shrink)

In COVID’s immediate wake, the 2020 death toll from a different enemy of the public’s health — gun violence — ticked up by 15 percent in the United States from the previous year. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Caniglia v. Strom that will allow people who have recently threatened suicide — with a gun — to keep unsecured guns in their home unless police take time to obtain a search warrant to remove them.