This article aims to illustrate how racism could be addressed. Three pedagogies - a dangerous pedagogy as courageous dialogue, a pedagogy of discomfort and a critical pedagogy - are presented as examples to reframe the issue of racism. The contribution of James Cone is applied as a broad descriptive theoretical framework. Cone's views in this article resonate with the history of contemporary racism in South Africa and will therefore be juxtaposed by the contribution of South African theologians. A fourth pedagogy, (...) namely, a pedagogy of freedom and healing, is introduced to address gaps in the first three pedagogies. The objective is to realise freedom or healing between people of different races. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is often referred to as the 'philosopher of Protestantism' because he provides a model for mediating successfully between a modern scientific world view and theism. This radical new reading of Kant's religious thought suggests that he is in fact more accurately read as a precursor to nineteenth-century atheism than to liberal Protestant theology.

In the midst of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, new unexpected and extraordinary scenes and sounds of aesthetical biblical and apocalyptic proportions are witnessed. Community and religious gatherings in public spaces are prohibited. Modern, conventional and traditional human achievements have become futile. One can describe the COVID-19 pandemic, and this new search for meaning as a juxtaposed tension of metaphorical apocalyptic vistas and metaphorical biblical vistas. The Bible holds the same juxtaposed tension which may help humanity to rediscover the semantics of (...) biblical truth and hope – but it also espouses a metaphorical liberational vista of transcendence. Coronavirus could be a metaphor for something with extraordinary new possibilities. The biblical metaphors are being amplified in different metaphorical vistas to make it more discerning or accessible to the world population today. As a metaphorical liberation vista, it may offer new hope for a new kind of living, a new kind of humanity, a new kind of knowing and believing and a new kind of world order.Contribution: This article offers a Practical Theological contribution to the significance of the Bible within the COVID-19 pandemic context. Human suffering and divine metaphorical vistas encapsulate prospects for truth, hope and new meaning for the liberation of humanity. (shrink)

The inability of government, communities and churches to deal with complex HIV and AIDS challenges may foster pathological psychosocial and systemic dysfunctionalities. The reframing of pathological and disempowering pastoral therapeutic and health promotion praxes are sought. The objective was to construct a new pastoral and social therapeutic methodology. It should develop in line with health promotion praxes in strengthening both ecclesial and community health praxes. Reframing agents such as pastoral therapeutic and health praxes, as well as ecclesial and community systems, (...) could ultimately engender a transformative process in transforming pathological HIV and AIDS praxes. (shrink)

Franchising in the business format sector accounted for approximately 35 percent of retail sales in the U.S. in 1991. Consequently, the franchising industry has a clear ethical responsibility to the public. At the same time, there exists an ethical obligation of the two major factors in the industry — the franchisor and the franchise — toward each other. Because the franchise agreement, which is the basis of the relationship, is originated by the franchisor, an asymmetrical distribution of power often exists, (...) resulting in opportunistic behavior by the franchisor. In other cases, questionable or unethical practices by franchisees likewise result in conflict. This paper examines some of the basic areas of the franchise relationship which result in conflict, and discusses the situation analysis in business format franchising, which shows promise for reduction of conflict and unethical behavior for the future. (shrink)

This essay underscores the significant contribution Firestone and Jacobs make through the very thorough way their book surveys the wide range of recent scholarship bearing on Kant’s Religion. The essay then argues, however, that the complex scaffolding designed to summarize and categorize the varied responses to Kant has the effect of muting the authors’ own very bold interpretive stance. This point is particularly true with respect to their account of the compatibility of Kant’s Religion with the Christian tradition. In addition, (...) the essay suggests that the judicial metaphor of “defense” is overplayed, forcing certain interpretations of Kant into potentially misleading positions for the sake of the interpretive scheme. (shrink)

We develop an axiomatic set theory — the Theory of Hyperfinite Sets THS— which is based on the idea of the existence of proper subclasses of large finite sets. We demonstrate how theorems of classical continuous mathematics can be transfered to THS, prove consistency of THS, and present some applications.

Live donor kidney transplantation is the best treatment option for most patients with late-stage chronic kidney disease; however, the rate of living kidney donation has declined in the United States. A consensus conference was held June 5-6, 2014 to identify best practices and knowledge gaps pertaining to live donor kidney transplantation and living kidney donation. Transplant professionals, patients, and other key stakeholders discussed processes for educating transplant candidates and potential living donors about living kidney donation; efficiencies in the living donor (...) evaluation process; disparities in living donation; and financial and systemic barriers to living donation. We summarize the consensus recommendations for best practices in these educational and clinical domains, future research priorities, and possible public policy initiatives to remove barriers to living kidney donation. (shrink)

We introduce and discuss a concept of approximation of a topological algebraic system A by finite algebraic systems from a given class K. If A is discrete, this concept agrees with the familiar notion of a local embedding of A in a class K of algebraic systems. One characterization of this concept states that A is locally embedded in K iff it is a subsystem of an ultraproduct of systems from K. In this paper we obtain a similar characterization of (...) approximability of a locally compact system A by systems from K using the language of nonstandard analysis. In the signature of A we introduce positive bounded formulas and their approximations; these are similar to those introduced by Henson [14] for Banach space structures (see also [15, 16]). We prove that a positive bounded formula φ holds in A if and only if all precise enough approximations of φ hold in all precise enough approximations of A. We also prove that a locally compact field cannot be approximated arbitrarily closely by finite (associative) rings (even if the rings are allowed to be non-commutative). Finite approximations of the field R can be considered as possible computer systems for real arithmetic. Thus, our results show that there do not exist arbitrarily accurate computer arithmetics for the reals that are associative rings. (shrink)

The first edition of this standard work was published in 1927 and has been reprinted several times. This second edition has been revised and reset and the saga Hrafnkels saga freysgooa is now included in its entirety. The work is now available for the first time in paperback.

We present an axiomatic framework for nonstandard analysis-the Nonstandard Class Theory which extends von Neumann-Godel-Bernays Set Theory by adding a unary predicate symbol St to the language of NBG means that the class X is standard) and axioms-related to it- analogs of Nelson's idealization, standardization and transfer principles. Those principles are formulated as axioms, rather than axiom schemes, so that NCT is finitely axiomatizable. NCT can be considered as a theory of definable classes of Bounded Set Theory by V. Kanovei (...) and M. Reeken. In many aspects NCT resembles the Alternative Set Theory by P. Vopenka. For example there exist semisets in NCT and it can be proved that a set has a standard finite cardinality iff it does not contain any proper subsemiset. Semisets can be considered as external classes in NCT. Thus the saturation principle can be formalized in NCT. (shrink)

Macphail’s ‘null hypothesis’, that there are no differences in intelligence, qualitative or quantitative, between non-human vertebrates has been controversial. This controversy can be useful if it encourages interest in acquiring a detailed understanding of how non-human animals express flexible problem-solving capacity (‘intelligence’), but limiting the discussion to vertebrates is too arbitrary. As an example, we focus here on Portia, a spider with an especially intricate predatory strategy and a preference for other spiders as prey. We review research on pre-planned detours, (...) expectancy violation and a capacity to solve confinement problems where, in each of these three contexts, there is experimental evidence of innate cognitive capacities and reliance on internal representation. These cognitive capacities are related to, but not identical to, intelligence. When discussing intelligence, as when discussing cognition, it is more useful to envisage a continuum instead of something that is simply present or not; in other words, a continuum pertaining to flexible problem-solving capacity for ‘intelligence’ and a continuum pertaining to reliance on internal representation for ‘cognition’. When envisaging a continuum pertaining to intelligence, Daniel Dennett’s notion of four Creatures (Darwinian, Skinnerian, Popperian, Gregorian) is of interest, with the distinction between Skinnerian and Popperian Creatures being especially relevant when considering Portia. When we consider these distinctions, a case can be made for Portia being a Popperian Creature. Like Skinnerian Creatures, Popperian Creatures express flexible problem solving capacity, but the manner in which this capacity is expressed by Popperian Creatures is more distinctively cognitive. (shrink)

Understanding terrestrial carbon metabolism is critical because terrestrial ecosystems play a major role in the global carbon cycle. Furthermore, humans have severely disrupted the carbon cycle in ways that will alter the climate system and directly affect terrestrial metabolism. Changes in terrestrial metabolism may well be as important an indicator of global change as the changing temperature signal. Improving our understanding of the carbon cycle at various spatial and temporal scales will require the integration of multiple, complementary and independent methods (...) that are used by different research communities. Tools such as air sampling networks, inverse numerical methods, and satellite data allow us to study the strength and location of the global- and continental-scale carbon sources and sinks. Bottom-up studies provide estimates of carbon fluxes at finer spatial scales and examine the mechanisms that control fluxes at the ecosystem, landscape, and regional scales. Bottom-up approaches include comparative and process studies that provide the necessary mechanistic information to develop and validate terrestrial biospheric models. An iteration and reiteration of top-down and bottom-up approaches will be necessary to help constrain measurements at various scales. We propose a major international effort to coordinate and lead research programs of global scope of the carbon cycle. (shrink)