Prometheus Books UK – förlag

"Is there still anything worth living for? Is anything worth pursuing, apart from money, love, and caring for one's own family?" Internationally known social philosopher and ethicist Peter Singer has an answer to these and other questions in this compelling new volume. "If we can detach ourselves from our own immediate preoccupations and look at the world as a whole and our place in it, there is something absurd about the idea that people should have trouble finding something to live for."Singer suggests that people who take an ethical approach to life often avoid the trap of meaninglessness, finding a deeper satisfaction in what they are doing than those people whose goals are narrower and more self-centered. He spells out what he means by an ethical approach to life, and shows that it can bring about significant and far-reaching changes to one's life.

Happiness is within everyone's grasp and is only a matter of making the right choices. Taking destiny into one's own hands and having the creative audacity to strive, seek, and meet challenges is the essence of life's drama and exaltation. Life per se has no meaning; it only presents opportunity to be seized and acted upon, thus paving the way for personal achievement and the full life.Paul Kurtz, in Exuberance, shows his readers how to banish drudgery from life and how to find happiness in the active life. Drawing upon his personal experience, knowledge, and success, Kurtz explains his philosophy of life, discussing learning and work, pleasure, eroticism and sexuality, morality, the need for love and friendship, and participation in contemporary issues. He suggests that self-power, resourcefulness, daring, creativity, and intelligence help guide and control one's life in spite of the many obstacles along the way. Only the individual can initiate his own success and therefore can take pride in accomplishing what he sets out to do.Exuberance also shows the reader how to cope with an ambiguous world. Life is charged with unexpected events and bizarre happenings. It is filled with richly diverse and idiosyncratic characters. Constant effort and exertion is needed in making a living, meeting new friends, falling in love, raising children, seeing projects through, and coming to terms with old age and death. Dealing with these problems directly rather than fleeing from life's risks reinforces a person and leads him towards an exuberant, rich, zestful life.According to Dr. Kurtz, the fulfillment of one's own purpose is in creating one's own ends and expending the power and energy to attain them. Thus, life's great sin, he suggests, is being lazy and noncreative.

The long history of ethics has had as its driving force the goal of establishing basic principles to govern human behavior and against which our actions can be judged and determinations of responsibility made. But as the twentieth century began, Moore believed that it was time to get back to basics and to ask the relevant questions once again.What is good? How do we define it? What do we mean when we call something 'good'? He contends that much of what serves as the foundation for ethics is in jeopardy - i.e., open to the "Naturalistic Fallacy" - because the question of defining "good" is not fully addressed. Here one of the most penetrating minds of modern philosophy seeks to clarify the fundamental elements of ethical discourse.

The main purpose of this booklet is twofold: to help Humanists who are thinking of becoming officiants on a regular basis; and to help families and friends who are faced with the need to organize a ceremony themselves at short notice. A third group who may find parts of it useful are funeral directors coping with funerals where there is no officiant and the family has no wish to play an active role.The booklet aims to set out clearly the basic format of a Humanist ceremony, to suggest possible readings and turns of phrase, and to state simply the various practical measures that need to be taken. In short, it is a straightforward working manual. "[It was] the first funeral I had attended where I felt comfortable, and comfortedby the words spoken."" . . . it gave me a sense of great peace.""To hear others publicly proclaim their love, respect and admiration for myhusband made the funeral an uplifting experience. Afterwards so many who hadattended told me that it was the most interesting, most moving, most relevantand best funeral that they had ever been to. Their remarks gave me a greatdeal of comfort and I knew that I had treated my husband's atheism with therespect and dignity that it deserved.""A large number of those present, from a wide range of beliefs and backgrounds,later expressed what we can only call enthusiasm for an experience that wasnew to them, and in many cases compared very favourable with the often awkwardand impersonal alternatives with which they were familiar.""Bearing in mind that this is a form of ceremony which has not yet gained wideacceptance, we consider ourselves fortunate . . . to have received such expert andpersonal attention."

Discusses learning right from wrong, stressing such aspects as the difference between rules and principles and the importance of an individual's rights.

Discusses the stages of dying, examines the accounts of near-death experiences, and argues that brain chemistry, rather than afterlife, best explains the sensations felt near death.

The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle had been told and retold in books, magazine articles, and on television and radio talk shows for several years when, in 1972, Larry Kusche, then a reference librarian, decided to collect all the information he could find on each incident. He made contact with the Coast Guard, the Air Force, Lloyd's of London, and many other agencies. He obtained microfilm copies of newspapers from cities where various incidents had been reported.This exhaustive research had an unexpected result - it solved the mystery. It also resulted in the publication of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery-Solved, which is now back in print.Larry Kusche's book is more than an investigation of a mystery; it is a fascinating case history of a "manufactured mystery" in the making. It shows how over the years the raw materials of official accident reports, newspaper accounts, articles in the mainstream press, and word of mouth have been assimilated into a "false mystery."

First published in French, Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) was composed during his years in Brussels, when he was developing his economic views and, through confrontations with the chief leaders of the working-class movement, establishing his intellectual standing.In this classic work, which laid the foundation of ideas later developed in Capital, Marx polemicized against then premier French socialist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon wanted to unite the best features of such contraries as competition and monopoly. He hoped to save the good features of economic institutions while eliminating the bad. Marx, however, declared that no equilibrium was possible between the antagonisms in any given economic system. Social structures were transient historical forms determined by the productive forces: "The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the stream mill, society with the industrial capitalist."

Distinguished British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) set off a series of movements that drastically altered the ways in which economists view the world. In his most important work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), Keynes critiqued the laissez-faire policies of his day, particularly the proposition that a normally functioning market economy would bring full employment. Keynes's forward-looking work transformed economics from merely a descriptive and analytic discipline into one that is policy oriented. For Keynes, enlightened government intervention in a nation's economic life was essential to curbing what he saw as the inherent inequalities and instabilities of unregulated capitalism.

In The Descent of Man (1871, 1874) Charles Darwin (1809-1882) focused special attention on the origin and history of our own species, a subject he had avoided in his previous writings on evolution. He claimed that the human animal is closest in ancestry to the two African "pongids," or anthropoid apes (chimpanzees and gorillas). Further, Darwin held that our species and these two pongids differ merely in degree rather than in kind - a controversial view that contradicted religious doctrine. The Descent of Man looks at the emergence of humans in terms of primate evolution. Darwin presents a strictly mechanistic and materialist interpretation of our species that is free from superstition and spiritualism.

This treatise, written in 1923 by the renowned proponent of deficit spending, is devoted to the need for stable currency as the indispensable foundation to a healthy world economy. Keynes begins by laying out data showing the serious fluctuations in the value of money that began in 1914 and subjected North America, Europe, and India to injurious cycles of inflation and deflation. He describes the various effects on investors, business people, and wage earners of this erratic underlying influence and makes it clear that policies limiting such fluctuations must be implemented to ensure greater economic and social stability. He finds the gold standard, which was used as the basis of value for many currencies, including the U.S. dollar at that time, to be ultimately unreliable since gold itself is also prey to unstable valuations. In the final analysis he recommends the implementation of policies by Great Britain and the United States that aim at achieving stability of the commodity value of the dollar rather than the gold value. "[T]he ideal state of affairs," he argues, "is an intimate co-operation between the Federal Reserve Board and the Bank of England, as a result of which stability of prices and of exchange would be achieved at the same time."As always, Keynes proved to be amazingly prescient: The United States did eventually abandon the gold standard and the U.S. dollar is indeed the basis of currency values today. Keynes's brilliant, clear analysis of the world monetary situation at the beginning of the twentieth century, with his many suggestions and his masterful elucidation of economic principles, is still well worth reading today at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Unitarian Universalist minister G. Peter Fleck exploresthe role of reason and science, limits on the concept of progress, the lure of other (Eastern) religious traditions, the influence of the Judeo-Christian heritage, and the ways we can interpret that heritage to build our own spiritual home.

What's more fun for children than seeing a magic show? Doing the magic themselves!It's Magic! shows children how to perform amazing feats with cards, coins, dollar bills, numbers - and their minds. There are a number of "mental magic" tricks, and many more using materials readily available around the house, like string, rope, and handkerchiefs. Line drawings, step-by-step instructions, and a little practice will help children master the illusions of magic - and gain self confidence as well.Henry Gordon's breezy introduction also offers practical tips for the would-be magician on the rules of "magicianship": never repeat a trick in front of the same audience; practice until a trick can be performed flawlessly; entertain wisely; and, most importantly, keep the secrets of magic secret!

The direct mail campaigns of powerful animal rights lobbies and their guerrilla tactics against animal laboratories certainly demonstrate where they stand. Equally compelling are those who argue that medical progress and consumer safety are significantly enhanced by research using animals. This balanced collection focuses attention on the clash of opposing positions in this national debate, whose intensity is sure to weigh heavy on society as demands for more research make the need for rational, informed discussion all the more urgent.

The world's foremost mentalist demonstrates how to condition mind and body in order to accomplish many of the extraordinary mental feats that Kreskin accomplishes."The Amazing Kreskin" is a scientist of the mind, relying on natural and scientific means to perform effects that have baffled millions around the world. "Natural laws govern the working of the mind," he says. "Those who do not understand the laws usually label mental phenomena as supernatural or extrasensory. In fact, few of us have tapped more than a fraction of our mental potential." In this book, he reveals how readers can use their latent mental abilities to enhance the ordinary senses to accomplish effects that resemble telepathy and clairvoyance. Kreskin insists that there is nothing supernatural about any of these effects, and he redefines ESP as "extremely sensitive perception" to remove all connotation of the "other world" from this completely natural ability.Kreskin explains how to heighten awareness, increase powers of concentration, discover unknown strengths, tap the power of the unconscious, employ the power of illusion, utilize the power of suggestion, control attitudes and behavior, use silent communication, and predict with educated guesses. He also offers tips on how to hear whispers in a crowded room; "predict" news stories weeks in advance; "read thoughts" in the minds of complete strangers; influence others' attitudes and actions; produce "hypnotic" effects without "hypnosis"; become a human lie detector; and locate lost objects. Readers will be amazed and amused by what Kreskin can teach them about their own potential.

The popularity of Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Moralityled the Dean of Intelligent Comedy to continue his skeptical examination of biblical claims. Among the topics discussed in this successor volume are abortion, alcoholism, angels, homosexuality, the Song of Solomon, Leviticus, Peter, and women's liberation.Although the Bible has been referred to, quoted from, and applied to broad social issues and private problems for centuries, Allen asserts that the degree of ignorance as to its contents is vast and deep. Noting that adults rarely read the Bible, Allen is convinced that millions who do read it are not able to understand certain passages at all.Throughout the book, Allen offers direct quotes from biblical scholars - Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish - in addition to generous references to the views of various scholarly specialists. His goal - to make people think about what the Bible really says - is achieved through clear and readable prose.

Uncovering the Past is an absorbing history of archaeology that traces the study of ancient material culture from its beginnings as a hobby for Renaissance scholars to the sophisticated modern discipline we know today. Professor William Stiebing devotes the first part of his chronicle to the exploits of the colorful, dynamic excavators of archaeology's "Heroic Age." One may wonder whether the adventures of Indiana Jones are really far-fetched after reading Steibing's account of Giovanni Belzoni's removal of the seven-ton colossus of Ramesses II, which was dragged by wooden platform and transported by boat from Egypt to London; or of clergyman John Peters' skirmish with Arab tribesmen, who surrounded his excavation site and finally pillaged and burned his camp; or of Heinrich Schliemann's quest to prove the authenticity of Homer's Iliad by searching for ancient Troy in Turkey.The second part of the book shifts the focus to modern archaeology, describing how new methodologies and techniques such as area surveys, statistics, carbon-14 dating, and computer visualization are turning the former pastime of dillettnates into a rigorous science.Uncovering the Past is an excellent introduction to archaeology, both for those who enjoy its romance and those who seek an accurate survey of its history and current status.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) has been generally acknowledged as the greatest English satirist. In a prodigious stream of letters, pamphlets, tales, and essays, he assailed, with irony, erudition, and savage wit, several of the abuses and vices he saw around him, including political corruption, religious intolerance, hypocrisy, and the decline of learning. These selections from Swift's greatest writings include some of his best-known pieces against organized religion and the English oppression of Ireland: "A Tale of a Tub"; "A Tritical Essay"; "A Meditation upon a Broomstick"; "Thoughts on Various Subjects"; "An Argument against Abolishing Christianity in England"; "A Discourse concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit"; Drapier letters nos. 1 and 4; "On Political Lying"; "A Character, Panegyric, and Description of the Legion Club"; and "A Modest Proposal."

Palmists, astrologists, and readers of tarot cards or crystal balls claim to help solve personal problems. Mediums claim to aid communication with deceased friends and relatives. Faith healers and psychic surgeons claim to cure physical illness. Psychic detectives offer advice to law enforcement agencies in hope of solving crimes. Other claimants operate in religious organizations using their alleged ability to help attract new followers or maintain the loyalty of present ones. Is all of this just innocent fun, real help, or can psychics actually harm individuals with their claims?Deception & Self-Deception outlines many of the techniques that can be used to fake psychic ability and describes ways in which these can be countered during an investigation. Richard Wiseman examines the general principles of deception and how these principles may be used to deceive. He also gives an account of the reliability of testimony related to the performance of alleged psychics and seances.