Shadow of the Absolute - Softcover

Rowe, R.E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857565185 ISBN 13: 9781857565188

Publisher: Janus Publishing Co, 2004

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It is in the concept of the Absolute, Ronald Rowe argues, that philosophy, religion and mysticism merge. The Absolute has many facets: happiness, beauty & truth. It is that which one cannot go beyond: the Ultimate, 'the one thing needful' or Reality as philosophers express it with a capital R. For others, it is God or the God-head. All else is relative. Yet such is mankind's need of the Absolute that in a secular age, we tend to deify the relative, to indulge in self-idolatry or sentimentality, or to sublimate in good works or good causes. But this failure to distinguish the relative from the Absolute brings damaging or disastrous consequences. Look for example at nationalism - the 'religion' of the past two centuries - which yielded two world wars and hundreds of smaller ones. Indeed, whenever a relative value is transformed into an absolute, the result is tyranny and inhumanity. One of the most intriguing parts of this book for the reader is the extensive discussion of false absolutes, culminating in humanism.

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