New Releases by Keith Ward

If the New Atheists are to be believed, religious belief is not only dangerous and irrational, but just plain stupid. With increasingly intolerant polemic they are dismissing the views of religious people, and misconstruing them in the process. In this book, Keith Ward debunks the notion that rationality and intelligence are incompatible with belief in God, going through some of the main criticisms raised by the New Atheists (and their predecessors), for example: - Does God cause evil? - Is the universe intelligently designed? - Is God free? This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the current cultural war between atheism and belief.

Distinguished philosopher Keith Ward here weighs in on what are perhaps the greatest metaphysical quandaries of our time: is the human mind merely an intricate mass of nerve cells and synapses, or is it something more? Are human beings simply accidental results of millions of genetic copying-mistakes and freak accidents of nature, or is there actually something deeper and more sublime at the heart of both material reality and human existence? Using philosophical and metaphysical reflections rather than religious considerations Ward argues, winsomely and intelligently, that human consciousness does in fact transcend our physical bodies. Moreover, he posits, the fact that we are more than matter not only has profound implications for our human worth but also provides clues to the nature, value, and purpose of the cosmos.

Keith Ward introduces this volume on the world''s greatest ever bestseller by suggesting that the Bible is neither a book dictated by God, as some believe, nor just a set of out-dated taboos and politically slanted histories, as those at the opposite extreme maintain. Rather, it is a very mixed set of documents, by many different writers, from many different times, which records the struggle of many people in one particular religious tradition to respond to their discernments of a transcendent spiritual power.

From ultra-light flying to vibrating bombs, The Cactus Flower offers an array of short stories, personal memoirs, and poetry that reflect the life of author Keith Neale Ward. The selections address the realities of family, the adventures of youth, the inspirational messages of life, and the knowledge gained from experience. In the lead fiction story, The Thinking Man, an interesting phenomenon occurs when The Director combines the occupants of two separate, but adjoining auditoriums. An inspirational entry, Infinite Possibilities, tells the story of one of Ward''s more unique engineering professors who challenges the law of gravity. In A Shot in the Dark, Ward narrates the account of employing a unique solution to rescue his brother, Ricky, from a Cleveland pool hall. In The Cactus Flower, Ward shares his experiences and the lessons learned during his lifetime. Some humorous and entertaining, others inspirational and moving, the stories reiterate Ward''s contention that something special happens during every encounter, every day. The key is to share the joy of these experiences with other people.

The Big Questions in Science and Religion explores these ten queries to determine whether religious beliefs can survive in the scientific age. Author Keith Ward, an expert in the field of world religions, devotes a full chapter to each question, wherein he considers concepts from Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity, alongside the speculations of cosmologists, physicians, mathematicians, and philosophers.

An engaging and convincing response from a leading philosopher-theologian to Dawkins'' arguments

Offers a reflection on a series of ethical problems in the light of what the world''s major faith traditions have to say about them. The author traces the consequences of religious views on morality by considering moral problems such as violence, human genetic modification and ethical concerns around the beginning and ending of human life.

Extraordinary performance from ordinary people is a must read for the high performing manager with the ambition to reach corporate leadership status. The book is as practical as it is exciting. How to succeed and which personal qualities are required from those who display the capability for great responsibility, are the themes that run throughout. The book focuses on both the key value adding activities and disciplines for driving through change and the styles of corporate leaders that attract success Extraordinary performance from ordinary people highlights how the leaders of the company, as a corporate team, can adopt and adapt the four value creating styles. It emphasises how to recognise which leadership framework suits the challenges of particular competitive environments. This insight nurtures a confidence to act decisively adopting an approach to communication which harnesses the energies of the organisation to achieve stretching performance targets. It concentrates on how leaders make a difference by what they do. Diagnostic models that show what really works and under which circumstances are core to this book.

The ultimate test of marketing investment, and indeed any investment, is whether it creates value for shareholders. But few marketing investments are evaluated from this perspective. Increasingly, boards of directors and city analysts the world over are dissatisfied with this lack of accountability. Cranfield School of Management has been addressing this problem by working with a range of blue-chip companies. They have created a new framework which shows how marketing systematically contributes to shareholder value based on three key questions- • Does the promised market exist? • Will the strategy deliver the market share promised? • Will the market share create shareholder value? This groundbreaking new book explains the principles and practice behind rigorous due diligence in marketing for Marketing and Finance Directors, CEOs, Strategists and MBA students wanting to understand the key drivers of modern business Surely, the time has come for marketing directors to take their rightful place in the boardroom by proving that what they are doing creates shareholder value added? * Connects marketing plans and investment to the valuation of the firm and how it can contribute to increasing shareholder value * Systematic and practical approach useful for both practitioners and students * New paperback edition

A systematic guide to the Christian faith, taking a broad sweep from the big bang through the Old Testament to the New and beyond into the history of the faith and modern theological thinking. The hard questions posed by the Church''s history are not ducked and the challenges of the enlightenment and modern science are given full weight. The book explores contemporary strands of Christian thinking and relates them sensitively and intelligently to world faith and non-faith viewpoints. It is a book that many thinking Christians and those thinking about Christianity will find invaluable in its rigorous, open and intelligent approach invaluable.

Designing World Class Corporate Strategies considers the key role of corporate centres within very large, primarily multi-business organisations. At present, these corporate centres are under attack as not creating and value and merely adding cost to their groups. The authors have developed a corporate configurations model which demonstrates four ways in which corporate centres can add significant value. However this requires the centre to act in specific ways depending on the external environment in which the group is operating. Designing World Class Corporate Strategies is highly readable, with a large number of illustrative examples included in the text. Academic references and theoretical underpinnings are placed in the final chapter of the book, so that the book is focused on the professional market for strategy and creating value.

While building on the author''s previous book, "Financial Aspects of Marketing," this book is designed to provide marketing managers and students with the financial know-how to maximize the cost effectiveness of their marketing activities.

This prominent theologian adds his contribution to the authority of Scripture debate An impassioned contribution to the debate about the authority of scripture - how we read the Bible, and how, the author believes, a fundamentalist reading is unsustainable. This book will infuriate many and delight others, and will make a valuable contribution to the debate, which we plan to join with voices from many corners. The book works through a series of Bible passages often cited as ''proof texts'', and explores how they can be read, and how they are used.

A review of a range of natural resources projects prepared during the 1990s by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) suggests that existing practices of economic analysis tend to capture only some of the impacts that such projects typically have. Historically, project analysis at ADB and elsewhere has tended to concentrate on identifying a monetized benefit in excess of 12 percent economic internal rate of return (EIRR) from direct resource use impacts, and simply identifying and describing "nonquantifiable" impacts. With the adoption of the ADB Environment Policy and the growing recognition that it is very often the poorest who suffer most from natural resource depletion and degradation, a case is made that more analytic rigor in capturing as many as possible of the resource impacts of such projects is desirable. This report therefore suggests some specific techniques to strengthen the economic analysis of natural resources projects, including improving the application of the "benefits transfer" method, defining the spatial boundaries of project economic analysis, establishing an appropriate accounting stance for the project, establishing the project''s counterfactual (i.e., without-project) situation, and including the health impacts of such projects. The use of appropriate discount rates for sensitivity analysis and for investment decision making are discussed, and guidance is given on presenting the results of a project analysis and summarizing the poverty reduction impact of natural resource management projects.

This book explores the relationship between religion and society, and discusses the ways in which the major world religions need to adapt to the modern world. Keith Ward looks at different forms of religious community, then proposes a radical vision of the church as a person-affirming, world-transforming society within the emerging global community.

Is there a universal concept of God? Do all the great faiths of the world share a vision of the same supreme reality? In an attempt to answer these questions, Keith Ward considers the doctrine of an ultimate reality within five world religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. He studies closely the works of definitive, orthodox writers from each tradition - Sankara, Ramanuja, Asvaghosa, Maimonides, Al-Ghazzali and Aquinas - to build up a series of ''images'' of God, a common core of belief. Ward discovers that while the great religious traditions of the world retain their differences, there are convergences of thought at the deepest level, with a broad similarity of structure in concepts of God. He concludes that a recognition of these beliefs, as well as encouraging a clearer acceptance of the mystery of the divine, might also lead to an increase in understanding and tolerance of other faiths, to the enrichment of one''s own.

The "new materialism" argues that science and religious belief arencompatible. This book considers such arguments from cosmology, biology, andociobiology view points, and shows that modern scientific knowledge does notndermine belief in God, but points to the existence of God.

This book is the second part of a major project of comparative theology begun with Religion and Revelation (Clarendon Press, 1994), which looks at major concepts of faith in all four of the main scriptural religions of the world. In Religion and Creation, the author explores the idea of a creator God in the work of twentieth century writers from Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity. He develops a positive concept of God which stresses God''s dynamic and responsive relation to the temporal structure of the universe, and the importance of that structure to the self-expression of the divine being. Professor Ward goes on to present a Trinitarian doctrine of creation, drawing inspiration from a wider set of theistic traditions and recent discussions in physics in the realm of cosmology.

Revelation is a fundamental concept in practically every religion. This book provides a complete analysis of the idea of revelation as found across all five of the great scriptural religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.