Here are 100 books that O fans have personally recommended if you like
O.
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I have been exploring the relationship between the brain and religious/spiritual phenomena (a field known as neurotheology) for the past 30 years. My neuroimaging research has helped uncover the brain processes involved with practices like meditation and prayer and a broad array of experiences. The origin of this work derives from evolutionary theories about religion and the brain that tie directly into sexuality. The books on this list greatly helped to provide the foundation for the connection between spirituality and sexuality, opening up all kinds of avenues for exploration, including where human morals, societies, political systems, and religions come from with respect to the human mind.
I loved this book since it gave an incredible account of the origins of human sexuality. This was essential for my understanding of how and why human sexuality evolved and how it influences so much of everything we do. From this background, we can consider how religious and spiritual experiences connect back to sexuality.
In this controversial, thought-provoking, and brilliant book, renegade thinkers Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha debunk almost everything we know about sex, weaving together convergent, frequently overlooked evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality to show how far from human nature monogamy really is. In "Sex at Dawn", the authors expose the ancient roots of human sexuality while pointing toward a more optimistic future illuminated by our innate capacities for love, cooperation, and generosity.
I have been exploring the relationship between the brain and religious/spiritual phenomena (a field known as neurotheology) for the past 30 years. My neuroimaging research has helped uncover the brain processes involved with practices like meditation and prayer and a broad array of experiences. The origin of this work derives from evolutionary theories about religion and the brain that tie directly into sexuality. The books on this list greatly helped to provide the foundation for the connection between spirituality and sexuality, opening up all kinds of avenues for exploration, including where human morals, societies, political systems, and religions come from with respect to the human mind.
I loved this book because it clarified a fundamental concept about how our minds evolved through sexual selection. This idea is strongly connected to my own research, which aims to understand the evolutionary basis of religious and spiritual experiences and how they are connected to sexuality.
By understanding how sexual selection works, we can explore the intricate relationship between sexuality and spirituality.
Evolutionary psychologist geoffrey Miller shows the evolutionary power of sexual choice, and the reason why our ancestors became attracted not only to pretty faces and healthy bodies, but to minds that were witty, articulate, generous, and conscious.
I have been exploring the relationship between the brain and religious/spiritual phenomena (a field known as neurotheology) for the past 30 years. My neuroimaging research has helped uncover the brain processes involved with practices like meditation and prayer and a broad array of experiences. The origin of this work derives from evolutionary theories about religion and the brain that tie directly into sexuality. The books on this list greatly helped to provide the foundation for the connection between spirituality and sexuality, opening up all kinds of avenues for exploration, including where human morals, societies, political systems, and religions come from with respect to the human mind.
Although more academic, I loved this book because it provided a crucial connection between religion and sexuality. How and why do religions treat sexuality in their own unique ways? This book explores such questions and helped me to see how religion shapes our views about sexuality and vice versa.
This much-needed volume draws on a wide range of resources and some of the freshest talent in the field to examine debates about theology and sexuality. Material is drawn from a variety of ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary texts to provide readers with a broad perspective on the issues discussed.
I have been exploring the relationship between the brain and religious/spiritual phenomena (a field known as neurotheology) for the past 30 years. My neuroimaging research has helped uncover the brain processes involved with practices like meditation and prayer and a broad array of experiences. The origin of this work derives from evolutionary theories about religion and the brain that tie directly into sexuality. The books on this list greatly helped to provide the foundation for the connection between spirituality and sexuality, opening up all kinds of avenues for exploration, including where human morals, societies, political systems, and religions come from with respect to the human mind.
Although it is an old book, I loved it because it shows how religions appear to have arisen through worship of the male sex organ—the phallus. Phallic symbols abound in religions, and seeing this relationship helped me to finalize some of my ideas about the overall relationship between sex, God, and the brain.
In this controversial book, Clifford Howard explores the connections between sex, religion, and mythology. Howard argues that many ancient religions, including those of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, were rooted in phallic worship and fertility rites. While some may find his theories offensive or outlandish, Howard's work provides a thought-provoking perspective on the history of religion.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States,…
I love learning about how the world we know came to be the way it is. That’s another way of saying I love history. But not the dry, boring history we all remember from school. I want to know more about the entrepreneurial risk-takers, eccentric inventors, and strange circumstances that somehow shaped the world we know today. I want to be fascinated. What’s more, I want to laugh and be entertained while I’m reading and learning. I want every page to reward my attention with some amazing fact or a hearty laugh. That’s what the books on my list do. I hope you love them as much as I have!
Roach does for science what Bryson does for travel and history. She brings her subjects to life with a unique blend of humor, history, and good old-fashioned firsthand detective work. To provide readers a (ahem!) deeper understanding of the physiology of human intercourse for this intriguing look into the science of sex, Roach even talks her hesitant husband into doing the deed while researchers monitor the proceedings via a magnetic imaging scanner!
I may not be ready to go that far for my readers but I appreciate Roach’s gumption to do it for hers. Between Roach’s courage to probe every aspect of her subject and deft ability to relate her findings with wit and insight, I found Bonk to be nearly as enjoyable as the topic it explores.
In Bonk, the best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and insight on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Why doesn't Viagra help women-or, for that matter, pandas? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Mary Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm-two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth-can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to make the bedroom a more satisfying place.
I was the little girl who always wanted to be at church, who felt compelled to tell people about the goodness of God, but because my religious communities did not allow women to be church leaders, I never imagined this was a path I could pursue. As an undergraduate, I was captured by the academic study of the Bible and could not imagine doing anything else with my life. Now, for the past 20+ years, I have been teaching the Bible in academic and ecclesial settings and have become one of many good scholars who are making a case that the Christian God fully values men and women.
This magisterial book opened my eyes to the connections between desire and God. It also showed me that experience matters for Christian theology; it is, after all, a faith that values human reality.
From the first time I read it until now, Coakley remains one of my theological heroes.
God, Sexuality and the Self is a new venture in systematic theology. Sarah Coakley invites the reader to re-conceive the relation of sexual desire and the desire for God and - through the lens of prayer practice - to chart the intrinsic connection of this relation to a theology of the Trinity. The goal is to integrate the demanding ascetical undertaking of prayer with the recovery of lost and neglected materials from the tradition and thus to reanimate doctrinal reflection both imaginatively and spiritually. What emerges is a vision of human longing for the triune God which is both edgy…
As a young Christian woman passionate about understanding how to serve God and others, I received mixed messages about what I could do in the world because I am female. One of my college professors encouraged me to get my PhD and return as the first female faculty member in their Department of Bible and Theology. Another professor said if I taught theology at the college level, I would be sinning, violating I Timothy 2:12, where the Apostle Paul commands women not to teach men but to learn in silence. Continuing my study in seminary, I was dissatisfied by both liberal and conservative theologians writing on sex and gender differences.
Susannah Cornwall is a leading scholar of intersex and Christian theology. She writes in the Anglican tradition.
This is one of her earlier books, which brings intersex experiences into conversation with the Bible, disability theologies, and LGBTQ theological perspectives. Cornwall's writings are essential for those willing to read beyond conservative Christian authors.
Mainstream Christian theology has valued the integrity of the body and the goodness of God reflected in creation. However, it has also asserted the complementarity of "normal" male and female physiology. Sex and Uncertainty in the Body of Christ offers the first systematic theology of the intersexed body.
The book analyzes the theological implications of physical intersex conditions and their medical treatment. The medical assumption of what constitutes male and female bodies is shown to raise essential questions about the meaning of incarnation and bodiliness. The book argues for a theology that speaks to stigmatized and marginal bodies, examining the…
I’m a professor of modern European history. But before that, my first loves were Star Wars, heavy metal, and comic books. When I started my degree, it only made sense to combine my love of popular culture with my academic interest in the Soviet Bloc states. Cultural history and the history of everyday life, examining the world through cars, comics, film, food, music, or whatever, provide us with a lens through which to see how people understood themselves and came to terms with the society around them, and for my work, to understand how those living under dictatorship resisted and carved out their own niche within a police state.
This is another book that drew me in with the title. I appreciated how McLellan fought the stereotype, advanced by some of her academic peers, of sexual repressiveness in East Germany. Though public discussions of sexuality were tightly controlled by the state, McLellan deftly shows that East Germany experienced a sexual revolution of its own.
Maybe not a revolution as loud and proud as in the West, challenging gender norms and sexual identities, but divorce rates soared as did birth rates outside marriage, nudism became a state-sanctioned activity, and erotica became increasingly available to the public and found in private collections.
McLellan’s narrative is fascinating, illuminating, and at times humorous, drawing on interviews, magazine publications, heterosexual and queer photography collections, films, and state-sponsored information guides and handbooks.
In the aftermath of the reunification of Germany one former dissident recalled nostalgically that under the East German regime 'we had more sex and we had more to laugh about'. Love in the Time of Communism is a fascinating history of the GDR's forgotten sexual revolution and its limits. Josie McLellan shows that under communism divorce rates soared, abortion become commonplace and the rate of births outside marriage was amongst the highest in Europe. Nudism went from ban to state-sponsored boom, and erotica became common currency in both the official economy and the black market. Public discussion of sexuality was,…
I’ve always been a thinker, asking big questions and playing around with crazy ideas. That’s why I’ve been fascinated by the Bible since I was fourteen, reading it cover-to-cover multiple times and studying it academically for—approaching four decades now. It’s a classic for a reason! At first, I read it because I became a Christian, and it’s part of the package, but within a short time, I was hooked. I was especially interested in the tough parts, the bits I didn’t like or couldn’t make sense of. They were invitations to explore, think, and learn. It never ceases to surprise me with new ideas and inspirational insights.
It turns out that the “God hates fags” folk are wrong (and not simply unkind). So often, modern debates in churches on homosexuality assume that one either (I) believes the Bible and rejects same-sex relationships as sinful or (II) rejects the Bible to embrace the rainbow.
What I love about this carefully argued book from a NT scholar is that he throws a spanner in the works and makes us think again. (And, dude, a wee bit of thought could go a long way in these poisonous waters.) Brownson argues that the teachings of the Bible do not, contrary to popular opinion, exclude same-sex relationships.
I found his clear and careful examination of all the “troublesome texts” and how we’ve misunderstood them to be enlightening and helpful.
Grapples conscientiously with biblical texts at the heart of the church's debate over same-sex relationships
This thought-provoking book by James Brownson develops a broad, cross-cultural sexual ethic from Scripture, locates current debates over homosexuality in that wider context, and explores why the Bible speaks the way it does about same-sex relationships.
Fairly presenting both sides in this polarized debate — "traditional" and "revisionist" — Brownson conscientiously analyzes all of the pertinent biblical texts and helpfully identifies "stuck points" in the ongoing debate. In the process, he explores key concepts that inform our understanding of the biblical texts, including patriarchy, complementarity,…
I inherited an offbeat sense of humor from my mother, who encouraged me to create stories about outrageous subjects, like cats doing “people things.” I’m grateful to have made a living writing about such things, as well as observations about my own humorous experiences in essays, calendars, and books. I’ve always looked to other funny creatives for inspiration, and the books on my list reflect some of my favorites.
Chelsea is the cool girl I want to be best friends with, even though she intimidates the bejeezus out of me. I’ve always been a people pleaser, so I get a kick out of living vicariously through her foul mouth and “screw it” attitude toward most things.
She’s whip-smart, witty, and unafraid—a combination that sends me into fits of laughter and wonder. These essays evoke everything from childhood nostalgia to complete discomfort. Plus, I like vodka, too.
When Chelsea Handler needs to get a few things off her chest, she appeals to a higher power,vodka. This mini edition abridgement of her bestselling book, Chelsea mines her past for stories that are outrageous and one of a kind. Whether she is convincing her third-grade class that she's play Goldie Hawn's daughter in an upcoming film or pretending to honeymoon with her father to get an upgrade to first class, Chelsea has a knack for getting herself into outrageous situations.
