{"title":"David K O'connor","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"god-evil-and-design-book-david-k-o-connor-9781405157711","title":"God, Evil and Design","description":"Although vast and complex, the universe is orderly in many ways, and conditions at its beginning were right for the eventual evolution of life on this planet. But with life there is death, and with sentient life there is great pain and suffering, often with no apparent justification or purpose. Taking these things together, is it reasonable to conclude that the universe was brought about by God? Moreover, does the magnitude of seemingly pointless suffering square with the idea that God exists, or is it good reason to think there is no God? These questions come up for many people, not just religious believers, and are examined in this engaging and thought-provoking book.  Starting out with no pre-disposition to theism, atheism, or agnosticism, God, Evil, and Design takes up these questions in order to see where an impartial investigation leads. To achieve impartiality, the reader is invited to simulate ignorance insofar as his or her own religious preference is concerned. With this approach, God, Evil, and Design provides both a fresh look at important and controversial issues in philosophy and an excellent introduction to the contemporary debates surrounding them. Lively and non-technical, this book will be accessible to anyone with an interest in these topics.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49599279497489,"sku":"GOR003692985","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1405157712.jpg?v=1750794220"},{"product_id":"plato-s-bedroom-ancient-wisdom-and-modern-love-book-david-oconnor-9781587316524","title":"Plato`s Bedroom – Ancient Wisdom and Modern Love","description":"Plato’s Bedroom is a book for people who want to be better at falling in love and being in love, with all the ecstasies and dangers erotic life can bring. It is also an inviting book for readers who are intellectually playful and up for a challenge, written with verve, and full of stories thoughtful persons will find to be mirrors of their own erotic selves. Drawing on Greek myth, Plato, Shakespeare, and a wide range of modern literature and movies, the book gets Aphrodite talking with the young lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and lets us listen in on Woody Allen arguing with Othello. The author’s account of how we seek, fear, avoid, and sometimes destroy love, is astonishingly fresh and engaging. Throughout its pages, one hears the voice of an engaging teacher and the conversation of a wise friend. In short, this is a work of practical philosophy, not scholarship, though only a scholar could have written it. It invites readers into a deep appreciation of timeless ancient wisdom through reflecting on their own powers for love and their susceptibility to desire.   A distinctive feature of the book is the interweaving of two guiding threads in Plato’s conception of erotic experience: androgyny, that is, the integration of masculine and feminine; and creativity, in both a sexual and a spiritual sense. These two aspects of Plato’s erotic vision, androgyny and creativity, lead readers to a sense of grateful wonder and sacred awe at our own erotic powers. Our natural experience of romantic love, articulated so well by Plato, points toward a more explicitly religious interpretation of love’s commitments and pleasures. The author brings out some surprising and delightful connections between Plato’s pagan eroticism and the Adam and Eve story, Jesus’s teaching in the Gospels, and Catholic views about marriage.  Plato’s Bedroom will be the first book to tap into the perennial curiosity about love and sex through the enduring interest of the general reader in philosophical reflection on contemporary culture.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51417355190545,"sku":"CIN1587316528G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53260275056913,"sku":"CIN1587316528VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1587316528.jpg?v=1750719190"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-david-k-o-connor.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}