Lets Have A Truce essays

Lets Have A Truce essays After reading Lets Have a Truce by Andrew Sullivan, I see his point of view and what hes trying to get across to the American people. I know that my opinion on this paper is going to be different than that of the other students taking this class, but here is what I obtained. It seems that most people get side tracked at what is going on in the world while campaigning is going on. Republicans and Democrats alike get so caught up in picking the right one that we are oblivious to what is going on in the world. Terrorists are still a threat while the candidate you want or the candidate you dont want is running. Another point that Mr. Sullivan made is about how divided this Country has really become over the years. It seems that if the person that you didnt want in office is now the President, you criticize and complain about the job hes doing. What you should do, rather, is try to put your good attitude in front of your bad for the better of the Country. Its not going to make a difference how many times you call the President an idiot, its not going to change anything. I myself am a Democrat, and I know that Ive done my fair share of bashing on George W. Bush, but in the long run I just hope that the Country benefits from the time hes spent as our leader. I will even go as far as saying that I respect his determination of trying to win the war on terrorism. But, I do not respect the fact that we have been in this war for so long and WHAT are we trying to accomplish here? As far as Im concerned our goal in Iraq is the wrong one. We want oil. Iraq isnt even the leading country with oil, so w hy are we there? What we need is a Republican candidate and a Democrat candidate working side by side to accomplish more than what has been done in the past. Differences aside, I believe it would be beneficial. The main point that Sullivan made i...

Explanation and Chart of Ser Versus Estar

Explanation and Chart of Ser Versus Estar There are few things more confusing for beginning Spanish students than learning the differences between ser and estar. After all, they both mean to be in English. Differences Between Ser and Estar One way to think of the differences between ser and estar  is to think of ser as the passive verb and estar as the active one. (The terms arent being used in a grammatical sense here.) Ser tells you what something is, the nature of its being, while estar refers more to what something does. You might use soy (the first-person present of ser, meaning I am) to explain who or what you are, but youd use estoy (the first-person present of estar) to tell what you are being or doing. For example, you might say, Estoy enfermo for I am sick. That would indicate that you are sick at the moment. But it doesnt tell anyone what you are. Now if you were to say, Soy enfermo, that would have a different meaning entirely. That would refer to who you are, to the nature of your being. We might translate that as I am a sick person or I am sickly. Note similar differences in these examples: Estoy cansado. (I am tired.) Soy cansado. (I am a tired person. My nature is to be tired)Estoy feliz. (Im happy now.) Soy feliz. (I am happy by nature. I am a happy person.)Est callada. (Shes being quiet.) Es callada. (Shes introverted. Shes naturally a quiet person.)No estoy lista. (Im not ready.) No soy lista. (Im not a quick thinker.) Another Approach to Ser vs. Estar Another way of thinking about the two verbs is to think of ser as being roughly equivalent to equals. Another approach is that estar often refers to a temporary condition, while ser frequently refers to a permanent condition. But there are exceptions. Among the major exceptions to the above way of thinking is that ser is used in expressions of time, such as Son las dos de la tarde for Its 2 p.m. Also, we use estar to indicate someone has died- quite a permanent condition: Est muerto, he is dead. Along that line, estar is used to indicate location. Estoy en casa. (I am at home.) But, soy de Mà ©xico. (I am from Mexico.) Ser, however, is used for the location of events: La boda es en Nuevo Hampshire. (The wedding is in New Hampshire.) There are also a few idiomatic expressions that simply need to be learned: La manzana es verde. (The apple is green.) La manzana est verde. (The apple is unripe.) Est muy bien la comida. (The meal tastes very good). Note that sometimes estar is often modified by an adverb such as bien rather than an adjective: Estoy bien. (Im fine.) Although rare, there are a few situations where you can use either ser or estar. A married man  describing his marital status could say either Soy casado or Estoy casado. He might be more likely to use soy because he considers being married as part of his identity, although he might use estoy to indicate that he had been married recently. Present Conjugation of Ser and Estar Both ser and estar are irregularly conjugated. Heres a chart of the indicative present tense: Pronombre Ser Estar Yo soy estoy Tà º eres ests Él, ella, usted es est Nosotros somos estamos Vosotros sois estis Ellos, ellas, ustedes son estn Sample Sentences Susana es atenta y con buena comunicacià ³n. (Susana is thoughtful with good communication skills. Ser is used with a personal quality.)Susana est atenta a la situacià ³n de su amiga. (Susana is attentive to her friends situation. Estar is being used to characterize behavior.)Roberto es nervioso como mi hermano. (Roberto is as nervous of a person as my brother is. Ser is used here for describing what kind of person someone is.)Roberto est tan nervioso como mi hermano. (Robert is as nervous as my brother is now. Estar is used for an emotional state that is independent of personal qualities.) Quick Takeaways Ser and estar are the two verbs most frequently used as the equivalent of the English to be.Ser typically is used in describing the nature of someone or something.Estar typically is used in referring to a state of being that isnt necessarily innate.

José Donoso, The Garden Next Door Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Josà © Donoso, The Garden Next Door - Essay Example Some took the opportunity to recreate themselves; others became lost. Donoso explores the themes of exile and identity through these characters, particularly Julio and Gloria Mendez, and their struggles physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Exile in a literal sense is experienced as a physical location. As refugees fled persecution from political opponents in South America, they relocated to unfamiliar places. Julio and Gloria Mendez, along with their son Patricio, moved to the small town of Sitges in Spain. They moved from a nice house with a garden of trees to a small, dirty apartment in a run-down little town. A resulting change in social status brought about a disruption of their identities as they were forced to move from a comfortable lifestyle to that of paupers. Patricio, who was young when his family relocated to Europe, grew into the identity of a European teenager and moved to Marrakech, far away from his parents and their friends who tried to hold on to their past and their culture. The stress imposed by living in a country not one’s own manifested itself emotionally and psychologically in the lives of Julio and Gloria. The two became alienated from each other as their marriage grew tired and their bickering led to alcohol and drug abuse. For Julio, this emotional exile manifests in that enables him to escape his dreary life, if only as a fantasy. One evening, early in the summer (which they are spending in Madrid at the apartment of a wealthy friend), Julio looks out the window into the neighbor’s lush garden. He is fascinated by the beautiful neighbor, and on this evening she is entertaining a few friends. As he watches, Julio is entranced by the palatial setting – the pool, the crystal, the candles, and the beautiful young couples drinking and dancing. â€Å"Suddenly the radiant magic spell of the world outside subdues and replaces my poor reality,†is how Julio describes his fixation as he watches their

HRM cast study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

HRM cast study - Essay Example One of the aspects that will hinder the successful delivery of Ralph’s strategy is his father’s influence on management of the business. As seen from his management of the company, William always likes his ideas implemented. From the information provided, Ralph fears that his father might object the strategy. Putting into consideration the powerful position he holds, that of the chair to the company, William’s objection of the strategy will be effective on the level of its success. Another area that might hinder the delivery of this strategy is the role of the staff in the formulation of the strategy. A successful strategy should be drawn from the many decisions made by staff members over a period of time (Epstein 2004, p.24). Once compiled, this strategy will reflect the views of the staff. Considering that it is the same staffs that will be expected to implement it, the level of success of such a strategy will be expected to be high should they be involved in strategy formulation. This is not the case, however, with the strategy adopted by Random Alloys. The managing director, without incorporating all staff members, formulated the strategy. As indicated by the members of staff in their remarks in the questionnaires, there is a feeling among staff members that they are not included in any changes made in the company. The staff are only included when the changes are happening. Lack of a clear flow of information within the company can also hinder the level of success of its delivery (Alston & Bryson 2013, p.145). Currently, Random Alloys lacks a defined formula through which information is communicated to members of staff. This leaves staff members looking for information they need from only those they know in the various offices. Lack of clarity on who gathers and provides information within the company will translate to misunderstandings during the implementation of the

Paul Tillich Response to Modern Criticism Essay Example for Free

Paul Tillich Response to Modern Criticism Essay The later part of 20th century witness a renewed question of empiricism in philosophy of religion. The question is concerned with what patterns a religious reasoning and religious language should take in determining the existence of God, the belief in God, the reality of a good God and the existence of evil. The approach is championed by logical positivism based on verification principles of ascertain meaning only by sense experience. The Modern Empiricism as discussed in this paper covers the period of tale end of 1500 AD to the end of 1800 AD, that is 16-19 century. This course explores the themes of Paul Tillichs philosophical theology, with special attention to his analysis of meaning and its apparent loss in modern society. The course will also evaluate Tillichs response to the problem of meaninglessness and his effort to interpret the Christian message. WHAT IS EMPIRICISM? According to John Scott Gordon Marshall, empiricism, in philosophy, is â€Å"the attitude that beliefs are to be accepted and acted upon only if they first have been confirmed by actual experience†. This broad definition accords with the derivation of the name from the Greek word empeiria, meaning â€Å"experience. † Primarily, and in its psychological application, the term signifies the theory that the phenomena of consciousness are simply the product of sensuous experience, i. e. of sensations variously associated and arranged (Andrew M. Colman: 2003:242). It is thus distinguished from Nativism or Innatism. Secondarily, and in its logical (epistemological) usage, it designates the theory that all human knowledge is derived exclusively from experience, the latter term meaning, either explicitly or implicitly, external sense-percepts and internal representations and inferences exclusive of any superorganic (immaterial) intellectual factor. Empiricism is thus opposed to the claims of authority, intuition, imaginative conjecture, and abstract, theoretical, or systematic reasoning as sources of reliable belief. Its most fundamental antithesis is with the latter (i. e., with Rationalism, also called intellectualism or apriorism). Forms of Empiricism According to Catholic Encyclopedia empiricism appears in the history of philosophy in three principal forms: (1) Materialism, (2) Sensism, and (3) Positivism. a. Materialism: Materialism in its crudest shape was taught by the ancient atomists (Democritus, Leucippus, Epicurus, Lucretius), who, reducing the sum of all reality to atoms and motion, taught that experience, whereof they held knowledge to be constituted, is generated by images reflected from material objects through the sensory organs into the soul. The soul, a mere complexus of the finest atoms, perceives not the objects but their effluent images. With modern materialists (Helvetius, dHolbach, Diderot, Feuerbach, Moleschott, Buchner, Vogt, etc. ), knowledge is accounted for either by cerebral secretion or by motion. b. Sensism: All materialists are of course sensists. Though the converse is not the case, nevertheless, by denying any essential difference between sensations and ideas (intellectual states), sensism logically involves materialism. Sensism, which is found with Empedocles and Protagoras amongst the ancients, was given its first systematic form by Locke (d. 1704), though Bacon (d. 1626) and Hobbes (d. 1679) had prepared the data. Locke derives all simple ideas from external experience (sensations), all compound ideas (modes, substances, relations) from internal experience (reflection). Substance and cause are simply associations of subjective phenomena; universal ideas are mere mental figments. Locke admits the existence, though he denies the demonstrability, in man of an immaterial and immortal principle, the soul. Berkeley (d. 1753), accepting the teaching of Locke that ideas are only transfigured sensations, subjectivizes not only the sensible or secondary qualities of matter as his predecessor had done, but also the primary qualities which Locke held to be objective. Berkeley denies the objective basis of universal ideas and indeed of the whole material universe. The reality of things he places in their being perceived and this perceivedness is effected in the mind by God, not by the object or subject. He still retains the substance-reality of the human soul and of spirits generally, God included. Hume (d. 1776) agrees with his two empiricist predecessors in teaching that the mind knows only its own subjective organic impressions, whereof ideas are but the images. The supersensible is therefore unknowable; the principle of causality is resolved into a mere feeling of successiveness of phenomena; its necessity is reduced to a subjective feeling resulting from uniform association experienced in consciousness, and the spiritual essence or substantial being of the soul is dissipated into a series of conscious states. Lockes sensism was taken up by Condillac (d. 1780), who eliminated entirely the subjective factor (Lockes reflection) and sought to explain all cognitional states by a mere mechanical, passive transformation of external sensations. The French sensist retained the spiritual soul, but his followers disposed of it as Hume had done with the Berkeleian soul relic. The Herbartians confound the image with the idea, nor does Wundt make a clear distinction between primitive concepts (empirische Begriffe, representations of individual objects) and the image: Denken ist Phantasieren in Begriffen und Phantasierenist Denken in Bildern. c. Positivism: Positivists, following Comte (d.1857), do not deny the supersensible; they declare it unknowable; the one source of cognition, they claim, is sense-experience, experiment, and induction from phenomena. John Stuart Mill (d. 1870), following Hume, reduces all knowledge to series of conscious states linked by empirical associations and enlarged by inductive processes. The mind has no certitude of an external world, but only of a permanent possibility of sensations and antecedent and anticipated feelings. Spencer (d. 1903) makes all knowledge relative. The actual existence of things is their persistence in consciousness. Consciousness contains only subjective feelings. The relative supposes the absolute, but the latter is unknowable to us; it is the object of faith and religion (Agnosticism). All things, mind included, have resulted from a cosmical process of mechanical evolution wherein they are still involved; hence all concepts and principles are in a continuous flux. d. Classical Empiricism: Classical empiricism is characterised by a rejection of innate, in-born knowledge or concepts. John Locke, well known as an empiricist, wrote of the mind being a tabula rasa, a â€Å"blank slate†, when we enter the world. At birth we know nothing; it is only subsequently that the mind is furnished with information by experience. e. Radical Empiricism: This was advanced by William James, an American pragmatist philosopher and psychologist, based on the pragmatic theory of truth and the principle of pure experience, which contends that the relations between things are at least as real as the things themselves, that their function is real, and that no hidden substrata are necessary to account for the various clashes and coherences of the world. James summarized the theory as consisting of (1) a postulate: â€Å"The only things that shall be debatable among philosophers shall be things definable in terms drawn from experience†; (2) a factual statement: â€Å"The relations between things, conjunctive as well as disjunctive, are just as much matters of direct particular experience, neither more so nor less so, than the things themselves,† which serves to distinguish radical empiricism from the empiricism of the Scottish philosopher David Hume; and (3) a generalized conclusion: â€Å"The parts of experience hold together from next to next by relations that are themselves parts of experience. The directly apprehended universe needs, in short, no extraneous transempirical connective support, but possesses in its own right a concatenated or continuous structure. † The result of this theory of knowledge is a metaphysics that refutes the rationalist belief in a being that transcends experience, which gives unity to the world. According to James there is no logical connection between radical empiricism and pragmatism. One may reject radical empiricism and continue to be a pragmatist. Jamess studies in radical empiricism were published posthumously as Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912). According to him, it is only if it is possible to empirically test a claim that the claim has meaning. As all of our information comes from our senses, it is impossible for us to talk about that which we have not experienced. Statements that are not tied to our experiences are therefore meaningless. This principle, which was associated with a now unpopular position called logical positivism, renders religious and ethical claims literally nonsensical. No observations could confirm religious or ethical claims, therefore those claims are meaningless. Radical empiricism thus requires the abandonment of religious and ethical discourse and belief. f. Moderate Empiricism: More moderate empiricists, however, allow that there may be some cases in which the senses do not ground our knowledge, but hold that these are exceptions to a general rule. Truths such as â€Å"there are no four-sided triangles† and â€Å"7+5=12† need not be investigated in order to be known, but all significant, interesting knowledge, the empiricist claims, comes to us from experience. This more moderate empiricism strikes many as more plausible than its radical alternative. BRIEF HISTORY OF EMPIRICISM The first Empiricists in Western philosophy were the Sophists, who rejected such Rationalist speculation about the world as a whole and took man and society to be the proper objects of philosophical inquiry. Invoking skeptical arguments to undermine the claims of pure reason, they posed a challenge that invited the reaction that comprised Platos philosophy Plato and to a lesser extent Aristotle were both Rationalists. But Aristotles successors in the ancient Greek schools of Stoicism and Epicureanism advanced an explicitly Empiricist account of the formation of mans concepts or ideas. For the Stoics the human mind is at birth a clean slate, which comes to be stocked with ideas by the sensory impingement of the material world upon it. Yet they also held that there are some ideas or beliefs, the â€Å"common notions,† present to the minds of all men; and these soon came to be conceived in a nonempirical way. The Empiricism of the Epicureans, however, was more pronounced and consistent. For them mans concepts are memory images, the mental residues of previous sense experience; and knowledge is as empirical as the ideas of which it is composed. In medieval philosophy, most medieval philosophers after St. took an Empiricist position, at least about concepts, even if they recognized much substantial but nonempirical knowledge. The standard formulation of this age was: â€Å"There is nothing in the intellect that was not previously in the senses. † Thus St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) altogether rejected innate ideas. Both soul and body participate in perception, and all of mans ideas are abstracted by the intellect from what is given to the senses. Mans ideas of unseen things, like God and angels, are derived by analogy from the seen. The 13th-century scientist Roger Bacon emphasized empirical knowledge of the natural world and anticipated the polymath Renaissance philosopher of science Francis Bacon (1561–1626) in preferring observation to deductive reasoning as a source of knowledge. The Empiricism of the 14th-century Franciscan Nominalist William of Ockham was more systematic. All knowledge of what exists in nature, he held, comes from the senses, though there is, to be sure, â€Å"abstractive knowledge† of necessary truths; but this is hypothetical and does not imply the existence of anything. His more extreme followers extended his line of reasoning toward a radical Empiricism, in which causation is not a rationally intelligible connection but merely an observed regular sequence. In modern philosophy, the earlier and unsystematically speculative phases of Renaissance philosophy, the claims of Aristotelian logic to yield substantial knowledge were attacked by several 16th-century logicians, and, in the same century, the role of observation was stressed. One mildly skeptical Christian thinker, Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655), advanced a deliberate revival of the empirical doctrines of Epicurus. But the most important defender of Empiricism was Francis Bacon, who, though he did not deny the existence of a priori knowledge, claimed that, in effect, the only knowledge that is worth having (as contributing to the relief of mans estate) is empirically based knowledge of the natural world, which should be pursued by the systematic, indeed almost mechanical, arrangement of the findings of observation and is best undertaken in the cooperative and impersonal style of modern scientific research. Bacon was, indeed, the first to formulate the principles of scientific induction. A Materialist and Nominalist, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), combined an extreme Empiricism about concepts, which he saw as the outcome of material impacts on the bodily senses, with an extreme Rationalism about knowledge, of which, like Plato, he took geometry to be the paradigm. For him all genuine knowledge is a priori, a matter of rigorous deduction from definitions. The senses provide ideas; but all knowledge comes from â€Å"reckoning,† from deductive calculations carried out on the names that the thinker has assigned to them. True knowledge is thus not merely a priori but also analytic. Yet it all concerns material and sensible existences: everything that exists is a body. The most elaborate and influential presentation of Empiricism of this period was made by John Locke (1632–1704), an early Enlightenment philosopher, in the first two books of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). All knowledge, he held, comes from sensation or from reflection, by which he meant the introspective awareness of the workings of mans own mind. Locke confused the two issues of the nature of concepts and the justification of beliefs. His Book I, though titled â€Å"Innate Ideas,† is largely devoted to refuting innate knowledge. And even so, he later admitted that much substantial knowledge—in particular, that of mathematics and morals—is a priori. He argued that infants know nothing; that if men are said to know innately what they are capable of coming to know, then all knowledge is, trivially, innate; and that no beliefs whatever are universally accepted. Locke was more consistent about the empirical character of all mans concepts and displayed in detail the ways in which simple ideas can be combined to form complex ideas of what has not in fact been experienced. One group of dubiously empirical concepts—those of unity, existence, and number—he took to be derived both from sensation and from reflection. But he allowed one a priori concept—that of substance—which the mind adds, seemingly from its own resources, to its conception of any regularly associated group of perceptible qualities. Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753), a theistic Idealist and opponent of Materialism, applied Lockes Empiricism about concepts to refute Lockes account of mans knowledge of the external world. He drew and embraced the inevitable conclusion that material things are simply collections of perceived ideas, a position that ultimately leads to phenomenalism; i. e. , to the view that reality is nothing but sensations. He accounted for the continuity and orderliness of the world by supposing that its reality is upheld in the perceptions of an unsleeping God. The theory of spiritual substance involved in Berkeleys position seems to be vulnerable, however, to most of the same objections as those that he posed against Locke. The Scottish Skeptical philosopher David Hume (1711–76) fully elaborated Lockes Empiricism and used it reductively to argue that there can be no more to mans concepts of body, mind, and causal connection than what occurs in the experiences that he has of them. For Hume all necessary truth is formal or conceptual, determined by the relations of identity and exclusion that hold between ideas. Voltaire imported Lockes philosophy into France; and its Empiricism, in a very stark form, is the basis of sensationalism, in which all of the constituents of human mental life are analyzed in terms of sensations alone. A genuinely original and clarifying attempt to resolve the controversy between Empiricists and their opponents was made in the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), drawing upon Leibniz and Hume. With the dictum that, although all knowledge begins with experience it does not all arise from experience, he established a clear distinction between the innate and the a priori. He held that there are a priori concepts, or categories—substance and cause being the most important—and also substantial or synthetic a priori truths. Although not derived from experience, the latter apply to experience. A priori concepts and propositions do not relate to a reality that transcends experience; they reflect, instead, the minds way of organizing the amorphous mass of sense impressions that flow in upon it. Lockean Empiricism prevailed in 19th-century England until the turn to Hegel occurred in the last quarter of the century. To be sure, the Scottish philosophers who followed Hume but avoided his Skeptical conclusions insisted that man does have substantial a priori knowledge. But the philosophy of John Stuart Mill (1806–73), logician, economist, and Utilitarian moralist, is thoroughly Empiricist. He held that all knowledge worth having, including mathematics, is empirical. The apparent necessity of mathematics, according to Mill, is the result of the unique massiveness of its empirical confirmation. All real knowledge for Mill is inductive and empirical; and deduction is sterile. On similar lines, the philosopher of evolution Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) offered another explanation of the apparent necessity of some of mans beliefs: they are the well-attested empirical beliefs of his ancestors from whom he has inherited them, an evolutionary revival of the doctrine of innateness. Two important mathematicians and pioneers in the philosophy of modern physics, W. K. Clifford (1845–79) and Karl Pearson (1857–1936), defended radically Empiricist philosophies of science, anticipating the Logical Empiricism of the 20th century. In contemporary philosophy The most influential Empiricist of the 20th century was the great British philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), who at first was Lockean in his theory of knowledge—admitting both synthetic a priori knowledge and concepts of unobservable entities. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), the influential pioneer of the school of Linguistic Analysis, convinced Russell that the truths of logic and mathematics are analytic; and Russell then came to believe, with Hume, that the task of philosophy is to analyze all concepts in terms of what can be directly present to the senses. In this spirit, he tried to show that even the concepts of formal logic are ultimately empirical though the experience that supplies them may be introspective instead of sensory. Doctrines developed through the collaboration of Russell and Wittgenstein yielded the Logical Positivism of the German philosopher Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) and of the Vienna Circle, a discussion group in which that philosophy was worked out. The Empiricism of Logical Positivism is especially evident in its restatement of the fundamental thesis of Humes philosophy in a form known as â€Å"the verification principle,† which recognizes as meaningful and synthetic only those sentences that are in principle verifiable by reference to sense experience. BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF PAUL TILLICK Paul Johannes Tillich was born at Starzeddel in the province of Brandenburg, Germany, on Aug. 20, 1886. He spent his early years at Schonfliess, where his father was a Lutheran clergyman. He studied at the University of Berlin, received his doctorate from the University of Breslau in 1911, and earned his degree in theology at the University of Halle in 1912, the year he became a clergyman in the Lutheran church. During World War I Tillich served as a military chaplain. From 1919 until 1933 he taught at the universities of Berlin, Marburg, Dresden, Leipzig, and Frankfurt. His opposition to the Nazis cost him his job in 1933, and he went to the United States to become professor of philosophical theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He remained there until 1955, when he became a professor at Harvard University. From 1962 until his death on Oct. 22, 1965, he taught at the University of Chicagos divinity school. The brilliance and complexity of Tillichs thought were expressed in his lectures, sermons, and books. The most difficult of his works is ‘Systematic Theology, on which he began working in 1925. It was published in three volumes from 1951 to 1963. His books of sermons, beginning with ‘The Shaking of the Foundations (1948), present his thoughts more clearly for a wider audience. Other works include ‘The Protestant Era (1948), ‘The Courage to Be (1952), ‘Dynamics of Faith (1957), and ‘The Eternal Now (1963). Like Spinoza, he was a â€Å"God-intoxicated man† who wanted to help his fellow human beings recapture a relevant and dynamic religious faith. EMPIRICAL ARGUMENT 1. The Existentialism of God Empiricists believe that experience is of primary importance in giving us knowledge of the world. Whatever we learn, according to them, we learn through perception. Knowledge without experience, with the possible exception of trivial semantic and logical truths, is impossible. A more moderate form of Empiricism is that of the substantive Empiricists, who are unconvinced by attempts that have been made to interpret formal concepts empirically and who therefore concede that formal concepts are a priori but deny that categorial concepts, such as â€Å"substance,† â€Å"cause,† and â€Å"God,† are a priori. In this view, formal concepts would be no longer semantical, pertaining to the relation of words to things; they would be, instead, merely descriptive or purely syntactical, pertaining to the relations between ideas. On this basis â€Å"God,† would not be an entity alongside other entities but a device for arranging a mans factual beliefs about the world; the concept â€Å"God† would thus play a structural and not an informative role. The Response of Tillich: Tillich was a central figure in the intellectual life of his time both in Germany and the United States. It is generally held that the 20th century has been marked by a widespread breakdown of traditional Christian convictions about God, morality, and the meaning of human existence in general. In assessing Tillich’s role in relation to this development, some critics have regarded him as the last major spokesman for a vanishing Christian culture, a systematic thinker who sought to demonstrate the reasonableness of the Christian faith to modern skeptics. Others have viewed him as a forerunner of the contemporary cultural revolution, whose discussions of the meaning of God and faith served themselves to undermine traditional beliefs. Tillich himself believed he was a â€Å"boundary man,† standing between the old and the new, between a heritage imbued with a sense of the sacred and the secular orientation of the new age. He asserted that his vocation was to mediate between the concerns voiced by faith and the imperatives of a questioning reason, thus helping to heal the ruptures threatening to destroy Western civilization. He believed that from the beginning life had prepared him for such a role, and his long career as a theologian, educator, and writer was devoted to this task with single-minded energy. Theological systems, developed by Paul Tillich, were based on the concept of symbol. In it Tillich, a Rationalist asserts that â€Å"there are concepts not derived from or correlated with experienceable features of the world, such as â€Å"cause,† â€Å"identity,† or â€Å"perfect circle,† and that these concepts are a priori (Latin: â€Å"from the former†) in the traditional sense of being part of the minds innate or natural equipment—as opposed to being a posteriori (Latin: â€Å"from the latter†), or grounded in the experience of facts. On the other hand, a Rationalist theory of knowledge holds that there are beliefs that are a priori (i. e. , that depend for their justification upon thought alone), such as the belief that everything must have a sufficient reason or that a process cannot exist by itself but must occur within some substance. Such beliefs can arise either from intellectual intuition, the direct apprehension of self-evident truth, or from purely deductive reasoning. His Protestant Principle: Apparently developed from the insight he had gained at Halle as a norm in analyses of religion and culture, the meaning of history, and contemporary social problems. Tillich’s love of freedom, however, did not make him forget his boyhood commitment to a rich and satisfying religious tradition; and how to enjoy the freedom to explore life without sacrificing the essentials of a meaningful tradition became his early and lifelong preoccupation. It appears as a major theme in his theological work: the relation of heteronomy to autonomy and their possible synthesis in theonomy. Heteronomy (alien rule) is the cultural and spiritual condition when traditional norms and values become rigid, external demands threatening to destroy individual freedom. Autonomy (self-rule) is the inevitable and justified revolt against such oppression, which nevertheless entails the temptation to reject all norms and values. Theonomy (divine rule) envisions a situation in which norms and values express the convictions and commitments of free individuals in a free society. These three conditions Tillich saw as the basic dynamisms of both personal and social life. In his search for solution concerning the meaning of human existence, Tillich, using his most widely read books, The Courage to Be and Dynamics of Faith, argued that the deepest concern of humans drives them into confrontation with a reality that transcends their own finite existence. Tillich’s discussion of the human situation in these books shows a profound grasp of the problems brought to light by modern psychoanalysis and existentialist philosophy. The publication of his Systematic Theology made available the results of a lifetime of thought. The most novel feature of this work is its â€Å"method of correlation,† which makes theology a dialogue relating questions asked by man’s probing reason to answers given in revelatory experience and received in faith—theonomy’s answers to autonomy’s questions. The dialogue of Systematic Theology is in five parts, each an intrinsic element in the system as a whole: questions about the powers and limits of man’s reason prepare him for answers given in revelation; questions about the nature of being lead to answers revealing God as the ground of being; questions about the meaning of existence are answered by the New Being made manifest in Jesus Christ; questions about the ambiguities of human experience point to answers revealing the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life process; and questions about human destiny and the meaning of history find their answers in the vision of the Kingdom of God. The Being of God According to Leonard F. Wheat, the statements of Paul Tillich such as: God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him, God is the symbol for God and The God of theism is dead seem to represent him as an â€Å"atheistic theologian† as some critics put it, but a closer look at Tillichs position makes him appear less controversial. He argued that Tillich’s oft-repeated assertion that God is not a being, but being-itself. is the only possible definition of God because all other options turn God into a Supreme Being that is something less than God. If God is not being-itself, he is, in fact, in as much bondage as the old Greek gods were in bondage to fate a King indeed but only a puppet-king. Thus, his motivation for defining God as being-itself is to protect the transcendence of God from idolatrous misconceptions, not to cover his atheism with silly word tricks. Much the same goes for his talk of symbols. Tillichs remark that God is the symbol for God lead many to conclude that he regarded God as merely symbolic (i.e. , not real), says Wheat. However, Tillich was simply conveying the fact that human language can never fully grasp the ineffable glory of God, since our superlatives become diminutives when applied to God. However, Tillich argued that language is capable of pointing to the reality God in a symbolic fashion, although it is never identical with that reality. Thus, symbols are truly glorious things, because they allow us to describe the indescribable, opening up levels of reality that are closed to literal language. With this in mind, his talk of the God above the God of theism makes more sense. The God of theism is the symbolically-conceived God that is forever transcended by the True God. Far from being a nonsensical phrase designed to trick people into believing, this is Tillichs way of affirming both the validity of theological speech and the complete otherness of God. Thus, while the form of Tillichs doctrine of God is certainly unconventional, I think its substance lies comfortably within the Christian tradition. REFERENCES Andrew M. Colman: Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, Oxford University Press, New York, 2003. Bacon, Francis, Viscount Saint Baron of Verulam: The Nature of Things. Anthony M. Quinton, University of Oxford, 1950 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, (1739) in Encyclop? dia Britannica. Encoyclopaedia Britannica Student and Home Edition. Chicago: Encyclop? dia Britannica, 2010. Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason, in Encyclop? dia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Student and Home Edition. Chicago: Encyclop? dia Britannica, 2010. John Locke: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, vol. 2 Oxford University, England 1690 John Scott Gordon Marsall: Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, Oxford University Press, New York, 2005. John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, (1843) in Encyclop? dia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Student and Home Edition. Chicago: Encyclop? dia Britannica, 2010. Radical Empiricism: Encyclop? dia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Student and Home Edition. Chicago: Encyclop? dia Britannica, 2010. W. H. Walsh, Reason and Experience (1947); and H. H. Price, Thinking and Experience, 2nd ed. (1969) in Encyclop? dia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Student and Home Edition. Chicago: Encyclop? dia Britannica, 2010. Internet Sources Empiricism: retrieved from http://www. theoryofknowledge. info/sources-of-knowledge/ empiricism/ http://www2. warwick. ac. uk/fac/soc/philosophy/people/faculty/longworth/keyideasrationalismempiricism. pdf Catholic Encyclopedia: Empiricism. Retrieved from http://www. newadvent. org/advert/99001 f. htm Leonard F. Whea: (March 09, 2006) Was Paul Tillich an Atheist? retrieved from http://woauthority. blogspot. com/2006/03/was-paul-tillich-atheist. html on 24/10/2012.

A Flag for Canada Essay -- essays research papers

A Flag for Canada   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Canadian Government defines a flag as â€Å"a symbol to identify people belonging to a group.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Canada has been a country for many years but has always lacked one thing. Up until 1965, we did not have our own official flag. The first thoughts of Canada adopting its own flag started in 1925. A Privacy Council committee looked at the possibilities but their work was never completed. This meant that the Red Ensign and the Union Jack would continue to represent Canada. In 1946 a committee was again formed to determine a national flag. Over 2,600 designs were submitted but yet again, no flag was picked.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In 1964, the Canadian government decided that they wanted a flag chosen before the ...

Does Religion Cause Wars?

There is a conventional belief among many individuals that religion is the main cause of the present and past wars inflicting torment within the world. However, many humans fail to see past that belief; they are unable to understand that religion is just a small factor amongst the many contributing to the cause of wars. In fact, religion is merely a tool and an excuse used to hide the need for power and sins of the human nature. Among these factors, it may be the misinterpretation of religious teachings and the differing ideals of many individuals.Unfortunately, these factors are often overlooked as most people view this issue with a simplistic mindset. The idea of religion is often able to bring peace and harmony within the world. In saying this though, religion may be twisted and exploited by individuals for either economic or political reasons, mostly with the blind ambition for power and control. Such people have used religion as a tool and an excuse in order to achieve their own personal desires. This is apparent with the previous Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein.The Iraqi president had aimed to persuade the Jihadists to start a holy war against the United States and British forces, who were seeking to dismiss him for his position. Saddam Hussein had publicly voiced his call toward the Jihadists in an Iraqi state television, where he encouraged them through his statement, â€Å"jihad is a duty in confronting them†¦ Those who are martyred will be rewarded in heaven. Seize the opportunity, my brothers† (Saddam Hussein). It is evident; however, that Saddam Hussein did not really view the war he intended to begin as a religious war.Instead he planned to use religion as an excuse for his own political gains, which was to maintain his position as president of Iraq. In conclusion, religion is not the sole reason of the previous and present wars within the world, it is also the people themselves who exploit and twist religion itself. Many individuals of ten find it difficult to give religion a precise definition. It is within their ability to understand the concept of religion yet are unable to provide an accurate definition of the word. Therefore, many may have their own interpretations of what religion truly is.This notion is similar to how individuals may have varying views in regards to the religious teachings of their religion. Sadly, in some cases, people may actually misinterpret the teachings of their religion, which can often lead to disastrous outcomes. Such consequences are evident with the infamous belief of ‘Jihad'. The concept of Jihad means â€Å"holy war† or â€Å"the holy struggle†. It also teaches that there shall be no use of violence â€Å"except in the case of defensive wars, wars which are waged to punish a tyrant, or those which are meant to uphold freedom† (Concept of Jihad, pg 2).Unfortunately, there are others who misunderstand the concept of Jihad and instead believe it to be co mplete submission to Allah, which further means they are â€Å"prepared to die (martyrdom) in the course of this submission†. Such cases usually result in terrorism and suicide bombings, where individuals believe that by forcing others into their religion, by death, will please Allah. The most known example of these occurrences is the September 11 suicide bombings where approximately two planes crashed into the twin towers in New York, USA.This event was not necessarily a war but was instead an attack part of the already ongoing war between the United States and the Islamic, terrorist group, Al-Qaeda. From this event it is evident that the members of Al-Qaeda had misinterpreted the concept of Jihad and instead violated the religion by using violence for unnecessary reasons. It can be concluded that even though religion may play a role in the cause of wars, it is not necessarily the only factor to blame but also the misinterpretation of the religious teachings of religions.It is not solely religion itself that spur the gruesome wars that have occurred throughout history, but also the varying ideals of the religious worshipers. Unfortunately, in some cases there is a chance that the ideals of certain individuals may have a larger influence on them than their own religious beliefs. Such terms are often confused with each other; however, there is a prominent difference between the two. Beliefs are set in stone already, statements or truths that humans have decided to place their confidence in.On the other hand, ideals are personal concepts of perfection; they have no boundaries unlike beliefs. When the ideals of humans have a larger power over them, the results often have a high chance of becoming cataclysmic. Such results are evident within Nazi Germany during the Second World War, after the 1930s. Germany had been under the dictatorship of a tyrant known as Adolf Hitler. Hitler was infamously known for his cruelty and mass murder towards the Jews in Germa ny at that time.His reason for his actions was that by protecting himself against the Jews, he was â€Å"defending the handiwork of God† (Mein Kampf, pg 60). Despite his religious reason, he had a deeper hatred towards the Jews and desired an ideal world, where there was only a majority of pure descendants of the â€Å"Aryan† race. The Aryan race involved humans with certain features such as blonde hair and blue eyes. Hitler believed that the Jews were contaminating his ideal race as they offered the â€Å"most striking contrast to the Aryan† (Mein Kampf, pg 259), thus leading to his revulsion towards the Jews.It is unmistakable that the beliefs of Hitler were not the only cause of his actions but also his extreme ideals, which had lead to the carnage he had incited. Therefore, it is not only religion itself that cause wars but also the differing ideals of humans. Religion is often unfairly blamed as the direct cause of wars throughout the world. It is often use d as a scapegoat as many people cannot look past that simplistic view. Many individuals have never considered the possibilities of other factors contributing to such wars.A few of these factors are the exploitation of religion for the personal gains of individuals, the misinterpretation of religious teachings and the differing ideals of many humans. From these factors, it is evident that it is not just religion itself that causes the wars, but the people themselves also who actually wage these atrocities. Adolf Hitler (1998). Mein Kampf. United States: Houghton Mifflin Company PDF file viewed at – http://www. greatwar. nl/books/meinkampf/meinkampf. pdf Last accessed 26/2/12 A. Ezzati. 1986). The Concept Of Martyrdom In Islam . Available: http://www. al-islam. org/al-serat/concept-ezzati. htm. Last accessed 26/2/12. Coel Hellier. (2011). Nazi racial ideology was religious, creationist and opposed to Darwinism. Available: http://coelsblog. wordpress. com/2011/11/08/nazi-racial- ideology-was-religious-creationist-and-opposed-to-darwinism/#sec5. Last accessed 26/2/12. Dr. John Kelsay. (1999). THE RETURN OF THE RELIGIOUS WAR . Available: http://rinr. fsu. edu/fallwinter99/features/religiouswar. tml. Last accessed 26/2/12. Hadrat Mirza Gulam Ahmad. (1995). Jihad. The true Islamic concept. Available: http://www. alislam. org/library/articles/Jihad-Brochure. pdf. Last accessed 26/2/12 Jim Lehrer. (2003). Saddam Hussein Calls for Jihad. Available: http://www. pbs. org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june03/saddam_4-1. html. Last accessed 26/2/12 M. Amir Ali. (Unknown). Islam, Jihad, and Terrorism. Available: http://www. aboutjihad. com/terrorism/islam_jihad_terrorism. php. Last accessed 26/2/12.

Explication Essay: Paradise Lost

Paige Gardner Julia Naviaux ENG 230: 003 February 1, 2013 Explication Essay: Paradise Lost- Lines 80-134 The debate of free will versus predestination is a very common, prevalent topic in any Q&A session or even religious sermon. The controversial issue of whether God has predestined His people for salvation or if God has given people the freedom in making their independent choice to do so is a question theologians will never solve. Many church congregations have lost members due to the church’s opinion on this topic.John Milton, English poet, used his epic poem Paradise Lost to present the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve in a way people of his time, seventeenth century, had never been exposed to. Throughout the story, we are enthralled with the revengeful attributes of Satan and the loving, forgiving, and even punishable attributes of God. Milton doesn’t present the character God until Book 3. In lines 80-134, Milton presents his audience with the idea of predestinat ion and free will from God’s own point of view through a conversation between his characters: God and the Son.God expresses to His son the difference of knowing what will happen and predestining what will happen. In Paradise Lost, Milton uses the literary elements of repetition and sentence structure to reveal the truth of free will to his readers. Milton uses repetition to demonstrate to his readers the difference between knowing what will happen versus having a predetermined, influential stance on something. Milton uses the possessive pronoun ‘their’ to stress the importance on the matter of the people possessing something or something being a part of their possessions.For example, â€Å"their maker, or their making, or their fate† illustrates this concept in the epic poem (Milton, Book III, line 113). Here, Milton expresses how if people have free will they can no longer claim these things because they are a part of the human race and therefore possess human nature. From this, people have a maker who made them into the people they are today. Therefore, people are made with free will and cannot blame their maker for their own fate because people do not determine it alone. These three facets, in a way, intertwine with one another.People cannot blame one without the other two or vice versa. People’s fate is part of their making and people’s making is part of their maker, hence the possessive pronoun ‘their’. Milton says predestination â€Å"over-rul’d their will† (Milton, Book III, lines 114-115). Now the freedom is taken away. Everything is already determined and no choices will need to be made. In lines 116-118, Milton gives his returning argument against predestination by saying, â€Å"they themselves decreed their own revolt, not I: if I foreknew, foreknowledge had no influence on their fault†.Milton states here his stance on free will. God may know what will happen, but he is not i nfluencing people’s decisions. He allows people to make them on our own. As well as repetition, Milton also uses sentence structure to relay to the readers the theme of his epic poem. In book III, lines 129-134, Milton uses three different colons in one sentence to make the reader realize that one point leads to the next. Colons in grammar are used to demonstrate lists.Milton does this by stating, â€Å"The first sort by their own suggestion fell, self-tempted, self-depraved: Man falls deceived by the other first: Man therefore shall find grace, the other none: in mercy and justice both, through Heaven and Earth, so shall my glory excel, but Mercy first and last shall brightest shine. †. Milton concludes this conversation between God and the Son with these lines. Milton utilizes the colons to express that these events would not happen without the preceding event occurring. Without sin or impurity, mankind is in no need of grace or mercy. Through these imperfections, th e Lord is praised by his people.Humans are corrupt as people and tempted by each other. Satan, in the Garden of Eden, tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam; mankind was self-tempted. Man fell because of his fellow man. Through mercy and grace, the Lord is glorified and his mercy outshines everything. By God offering his grace and mercy to mankind, He reveals His giving nature. He is offering mankind grace and mercy to be saved, but He not forcing it upon them. Through the free will God gave us, people can worship him with sincerity and genuine love. Sincerity people would not have if he predestined them. Milton is driving this point home in this section of his epic poem.God’s love and mercy is everlasting, and Milton says it will prevail through everything. The debate between free will and predestination will always be present. Regardless how many theologians research it and search scriptures for answers, this debate will always exist. There are some things the Lord does not revea l to His people so they are able to step out in faith and trust in Him. By using repetition and sentence structure, Milton expresses the view of free will from God’s perspective. Through Paradise Lost, Milton shows us a glimpse of what the wonderful Gospel of Christ truly is.

Madness In Shakespeares Hamlet Essays - Characters In Hamlet

Madness In Shakespeares Hamlet Essays - Characters In Hamlet Madness in Shakespeare's Hamlet Madness may be ?mental incapacity caused by an unmentionable injury.? Such wounds often are not easily perceived but may be revealed in time of stress. Hamlet?s question, ?have you a daughter(Act II. Sc2 182) Polonius about the Prince?s emotional state. What is hidden will surely be told to Cloudius by his adviser. Laertes? search for revenge is sharper proof that madness in degrees of publicity causes harm to the observers. Claudius promise ?no wind of blame?(Act IV, Sc.7,66) once Laertes kills Hamlet; perhaps this is what the uncle has sought all along for himself. Ophelia has a unique, very powerful form of madness; she seems caught as a ?baker?s daughter,"(Act IV, Sc. 5, 42) between memories of her father and Hamlet who ought have spokedn to her of events on ?Valentine?s day."(Act IV, Sc 5, 48) She is doubly hexed and the madness she has infects the whole court. Once a person?s mental state has been studied in public, there is no telling the injuries which may affect the viewers. Ever since the death of King Hamlet young Hamlet has been what appeared to be in a state of madness. In a discussion between Hamlet and Polonius Hamlet questions Polonius by asking him ?have you a daughter.?(Act II, Sc.2, 182) In this discussion Hamlet shows antic behavior towards Polonius by mocking him when Hamlet would usually show great respect for him because of he age and heis high position in the court. This sudden question to Polonius has caused Polonius to believe that Hamlet has a form of love-sickness and that Polonius is sure to tell Claudius of his condition. Hamlet also accuses Polonius of being the ?Jephthah, judge of Israel,?(Act II,Sc.2, 399) meaning that Polonius would put his country in front of his daughter. Hamlet has now convinced Polonius that he is in a state of madness because he knows that Polonius cares for his daughter very much and would never put her second. By convincing Polonius that he has no consideration for the well-being of others, Hamlet is then hoping that Polonius will tell the court of his emotional madness. Unlike Hamlet, Laertes has developed a different kind of madness, a madness that is controlled by revenge. When Laertes is talking to Claudius, Laertes gets so much revenge building up inside him against Hamlet that Laertes now wants to ?cut his throat.?(Act 4,Sc.7,125) Laertes? behavior is caused by the sudden death of his father who was without a due ceremony, and his sister who has been driven mad, has contributed to the madness that is being built up inside Laertes. This madness grows even stronger when Claudius promises ?no wind of blame?(Act IV.Sc7,66) when Laertes kills Hamlet. With Claudius being the puppet holder and Laertes being the puppet, Claudius turns Laertes into a savage beast to avenge for his fathers' death; perhaps this is what the Claudius has planned all along. Laertes has a form of madness that is escalating because Laertes knows that he has the capabilities and motivation to act on what he believes on. Ophelia has a unique form of madness unlike Hamlet?s and Laertes? because it a mixture of love and hate. An example of hate is when she sings about a ?baker's daughter.?(Act IV,Sc.5,42) Ophelia is referring to the way her father used to treat her before the tragic incident of his death. A love within her madness is when she speaks about the events on ?Valentine?s day.?(Act IV, Sc.5,48) When Ophelia speaks about Valentines day she is referring to the events of romance that she was denied. Ophelia?s madness is brought on by her lack of being able to demonstrate any maturity in trying to cope with her losses and in return can only inflict her madness on the court. By stating that Hamlet could have controlled his fraudulent madness, he then had the capability of controlling his conscious mind into acting traditional. Where Laertes was very influential by others and had no real control over the mental state he was developing by the sway of Claudius. Ophelia was the most innocent victim of all because she was the side affect of everyone else?s actions and had no idea that she

The Chaldean Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II

The Chaldean Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II Name: Nabà »-kudurri-uÅŸur in Akkadian (means Nabà » protect my child) or NebuchadnezzarImportant Dates: r. 605-562 B.C.Occupation: Monarch Claim to Fame Destroyed the temple of Solomon and started the Babylonian Captivity of the Hebrews. King Nebuchadnezzar II was the son of Nabopolassar (Belesys, to Hellenistic writers), who came from the Marduk-worshiping Kaldu tribes living in the extreme southern part of Babylonia. Nabopolassar started the Chaldean period (626-539 B.C.) by restoring Babylonian independence, following the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 605. Nebuchadnezzar was the most famous and important king of the Second Babylonian (or Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean) Empire, which fell to the Persian great king Cyrus the Great in 539 B.C. Accomplishments of Nebuchadnezzar II Nebuchadnezzar restored old religious monuments and improved canals, as other Babylonian kings had done. He was the first Babylonian king to rule Egypt, and controlled an empire that extended to Lydia, but his best-known accomplishment was his palace - a place used for administrative, religious, ceremonial, as well as residential purposes especially the legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Babylon, too, lies in a plain; and the circuit of its wall is three hundred and eighty-five stadia. The thickness of its wall is thirty-two feet; the height thereof between the towers is fifty cubits;9 that of the towers is sixty ​cubits; and the passage on top of the wall is such that four-horse chariots can easily pass one another; and it is on this account that this and the hanging garden are called one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Strabo Geography Book XVI, Chapter 1There were in it also several artificial rocks, that had the resemblance of mountains; with nurseries of all sorts of plants, and a kind of hanging garden suspended in the air by a most admirable contrivance. This was to gratify his wife, who, being brought op in Media, among the hills, and in the fresh air, found relief from such a prospect.Thus writes Berosus [c. 280 B.C.] respecting the king....Josephus In Answer to Appion Book II Building Projects The Hanging Gardens were on a terrace supported by brick arches. Nebuchadnezzars building projects included surrounding his capital city with a double wall 10-miles long with an elaborate entry called the Ishtar Gate. 3] On the top, along the edges of the wall, they built houses of a single room, facing each other, with space enough between to drive a four-horse chariot. There are a hundred gates in the circuit of the wall, all of bronze, with posts and lintels of the same.Herodotus The Histories Book I.179.3These walls are the citys outer armor; within them there is another encircling wall, nearly as strong as the other, but narrower.Herodotus The Histories Book I.181.1 He also built a port on the Persian Gulf. Conquests Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish in 605. In 597, he captured Jerusalem, deposed King Jehoiakim, and put Zedekiah on the throne, instead. Many leading Hebrew families were exiled at this time. Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Cimmerians and Scythians [see Tribes of the Steppes] and then turned west, again, conquering Western Syria and destroying Jerusalem, including the Temple of Solomon, in 586. He put down a rebellion under Zedekiah, whom he had installed, and exiled more Hebrew families. He took the inhabitants of Jerusalem prisoner and brought them to Babylon, for which reason this period in Biblical history is referred to as the Babylonian captivity. Also Known As: Nebuchadnezzar the GreatAlternate Spellings: Nabu-kudurri-usur, Nebuchadrezzar, Nabuchodonosor Additional Resources Sources for Nebuchadnezzar include various books of the Bible (e.g., Ezekial and Daniel) and Berosus (Hellenistic Babylonian writer). His many building projects provide archaeological record, including written accounts of his accomplishments in the area of honoring the gods with temple maintenance. Official lists provide mainly dry, detailed chronicle. Sources Seat of Kingship/A Wonder to Behold: The Palace as Construct in the Ancient near East, by Irene J. Winter; Ars Orientalis Vol. 23, Pre-Modern Islamic Palaces (1993), pp. 27-55.Nebuchadnezzar King of Justice, by W. G. Lambert; Iraq Vol. 27, No. 1 (Spring, 1965), pp. 1-1Images of Nebuchadnezzar: the emergence of a ​legend,, by Ronald Herbert Sack

Project Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Project - Research Paper Example Boxall and Purcell portend that in addition to industrial relations, human relations includes other human resource aspects such as employee development, employee remuneration and employee safety among others. This makes industrial relations a crucial aspect of management for the current managers. This is because it recognises the importance of human relations in the current business environment. The book asserts that human resource management came into existence due to the impact of the situational variables. These variables led to alteration of the management principles that guided employee behaviour. The universal outlook of dealing with employees had to be abandoned in favour of recognition of the workforce as an asset of any organisation, dynamic in thought and functioning. The changes in the political, socio-economic and technological environment has led to the rise in the management challenges related to globalisation, quality evolution, diversity management, employee ,empowerment and corporate reorganisation. The paper asserts that the impact of the challenges depends on the mode in which the management handles financial resources, machines and workforce. The paper addresses the need for the organisational managers to develop organisational strategies that utilises and develops the human resources in the improvement of the business activities. The proposed strategy guides on the impacts of employee welfare with emphasis on the importance of providing greater opportunities for knowledge sharing and learning as the pillars of motivation. This delineates the traditional aspects of human resource management to the current ones. The findings of Kersley et al survey affirm that human resource management functions deals with the management of people. It includes all the practices that enable proper utilisation of the human personnel in various stages of the employment cycle