Juveniles The Criminal Justice System - 1777 Words

Juveniles in the Criminal Justice System Introduction In the United States, juveniles have always known to cause trouble in the community. In recent times, many individuals have the perception that juvenile crimes are on the rise and that these offenders are getting younger. Charging juveniles as adult has always been a debate, because of their thinking process and protecting their rights. There are many cases that regard juveniles that have changed the policies of this nation. Also for those juveniles that are convicted as adults, there are many challenges that correctional officials have when housing them. Waivering juveniles to adult court has many factors to it and whether or not juveniles age thirteen and fourteen should be†¦show more content†¦In 2003, the Missouri Supreme Court reviewed his case and lowered his sentence to life imprisonment since they believed that it would be cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a juvenile to death under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment. When the state of Missouri appealed this ruling, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear this case. This hearing overturned a 1989 decision (Stanford v. Kentucky) in which it was suitable for sentence sixteen and seventeen years old to capital punishment (Roper v. Simmons, 2005). Graham v. Florida (2010) In 2003, Terrace Graham, who was sixteen at the time, was arrested for armed burglary with assault or battery and attempted armed-robbery. Graham pleaded guilty to both charges under a plea agreement. He wrote a letter to the trial court expressing his remorse and promises to turn his life around. The trial court agreed to his plea agreement and sentenced him to 3 years of probation, the first year being in a county jail. Graham was released on June 25, 2004. In December 2004, Graham was again arrested for armed burglary and attempted armed robbery. Since he violated probation, the trial court sentenced him to life imprisonment for the armed burglary and fifteen years for the attempted robbery. Graham, then filed a motion because he believed that his sentence violated his Eighth Amendment. The First District Court of Appeal of Florida did not think

Moral Destruction In The Great Gatsby Essay Example For Students

Moral Destruction In The Great Gatsby Essay The Great Gatsby: The Destruction of MoralsIn The Great Gatsby, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald shows the destruction of morals in society. The characters in this novel, all lose their morals in attempt to find their desired place in the social world. They trade their beliefs for the hope of being acceptance. Myrtle believes she can scorn her true social class in an attempt to be accepted into Tons, Jay Gatsby who bases his whole life on buying love with wealth, and Daisy, who instead of marrying the man she truly loves, marries someone with wealth. The romance of money lures the characters in The Great Gatsby into surrendering their values, but in the end, the streets paved with gold led to a dead end (Vogue, December 1999). The first example of a character whose morals are destroyed is Myrtle. Myrtles attempt to enter into the group to which the Buchanans belong is doomed to fail. She enters the affair with Tom, hoping to adopt his way of life and be accepted into his class to escape from her own. Her class is that of the middle class. Her husband, Wilson, owns a gas station, making an honest living and trying his best to succeed in a world where everything revolves around material possessions. With her involvement in Toms class, she only becomes vulgar and corrupt like the rich. She loses all sense of morality by hurting others in her futile attempt to join the ranks of Toms social class. In doing so, she is leaving behind her husband who loves her. Myrtle believes he is no longer good enough for her. I married him because I thought he was a gentleman. She said finally. I thought he knew something about breeding but he wasnt fit enough to lick my shoe.' (Fitzgerald, 39). With the hope of being accepted into an upper social class, Myrtles morals and prior beliefs are gone, being replaced by the false impression that by betraying her loving husband, this new social world will embrace her. A second character that falls victim to the destruction of their morals, is Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is the supposed hero of this novel who believes that the riches he traded for honor can buy love and happiness and bring back the past(Vogue, December 1999). He too abandons his morals; illegally earning the money that he believes will win back the heart of his lost love Daisy. When they had a love affair long ago, she wouldnt marry him because of his financial standing. The details of his business are sketchy, when asked he usually ignores the question. Tom though, after some investigating finds the true nature of his profession. I found out what your drug stores were. He turned to us and spoke rapidly. He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. Thats one of his little stunts, I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him and I wasnt far wrong.' (Fitzgerald, 141). Gatsby makes it his lifes mission t o become rich, thinking this will be sure to win Daisy over. Daisy is married though, and his lifes ambition of having Daisy fails. Gatsby surrenders his morals by breaking the law to earn the riches he thinks will buy her love but it is done for nothing, Daisy was not won over with his new wealth. A final character that succumbs to the lure of wealth and discards their morals is Daisy. Daisy is involved in a marriage with a man she is unsure of her love for. Tom is unfaithful, and has been involved in several affairs, yet Daisy remains married to him. Long ago when she was involved with Gatsby, she had ended the relationship because he was not of her social standing and was therefore unfit to marry her. Instead she married the wealthy Tom Buchanan. In June she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago with more pomp and circumstance then Louisville ever knew before. He came down with a hundred people in four private cars and hired a whole floor of the Seelbach Hotel, and the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. (Fitzgerald, 80)Right from the beginning Daisy had already had second thoughts about the marriage, getting completely drunk the night before and crying, but she went through with the marriage regardless. By not following her heart and marrying her true love, she abandoned her morals and married a man based on his wealth. In F. Scott Fitzgeralds novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows how the morals of society have been destroyed. The different characters each through their actions betray their morals to achieve a different status in society. Myrtle, a middle class, married woman, becomes immoral by having an affair in an attempt to join an upper social class. Jay Gatsby, a wealthy young man who has earned his wealth through breaking the law as an effort to win back a lost love. And Finally Daisy, a woman who marries a man only because of his enormous wealth instead of a poorer man she truly loves. In the end, giving up their morals is useless, they each fail at achieving the status they desire. .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 , .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 .postImageUrl , .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 , .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284:hover , .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284:visited , .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284:active { border:0!important; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284:active , .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284 .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u691cf5293301223149424288a5e6f284:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: A Nobel Writing Style Reviewed EssayCategory: English

Concept of God According to Descartes Essay Example

Concept of God According to Descartes Essay The concept of God according to Descartes and the so called antitheist position of Descartes Philomon Kani   Ã‚   Rene Descartes is often credited with being the â€Å"Father of Modern Philosophy. † This title is justified due both to his break with the traditional Scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy prevalent at his time and to his development and promotion of the new, mechanistic sciences. His fundamental break with Scholastic philosophy was twofold. First, Descartes thought that the Scholastics’ method was prone to doubt given their reliance on sensation as the source for all knowledge. Second, he wanted to replace their final causal model of scientific explanation with the more modern, mechanistic model. Descartes attempted to address the former issue via his method of doubt. His basic strategy was to consider false any belief that falls prey to even the slightest doubt. This â€Å"hyperbolic doubt† then serves to clear the way for what Descartes considers to be an unprejudiced search for the truth. This clearing of his previously held beliefs then puts him at an epistemological ground-zero. From here Descartes sets out to find something that lies beyond all doubt. He eventually discovers that â€Å"I exist† is impossible to doubt and is, therefore, absolutely certain. It is from this point that Descartes proceeds to demonstrate God’s existence and that God cannot be a deceiver. This, in turn, serves to fix the certainty of everything that is clearly and distinctly understood and provides the epistemological foundation Descartes set out to find. Descartes was a rationalist philosopher. The rationalists wanted to prove everything by reason alone, because they thought that the senses were unreliable. The difference between analytic statements or synthetic statements was not yet clear at that moment. We will write a custom essay sample on Concept of God According to Descartes specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Concept of God According to Descartes specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Concept of God According to Descartes specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We think that God exists can only be proven by using both senses and reason, but Descartes proved the existence of God with reason alone. At the outset of the Third Meditation, Descartes tried to use this first truth as the paradigm for his general account of the possibilities for achieving human knowledge. In the cogito, awareness of myself, of thinking, and of existence are somehow combined in such a way as to result in an intuitive grasp of a truth that cannot be doubted. Perhaps we can find in other cases the same grounds for indubitable truth. But what is it? The answer lies in Descartess theory of ideas. Considered formally, as the content of my thinking activity, the ideas involved in the cogito are unusually clear and distinct. (Med. III) But ideas may also be considered objectively, as the mental representatives of things that really exist. According to a representative realist like Descartes, then, the connections among our ideas yield truth only when they correspond to the way the world really is. But it is not obvious that our clear and distinct ideas do correspond to the reality of things, since we suppose that there may be an omnipotent deceiver. In some measure, the reliability of our ideas may depend on the source from which they are derived. Descartes held that there are only three possibilities: all of our ideas are either adventitious (entering the mind from the outside world) or factitious (manufactured by the mind itself) or innate (inscribed on the mind by God). (Med. III) But I dont yet know that there is an outside world, and I can imagine almost anything, so everything depends on whether God exists and deceives me. The next step in the pursuit of knowledge, then, is to prove that God does indeed exist. Descartess starting point for such a proof is the principle that the cause of any idea must have at least as much reality as the content of the idea itself. But since my idea of God has an absolutely unlimited content, the cause of this idea must itself be infinite, and only the truly existing God is that. In other words, my idea of God cannot be either adventitious or factitious (since I could neither experience God directly nor discover the concept of perfection in myself), so it must be innately provided by God. Therefore, God exists. (Med. III) As a backup to this argument, Descartes offered a traditional version of the cosmological argument for Gods existence. From the cogito I know that I exist, and since I am not perfect in every way, I cannot have caused myself. So something else must have caused my existence, and no matter what that something is (my parents? ), we could ask what caused it to exist. The chain of causes must end eventually, and that will be with the ultimate, perfect, self-caused being, or God. As Antoine Arnauld pointed out in an Objection published along with the Meditations themselves, there is a problem with this reasoning. Since Descartes will use the existence (and veracity) of God to prove the reliability of clear and distinct ideas in Meditation Four, his use of clear and distinct ideas to prove the existence of God in Meditation Three is an example of circular reasoning. Descartes replied that his argument is not circular because intuitive reasoning in the proof of God as in the cogito—requires no further support in the moment of its conception. We must rely on a non-deceiving God only as the guarantor of veridical memory, when a demonstrative argument involves too many steps to be held in the mind at once. But this response is not entirely convincing. The problem is a significant one, since the proof of Gods existence is not only the first attempt to establish the reality of something outside the self but also the foundation for every further attempt to do so. If this proof fails, then Descartess hopes for human knowledge are severely curtailed, and we are stuck in solipsism, unable to be perfectly certain of anything more than our own existence as a thinking thing. With this reservation in mind, well continue through the Meditations, seeing how Descartes tried to dismantle his own reasons for doubt. The proof of Gods existence actually makes the hypothetical doubt of the First Meditation a little worse: I now know that there really is a being powerful enough to deceive me at every turn. But Descartes argued that since all perfections naturally go together, and since deception is invariably the product of imperfection, it follows that the truly omnipotent being has no reason or motive for deception. God does not deceive, and doubt of the deepest sort may be abandoned forever. (Med. IV) It follows that the simple natures and the truths of mathematics are now secure. In fact, Descartes maintained, I can now live in perfect confidence that my intellectual faculties, bestowed on me by a veracious God, are properly designed for the apprehension of truth. But this seems to imply too much: if I have a divinely-endowed capacity for discovering the truth, then why dont I always achieve it? The problem is not that I lack knowledge of some things; that only means that I am limited. Rather, the question is why I so often make mistakes, believing what is false despite my possession of God-given mental abilities. Descartess answer derives from an analysis of the nature of human cognition generally. Every mental act of judgment, Descartes held, is the product of two distinct faculties: the understanding, which merely observes or perceives, and the will, which assents to the belief in question. Considered separately, the understanding (although limited in scope) is adequate for human needs, since it comprehends completely everything for which it has clear and distinct ideas. Similarly, the will as an independent faculty is perfect, since it (like the will of God) is perfectly free in every respect. Thus, God has benevolently provided me with two faculties, neither of which is designed to produce error instead of true belief. Yet I do make mistakes, by misusing my free will to assent on occasions for which my understanding does not have clear and distinct ideas. (Med. IV) For Descartes, error is virtually a moral failing, the willful exercise of my powers of believing in excess of my ability to perceive the truth. To put it in simple term this is how Descartes proof about the existence of God unfolds: 1. I exist (Axiom). 2. I have in my mind the notion of a perfect being (Axiom, partly based on 1) 3. An imperfect being, like myself, cannot think up the notion of a perfect being (Axiom) 4. Therefore the notion of a perfect being must have originated from the perfect being himself (from 2 3)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   5. A perfect being would not be perfect if it did not exist (Axiom) 6. Therefore a perfect being must exist (from 4 5) Descartes proof about the existence of God has been criticized by many for its simplicity and on the grounds that not everyone has the idea of God in his mind. Even some Christians lack the idea of God. Descartes still defended his stand on the existence of God. But the funniest of all things to happen is the condemnation of Descartes work by the then Catholic Church. One can ascribe the condemnation to his break from the traditionalist scholastic Aristotelian philosophy but the widely accepted reason for his condemnation according to C. F. Fowler is that Descartes in his meditation has failed to prove the immortality of the Soul. Descartes argues that mind and body are really distinct in two places in the  Sixth Meditation. The first argument is that he has a clear and distinct understanding of the mind as a thinking, non-extended thing and of the body as an extended, non-thinking thing. So these respective ideas are clearly and distinctly understood to be opposite from one another and, therefore, each can be understood all by itself without the other. Two points should be mentioned here. First, Descartes’ claim that these perceptions are clear and distinct indicates that the mind cannot help but believe them true, and so they must be true for otherwise God would be a deceiver, which is impossible. So the premises of this argument are firmly rooted in his foundation for absolutely certain knowledge. Second, this indicates further that he knows that God can create mind and body in the way that they are being clearly and distinctly understood. Therefore, the mind can exist without the body and vice versa. On this account, the mind is an entirely immaterial thing without any extension in it whatsoever; and, conversely, the body is an entirely material thing without any thinking in it at all. After looking into the concept of God and Soul according to Descartes, it is important to ask the question is the concept of immortality really a Christian concept and is the condemnation of Descartes justified in any way by the Catholic Church. Many people think the Bible says we have an immortal soul destined, at death, for heaven, hell or purgatory. What does the Bible say? What happens to us after we die? Where are our loved ones who have passed on? Will we ever see them again? Everyone needs to know that life has purpose, that death isnt the permanent end of our existence. The most common Christian belief regarding the afterlife is that people possess souls and at death their consciousness in the form of that soul departs from the body and heads for heaven or hell. Most religions teach some form of life after death. The ancient Egyptians, for example, practiced elaborate ceremonies to prepare the pharaohs for their next life. They constructed massive pyramids and other elaborate tombs filled with luxuries the deceased were assumed to need in the hereafter. In some civilizations when a ruler died others who had accompanied and served him in his life were put to death so they could immediately serve him in the afterlife. Wives and other relatives, servants, sometimes even household pets joined him in death and a supposed entrance into a new life on the other side. Belief in the immortality of the soul was an important aspect of ancient thought espoused by the Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Plato, in Phaedo, presents Socrates explanation of death: Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the completion of this; when the soul exists in herself, and is released from the body and body is released from the soul, what is this but death? (Five Great Dialogues, Classics Club edition, 1969, p. 93). Socrates explained that the immortal soul, once freed from the body, is rewarded according to good deeds or punished for evil. Socrates lived ca. 470-399 B. C. , so his view of the soul predated Christianity. Plato (ca. 428-348 B. C. ) saw mans existence as divided into the material and spiritual, or Ideal, realms. Plato reasoned that the soul, being eternal, must have had a pre-existence in the ideal world where it learned about the eternal Ideals (William S. Sahakian, History of Philosophy, 1968, p. 56). In Platos reasoning, man is meant to attain goodness and return to the Ideal through the experiences of the transmigration of the soul. Thus secular philosophies sanction the idea of the immortal soul, even though the Bible does not. Believe it or not, Gods Word teaches something entirely different. History of a Controversial Teaching The doctrine of the immortal soul caused much controversy in the early Catholic Church. Origen (ca. 185-254) was the first person to attempt to organize Christian doctrine into a systematic theology. He was an admirer of Plato and believed in the immortality of the soul and that it would depart to an everlasting reward or everlasting punishment at death. In Origen De Principiis he wrote: The soul, having a substance and life of its own, shall after its departure from the world, be rewarded according to its deserts, being destined to obtain either an inheritance of eternal life and blessedness, if its actions shall have procured this for it, or to be delivered up to eternal fire and punishments, if the guilt of its crimes shall have brought it down to this (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, 1995, p. 240). Origen taught that human souls existed before the body but is imprisoned in the physical world as a form of punishment. Physical life, he reasoned, is a purification process to return humans to a spiritual state. Later Augustine (354-430) tackled the problem of the immortality of the soul and death. For Augustine death meant the destruction of the body, but the conscious soul would continue to live in either a blissful state with God or an agonizing state of separation from God. In The City of God he wrote that the soul is therefore called immortal, because in a sense, it does not cease to live and to feel; while the body is called mortal because it can be forsaken of all life, and cannot by itself live at all. The death, then, of the soul, takes place when God forsakes it, as the death of the body when the soul forsakes it (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2, 1995, p. 245. ) The influences of pagan Platonic philosophy on Origen and Augustine are profound. Richard Tarnas, in his best-seller The Passion of the Western Mind, points to this influence: It was Augustines formulation of Christian Platonism that was to permeate virtually all of medieval Christian thought in the West. So enthusiastic was the Christian integration of the Greek spirit that Socrates and Plato were frequently regarded as divinely inspired pre-Christian saints (1991, p. 103). Centuries later Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225-1274) crystallized the doctrine of the immortal soul in The Summa Theologica. He taught that the soul is a conscious intellect and will and cannot be destroyed. A few centuries later the leaders of the Protestant Reformation generally accepted these traditional views, so they became entrenched in traditional Prot estant teaching. The immortality of the soul is foundational in Western thought, both philosophical and religious. Belief in going to heaven or hell depends on it. But does the Bible teach that death is the separation of body and soul or that the soul is immortal? Hebrew Understanding of the Soul The Hebrew word translated soul in the Old Testament is nephesh, which simply means a breathing creature. Vines Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words defines nephesh as the essence of life, the act of breathing, taking breath The problem with the English term soul is that no actual equivalent of the term or the idea behind it is represented in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew system of thought does not include the combination or opposition of he body and soul which are really Greek and Latin in origin. The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible makes this comment on nephesh: The word soul in English, though it has to some extent naturalized the Hebrew idiom, frequently carries with it overtones, ultimately coming from philosophical Greek (Platonism) and from Orphism and Gnosticism which are absent in nephesh. In the Old Testamen t it never means the immortal soul, but it is essentially the life principle, or the living being, or the self as the subject of appetite, and emotion, occasionally of volition. That nephesh doesnt refer to an immortal soul can be seen in the way the word is used in the Old Testament. It is translated soul or being in reference to man in Genesis 2:7, but also to animals by being translated creature in Genesis 1:24. Nephesh is translated body in Leviticus 21:11 in reference to a human corpse. The Hebrew Scriptures state plainly that, rather than possess immortality, the soul can and does die. The soul [nephesh] who sins shall die (Ezekiel 18:4, 20). The Old Testament describes the dead as going to sheol, translated into English as hell, pit or grave. Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 describes sheol as a place of unconsciousness: For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished King David laments that death extinguishes a relationship with God. For in death there is no remembrance of You; in the grave who will give You thanks ? (Psalm 6:5). The immortal-soul concept isnt part of the Old Testament, but it began to make inroads into Jewish thought as Jews came in contact with Greek culture. In the first century the Jewish philosopher Philo taught a Platonic concept: The death of a man is the separation of his soul from his body (The Works of Philo, translated by C. D. Yonge, 1993, p. 37). Philo followed the Hellenistic view that the soul is freed upon death to an everlasting life of virtue or evil. In the New Testament the Greek word translated soul is psuche, which is also translated life.   Ã‚  Ã‚   In Psalm 16:10 David uses nephesh (soul) to claim that the Holy One, or Messiah, wouldnt be left in sheol, the grave. Peter quotes this verse in Acts 2:27, using the Greek psuche for the Hebrew nephesh (notice verses 25-31). Like nephesh, psuche refers to human souls (Acts 2:41) and for animals (it is translated life in the King James Version of Revelation 8:9 and 16:3). Jesus declared that God can destroy mans psuche, or soul (Matthew 10:28). If the Old Testament describes death as an unconscious state, how does the New Testament describe it? No one wrote more about this subject than the apostle Paul. He describes death as sleep (1 Corinthians 15:51-58; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Many people are surprised to find that the term immortal soul appears nowhere in the Bible. However, though the Scriptures do not speak of the soul as being immortal, they have much to say about immortality. For example: You know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him (1 John 3:15). Paul told the members of the congregation in Rome to seek immortality (Romans 2:5-7). He taught Christians at Corinth that they must be changed and put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51-55). Paul proclaimed that only God and His Son possess immortality (1 Timothy 6:12-16) and that eternal life is a gift from God (Romans 6:23). The most powerful words come from Jesus Himself: And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:40). True Origin of Immortal-soul Teaching Weve seen in this brief look at the supposedly immortal soul that the Bible teaches no such concept. The idea filtered into Western thought through Greek philosophy. Its origins are older than Athens, in fact as old as man. The concept of the immortal soul was introduced into mans thinking at the earliest beginnings of human history. God told the first human beings, Adam and Eve, that if they sinned they would die and return to the dust from which He had created them (Genesis 2:17; 3:19). Satan, the embodiment of evil, the powerful entity who opposes God, assured them they wouldnt die (verses 1-5). Satan slyly injected into Eves consciousness the notion that God was lying and that she and her husband would not die, thus ingraining the unscriptural teaching of the immortality of the soul into human thought. Satan has since deceived the world on this important understanding as well as many other biblical truths (Revelation 12:9). Much f the world, including millions of people in religions outside of traditional Christianity, are convinced they have—or are—immortal souls and hope they will go to a happy place or state of being immediately after they die. Soul/Nephesh According to Judaism The Hebrew word for soul, nephesh, does not mean what you say it does, if you want to use Judaica as an original sou rce. The foundation of Judaism, according to Judaism, is Kabbalah. The Kabbalistic meaning of nephesh/soul is that the one soul of the Creator that has been divided into many parts among mankind and awaits its reunification in the final correction. This is actually the root of our belief that all souls will be eternally okay, in the end. The Biblical Answer to Death Yet the Bible plainly teaches that the dead lie in the grave and know nothing, think no thoughts, have no emotions, possess no consciousness. Does this mean death, the cessation of life, is final, the end of everything? The Bible answers this question too. Although mankind is physical, subject to death, the good news is that God promises a resurrection to eternal life to everyone who repents, worships God and accepts Jesus as the Messiah and His sacrifice. The first resurrection to immortality will take place when Christ returns to establish Gods Kingdom on this earth. Later will come another resurrection—to physical life—for people who had never had a relationship with the Father and Jesus Christ. They, too, will gain the opportunity for immortality. The true final answer is not death but resurrection. From the above it is clear that the concept of immortality of Soul is actually not a Christian concept and there is no reference to it in the Holy Bible. Even if one does not want to rely too much on the above view of the Biblical verse, still one can say that immortality of Soul cannot be a Christian concept because according to Christian belief, the God is the Supreme commander and if our souls were immortal then there would not be any difference between the earthly human beings and the Divine God. And for human beings to be at par with the Supreme Commander is impossible. If one does not want to take this argument also then and stick to the belief that immortality of the soul is actually a Christian concept and Descartes has not proved it according to C. F. Fowler in his book, â€Å"Descartes on the human soul: philosophy and the demands of Christian doctrine,† from Descartes writing it is understood that the Soul is immaterial as against the body which is material. And if the Soul is immaterial then it cannot be put to death from this one can say that Descartes has proved the immortality of the Soul. So either way one can succeed in defending Descartes and say that the Catholic Church made a mistake by condemning Descartes writings.

Academic Essay Writing †Flies at a Picnic

Academic Essay Writing – Flies at a Picnic Academic essay writing does not have to be a struggle if you understand the ingredients and the process. You cant avoid them just like flies at a picnic, they buzz around you, disturbing your peace, and making you frustrated and a bit angry. Unlike flies, you cant swat them, spray them, or try to ignore them. You just have to bite the bullet and get them done. And one of the most frustrating parts about those essay assignments, is that they are required in every course, and you are graded on your writing skill along with the content you present. Here you will learn how to make your academic essay writing a little easier, with a process that works and some extra tips to help along the way. The Ingredients of All Essays Every time you set out to write an essay, you first have some questions to answer: 1. To you have a topic that is appropriate for the assignment? Sometimes the topic is assigned; sometimes, you have options within a broader topic area; and sometimes you have complete freedom to choose your own. Make sure that your topic fall within the parameters of the assignment. If you are supposed to write an essay on something related to the Civil War, for example, and it is to be no longer than 3 pages, you obviously are not going to cover all of the major battles of the War. Maybe you can pick one or two. 2. You must have a focus. Often this is called a thesis. So, why are you writing this essay? What is important about the topic? How would anyone else benefit from this information or opinion you are going to give? All academic essays must have a thesis, and that thesis must be provide in your introduction. 3. You must define your audience. Of course your audience is your instructor, but often essays are shared within a class, so assume that your audience is also your peers. 4. Your piece must reflect sound organization. How will you organize the information or points of view that you will present? Usually, this is accomplished by some type of outline or other graphic organizer. Find one that works for you and the topic and use it. 5. Does your topic require research? If so, you will need to plan time to get that research done, probably before you develop a thesis or organize the presentation. Structure of an Academic Essay You know all about introduction, body, and conclusion, and this basic format for writing an academic essay will never change. But try thinking about these three elements a bit differently. Ask these questions: 1.How can I get my reader interested in this topic? (Introduction) 2. How can I keep my reader interested and give information that s/he will find unique and/or useful? (Body) 3. How can I leave my reader with some new insight, some recommendations, some call to action or some questions to ask him/herself? (Conclusion) Asking these questions will allow you to think just a bit differently than you have in the past. The Science of How to Write an Academic Essay Here is the process for constructing your essay, once you have the topic identified. 1 Research what you need to in order to have the information you need to be a bit of an expert on the topic or to support an opinion you are presenting. 2. Organize your thoughts into sub-topics that will be the paragraphs of your essay. If you are struggling with this, there is a simple solution. You can read sample essays on the same topic all over the web do not lift these essays. Use them as models for how information is sequenced and presented. 3. Make a least an informal structure of the sequence in which you will cover your sub-topics and the details of those sub-topics. 4.Write the rough draft of the body, then add the introduction and conclusion they both flow easier if you do it this way. 5. Watch your language academic essay writing is formal unless otherwise indicated by your instructor. There is no room for slang. 6. Grammar and composition skills if you are not skilled in this area, accept it. Get some help and dont be ashamed to do so. You may be a math or physics whiz but not a skilled writer. Its okay. Academic writing may not be your great joy its not for lots of students. But if you answer the questions, follow the steps, and use these tips, you will get better grades.

An Essay On Metacognition

Humans are naturally curious beings. This curiosity occasionally generates interest into why we think a certain way. What compels us to value one thing over another? Why are some of us naturally better at a certain subject than others? All of these questions are topics that metacognitive research has strived to answer. Metacognition is the awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes, or, in other words, what we think about thinking. Metacognition has been a topic that has not generated much study until the 1970s, but at that point most of the research was geared towards the memory aspects of metacognition instead of applied use (Sieck 2013). Over the last forty years, there has been a significant increase in the amount of studies conducted on metacognition, but that number is nowhere near the amount that it should be. There are so many ways in which increased study on metacognition can improve our day-to-day lives, as John Flavell said, the ideas brewing in the area of metacognition could someday be used to teach â€Å"children (and adults) to make wise and thoughtful life decisions as well as to comprehend and learn better in formal educational settings† (Sieck 2013). To this end is why it is crucial for the Department of Neuroscience to allocate more funds towards increased research on metacognition, specifically towards how metacognition can assist depressed people in getting rid of unwanted thoughts. The practical applications of metacognitive research are still being discovered. In a study conducted by German scientist Markus Paulus, he and his team discovered that older subjects were more prone to display significant developmental effects in recalling information, compared to a younger age group (Paulus 2014). Paulus shows us how as people grow older, their rate of learning grows as well. Human curiosity is a part of this too, while children can display signs of wondering about oneself, these signs are far more prominent in older people. It has long been thought that the education of our youth should be one of humanity’s foremost priorities, and methods to improve said education should be at the forefront of our minds. What hope do we as a species have if our youth do not surpass us in many ways? This thinking is what caused researcher Bennett Schwartz to conduct a study to discover the implications of metacognition for student learning. Schwartz decided to focus his research on how metacognition can â€Å"influence decisions about studying and how we might use [metacognition] to improve our learning efficiency† (Schwartz 2012). Schwartz discovered that the preconceptions students have towards whether or not something deserves to be studied are usually overconfident, and in many cases â€Å"fail to reflect variables† that could improve efficiency. His findings on how metacognition can affect the education of the youth, mainly the efficiency with which to study, will help said youth become more we ll-organized and disciplined in the future. We do not yet know the full extent to how metacognition affects our moods, but with further study this knowledge can be easily attained. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America found that one in eight children are affected with some form of anxiety. They also found that Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) affects 6.8 million American adults (Anxiety and Depression†¦). If the Department of Neuroscience would allocate more funds towards research on metacognition, we could study more the application of using metacognition to change the way we think. This would further allow us to better treat all the people with some form of depression or anxiety, maybe even going so far as to completely eradicating the disorder from human life. Without further research, we will never know the extent to which metacognition can help people. There is much that is yet to be known about metacognition, because, we still do not understand much about the science behind our thinking. The age-old argument of nurture vs. nature continues to go on, and increased research towards metacognition would go a long way towards possibly settling that argument for good. As you can see, allocating the grant money towards amplified metacognition research would be one of the best choices the Department of Neuroscience could do as improved knowledge of metacognition would allow there to be no limit to what humans could do. Once we learn how we learn, we will be able to learn even more efficiently. References Sieck W. 2013 Feb 13. Metacognition is Knowing Your Mind [Internet]. Global Cognition; [2013 Feb 13, cited 2014 Sep 18]. Available from: http://www.globalcognition.org/head-smart/metacognition-is-knowing-your-mind/ Paulus M, Tsalas N, Proust J, Sodian B. 2014. Metacognitive monitoring of oneself and others: Developmental changes during childhood and adolescence. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology [Internet] [2014 Jun 1, cited 2014 Sep 5] 122:153-165. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096513002749 Schwartz B, Efklides A. 2012. Metamemory and memory efficiency: Implications for student learning. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition [Internet]. [2012 Sep 6, cited 2014 Sep 6] 1(3):145-151. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211368112000617 Anxiety and Depression Association of America [Internet]. Silver Spring(MD):Anxiety and Depression Association of America; [cited 2014 Sep 28] . Available from: http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics

Leadership in the NHS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Leadership in the NHS - Essay Example It is in this regard that application of the effective leadership quality is necessary to upgrade the operational skills of the employees and to achieve the desired objectives. Emphasizing similar value attributes concerning its leadership roles, the Local’s Children’s Centre hosts an interactive session with respect to the progress of wean process as a measure to reduce obesity rates among children. This initiative has been undertaken by the NHS to create awareness amidst the society with respect to child obesity and its dreadful implications. The study intends to discuss about the various measures undertaken by National Health Services (NHS) to ensure about the nutritional benefits to the society, especially the children (Bevan, 2012). In addition, the NHS healthcare service organization attempts to practice various leadership qualities in order to manage the change with respect to the wean process that results in childhood obesity. Accordingly, the study discusses about the various initiatives been undertaken by NHS to create awareness within the society with respect to the nutritional benefits. NHS needs to mitigate various changes, likely to occur while transforming the traditional processes pertaining to weaning into progressive for deriving better nutritional benefits for reducing the risks of childhood obesity. In general, the ‘weaning’ process conveys about the process of involving the nutritional, biochemical and immunological adjustments by providing complementary food items in the child’s diet. Contextually, it has been noted that the breast-milk has been traditionally perceived as the most essential as nutritional food diet for infants. Traditionally, the children in their early years were provided only with breast milk. Feeding breast milk to the children has always been considered as the best source of providing nutrition. However, changes observed in the lifestyle choices in recent scenario have apparently influenced the

Graduate Work and Becoming a Better Manager Essay

Graduate Work and Becoming a Better Manager - Essay Example Additionally, I realized that being a better manager required effective professionalism, which is achievable through furthering my education. Present day business environment is characterized by excessive competition. This requires managers to have professional strategies that will enable them to compete with other businesses effectively. Additionally, I realized that enrolling for MBA at Walden University would enable me to understand the ethical and legal requirements of the business society which facilitate becoming an effective member of the business community (Walden University, 2012b). Graduate school is quite different from the undergraduate programs. In graduate school, the level of training is more rigorous and oriented toward professionalism. As opposed to undergraduates in business courses who study broadly, graduates specialize in a specific area. By enrolling in MBA, I hope to acquire skill in corporate hunting skill, coaching of employees as well as skill on how to analyze benefit for effective decision-making. In my opinion, being an effective manager requires one to be able to bargain collectively, relate well with employees, encourage employee development programs, and understand employment laws as well as business policies. By enrolling for the MBA, I believe I will be able to attain the above skills and apply them later. This will make me a professional and better manager (Walden University, 2012b). After reviewing the list of â€Å"Student Conduct and Responsibilities,† I realized there are a number of similarities and differences between scholarly conduct and business conduct. Scholarly conduct is different from business conduct in that scholarly conduct I based on the level of education while business conduct is professionalism. Both scholarly conduct and business conduct are similar since they center on trust, responsibility,