Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Moral Teachings of the Catholic Church Essay Example for Free
Moral Teachings of the Catholic Church Essay Introduction: Catholics believes that acting morally means acting in accordance with the eternal laws of God, which are written into the human hearts so deeply that even those who know nothing of God can follow the path of morality. According to Cynthia Stewart, Nature law, as this interior marking is called, comes to humans through their capacity to reason, which sparks the conscience to respond to the eternal law. This means that people of other religions or the non religious all have the capacity to act as morally as catholic Christians, it is believes that they will struggle more since they will not have the benefit of the sacraments that opens them to grace to resist sin. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) regarded sin as a word, deed or desire contrary to the eternal law. The church classified sin into two parts, they are: mortal and venial sin. Catholic moral theology divides sin into two parts, primarily on the basis of degree and effect: What is mortal sin? According to http://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu06.htm : â€Å"Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the private of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance of Gods forgiveness, it causes exclusion to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a serious offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.†For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must be met: Mortal sin is a sin whose object is a serious matter and which is also committed with full intension awareness and deliberate consent. A serious matter is specified by the Ten Commandments Corresponding to the answer to the rich young man: â â€" Do not kill â â€" Do not commit adultery â â€" Do not steal â â€" Do not bear false witness â â€" Do not defraud â â€" Honor your father and your mother What is venial sin? According to chrome://newtabhttp//christianityinview.com/catholic/morals.html: Venial (Pardonable) sin Positively, this sin does not directly destroy the relationship with God. Rather, it weakens that relationship. Unremitted venial sins can affect the duration spent in Purgatory. Therefore the church encourages confession of these types of sins as well without being strictly necessary. Confession of everyday faults (venial sins) is nevertheless strongly recommended by the church. Example of venial sin is, selfishness, jealously and anger. Venial sin involves the disobedience of the law of God in slight (venial) matters. If we gossip and destroy a persons reputation it would be a mortal sin. However, normally gossip is about trivial matters and only venially sinful. Additionally, something that is otherwise a mortal sin (e.g. slander) may be in a particular case only a venial sin. The person may have acted without reflection or under force of habit. Thus, not fully intending the action their guilt before God is reduced. It is always good to remember, especially those who are trying to be faithful but sometimes fall, that for mortal sin it must not only be, 1) Serious matter, but 2) The person must know it is serious and then 3) Freely commit it as was said previously. These two categories of sin are explicitly to be found in Sacred Scripture. In the Old Covenant there were sins that merited the death penalty and sins that could be expiated by an offering. This Law was a teacher that prepared the way for the faith (Gal. 3:24). In the New Covenant these material categories are replaced by spiritual ones, natural death by eternal death. There are thus daily faults for which we must daily ask forgiveness (Mt. 6:12), for even the just man falls seven times a day (Prov. 24:16), and mortal faults that separate the sinner from God (1 Cor. 6:9-10) for all eternity. Indulgence The punishment of sin is also divided into two parts by catholic theology; they are, eternal and temporal. Normally, the eternal punishment for sin can be remitted through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. However, the church maintains that there is still a temporal punishment to be borne, as all sin is an affront to God. This then leads to the idea of Purgatory as a place where unremitted sin can be removed in the afterlife. Temporal punishment can be reduced or removed/ forgiven due to the concept of merit. Merit Doing more then is required by God can earn an individual merit. The most important merit is Christ himself, this is adequate enough to eliminate temporal penalty for all sin. The Merits of Christ and the saints form a treasury of merit. The Catholic Church maintains that it has the authority to dispense merit because of Christ’s promise to peter in Matthew 16:19. Therefore an Indulgence is simply a way of using this extra merit to reduce or remove the temporal penalty of sin. Indulgences may only be given to those who have no unconfessed mortal sins. According to whether the temporal penalty of sin is partially or fully removed, the Indulgence is called Partial or Plenary respectively. Abortion: Abortion is referred to as any death of a baby in the womb and its expulsion form the mother’s body according to today’s issues and Christian beliefs. Since the first century the church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not change and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the mortal law. It is important to distinguish between direct and indirect abortion: Indirect abortion occurs when treatment given to save the life of the Mother has the secondary effect of causing an abortion. In certain cases, this is considered permissible. The seriousness of the matter is highlighted by the fact that those who participate in or carry out direct abortions face the penalty of automatic excommunication from the church. The catholic theology teachings that human life begins from the moment of conception and as our entire human the unborn child should be see as a child of God as should therefore be protected. Hence the deliberate abortion of a child is a serious in all circumstances for it the killing of an innocent individual. The views of the religious leader of the Catholic Church have always been against as is proven by the following statements. â€Å"Human life is sacred; all men must recognize that fact†Pope Paul VI (Humanae Vitae) â€Å"Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of the conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes†(Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes 51) The bible also gives perspectives on abortion in the following verses: Genesis 1:27 â€Å"God created human beings in his own imagine in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them â€Å"be fruitful and increase†. Luke 12:6 â€Å"Jesus said, â€Å"isn’t five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one sparrow is forgotten by God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. â€Å" Isaiah 49:15-16 â€Å"so the lord answers, ‘can a woman forget her own baby and not love the child she bore? Even if a mother should forget her child, I will never forget you! I have written your name in the palms of my hand. Contraceptives Contraception is â€Å"any actions which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible†according to Humanae vitae 14. This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicidal, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the pill, and all other such methods. The Catholic Church has strongly condemned all artificial methods of Contraceptives. Infact the church regards contraception as mortally sinful. The official position is stated in the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae , issued by Pope Paul VI in 1968. Though the Catholic Church rejects contraception, it does encourage a responsible attitude amongst couples in their spacing of births. It permits what is known as Natural family planning (NFP), which is a method whereby intercourse is avoided on those days when a woman is at the most fertile phase of her menstrual cycle. NFP can be taught by a specialist practitioner and success rates of well over 90% are claimed when the method is correctly followed. The bibles perspective on contraceptive: Genesis 38:8-10 â€Å" then Judah said Er’s brother Onan , â€Å"go and sleep with your brother’s widow, fulfill your obligations to her as her husbands brother, so that your brother may have descendants. But knew the children would not belong to him. So he had intercourse with her, he left his semen spill on the ground so there would be not descendants of his brother, what he did displeased the lord and he killed him also. Homosexuality Homosexuality refers to elations between men or between woman who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex according to chrome://newtabhttp//www.catholic.com/tracts/homosexuality. The Catholic view is that all Homosexual acts are morally and intrinsically wrong and thus the church requires people with Homosexual leanings to remain celibate. It also encourages proper respect as human beings for all Homosexual people, being opposed to any form of discrimination and persecution of Homosexuals. The church distinguishes between Homosexual acts and Homosexual leanings the latter may not be necessarily sinful. In 1986, the church issued its Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, explaining this distinction: Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. In 2005, the church issued its Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and t o Holy Orders. The policy states that those men with deeply rooted homosexual tendencies cannot be ordained under any circumstances. The rejection of homosexual behavior that is found in the Old Testament is well known. In Genesis19, two angels in disguise visit the city of Sodom and are offered hospitality and shelter by lot. During the night, the men of Sodom demand that lot hand over his guests for homosexual intercourse. Lot refuses, and the angels blind the men of Sodom. Lot and his household escape and the town is destroyed by fire â€Å"because the outcry against its people has become great before the lord.†(Genesis 19:13). The incident is not the only time the Old Testament deals with homosexuality. An explicit condemnation is found in the book of Leviticus: â€Å"you shall not lie with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them†( Lev. 18:22:20:13) Summary: To act morally is to follow God’s eternal law which is written deeply in the hearts of every human being despite race or religion. Even thought the ability to act morally is in us as human being we often fall victims to sin. Sin refers to an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law, the church divides sin into two categories, Mortal sin, which is an unpardonable sin entailing a total loss of grace. Examples of mortal sin are: adultery, abortion, murder. Venial sin the other types of sin are referred to as a relatively slight sin that does not entail damnation of soul. Example of venial sin is: selfishness, anger, jealousy. Issues that impact us today are: â â€" Abortion which is refers to as the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy or a miscarriage. The Catholic Church has consistently condemned the act of abortion. Catholics views human life as sacred and maintains that it should be protected by every means necessary as was stated by Pope Paul VI (Humanae Vitae). Biblical prove can also be found in Psalm 127:3 â€Å"Truly children are a gift from the lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward.†â â€" Contraceptive can be defined as the deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse. The Catholic Church has strongly condemned all artificial methods of contraceptives as regards it as mortally sinful. Biblical proof to support this view can be found in Jeremiah 1:5 â€Å"I chose you before I gave you life, and before you were born I selected you to be a prophet to the nations.†â â€" Homosexuality is the manifestation of sexual desire towards a member of one’s own sex. The Catholic Church encourages proper respect as human beings even homosexuals although Catholics view are that all homosexual acts are intrinsically and morally wrong and encourages people with homosexual feelings to remain celibate. The bible conforms this in Leviticus 18:22 â€Å"thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination†Catholic theology also divides punishment for sins such as those listed above in to two parts; they are eternal punishment which is sins that can be remitted through the sacrament of reconciliation. And temporal punishment which refers to punishment that can be reduce, removed or forgiven due to the concept of merit. Merit is referred to as doing more then is required by God.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
The History Of The Internet :: essays research papers
The History of the Internet                                         Greg Rice                                         4/25/00 The Internet has update the computer and communications world like nothing before. The invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio, and computer set the stage for this unprecedented integration of capabilities. The Internet is at once a world-wide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information distribution, and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location. The Internet represents one of the most successful examples of the benefits of sustained investment and commitment to research and development of information infrastructure. Beginning with the early research in packet switching, the government, industry and academia have been partners in evolving and deploying this exciting new technology. Over its fifteen year history, the Internet has functioned as a collaboration among cooperating parties. Certain key functions have been critical for its operation, not the least of which is the specification of the protocols by which the components of the system operate. To get to the origins of the Internet, we have to go back in time to 1957. You probably have no cause to remember, but it was International Geophysical Year, a year dedicated to gathering information about the upper atmosphere during a period of intense solar activity. Eisenhower announced in 1955 that, as part of the activities, the USA hoped to launch a small Earth orbiting satellite. Then Kremlin announced that it hoped to do likewise. Planning in America was focussed on a sophisticated three stage rocket, but in Russia they took a more direct approach, on 4 October 1957 the USSR launched (a 70 kgs bleeping sphere the size of a medicine ball) into Earth orbit. The effect in the United States was electrifying, since it seemed overnight to wipe out the feeling on invulnerability the country had enjoyed since the explosion of the first nuclear bomb thirteen years before. One of the immediate reactions was the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency within the Ministry of De fense. Its mission was to apply state-of-the-art technology to US defense and to avoid being surprised (again!) by technological advances of the enemy. It was also given interim control of the US satellite program until the creation of NASA in October 1958. ARPA became the technological think-tank of the American defense effort, employing directly a couple of hundred top scientists and with a budget sufficient for sub-contracting research to other top American institutions.
Monday, January 13, 2020
Hartley’s novel Essay
Although appearing to have a cynical view of love in the poem Larkin does in fact not doubt love, but the expectations that we have of it. In the words of Andrew Swarbrick, Larkin expresses not feelings of bitterness or pessimism but â€Å"of pathos, of a tender sympathy for the widow who recalls dreams knowing they are best forgotten. †Though sometimes pleasurable reminiscing can reveal hopes that were unfulfilled, dreams never lived out, good times we can never experience again. Therefore what we perceive to be pessimism in Larkin is, in this instance, simply realism, an understanding of the illusions contained in the world, making him â€Å"less deceived†as a result. He once remarked, â€Å"Poetry is an affair of sanity, of seeing things as they really are†it was for him a way of being honest, not overestimating the value of things. Nonetheless, in the final poem of The Whitsun Weddings, An Arundel Tomb, Larkin hints at his belief in love. Despite not having a successful love life himself he still implies that he has faith in its existence, the ultimate word of the anthology being the abstract noun, â€Å"love†. This line is a testament to its endurance and strength, â€Å"What will survive of us is love. †John Saunders likens these lines containing the â€Å"prove/love†rhyme to Shakespeare’s attempt to define true love in Sonnet 73, Larkin’s concluding line echoing the rhyming couplet, â€Å"If this be error, and upon me proved I never wrote, nor no man ever loved. †An Arundel Tomb concentrates on the historical aspect of the past. The persona in the poem, which is in fact Larkin, examines the concept of artifacts, how something set in stone can withstand the test of time regardless of whether it actually existed in the first place. Visiting a Sussex churchyard Larkin sees an example of love that both moves and intrigues him, had it not been for the incongruity of two linked hands displayed on the tomb he would have walked by. It is a gesture small yet touching but the cynic in Larkin questions its validity presuming it to be a case of â€Å"a sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace†rather than a symbol of a long and devoted marriage. Together in death the couples’ â€Å"faces blurred†but the husband is still â€Å"holding her hand†. Over time their features have been weathered but their effigy remains as a reminder of their lives, a monument to their love. Archaic language is used to complement the subject matter of the poem, capturing a bygone time so unlike today’s â€Å"unarmorial age†. Further manipulation of syntax is evident with the effective juxtaposition of the adjectives â€Å"sharp†and â€Å"tender†, conveying simply but perfectly Larkin’s confused and mixed reaction to the union of the stone hands. There is debate over Larkin’s true feelings towards the real meaning of the â€Å"faithfulness in effigy†. Whether or not he again intended the pun with the use of the verb â€Å"lie†just as lovers were â€Å"lying together†in bed is unclear. As Brother Anthony (An Sonjae) points out in his paper Without Metaphysics there is a huge diversity in the interpretations of Larkin’s intended meaning in his work, it is up to the reader to determine their own response â€Å"which is good for the reader, but a challenge too†. Does the poet believe that â€Å"love survives†not only in stone? Or as Andrew Swarbrick quite rightly points out does he â€Å"almost†believe it as the penultimate line suggests? â€Å"Our almost-instinct almost true†therefore cancels out the optimism of the following statement. Here we witness Larkin lowering his defenses, allowing himself to hope for the best, to want love to be â€Å"that much mentioned brilliance†but he cannot do so completely for fear of it being an illusion. Although hinting at what he truly believes it is as though he will not allow himself to trust it in case he is mistaken. Yet whether love survives or not it lives on in Arundel where â€Å"only an attitude remains†. This is also true of Larkin’s poetry, and in fact to the whole genre. Whereas fictional characters and places from novels are lost, forgotten, poetry allows thoughts to survive as art long after the death of the artist. Larkin wrote of this inspiring philosophy in 1955, contained in a statement to D. J. Enright he explained, â€Å"I write poems to preserve things I have seen/thought/felt†¦ I think the impulse to preserve lies at the bottom of all art. †Yet as mentioned previously the meaning of Larkin’s literature is not always clear, just like he could only assume the significance of the joined hands we can only guess at the thoughts of Philip Larkin which are contained and live on in his verse. The poem Dockery and Son relates the events and emotions that occur when Philip Larkin revisits his old college, steps back into the past only to be disappointed with what he finds there. An outsider there, he no longer belongs and finds himself a stranger in his own past, as well as physically being unable to enter his past residence â€Å"the door of where (he) used to live†is also â€Å"locked†metaphorically. However, the most disturbing thing for Larkin is the news that one of his peers now has at son at Oxford: Dockery unlike Larkin with â€Å"no son, no wife, no house or land†is a success story. The door to fatherhood is therefore also â€Å"locked†for Larkin. By starting with dialogue the poem is made more authentic as it adds an injection of reality to the verse. It also alerts Larkin to the fact that he is no longer part of that world, of public school boys and ranks, he, unlike Dockery, has no reason to revisit that part of his life. He feels â€Å"ignored†. As in The Whitsun Weddings Larkin philosophizes whilst on a train which is not only a vehicle in the normal sense of the noun but a vehicle for his thoughts and also a metaphor for direction, moving forward in life. The simplistic repetition in the third stanza â€Å"How much†¦ How little†¦ †conveys Larkin’s disappointment in himself as he contemplates his own achievements in comparison with those of Dockery. Whereas Leo Colston benefited from his nostalgic visit to the past it has been a negative experience for Larkin who should never have returned. Both Larkin and Hartley present philosophies on the past in two contrasting but equally effective genres, which themselves give insight into the pasts of the authors. The past is, as both pieces of literature show, inevitably significant to us all. How we are affected by it however, either negatively or positively, is to some extent in our own hands. â€Å"Even a god cannot change the past†(Agathon 445 BC) yet we can move on, learn from our experiences and in the future be â€Å"less deceived†. L. P. Hartley’s novel is a message to us all that we should not dwell on what has come before, but concentrate on living the present, Leo recognized that he â€Å"should not be sitting alone†before it was too late. In reality the past does not fully exist; in the words of Larkin it is a â€Å"love song†that can never sound the same, a â€Å"locked†door which we can never be reopened, â€Å"only an attitude†that lives on in our minds. We may try to capture moments and emotions in stone, or in verse yet the only place where they truly exist is in our memory. We have the ability to dictate the significance the past holds for us. And so whilst we cannot change our pasts, we have the ability to change our future; Shakespeare declared that â€Å"What’s past is prologue†yet we can determine what is contained in the epilogue.
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Biography of Journalist C Wright Mills
Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962), popularly known as C. Wright Mills, was a mid-century sociologist and journalist. He is known and celebrated for his critiques of contemporary power structures, his spirited treatises on how sociologists should study social problems and engage with society, and his critiques of the field of sociology and academic professionalization of sociologists. Early Life and Education Mills was born on August 28, 1916, in Waco, Texas. Because his father was a salesman, the family moved a lot and lived in many places throughout Texas while Mills was growing up, and as a result, he lived a relatively isolated life with no intimate or continuous relationships. Mills began his university career at Texas AM University but completed only one year. Later, he attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he completed a bachelors degree in sociology and a masters degree in philosophy in 1939. By this point, Mills had positioned himself as an important figure in sociology by publishing in the fields two leading journals (American Sociological Review and American Journal of Sociology) while still a student. Mills earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1942, where his dissertation focused on pragmatism and the sociology of knowledge. Career Mills began his professional career as an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1941, and served there for four years. During this time, he began to practice public sociology by writing journalistic articles for outlets including The New Republic, The New Leader, and Politics. Following his post in Maryland, Mills took a position as a research associate at Columbia Universitys Bureau of Applied Social Research. The following year, he was made assistant professor in the universitys sociology department and by 1956, had been promoted to the rank of Professor. During the 1956-57 academic year, Mills had the honor of serving as a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Copenhagen. Contributions and Accomplishments The major focus of Millss work was the subjects of social inequality, the power of elites and their control of society, the shrinking middle class, the relationship between individuals and society, and the importance of historical perspective as a key part of sociological thinking. Millss most influential and famous work, The Sociological Imagination (1959), describes how one should approach the world if one wants to see and understand as a sociologist does. He emphasizes the importance of seeing the connections between individuals and everyday life and the greater social forces that constitute and course through society, and the importance of understanding our contemporary lives and social structure in historical context. Mills argued that doing so was an important part of coming to understand that what we often perceive as personal troubles are in fact public issues. In terms of contemporary social theory and critical analysis, The Power Elite (1956) was a very important contribution made by Mills. Like other critical theorists of that time, Mills was concerned with the rise of a techno-rationality and intensified bureaucratization following World War II. This book serves as a compelling account of how military, industrial/corporate, and government elites created and how they maintain a closely interlocked power structure that controls society to their benefit at the expense of the majority. Other key works by Mills include From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (1946), The New Men of Power (1948), White Collar (1951), Character and Social Structure: The Psychology of Social (1953), The Causes of World War Three (1958), and Listen, Yankee (1960). Mills is also credited with introducing the term New Left when he penned an open letter in 1960 to the leftists of the day. Personal Life Mills was married four times to three women and had one child with each. He married Dorothy Helen Freya Smith in 1937. The two divorced in 1940 but remarried in 1941, and had a daughter, Pamela, in 1943. The couple divorced again in 1947, and that same year Mills married Ruth Harper, who also worked at the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia. The two also had a daughter, Kathryn, who was born in 1955. Mills and Harper separated after her birth and divorced in 1959. Mills was married for a fourth time in 1959 to Yaroslava Surmach, an artist. Their son Nikolas was born in 1960. Throughout these years, Mills was reported to have had many extramarital affairs and was known for being combative with his colleagues and peers. Death Mills suffered from a prolonged heart condition in his adult life and survived three heart attacks before finally succumbing to a fourth on March 20, 1962. Legacy Mills is remembered as a deeply important American sociologist whose work is essential to how students are taught about the field and the practice of sociology. In 1964, he was honored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems with the creation of the annual C. Wright Mills Award.
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