"Belief is the natural attitude of a thwarted mind" This quotation is from a rather outspoken mathematician named Scott Buchanan, who has studied the style of human thought right along with its mathematical accomplishments. It is meant to describe our style of thinking when approaching mathematics. Yet it seems to me that it has a larger meaning: that it applies to the human style of thought when approaching any problem. Buchanan is telling us that when we are confronted with a problem and a possible solution and we cannot find our way to the solution, we have a tendency to believe in the solution out of pure frustration, or perhaps just wishful thinking. As in: "that has to be it!" A similar thing will happen when we are confronted with multiple possible solutions and we cannot show one is true. We choose one, nearly arbitrarily, and believe in it. In a broader scope, this tendency to believe is present in people's beliefs in general. There comes a point where the events of life force one to consider what one believes. Many people seem to simply "inherit" their beliefs and value systems, giving no more thought to it than that their parents were that way, no more explanation than "that's how I was taught". Other people seem to pick a set of beliefs, almost randomly, according to what "feels right". Still others seem to pick beliefs as if they were just a facet of their personalities, something to attract people. Finally, there are those who never really address the issue, who are standing right next to those who haven't decided. Most people when questioned or challenged become rather fervent about their belief rather quickly if they weren't already, sometimes wandering into blatant hypocrisy. Somehow, while people talk freely and civilly about politics, when the discussion wanders into what one believes about life in general, people clam up. They become unwilling to discuss their ideas beyond giving you a general sense of what they are. Having chosen a solution to the ultimate problem, to the meaning and point of life, they bear down. Very few are willing to see the whole thing as unsolved, and some are so fervent as to die ( or kill ) for their belief. This belief is here because it is 'natural'. It is a tendency to ignore other solutions in plain sight when the problem is too difficult, or to go with the one ( potentially inadequate ) solution seen. This belief, or faith as it is sometimes called, is the tendency to throw aside other solutions, and to abandon logic. It is not a reach for the divine as it is often seen, it is a regression to a "natural" state. It is throwing aside the evolutionarily hard-won difference between human and animal. This is not to say that animals believe in any sort of God, of course. Faith and irrational belief are the remnants of people having discarded logic when faced with the ultimate question. In most cases, the human drive to find meaning, nearly as fundamental as hunger to an intelligent species, is satisfied by this arbitrary choice. Of the groups mentioned above, I place myself in the group who have not decided on a set of beliefs, in the very small subsection of people who do not intend to 'decide'. To decide implies choosing between given choices, which does not describe me. I am after the truth, at all costs, including finding the truth to be that life is totally and utterly meaningless. This is why I have been concentrating in science, math and computers. Science has already discarded several possible sets of beliefs held previous to its discoveries, like the idea that storms are god- wars and the idea of the earth-centered solar system. The tidal wave of genetics is rocking several boats at once. Science embodies the logical reversal: if we cannot directly understand what is true, let us eliminate what is not true. Perhaps all that I will ever accomplish is to eliminate a few more choices. Perhaps I will find the answer, and the answer will be that we are no more than automatons following a course laid out from the beginning of the universe by the laws of interactions of forces. As eventually anti-climactic as this pursuit may be, I cannot be satisfied with any other existence without having tried.
...n making him an idiot. The woman that is most presented to us is Memo. She puts him into a slump that he can’t beat for along time until he meets a lady by the name of Iris. She tries to get him to question his values and fails to question them again. Throughout the book he is most concerned with getting more hit and breaking more records and win more. He also gets infatuated with Memo. She keeps pretending to like him but she poisons his food and gets him out of some very important games so that she can make a lot of money with a bookie. Towards the end of the book Iris once again give Roy one last chance to question his values and again being the simple idiot that he is he does not and eventually goes on to loose the pennant game. At the end of the book Memo tells Roy that she had always found him repulsive. He once again had gotten burned by woman.
"Sarah, we need your help in the Ukraine this summer. Can I count on you?" This question changed my life profoundly. I was asked to be a counselor on JOLT, Jewish Oversees Leadership Program, an opportunity to interact with young campers in an impoverished country and positively influence their lives. Little did I realize that this experience would impact mine so greatly.
Although the word “Saint” is used in reference to one Roman Catholic person who is in his/her mortal life had such exemplar life of holiness then the Church proclaims that she/he is officially declared as a Saint. The official declaration is called “Canonization” and it’s a long process that may take not just years but centuries to make it official. For example, San Juan Diego, his canonization process took more than 450 years because the Church were on the contrary to many anti-Catholics of prejudices and the beliefs were extremely cautious. The Church does not declare that someone is a saint until proven that the person was delivered to the Will of God in their life that the person is willing to become one harmony of the love and Grace of God for the people.
The origin of things like religion, and personal beliefs are ignored and thought to be hardwired like height because they are too hard to understand. To understand what someone else thinks or feels we, as humans, would have to be a little less arrogant and as David Wallace points out change how we experience things.
Emerging from England’s punk rock scene in 1977, The Clash morphed from traditional punk beginnings into the new wave movement. Described as “a more genuine, radical, proletarian,” sector of the punk genre, it was evident the band was destined to transcend musical boundaries.1 The Clash’s trademark idiosyncrasy is their layering of cultural remarks with historical relevancy througho...
Jerry Falwell sued soon after the issue was published. Personally, I think if you are a public figure, like Jerry Falwell was, you are automatically putting yourself up for public humiliation. It’s just a price to pay for being famous. I do however think that Hustler Magazine went a step too far in saying that Jerry Falwell lost his virginity to his mother. Jerry Falwell sued Hustler Magazine for libel, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional stress. In 1984, the U.S. District Court for Virginia's Western District dismissed the invasion of privacy claim because Falwell is a public figure. Hustler was found guilty of inflicting emotional distress and Falwell was awarded $200,000. The court ruled against Falwell on the libel claim.
often a moral issue and the choice to believe can be an emotional or instinctual one rather then an
It is impossible to just have one answer. There are many different ways you can get to the answer. This is what makes it complex. With science there is no one true conclusion. Scientific results are unreliable because it is exposed to subjective methodologies. Behind science is one man that still has an interest. He can dictate what he wants to inquire about. The one scientist relates to the person who is authoritative on what their child should believe in. They should be found as equally wrong. Yes, you can give your ideas about what your beliefs are, but it is up to that one person to decide whether they wish to accept it. They also have the alternative of disregarding it and accepting a different way of believing in their own conception of the world.
New Zealand has many volcanoes because it is on two separate tectonic plates, the Australian and the Indo-Pacific plates, that cut right through Wellington. In the North Island, the Indo-Pacific plate goes under the Australian plate. This forms a subduction zone as the denser crust goes under the less dense one. In the South island the opposite happens. Because of this plate arrangement, it creates many unusual land features in New Zealand such as, the Alpine Fault and the Puysegur Trench. New Zealand is also on the Ring of Fire which is a horseshoe like formation of volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean. This means that New Zealand is home to many of the world's volcanoes.
In today’s modern western society, it has become increasingly popular to not identify with any religion, namely Christianity. The outlook that people have today on the existence of God and the role that He plays in our world has changed drastically since the Enlightenment Period. Many look solely to the concept of reason, or the phenomenon that allows human beings to use their senses to draw conclusions about the world around them, to try and understand the environment that they live in. However, there are some that look to faith, or the concept of believing in a higher power as the reason for our existence. Being that this is a fundamental issue for humanity, there have been many attempts to explain what role each concept plays. It is my belief that faith and reason are both needed to gain knowledge for three reasons: first, both concepts coexist with one another; second, each deals with separate realms of reality, and third, one without the other can lead to cases of extremism.
There are five steps to sainthood. First, the person’s local bishop investigates their life by gathering information from witnesses of their life and any writings they may have written. If the bishop finds them to be worthy of being a saint, then he submits the
In 1983, Pope John Paul II made sweeping changes in the canonization procedure. The process begins after the death of a Catholic whom people regard as holy. Often, the process starts many years after death in order give perspective on the candidate. The local bishop investigates the candidate's life and writings for heroic virtue (or martyrdom) and orthodoxy of doctrine. Then a panel of theologians at the Vatican evaluates the candidate. After approval by the panel and cardinals of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the pope proclaims the candidate "venerable."
Volcanic eruptions occur over a series of stages. Volcanoes are found on plate boundaries because of the weak crust that is more likely to crack rather than normal crust. When the plate boundaries crack it triggers a volcanic eruption . In a volcanic eruption magma from the magma chamber below the earth's surface rises through the crack in the earth's crust
There are 3 types of volcanoes. Sleeping volcano, Shield cone volcano, and a stratovolcano. They are different because a sleeping volcano doesn’t have volcanic activity, a shield volcano has runny lava that erupts from the vent in a gushing river, or fountain, and a cinder cone volcano has one vent that erupts ash and rocks that fall in a ring, and a stratovolcano erupts thick, sticky lava that cools and hardens
This is where philosophy is integrated. While solely religion can effect somebody’s personal beliefs in what is right and wrong, often times it is only philosophy that can truly define why somebody believes something is right and wrong. For example, election years. Many different presidential candidates compete in order to become the representative of their selected political affiliation, which is usually democratic or republican. There are many beliefs tied into both of these political parties that go into what they understand as right or wrong. While representatives have the ability to differentiate between what they believe is right or wrong, most general ideas remain the same. Often times, democratic candidates are believed to be more open-minded and politically involved than republican