War can often be considered an evil act, an act of aggression against another country for economic or social gain, or can be considered a noble event of justice, a defense mechanism of a protectorate country helping a country in need. However, sometimes the issue of war is mingled with religion, which brings the value of war into question. In some religions, war is considered noble and a gateway to heaven. A jihad in Islam is an example of this type, where some Muslims believe that attacking the “infidel” is considered strong promotion of their religion. However, in many religions the ethics of a Holy War, loosely defined as “any war that is regarded as a religious act or is in some way set in a direct relation to religion,” (Erdmann 3)) is in a very grey area. Christianity is one of those religions. Starting in the late 11th century, the Christian church started a series of Holy Wars called the Crusades. After looking at the motives for the war and the teachings of Jesus, the supposed basis of Christianity, it seems as if these wars were not actually representative of how Christians should act toward conflict even though they were considered for the good of the church.
Onward Christian Soldiers
The view of the Church towards war from its inception in the first century until 1095, when Pope Urban II officially called Christians together to fight in the first Crusade, changed drastically according to Thomas Madden (1). In the first hundred years after the death of Christ war was seen for only stately gain by the Roman state, which was persecuting Christians. However, the conversion of Emperor Constantine brought a union between the state and Christianity. War became a necessary tool, but due t...
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... I mentioned before, Osama bin Laden proclaimed his attack on the World Trade Center a holy war. While the world looked back and could not understand how this could be considered holy, if one were to look back they could see similarities between the Christian Crusades and the terrorist attacks. When I was looking for websites on just war theory of St. Augustine, nearly every single site I found had a discussion on whether the possible action by the United States in Iraq would be justified according to St. Augustine. Most declared that it would be justified based on the actions of Iraq over the past decade and our status as a world leader with an international council such as the United Nations. It is nice to know that the information from the Crusades can help us now, but I prefer knowing that the Christian church has not repeated its action in the past 500 years.
This takes us to the concept of just war. Aristotle saw just war as a means to a higher goal. You don't just fight the war to win the war there needs to be a purpose to fighting the war. He goes on to tell us how others view just war. The Romans said war was just only when conducted by the state, and only accompanied by a declaration of hostilities, meaning war had to be declared on someone. Rebellions and revolutions were not considered just wars. The Japanese did not define when war was just or proper. Early Christians rejected war; this came from the effort to be more Christ like, the Golden Rule, due unto others as you would have them do to you. Later the Christians could no longer be pacifists; they were going to have to go to war sometime after Constantine became emperor and declared Christianity as the main religion of the time.
Throughout the ten-century, particularly in France, the world had become an extremely violent place. Feudal Knights were often quarreling over land possession, looting, and looking to lay people to provide them with sustenance . Likewise, the power of these knights and the extent of violence flourished due to the increasingly lacking power and authority of the kings . The Church, in an attempt to halt the violence and anarchy attempted to take control and issued such concepts as “the Peace of God” . Similarly, at this time other movements for peace by the Church were underway, and one of the commonly held ideas was the need to transform the world to more “monkish ideals”. From these ideals also sprouted the concept of the laity having “God-given functions to perform, functions that could include fighting to protect the Church”. Pope Leo IX (1049-1054) is an example of this idea; he often used militia to fight against his opponents. In the early eleventh century, there came a pivotal figure in the ideas of Church sanctioned war, Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085). Pope Gregory was involved in the Investiture Contest, and soon turned to scholars to seek out “justification for his conviction that violence could be used in defense of the Church and could be authorized by it”. The movements generated by Pope Gregory, as well as the results of the Inve...
The First Crusade was a widely appealing armed pilgrimage, and mobilized a vast conquering force at a time when the Christian Church was moving towards centralization and greater political influence in Europe. The Church gained a wider audience more accepting of its leadership, benefitted economically, and developed its own militarily force. These outcomes, along with the Church’s documented ambition to expand and its reversal of prior teachings, support the idea that the First Crusade was a deliberate political maneuver, intended to to expand and consolidate the authority of the
In document 1 by Pope Urban II, he stated that the Christians in the west should defend their fellow brethren in the east. He went on to state that Romania had been conquered and had to be taken back from the Turks and Arabs. The subjects had to fight for the land that they stand on to continue being good Christians. If you died fighting for this, you would get instant remission of sins, meaning you would be forgiven for all of their sins. He was the Pope; therefore, he stood on a different level than his subjects, and did not know how they felt about this matter. He had absolute power over everyone as the leader of their religion. In document 2 by Ekkehard in his book Hierosolymita, he praises the speech that Pope Urban gave in 1095 and told of how it le...
The use of Henrietta Lacks cells has led to many scientific breakthroughs, e.g., the cure to polio, cloning, and the human genome project. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951. These cells underwent a mutation that caused them to become immortal, meaning that they continue to divide since her death in 1951 to this very day. However, her cells raise an ethical question, because before she died she did not give consent for scientists to use her cells and after she died they did not tell her family that they were using them. This has been an ongoing controversy because the cells have been so beneficial for society, but they are derived from shady procedures. The reason way Henrietta’s cells, HeLa cells, didn’t undergo apoptosis was that they were cancerous cells that replicated indefinitely and these cells were modified to be even more resistant due to other diseases Ms. Lacks had.
Religion is a part of society that is so closely bound to the rest of one’s life it becomes hard to distinguish what part of religion is actually being portrayed through themselves, or what is being portrayed through their culture and the rest of their society. In Holy Terrors, Bruce Lincoln states that religion is used as a justifiable mean of supporting violence and war throughout time (Lincoln 2). This becomes truly visible in times such as the practice of Jihad, the Reformation, and 9/11. The purpose of this essay is to show that as long as religion is bound to a political and cultural aspect of a community, religious war and destruction will always occur throughout the world. A historical methodology will be deployed in order to gain
... her sister shows how ruthless she is, but also shows how desperate she is to feel loved by another man; this could reflect the neglect that she has gotten from her father or her husband – this again links to the character of Ammu who feels worthless in the eyes of her father. When Edmund is slained by Edgar in Act 5, Scene 3, Goneril goes into a state of despair and disbelief “thou art not vanquished.” This mirrors the reaction of Lear when he finds Cordelia dead so could be used by Shakespeare to show the similarities between Lear and Goneril who both crave power and love, but have ultimately been left with nothing. Her character is one that most people would not symphasise with; James W. Bell refers to her as a “devious little conspirator,” but there are many layers to her character that Shakespeare has added to show how no person is completely “good” or “evil.”
The Crusades were one of the most prominent events in Western European history; they were not discrete and unimportant pilgrimages, but a continuous stream of marching Western armies (Crusaders) into the Muslim world, terminating in the creation and eventually the fall of the Islamic Kingdoms. The Crusades were a Holy War of Roman Christianity against Islam, but was it really a “holy war” or was it Western Europe fighting for more land and power? Through Pope Urban II and the Roman Catholic Church’s actions, their proposed motivations seem unclear, and even unchristian. Prior to the Crusades, Urban encouraged that Western Europe fight for their religion but throughout the crusades the real motivations shone though; the Crusaders were power hungry, land coveting people who fought with non Christian ideals and Morales.
In order for the crusades to begin, the Christians needed to gather an army to travel and fight the forces of Muslims. With all the power being held by monarchies at this time, the church needed to be cleaver in order to gain troops to put their lives on the line. To gain the support of these warriors and dedication of men, Pope Urban II (1088-1099) challenged those morals of men by telling them to grab their weapons and join the holy war to recover the land of Jerusalem. It was not the challenge that convinced men to take part in this war. The promise of “immediate remission of sins” attracted the men to stand up for their religion and beliefs while at the same time, promising them a trip to heaven when life comes to an end. With this statement, men instantly prepared for battle which in a very short period of time gave the church power which has been held by the monarchies. Men of rich and poor prepared for battle, some wearing ...
Cloning has become a major issue in our modern world, from moral, ethical, and religious concerns, to the problem of financial and government support. Human cloning is one of the most controversial topics, and because of this, many of the new important discoveries and beneficial technologies have been overlooked and ignored. Reproductive cloning technology may offer many new possibilities, including hope for endangered species, resources for human organ transplants, and answers to questions concerning cancer, inherited diseases, and aging. The research that led up to the ability to clone mammals started more than a century ago. From frogs to mice to sheep to humans, reproductive cloning promises many possibilities.
“Cloning represents a very clear, powerful, and immediate example in which we are in danger of turning procreation into manufacture.” (Kass) The concept of cloning continues to evoke debate, raising extensive ethical and moral controversy. As humans delve into the fields of science and technology, cloning, although once considered infeasible, could now become a reality. Although many see this advancement as the perfect solution to our modern dilemmas, from offering a potential cure for cancer, AIDS, and other irremediable diseases, its effects are easily forgotten. Cloning, especially when concerning humans, is not the direction we must pursue in enhancing our lives. It is impossible for us to predict its effects, it exhausts monetary funds, and it harshly abases humanity.
War has always been, and will always be, a necessary action perpetrated by man. There are many reasons for war: rage, passion, greed, defense, and religion to name a few. When differences cannot be solved or compromised through mediation with an opposing party, war is the last remaining option. Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun wrote in fourteenth-century Spain, that “War is a universal and inevitable aspect of life, ordained by God to the same extent as the sky and the earth, the heat and the cold. The question of whether to fright is not a significant moral question because fighting is constant; the minor decision not to fight this war will be made only in the context of knowing that another war will present itself soon enough because it is simply always there.” (Peter S. Themes. The Just War)
...ne who can be trusted and kills him. Then, Regan is poisoned by Goneril. When Glauster finds out that Edgar has been disguised as a homeless guy all along, he has a heart attack and dies. When everyone is dead, Goneril kills herself. Cordelia and Lear are executed earlier in the play by Edmund and before he dies he has a change of heart and warns everyone that they are about to be killed. Before anyone can save them, Cordelia is killed and Lear dies of a broken heart.
Chapter five in Privacy Lost starts the third part of the book. It focuses on the protection of privacy through the lens of legal structure. In this chapter Holtzman argues that laws can’t keep up with technology advances. Before starting to discuss the connection between privacy and law, Holtzman perfectly states that the word “privacy” hasn’t been used in the U.S. Constitution. “Absent adequate legal protection” presents problems in court when citizens claim the right to be protected (94).
Cloning in today’s modern society has evolved into a very sophisticated practice of making identical copies of an organism. Scientists are able to clone different animals and plants exceptionally better than they were years ago, which leads many to wonder if humans will be next. Cloning has tremendous medical and economic pros; however, the morality of cloning does raise many conflicts on whether or not it should be performed throughout the world.