Fifth Meditation essays

Fifth Meditation essays In the Fifth Meditation by Rene Descartes, he makes a case for the existence of God. He goes on to give reason to prove his argument that to exist is to believe in God for with out God we would not exist. Descartes gives the analogy of a mountain and a valley, pointing out that if a person believes that a mountain exists they cannot deny the existence of a valley, as stated in this quote: From the fact that I cannot think of a mountain without a valley, it does not follow that a mountain and valley exist anywhere, but simply that a mountain and a valley, whether they exist or not, are mutually inseparable. Descartes states the argument here, But from the fact that I cannot think of God except as existing, it follows that existence is inseparable from God, and hence that he really exists. Then he goes on to explain his reasons for the existence of God, It is not that my thought makes it so, or imposes any necessity of the thing itself, namely the existence of God, which determines my thinking in this respect. For I am not free to think of God without existence. He is saying, without God he would not exist, and if he does not exist he cannot think therefore God must exist if he has the ability to think. He supports his arguments further, as we see here, Descartes gives his conclusion, it states, I have perceived that God exists, and at the same time I have understood that everything else depends on him, and that he is no deceiver; and I have drawn the conclusion that everything which I clearly and distinctly perceive is of necessity true. He is saying, first of all, that everything that he unmistakably understands is true; he clearly understands God, therefore God exists! To support his conclusion he gives the argument, even if I am no longer attending to the arguments which led me to judge that this is true, as long as I remember that I clearly a ...

10 Pairs of Words and Their Useful Distinctions

10 Pairs of Words and Their Useful Distinctions 10 Pairs of Words and Their Useful Distinctions 10 Pairs of Words and Their Useful Distinctions By Mark Nichol Writers should take care when determining which word among two or more synonyms or near synonyms to employ, because the sense of a word can be subtly or significantly different from that of a similar term, as the following examples illustrate. 1. Childish/Childlike Childish refers to immature behavior characteristic of a child, while childlike pertains to more positive qualities such as innocence and curiosity. 2. Illegible/Unreadable Something that is difficult to read because the text has been damaged or obscured is illegible or unreadable, but the latter term may alternatively refer to the poor quality of the content. 3. Incomparable/Uncomparable Incomparable is used as an intensifier to mean that the person, place, or thing so described is so excellent that no other person, place, or thing can compare; uncomparable, meanwhile, means that something about the person, place, or thing prevents it from being compared to someone, someplace, or something else. 4. Inequality/Inequity Inequality has a quantitative connotation; inequity implies an inequality borne of injustice or unfairness. However, inequality also has this sense in sociological contexts, as in references to gender or racial discrimination. 5. Inexplicable and Unexplainable These words are nearly identical in meaning, but inexplicable has developed a unique connotation of an illogical or irrational quality, as in references to odd behavior or supernatural phenomena. 6. Invaluable/Valuable Something valuable has value; something invaluable has value that, because of its quality or intangible importance, cannot be quantified. 7. Lonely/Lonesome Lonely and lonesome are nearly synonymous, but while lonely simply means â€Å"desiring companionship,† lonesome can have a slightly different connotation, one that is more existential or philosophical although, contradictorily, it is also more colloquial. Lonesome is also sometimes used to refer to a desolate landscape, as in â€Å"the lonesome prairie.† 8. Melted/Molten Something that has melted has, often because of heat, changed from a solid state to a liquid state; something that is molten is presently in a liquid state due to melting. The connotation is of extremely hot liquid, such as steel or lava, and the term also refers figuratively to a glowing quality. 9. Misinformed/Uninformed Someone who is misinformed has received erroneous information, whereas someone who is uninformed lacks information. 10. Nauseating/Nauseous Someone or something that is nauseating causes nausea; someone who is nauseated is experiencing nausea. This distinction is often not observed in colloquial writing, but careful writers maintain it. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Program vs. ProgrammeAwoken or Awakened?35 Synonyms for Rain and Snow

Do Not Deport My Father Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Do Not Deport My Father - Essay Example Sadly, there only seems to be deportations of community members who are undocumented and others are those who have fake I.Ds. The fake I.Ds are in most cases used for purposes of getting work permits and other forms of documentations. When the government carries out these deportations, this is done for purposes of protecting other American citizens from criminals. In addition, deporting people who are immigrants and have records of criminal activities seems like the easiest way the government wants to conjure images of drug smugglers and terrorists to the public. However, this is not the way forward and the government ought to look for other ways and means of catching criminals. It is now a trend to get people deported, because they are undocumented and have minor offenses if not any. It seems that even after people serve their minor punishments and become law abiding citizens from that point, there is always the prospect of being deported. Overview According to Human Rights Watch, P arker, and Root there were 72 % number of people, non-citizens who were deported due to criminal related convictions from the year 1997 to 2007 (2). In all these cases of deportation, most of them had non-violent offenses. The sad reality is that so many families in United States were affected, which is an estimated 1 million members of families (Bausum 34). Hence, it is evident that by the time the year 2014 comes to an end so many children will not have parents in the U.S. This means that the number of people whose families will be torn apart in the U.S will be high. The Human Rights Watch, Parker, and Root’s argument is that the deportation of people whose crime is solely trying to stay out of the law enforcer’s path is not justified (4). Under the U.S law that is currently in existence, people who were deported once or due to felony charges are considered to be violating an aggravate felony, if they happen to re-enter the U.S (Human Rights Watch, Parker, and Root 3 ). The aggravated felony now seems to be a word that is too broad due to the fact that it extends to offenses like shoplifting and those who work with fake I.Ds The current law has most of the immigration judges powerless for them to go into all the details regarding all the cases that are put before them. It is now a disadvantage to those who commit the aggravated felonies because a person is liable to serving 20 years of jail time in federal prison. Reforms in the immigration department are a must and the major businesses in the U.S also have a task in promoting these reforms (Moloney 5). According to Bucerius and Tonry some of the most successful industrial sectors in the U.S are successful because of the immigration laborers (472). These are sectors such as manufacturing sector and the construction sector among others. These are not just any other sector and they are highly valued in the U.S economy as the key giants to its success. In the year 2012, the construction industry in the U.S reported revenues that were amounting to $857 billion dollars, whereas the food service sector reported revenue of $33 billion (Bucerius and Tonry 473). These are some of the many examples in the industrial sector, which show that the deportation of people who are innocent and not terrorists or drug dealers is a way of negatively affecting the economy. Why I do not support the Deportation on Innocent People I agree that the immigration rules should be followed and drug dealers and terrorists have to be deported, when he or she is a

Peace between Israel and Palestine Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Peace between Israel and Palestine - Essay Example This is no easy task but acceptance that this will never come into fruition is resulting to a defeatist stance that humanity cannot afford. The peace process is an arduous task that must be tackled with commitment and with realistic goals. The first step towards coming to an agreement and bringing the leaders of the two states back to the peace tables is to ensure that there will be a cease fire among all forces especially stealth attacks and those that would inflict casualties among civilians. This would necessarily entail a neutralization of the extremist groups which must be held accountable for without partiality or impunity. The most important disposition in both sides is the ardent belief that peace can be achieved. This must be built on an internal understanding and desire toward that purpose, otherwise, as had been persistently observed from Israel negotiators it will all for naught. The One Voice Movement offers an encouraging model that peace is not centrally for the benefi t of groups, their interests and their spite. It is fundamentally about the people who themselves have understood that peace is the only way to stop all the fighting and cut the losses while there is still something left. The organization is made up of Palestinians and Israelis in their own land and those abroad through an international unit. This is a grassroots initiative aimed to remind and enlighten the two sides and the international community that â€Å"The majority of people on both sides realize that they have everything to gain by ensuring the independence and security of ‘the other’ and thus are prepared to compromise in order to do so† (One Voice Movement, n.p.). This conflict is rooted among the most fundamental issues that had defined many wars throughout world history. The recognition of religious differences cannot be disregarded in this political and cultural conflict. The Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish Israelis had been battling not only for la nd but also for identity. The 1967 War was a pivotal moment in this conflict. I agree with experts that the occupation of Palestinian lands by the Israeli forces was a definitive moment that aggravated the dispute into epic proportions. The destabilization by Israel over the Gaza Strip and its current notoriety must come to an end. The demand by Palestine over the return of this piece of the earth and more importantly of their refugees had been on-going for decades (Heise, n.d., pp.2-3). In this regard, a major change came almost too close, â€Å"The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative would have provided Israel recognition throughout the Arab world in exchange for a pullout from territory conquered in 1967† (The Associated Press, 2013, n.p.) These kinds of initiatives are what the time calls for. We cannot undermine the reality that external forces are necessary to move closer to that elusive peace. The land over which blood has been spilt has been claimed by both Israel and Palestin e not only on territorial basis but more inherently by religious basis that transcend people and groups. This is why no matter how many changes have occurred through leadership and membership, their idealism remains. If there is something more moving than sheer idealism, it is religious idealism. The emphatic understanding of the call of the people who suffer and who live with the consequences of their leaders’ actions must prevail. In the international realm,

What are the security problems and solutions of the Internet? Essay exa

Internet has vital impact in our life nowadays as it becomes more and more popular. It allows us to have wider range of communication and interaction, to exchange and share experiences, thoughts, information, and to make business online. Without doubt, internet make our life more easier, internet banking system allow us to manage our bank accounts, paying bills without queuing, online shops allow us to make purchase without going out, online education, publication and article postings allow us learn more than what we get from text book, and a lot more. As Internet plays more important role in our daily life comparing to its initiation, some keen groups are ringing our bell, hackers, and theft of data, crackers. These people are all associated with a term  ¡Ã‚ §security ¡Ã‚ ¨. It is not difficult for general publics to point out two of the security issues, security of online transaction and security of message transmission respectively. In fact, system hacking is more fatal. Most of experienced online people understand that their data transmitted through Internet is in risk of being stolen or peek during transmission. A message or in general called  ¡Ã‚ §data ¡Ã‚ ¨ transmitting from one end to another, it passes number of nodes. It is far too easy for skilled people to grab those data during its transmission. It is not a serious issue for those who only do general chatting online. For those who doing business (e.g. online shopping) or sending very private materials (e.g. personal information), security becomes a big issue. For this reason, encryption is widely used for protecting the confidentiality of data being transmitted. INTERNET BUSINESS FOR SECURITY Basically, online transaction security, email security, network security are major considerations. Online Transaction Security There are a lot of online shopping and online casinos operations running worldwide. The most serious problem for these operations is to protect their transaction data, such as client ¡Ã‚ ¦s personal information and credit card information. Transaction data transmits from client site to server side. During the transmission, data theft will take this golden opportunity to peek or to duplicate data. If those data had been abused in certain ways, not just the clients suffering from financial lose, but the operator will also suffer from reputation lose. When clients have no confident to shop from the... ...s to computer room are one of the efficient ways to eliminate network data being stolen and abused. Companies and organizations with highly confidential information will have sets of security policy with consideration of human factor to protect their network. One thing we shall always keep in mind that  ¡Ã‚ §no one connected to a computer network is really safe from hackers ¡Ã‚ ¨(8) Any of the security device or software can only minimize the possibility of data being hacked, stolen and abused. Bibliography (1)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://www.ultranet.com/~fhirsch/Papers/wwwj/article.html (2)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://ecommercecentre.online.wa.gov.au/tools/internet/security.stm#2 (3)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://www.pgpi.org/doc/pgpintro/#p9 (4)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://www.pgpi.org/doc/pgpintro/#p9 (5)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://www.cnn.com/TECH/specials/hackers/primer/ (6)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://www.greatcircle.com/gca/tutorial/bif.html#firewall (7)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://pubweb.nfr.net/~mjr/pubs/fwfaq/#SECTION00031000000000000000 (8)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://www.cnn.com/TECH/specials/hackers/primer/

Human Population Growth

The two types of population growth of any species are exponential growth and logistic population growth (Simon, Reece and Dickey, 2010). Exponential population growth is defined as the rate of which a population grows constantly over a period of time resultant of continuous birth rate and ideal environmental conditions. In other words, the quality and quantity of resources is available at an overall higher standard, (Otherwise, 2012). The second type of population growth is logistic population growth. Most environments do not have unlimited resources. Limiting factors such as â€Å"carrying capacity† come into play. Carrying capacity is an environment that sustains a maximum population size (Simon, Reece and Dickey, 2010). When the population size begins to reach carrying capacity, there is a decrease in growth rate. When the population size is at its maximum for carrying capacity, it yields a zero growth rate (Simon, Reece and Dickey, 2010). As the population grows it can cause a number of serious problems such as food-scarcity, overcrowding, poverty, increased consumption, excess waste, and exploitation of natural resources such as land, water, fossil fuels, and vegetation. The combined effects of population growth, consumption, overuse, wastage and misuse of resources will strain the capacity of the earth to sustain life (Simon, Reece and Dickey, 2010). Human population exceeding its natural resources will limit access to basic needs such as adequate housing from overcrowded areas as lack of space will become evident. Building materials require resources such as timber from forests which results in deforestation. Means of transport require more consumption of fossil fuels, thus pollution of air, land and water result from greenhouse gas emissions. Scarcity of food and potable water will incur as more mouths to feed require agricultural production, also a result in deforestation, thus the need for increased water usage, and the application of pesticides and fertilizers that make the soil infertile and water scarce and non-potable. Generation of waste increase will require critical attention to proper waste management in order to prevent the spread of disease or epidemics (Simon, Reece and Dickey, 2010). Population will rise most rapidly in places least able to handle it, developing nations where hunger, political instability and environmental degradation are already pervasive (Otherwise, 2012). Massive efforts are in great need to keep social and economic conditions from deteriorating further. When the number in population exceeds the natural resources available to sustain it, there will be a profound effect on the overall quality of life and the degree of human suffering on Earth.

How the Media has Influenced Peoples Thoughts on...

Escaping the vast amounts of theories, viewpoints, and well written slants of the media is almost impossible for the common American citizens. America’s perceptions of the entire demographic has the capability of significant influence due broadcasts of various sorts. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community, or commonly referred to as LBGT, has been a core group fear, scrutiny, and confusion within the reports of varied mediums of exposure since as early as the 1950s. The highly convincing nature of the media’s influence is deeply rooted as truth within the minds of just about every person in America. No matter where you look or turn, in this day and age you cannot avoid the topic of homosexuality. It is being discussed in the news, books, television shows, movies, and as we have most recently now in politics. Since they are labeled to be a minority group, the LGBT community is viewed very differently by society. Although there are many people who think the re is nothing wrong with being gay, there are many who still believe it is immoral and abnormal. With all the diverse views floating around about homosexuals different portrayals and stereotypes can and have definitely derived from everywhere. These portrayals send intentional or sometimes even unintentional messages to the people on the receiving end of those messages, thereby shaping how those people view homosexuals. Since the media has such an immense impact on how homosexuality is viewed, it is extremelyShow MoreRelatedChristianity And Homosexuality : The Way Of Thinking1395 Words   |  6 PagesSimilar to the ancient Greeks’ way of thinking, homosexuality in Christianity was considered taboo because of the way the homosexual acts (specifically sodomy) were considered to degrade one partner to the status of a female. 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