Pascal's dethroned king
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
The problem with treating a book like Pascal's Pensees as an apologetic is that images and analogies like the dethroned king thereby lose much of their force. As a description of the human condition, considered without reference to the question of why it is true, its power grows the more we...
Kallipolis
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Plato's Republic makes a very interesting and convincing case for how people should live and the way in which to bring about this life. His view states that people must live in his theoretical city of Kallipolis in order to be truly happy. In my opinion he is mistaken for a few very key reasons...
Equality of the soul
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Religion is often seen as a way of civilizing the foreign, or different, and making them on near equal terms. Examples are visible throughout history, such as with the Romans conquering foreign lands and making the conquered worship their gods to allow the captured to feel a part of the Roman...
Aristotle's theory
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
The main 3 parts of Aristotle's theory, of how someone gains knowledge, are sense perception, memory, and the systemizing of these persisting impressions. He begins by saying that all animals contain innate sense perception. However, even though all animals contain it, in some it comes to...
Knowledge and reality
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
The concept of a non-material reality is one that is not only fundamentally important but also highly debated in the field of philosophy. Different ideas and opinion abound over the division and labeling of various types of matter and reality, the source to obtain inferences on such a subject,...
An anthropological perspective on Western rituals
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
One of the most fascinating and yet utterly odd rituals that the group being studied undertakes in involves a complex mouth ritual preformed by many inhabitants twice or three times daily. It should be added that while appearing ‘strange', it is not without its own distinct function as a...
Investigation tools for Westminster Presbyterian Church
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Change is an element of any congregation which survives to serve more than a single generation. Your congregation contracted this firm to give you tools to examine the nature and identity of Westminster Presbyterian, but also to discover the congregation's environment. Congregations are centers...
Black theology and homiletics for the Mainline Church
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Liberation, community, bitterness, deficit, grim statistics having faces and names instead of numbers; this full litany shows itself in communities of faith. Pastorally, this litany plays out in several ways. The personhood of all those in our church communities show the wounds this world gives...
Atonement
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
What happened on the cross? When Jesus suffered and died, what happened? Atonement theology often claims that the death was a sacrifice for the sins of the world. This statement becomes nuanced in contemporary theologies because surrogate suffering was used to oppress others, salvific violence...
Plato and education
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Creationism was the prevalent education style used to explain how the Earth came to be and how humans came to be. When the theory of Evolution came into being, teachers began telling students about it. Obviously there was an enormous amount of reluctance to teach this new idea as well as learn...
Hume's skepticism
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Hume's skepticism of miracles centered around the use of them to explain things that could not be explained in any other way. Doing so sets a limit on what we can achieve through human understanding. Take for instance intelligent design. Intelligent design states that there are objects...
Berkeley's theory of knowledge
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Berkeley's theory of reality and reality can be considered to be the opposite of Descartes' theory. For Descartes, the one true thing that could not be disproved was that people have their own thoughts and they can perceive themselves as having these thoughts. Even if they cannot prove anything...
Plato's epistemology
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Epistemology deals with what knowledge is, how we acquire knowledge, and how we justify what we believe. Plato's theory of knowledge is generally referred to as “justified true belief.” This epistemological theory basically states that knowledge is gained through an explanation...
Law and violence in Jewish and Islamic perspectives
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
When the above is read at a glance, one would think Jewish Law states that a son who does not obey his parents shall be put to death. However, we do not see this implemented in society today - nor are there notable instances of this occurring in history. Has it been ignored? Does this suggest...
The Church of our holy death, identity and human emission
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
Eros is the sum of life-preserving instincts that manifest as impulses to gratify basic needs like sex, as sublimated impulses motivated by the same basic needs, and as impulses to protect and preserve the body and mind. Thanatos is Greek for death. “Death” is more than the physical...
Education: Where the 2008 Presidential candidates stand
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
There are 76.6 million children under the age of 17 currently enrolled in school in the United States. In 2008, education reform ranked as the third most important issue for voters, behind the war in Iraq and the economy. The No Child Left behind Act, passed in 2001 by President Bush, is an...
Hegemony and dominant ideology
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
The dictionary defines hegemony as the “predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others”. It is the process of turning parts of society into something seeming natural using a dominant ideology. The more specific concept of hegemony was developed by...
Meursault: An analysis
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
As humans, we are innately apt to ask ourselves, who we are, and what we are doing on this earth and why. Why, why why. We are obsessed with this question. Yet, when others seem to have it figured out, we look down upon it. In Albert Camus', “The Stranger,” the main character, Mersault,...
The diversity of love
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
The significance of love in regards to modern day society is often widely overlooked. According to one definition from Merriam-Webster, the word, “love,” means: a warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion. At the same time, there are eight are listed definitions of the word. Prior to...
Samuel 17:28-37
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
My passage is taken from the first book of Samuel, and it's from the ever-popular story of David and Goliath. It's an epic dialogue between the current king, Saul, and the anointed king, David. The passage begins when David is confused as to why people are afraid of the Goliath. Yes, the Goliath...
Antigone vs. sartre
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Evil is generally characterized as morally wrong, wicked, or immoral. Jean Paul Sartre, a French philosopher, discussed evil as an absolute evil where a person purposely debases another into an object; Sophocles' and Anouilh's version of Antigone both demonstrated two characters that, at times,...
Christian scriptures
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
The Bible can be called an “artifact of social memory” because first off, an artifact, by definition, is anything made or used by mankind. The Bible is considered by many be produced by the plenary verbal inspiration, which states that the scripture came from the Holy Spirit and that...
Human sacrifice-totally crazy or crazily reasonable?
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Is there any way of truly justifying whether one society's practice is wrong because our society looks at based on their own “standards”? The human sacrifice was considered a religious act that showed the Aztecs' true affection and admiration for their gods; however, today, our society...
Jonah and the Whale
Thesis - 1 pages - Philosophy
The story of Jonah and the “Whale” is one of the most famous and retold stories in the Bible. It tells of the prophet Jonah, a fisherman who gets swallowed whole by a great fish. The story goes that Jonah was fleeing God when God called upon Jonah to proclaim judgment to Ninevah, the...
Interpreting the Bible
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
I believe that calling the Bible an “artifact of social memory” implies that is a creation of collected thoughts and stories over time. As religion became more and more popular, people began hearing stories about God, Jesus, etc. and began to collaborate with others about the works...
Abraham: Genesis 16: 1-12
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
In Genesis 16: 1-12, Abram is worried about carrying on his bloodline. He has no son to speak of and is already around 90 years old. God has promised Abram that he would be the “father of many”. His wife Sarai knows this and also knows that he is not happy and would like a son, but she...
Important people in Taoism: Zhang San Feng
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Taoism, also known as Daoism, is a philosophical religion that is widespread among eastern parts of Asia as well as parts of the western world. Taoism has involved several important people, namely Zhang San Feng. San Feng has also been known as Zhang Sanfeng, Chan San Feng, and Chan Sanfeng....
The rhetorical application of pity in 'We Shall Overcome'
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Painting an image of the role emotion plays in human cognition, American thinker William James once said, “emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.” The correlation of emotion and action is applicable to rhetorical...
The significance of Isaiah 45:1-13 for Yahweh and the exiled
Thesis - 7 pages - Philosophy
Isaiah 45:1-13 is, in many ways, a microcosm of Second Isaiah as a whole. Anchored firmly in historical context, this passage portrays people still confined to exile, yet also looking forward to the possibility of future release and redemption. In tone, it is strikingly different from the...
Fallacies in Descartes' Dream Argument
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Descartes begins his Meditations with a discussion of doubt, believing it to be the tool by which knowledge can be verified. Betrayed by “the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood (Descartes, 12),” the philosopher seeks a decisive mode of...
