Explain What Christians Believe About the Sanctity of Life and Especially Their Responsibility Essay Example for Free

Explain What Christians Believe About the Sanctity of Life and Especially Their Responsibility Essay All Christian beliefs, believe in the sanctity of life. This means that life is sacred as God has given us life. But many of the different Christian religions have different views on the way both Abortions and Euthanasia should be handled. Catholics believe that life begins at the moment of conception. But from a quote from Jeremiah 1:5 ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you’. This shows that God has already given the child there special personalities and talents even before they are born. This quote forms the base of the Vatican’s Stance on contraception. They completely disagree with condoms, ‘The Pill’ and any other forms of contraception. They are also totally against the idea of Abortion. This is shown in the Humane Vitae. Mother Teresa is totally against Abortion as from this quote we can tell that she thinks that it is a sin. ‘Any country that accepts Abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants’. This shows that she backs up the views of the Roman Catholic that Abortion is a tragic sin. But the Church of England and many other religions such as Quakers and Lutheran believe that Abortion is acceptable to have an Abortion in certain circumstances, such as rape or when mental or physical damage cause be inflicted on the mother or/and child. They disagree with the beliefs of the Roman Catholic as we all have free will and having Abortion is in the rights of free will. Also there is no quote the bible that clearly states that Abortion is wrong. At the other end of the life scale Euthanasia is also another controversial issue. All Christians believe that we as human are all created by God. This is shown in Psalm 139:16 ‘You saw my unborn body’. This shows that when David sung the psalm he was telling the people that God knew you before you were born, showing that as our bodies an minds are unique we all must treat our minds with respect as otherwise we shall be committing a sin against God. Due to the fact that Jesus was human and he was the person who saved us from original sin then Euthanasia is a sin against God. Under no personal or social circumstances could ever, can now, or will ever, should Euthanasia ever render such an act lawful in itself. Pope John Paul II clearly states in this quote made in 1989 that he is totally against the idea of contraception. In the bible it states that God is the only person who can take a life. This shows that the Roman Catholics are all against the idea of Euthanasia, making it a mortal sin. Where as the Church of England and the Society of Friends would argue that if the person is likely to die very soon then using free will they should be allowed to use euthanasia as they no that they are going to die any way. Also they believe that someone should not be put to sleep immediately, but they can stop taking the medication that is keeping them alive to speed up the death. But this can cause the law trouble as they cannot tell completely what has happened. In the law it is illegal to have euthanasia performed on you. If you were found guilty you would have to face charges of man slaughter. In the it says that death is not the end of the road only the end of the first part.

Life and Death After the Invasion :: essays research papers

Returning to their New Hampshire home, Barney and Betty Hill had the worst time adjusting to the â€Å"invasion†. Barney began smoking and Betty began to hallucinating. * 3 weeks later* Barney was on the verge of getting fired from his assistant supervisor job because he constantly got high in the workplace. He also began hallucinating about small martians speaking to him and telling him that everyone in their town are secret F.B.I. Agents and are out to get him and his wife. Also, that it would be a good idea to take his wife and drive to the Grand Canyon. That is where no one would find him. Due to Betty’s â€Å"strange behavior†, her boss awarded her with another week off to relax. She planned a trip alone to Arizona. After her day shift was over, she walks over to her car and grabs the handle. Only the door is stuck. Betty tugs and tugs, but the door still wont budge. She takes a deep breath and tries for the door again. With a mighty thrust, she tugs. The door opens and Betty falls to the ground. Everything in her purse falls out. Her red lipstick rolls underneath the car. As she reaches to grab it†¦. SLAM!!! The car door shuts again. Puzzled, she opens the door and looks, but no one is in her car. She puts her key in and cranks the engine†¦ â€Å"DAMN IT!† cursed Betty. The car wont start. She looks at the gas hand to see if the tank was empty. The tank was full. She picks up her cell phone and tried to call her husband, only to be accompanied by static. â€Å"Hello?† Silence. She then begins to hear something really weird. Whispering. â€Å"Hello? Who is this? Can anybody hear me? Barney? Barney, can you hear me?†, questioned Betty. Before she could even hang up the phone, a bright light surrounding the car making it very difficult to see. She then decides to get out of the car and investigate. She reaches for the handle, but cant open the door for it seems to be stuck. Betty tries to scream, but nothing manages to come out. The light becomes so bright, that she passes out. When she comes to (10 minutes later), she tries the engine again. â€Å"Hotdog, it works!† Betty rejoices. Barney, feeling â€Å"light as a feather†, she attempts to drive home. He pulls up in his driveway, hitting the garage door.

Medieval and Renaissance

Lewis, after having been granted Chair of the Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University in 1954, presents his first lecture to shed light on this new responsibility by drawing on a latent misnomer that could perhaps be created by the title of his present position, particularly by placing the terms â€Å"Medieval† and â€Å"Renaissance† side by side to connote a concurrence in meaning, which according to him, â€Å"†¦by this formula the University was giving official sanction to a change which has been coming over historical opinion within my own lifetime.Referring to the remarkable yet discreet elimination of the traditional divides between these terms as human’s understanding of these epochs broadens. Such usage of the terms likewise indicates how the perceived invisible divides marking out the disparities between these terms have been overstated (par 3). To this Lewis provides an alternative view saying that, â€Å"The actual temporal p rocess†¦has no divisions, except perhaps those â€Å"blessed barriers between day and day†, our sleeps.Change is never complete, and change never ceases† (Ibid). Nonetheless, placing everything that happens in a lifetime cannot be put in a single continuum otherwise it will create a chasm filled with categorically definable events yet in such circumstance may not be totally identifiable. Hence creating recognizable divisions such as periods for events is inevitable. He then moved on to consider the different periods that have marked the transitions from the Medieval to the Renaissance, namely: 1) between Antiquity and the Dark Ages or the fall of the Empire (par. 5); 2) between the Dark and the Middle Ages (par. 10); 3) towards the end of the seventeenth century (par. 11).For each perceivable period, he identified significant events such that between the Age of Antiquity and the Dark Ages, particularly in the literary genre, he recounts, the inevitable effect of â €Å"the barbarian invasions, the christening of Europe† (par 5), while referring to the observations of Gibbon, most probably that of Edward Gibbon, an â€Å"English historian and scholar, the supreme historian of the Enlightenment, who is best-known as the author of the monumental THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE,† (Liukkonen, 2008) who believes that â€Å"the material decay of Rome was the effect and symbol of moral decadence† (Ibid). Lewis then suggests that such episodes where imperative that people in earlier days who were able to adapt to the circumstances where no different than the people now and the changes that have happened them would have the same effect to us—â€Å"Nothing new had come into the world† (par. 7).Likewise everything that happens then occurs for a reason and each event is irreversible as it is if it would happen now. As to the episodes between the Dark and the Middle Ages, which Lewis regards as â€Å"a period of retrogression: worse houses, worse drains, fewer baths, worse roads, less security† (par. 10), nonetheless, it is during this period that the world reached â€Å"a period of widespread and brilliant improvement† (Ibid) (i. e. recovery of Aristotle’s text and its consequent integration by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas; discovery of alternative solutions to technical problems in Architecture; introduction of rhymed and syllabic verse in place of the old alliterative and assonantal metres which has characterized European poetry for centuries [Ibid]).Finally, concerning the third boundary within the epochs towards the end of the 17th century, Lewis, as in his explanations on the exigencies in the previous epochs, maintains that such events or changes are prerequisites to impending developments. Thus he concludes: When Watt makes his engine, when Darwin starts monkeying with the ancestry of Man, and Freud with his soul, and the economists with all that is his, th en indeed the lion will have got out of its cage. Its liberated presence in our midst will become one of the most important factors in everyone's daily life (par. 11). One should then perceive circumstances as a priori to succeeding events. Lewis did not stop with this structure though.He moved on to create a structure that will eventually define the organization of the succeeding epochs, after the Renaissance. To this division, however, Lewis clarifies: â€Å"The dating of such things must of course be rather hazy and indefinite. No one could point to a year or a decade in which the change indisputably began, and it has probably not yet reached its peak† (par 12). He then starts drawing the lines between these periods starting off from Scott (par. 13), most probably Sir Walter Scott, â€Å"a Scottish writer and poet and considered one of the greatest historical novelists, who lived between 1771 and1832† (â€Å"Sir Walter Scott,† n. d. ). Lewis then presents his view on these timelines taking a stance in relation to the political order circumstances.Thus, â€Å"For of a ruler one asks justice, incorruption, diligence, perhaps clemency; of a leader, dash, initiative, and (I suppose) what people call â€Å"magnetism† or â€Å"personality† (par. 13). Next, he considers the arts as a factor affecting the timelines. At this point he presents his argument concerning the arts, saying: â€Å"I do not think that any previous age produced work which was, in its own time, as shatteringly and bewilderingly new as that of the Cubists, the Dadaists, the Surrealists, and Picasso has been in ours† (par. 15), implying the intrinsic worth he attributes to the arts then and now. Thus, â€Å"To say that all new poetry was once as difficult as ours is false; to say that any was is an equivocation† (Ibid).He then proceeds to consider the developments in the timelines placing circumstances in line with the religious aspects of develo pments where, according to Lewis, there was a time when there was a traditional pre-conceived notion that individuals have the tendency to â€Å"relaps[e] into Paganism† (par. 16) or â€Å"that the historical process allows mere reversal (Ibid), to which he maintains the idea that circumstances as a priori to succeeding events as irreversible. This he clarifies: It is not what happens. A post-Christian man is not a Pagan; you might as well think that a married woman recovers her virginity by divorce. The post-Christian is cut off from the Christian past and therefore doubly from the Pagan past (par. 16).In paragraph 17, Lewis finally transitions his structuring of the timelines with the creation of the machines, which he considers â€Å"parallel to the great changes by which we divide epochs of pre-history† and where â€Å"the latest in advertisements always means best. † It is during this period that man regards â€Å"milestones in life as technological advan ces†: everything that happens is either directly or indirectly affected by technology. Such factor, according to Lewis, starkly differentiates us from the people in the other timelines and concludes â€Å"that it really is the greatest change in the history of Western Man† (par. 18). In the end, he points back to his earlier claim that there really is a great divide between â€Å"Medieval† and â€Å"Renaissance.† Nonetheless, somewhere in that divide lies some defining distinctiveness that unify these terms which are â€Å"certainly important and perhaps more important than its interior diversities† (par. 19). To end the arguments created or most likely to be created in the presentation of the boundaries or frontier, as Lewis labels them to be, he clarified that he will be using â€Å"Old† (Ibid) culture instead. He concludes with an emphasis on the significance of having a deeper understanding of the past for with it one is released from its shackles (par. 21) and a claim that even though there is a great distance that separates men from different epochs or timeless, they can still have a common ground. Thus, Lewis, being a native of the time, is in authority when he said:It is my settled conviction that in order to read Old Western literature aright you must suspend most of the responses and unlearn most of the habits you have acquired in reading modem literature (par. 22). References: Lewis, C. S. â€Å"De Descriptione Temporum† Inaugural Lecture from The Chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, 1954. Retrieved April 28, 2009 from http://www. eng. uc. edu/~dwschae/temporum. html Liukkonen, Petri. (2008). â€Å"Edward Gibbon (1737-1794). † Retrieved April 30, 2009 from http://www. kirjasto. sci. fi/egibbon. htm â€Å"Sir Walter Scott. † (n. d. ). Retrieved April 30, 2009 from http://www. online- literature. com/walter_scott/

Essay on Prudence vs. Inclinations in Pride and Prejudice

Prudence vs. Inclinations in Pride and Prejudice In the novel, Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Jane both achieve lasting happiness with their respective partners -- Darcy and Bingley, after a series of misjudgments, misunderstandings and obstacles. Indeed the heroines (Elizabeths) tumultuous relationship with Darcy forms the bulk of the novel, and the focal point of interest for the reader while Janes relationship with Bingley adds variety and interest to the novel. Elizabeths and Darcys relationship is filled with trials and tribulations, misjudgments and prejudice, eventually culminating in a blissful union of two complementary souls. Their relationship begins at an inauspicious starting point when they†¦show more content†¦It is his prudent judgment and flexibility which temper his inclination to corn and criticize, such that he is able to recognize in Elizabeth a worthy wife and companion, despite her social standing [never so much of an obstacle as the familys behaviour] and Lydias elopment. Therefore, we must credit his prudent judgement for his remarkable change in opinion, which paves the way for his future happiness with Elizabeth. Unfortunately, Elizabeth displays little of her prudent judgement and astute assessment with regard to Darcy. It is for this singular reason that her relationship with Darcy is fraught with difficulty. After her first meeting with Darcy, Elizabeth determinedly preserves her prejudice against Darcy, even after repeated incidents which attest to his credibility of character, displaying uncharacteristic lack of intelligent and careful judgement. When Elizabeth meets Wickham, she is immediately won over by his appearance and suave charm, and is whole-heartedly inclined to believe his every word, simply because his very countenance may vouch for [his] being amiable, and there was truth in his looks. This rash inclination results in her being even more convinced of Darcys unworthiness of character. In spite of the factShow MoreRelatedPride and Prejudice: Contrasting the Relationships of Elizabeth and Jane1908 Words   |  8 PagesEnglish literature, is novelist Jane Austen. Writer of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma and two other additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion and lastly the novel Sanditon. Austen’s novels acted as witty, warm and consisted descriptions of the favored classes of the 18th- and 19th-century in England. Jane’s most finely known novels were Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice and Emma, all three became favorites in the world of Hollywood. Read MoreMarketing Mistakes and Successes175322 Words   |  702 PagesJuggernaut Starbucks: A Paragon of Growth and Employee Benefits Finds Storms Boston Beer: Is Greater Growth Possible? 29 46 PART II MARKETING WARS 61 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Cola Wars: Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi PC Wars: Hewlett-Packard vs. Dell Airliner Wars: Boeing vs. Airbus; and Recent Outsourcing Woes 63 86 PART III COMEBACKS Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 McDonald’s: Rebirth Through Moderation Harley-Davidson: Creating An Enduring Mystique Continental Airlines:Read MoreCrossing the Chasm76808 Words   |  308 Pagespossible. One of the functions of this book, therefore-and perhaps its most important one-is to open up the logic of marketing decision making during this period so that everyone on the management team can participate in the marketing process. If prudence rather than brilliance is to be our guiding principle, then many heads are better than one. If marketing is going to be the driving force-and most organizations insist this is their goal—then its principles must be accessible to all the players