Western Contemporary Issues Essay Example

Western Contemporary Issues Essay Example Western Contemporary Issues Essay Western Contemporary Issues Essay Western contemporary issues plague religious traditions. As new issues arise, religious leaders have to scramble to give congregations advise on how to address these issues. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity have all had to struggle with contemporary issues, especially in the Western secular world. Issues such as abortion create many problems for religious leaders, especially those in Western societies, and this can create animosity and hate amongst societies that are tolerant with different practices. Religious freedom is a gift. It is one that we were most generously given by our forefathers. From this freedom to practice religions freely has come secularism in a good portion of westernized societies. Secularism is when no one religion influences the practices and beliefs of the government (Websters, 2010). Secularism has given a gift of freedom of religion, or freedom of no religion, but with that comes many issues that take a secular side. Therefore, there is a disconnect between religions and government. Abortion is a well-debated issue. The question is when does life begin? Some people believe that it begins after birth, or when the fetus can survive outside the womb by itself. And some believe that it is when conception happens. This is where the abortion debate begins. Christians believe that life begins at conception; therefore, they do not believe in the act of abortion (Catechism, 2010). This is an issue that the United States government allows because the government believes in a woman’s right to choose if she would like to keep her child. This western contemporary issue is one that is debated. This issue has gone all the way to the Supreme Court. In the United States right now, abortion is legal. Societies that are religious based, especially those in the Middle East, try to fight the influence of the western contemporary societies. For example, abortions are not legal in these societies; however, there are extreme punishments for women who are accused or committed premarital relations. She may be punished for even being raped because she is not longer pure (Molloy, 2010). Muslims who live in western societies have challenges as well. While they are free to practice their faith in Western societies, they also have the â€Å"temptations† of those freedoms, like abortion. Sometimes, freedom to partake in practices like abortion, create hatred for other societies. We see this in extremists from all sorts of religions. For example, Anti-Semitic believers do not believe that Jews have the right to practice and live their Jewish faith. This Anti-Semitic view was very prevalent during World War II, when hate that Hitler created killed millions of Jews (Molloy, 2010). We still see hatred today. On September 11, 2001, Muslim extremists attacked the United States. These extremists do not believe in religious freedom and they do not like the freedom that Western societies give to their citizens. This hatred for change and love for their religion can reap havoc and cause mass wars. There is a fine balance that must be achieved to protect the sacred elements of religion and to create a free society that can practice whatever faith they believe in. We are continuously trying to marry these differences to promote peace. Peace is a reoccurring theme in most religions, but peace seems to be disrupted by hate and war (Molloy, 2010). Government and religious leaders will have to continue to find the line where peace may occur. References Catholic Church (2007). Catechism of the Catholic Church (4th ed. ). Vatican: Liberia Editrice Vaticana. Molloy, M. (2010). Experiencing the world’s religions: Tradition, challenge, and change (5th ed. ). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Webster’s Dictionary (2010). Webster’s Dictionary (11th ed. ). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Understanding Experimental Groups

Understanding Experimental Groups Scientific experiments often include two groups: the experimental group and the control group. Heres a closer look at the experimental group and how to distinguish it from the experimental group. Key Takeaways: Experimental Group The experimental group is the set of subjects exposed to a change in the independent variable. While its technically possible to have a single subject for an experimental group, the statistical validity of the experiment will be vastly improved by increasing the sample size.In contrast, the control group is identical in every way to the experimental group, except the independent variable is held constant. Its best to have a large sample size for the control group, too.Its possible for an experiment to contain more than one experimental group. However, in the cleanest experiments, only one variable is changed. Experimental Group Definition An experimental group in a scientific experiment is the group on which the experimental procedure is performed. The independent variable is changed for the group and the response or change in the dependent variable is recorded. In contrast, the group that does not receive the treatment or in which the independent variable is held constant is called the control group. The purpose of having experimental and control groups is to have sufficient data to be reasonably sure the relationship between the independent and dependent variable is not due to chance. If you perform an experiment on only one subject (with and without treatment) or on one experimental subject and one control subject you have limited confidence in the outcome. The larger the sample size, the more probable the results represent a real correlation. Example of an Experimental Group You may be asked to identify the experimental group in an experiment as well as the control group. Heres an example of an experiment and how to tell these two key groups apart. Lets say you want to see whether a nutritional supplement helps people lose weight. You want to design an experiment to test the effect. A poor experiment would be to take a supplement and see whether or not you lose weight. Why is it bad? You only have one data point! If you lose weight, it could be due to some other factor. A better experiment (though still pretty bad) would be to take the supplement, see if you lose weight, stop taking the supplement and see if the weight loss stops, then take it again and see if weight loss resumes. In this experiment you are the control group when you are not taking the supplement and the experimental group when you are taking it. Its a terrible experiment for a number of reasons. One problem is that the same subject is being used as both the control group and the experimental group. You dont know, when you stop taking treatment, that is doesnt have a lasting effect. A solution is to design an experiment with truly separate control and experimental groups. If you have a group of people who take the supplement and a group of people who do not, the ones exposed to the treatment (taking the supplement) are the experimental group. The ones not-taking it are the control group. How to Tell Control and Experimental Group Apart In an ideal situation, every factor that affects a member of both the control group and experimental group is exactly the same except for one the independent variable. In a basic experiment, this could be whether something is present or not. Present experimental; absent control. Sometimes, its more complicated and the control is normal and the experimental group is not normal. For example, if you want to see whether or not darkness has an effect on plant growth. Your control group might be plants grown under ordinary day/night conditions. You could have a couple of experimental groups. One set of plants might be exposed to perpetual daylight, while another might be exposed to perpetual darkness. Here, any group where the variable is changed from normal is an experimental group. Both the all-light and all-dark groups are types of experimental groups. Sources Bailey, R.A. (2008). Design of Comparative Experiments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521683579. Hinkelmann, Klaus and Kempthorne, Oscar (2008). Design and Analysis of Experiments, Volume I: Introduction to Experimental Design (Second ed.). Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-72756-9.

Is The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum a feminist film If so,why Movie Review

Is The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum a feminist film If so,why - Movie Review Example A Nobel prize-winning writer, Bà ¶ll had composed an exposition scrutinizing the Bild-Zeitung (the generally circled every day tabloid that was the trade bovine in for spendable dough the yellow press realm of Axel Springer) for fanning mass craziness with its scope of the Baader-Meinhof group. The paper then marked Bà ¶ll a terrorist sympathizer, and he and his family were subjected to police provocation, hunts, and wiretaps. Bà ¶lls reaction was to compose The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (subtitled "How Violence Can Arise and What It Can Lead To"), about a young lady whose life is crushed when the police associate her with harboring a terrorist (Taubin, 2003). As Katharina is dragged into cross examination and mortified by the police, its unimaginable not to consider this in light of all around archived treatment of ladies in the wake of sex outrages and assault allegations. These points and appeals highly stress the film’s feminist orientation. The specialists tear separated her loft, address her thought processes and history, and make intimations about her. They dont such a great amount of ask as interest, such a great amount of test as demand. She is blameworthy not until demonstrated pure, but rather essentially liable. As an inseparable unit with the states power goes the press, sensationalizing, lying, and talk mongering. This is an immediate analogy for the way ladies are slut-shamed, disgraced in private and open, and as the film advances, it weaves into it layer upon layer (Black, 2015). Some of political movies rise above their historical minute. Yet viewing Volker Schlà ¶ndorff and Margarethe von Trottas The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum today leads to the powerful experience. There is little contrast between this portrayal of West Germany in 1975, when the nervousness about terrorism disintegrated essential majority rule values, and what we are afraid of is going to happen — might undoubtedly be now happening —

Anorexia in the Fashion Industry Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Anorexia in the Fashion Industry - Research Paper Example The voluptuous curves which used to be admired in the past have been switched to straighter angles and lines on fashion model’s bodies. With these skinny fashion models gracing the covers of the most exclusive and trendy magazines, many teenage girls seem to be drawn to the idea that in order for them to be as beautiful and as accepted as these models, they have to look like them. This obsession has even created the psychological disorder known as anorexia nervosa. Anorexia is a life-threatening disease, which mostly involves the act of starving oneself in order to look as thin and as â€Å"beautiful† as the fashion models. Deaths have been reported for some anorexic teenagers and models, as the unacceptable image that these models and teenagers see in their mirrors never seems to reach acceptable standards. This paper shall now investigate how the fashion world and designers influence models and girls to become extremely thin, and how they cause these girls to be anorexic. It will also note the lengths to which these girls go to in order to be and to stay as thin as possible and the impact on these girls lives. This paper shall also discuss the changing trends surrounding weight issues and fashion modeling -- from the earliest days when such trends made an impact on the world and on contemporary times. This discussion shall cover opinions and scholarly studies conducted on the subject matter, focusing on the thin fashion models and celebrities and the impact of the skinny obsession on teenagers and on girls in general. The end of the First World War brought about the raising of the hems and the lowering of the waists in women’s fashion. Panati (p. 235) points out how the dresses designed in the 1920s called for women to be flat-chested and boyish, and those who had fuller breasts were also forced to bind their chest to flatten their chests.  

Macbeth, a Play Full of Darkness Essay Example for Free

Macbeth, a Play Full of Darkness Essay Macbeth is a play full of darkness, evil, and tragedy. It is the story of a man who goes against his conscience and commits a horrible deed which leads to his destruction and loss of everything he has around him. This includes the relationship he has with his wife, Lady Macbeth. In the beginning we see Lady Macbeth playing the more superior, more dominating role of the two. She comes across as a woman, who is persuasive and manipulative. She seems willing to trample anyone in order to get what she wants. She lays all the plans and all Macbeth has to do is obey her commands. Macbeth on the other hand is fickle-minded and unsure. We discover that the man, who is praised so highly by the public is actually a weak man. We see that he is not the brave loyal man he is portrayed to be in the beginning. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have a very strong relationship but this later deteriorates. Act 1 Scene 5 is a key scene which shows just how close Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were at the beginning of the play ;it shows their original relationship. Macbeth has written a letter to Lady Macbeth telling her of everything and in this letter states â€Å"my dearest partner† which shows that she helped him and they are in it together. . The following speech where Lady Macbeth doubts that he can get to the title of King he is too full of the milk of human kindness shows just how close they were. It establishes the fact that she knew him so well, she knew what he was like and it emphasises the closeness of their relationship. She speaks of how he has enough ambition but not enough courage. His overiding ambition is not enough. When Macbeth and Lady Macbeth speak, they speak to eachother with such closeness and bond ;he calls her his dearest chuck, his partner of greatness. She knows that he is too weak to do anything and states her position in the murder leave the rest to me. In Act 1, Scene 7 shows the force and power that Lady Macbeth has over her husband. Upon hearing of Macbeths decision not to kill Duncan, she is outraged and starts to work her force and power upon him. She knows where he is most vulnerable and attacks him at his weak spot. She strikes him at his manhood and courage. This of course works on Macbeth and she knows that it will. No one calls Macbeth a coward. She says that he is a coward and attacks his manliness. to be more than what you are, you would be so much more the man. She challenges his love for her and says that she would rather dash the brains out of her own child than break such a promise as Macbeth has to her. At this point in the play, Shakespeare re-confirms just how close the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is and that she has the power and he listens to whatever she has to say. Lady Macbeth is s major influence on Macbeth, but this of course changes later. After the murder, Macbeth is still carrying the daggers and he seems to be quiet and uneasy. Lady Macbeth has to clean up what he has done wrong and has to return the daggers herself. Lady Macbeth is still very much in control. Here, Shakespeare defines both Lady Macbeth and Macbeths strong and weak characters. Lady Macbeth being the strong one yet as a duo, he tones them down to be nothing but two whispering, frightened villains. Later on, when Macduff discovers the body of Duncan, Macbeth acts suspiciously and draws attention to himself. It is then that Lady Macbeth has to help him out and draw the attention away from him and to her by fainting. She does this later too, during the banquet scene. Lady Macbeth is always there to take the attention away from Macbeth. However, towards the end of the play, Lady Macbeth, comes across as one who has succumbed to her guilt. She discovers that nothing that she does could rid her off her guilt, by admitting that even the sweet-smelling erfumes of Arabia would not be able to remove the stench of blood from her little hand. She now takes up the role of the weak, submissive partner in the relationship, who is unsure of herself and very frightened of the future. Macbeth, on the other hand, now makes all his decisions by himself, and reaches the extent whereto he does not even bother to inform his wife of his plans. He gains false confidence from the witches second predictions and builds castles in the air. He becomes a tyrant and a man, despised and hated by his public. He becomes insane and goes out of control.

puritans Essay -- essays research papers

Their opponents ridiculed them as "Puritans," but these radical reformers, the English followers of John Calvin, came to embrace that name as an emblem of honor. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, England faced a gathering storm in religious life - the Puritan movement. Before the storm abated, the Puritans had founded the first permanent European settlements in a region that came to be known as New England. The Puritans believed that God had commanded the reform of both church and society. They condemned drunkenness, gambling, theatergoing, and Sabbath-breaking and denounced popular practices rooted in pagan custom, like the celebration of Christmas. They deplored the "corruptions" of Roman Catholicism that still pervaded the Church of England - churches and ceremonies they thought too elaborate, clergymen who were poorly educated. The refusal of English monarchs to attack these "besetting evils" turned the Puritans into outspoken critics of the government. This King James I would not endure: he decided to rid England of these malcontents. With some of the Puritans, known as the Separatists, he seemed to have succeeded. The Separatists, a tiny minority within the Puritan movement, were pious people from humble backgrounds who concluded that the Church of England was too corrupt to be reformed from within. In 1608 one Separatist congregation at Scrooby decided to flee to Holland. That move afforded them religious freedom, but they found only low-paying jobs and were distressed by desertions from within their ranks to other religions. Some decided to move again, this time to North America. In December of 1620, eighty-eight Separatist "Pilgrims" disembarked from the Mayflower at a place they called Plymouth on the coast of present-day southeastern Massachusetts. But misfortune followed the Separatists to the New World. The hardships of the crossing and inadequate provisions left many vulnerable to a "starving time" during the winter. The Plymouth colony would have failed entirelyif the Pilgrims had not received assistance from local Indian tribes. The Pilgrims had received permission from England to settle farther south in the New World, but they had sailed off course and lacked any legal sanction for their land claims or their government in Plymouth. English authorities, however, distracted by ... ...regationalism fostered a growing diversity of opinion and practice, because each local church was free to go its own way. By the end of the seventeenth century, many churches had adopted more liberal standards for admission to membership or to the sacraments of baptism and communion. Divisions among New England's Congregationalists became even more pronounced after the 1730s because of the first Great Awakening, a major religious revival. Some welcomed it, but others disliked the emotionalism and disorder that attended the new religious enthusiasm. Competing denominations gained from the Congregationalists' disputes: disgruntled conservatives deserted to the Anglicans and Quakers, and the most radical advocates of revivalism formed "Separate" churches or joined the Baptists. By the middle of the eighteenth century, New England had become a more mobile, commercialized, stratified, and diverse society. But for most of the region's inhabitants, earlier patterns of life persisted. The majority remained an insular, rural folk, their lives defined by the seasonal rhythms of agriculture, the bonds of family, church, and local community, and a fundamentally religious outlook.

Davos: the World Economic Forum Essay

Davos is a town located on the Landwasser River, in the Swiss Alps, between the Plessur and Albula Range in Switzerland. At 1,560 meters, it is the highest city in Europe. From the middle of the 18th century, Davos became a popular destination for the ailing because the climate in the high valley was proved excellent by doctors and recommended for lung disease patients. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote an article about skiing in Davos in 1899. In the early 90s, Davos became famous worldwide for hosting the World Economic Forum (WEF), an annual meeting of global political and business elites (often referred to simply as Davos) and the home of one of Switzerland’s biggest ski resorts. Organization is defined as â€Å"an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. (World Economic Forum, 2012) These meetings bring together CEOs from the 1000 member companies as well as selected politicians, representatives from academia, NGOs, religious leaders and the media. Around 2200 participants gather for the five-day event and attend some 220 sessions. The discussions focus around key issues of global concern (such as international conflicts, poverty and environmental problems) and possible solutions. In all about 500 journalists from online, print, radio and TV take part, and are furnished with access to all of the sessions, some of which are also webcast. (Davos, 2011) The organization also convenes some six to eight regional meetings each year in locations such as Latin America and East Asia, as well as two further annual meetings in China and the United Arab Emirates. Beside meetings, the foundation produces a series of research reports and engages its members in sector specific initiatives. The Forum was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, a German-born business professor at the University of Geneva, who is currently an Executive Chairman of WEF. Originally named the â€Å"European Management Forum†, it changed its name to the World Economic Forum in 1987 and sought to broaden its vision further to include providing a platform for resolving international conflicts. (Davos, 2012) In the summer of 1971, Schwab invited 444 executives from Western European firms to the first European Management Symposium held in the Davos Congress Centre under the patronage of the European Commission and European industrial associations, where Schwab sought to introduce European firms to American management practices. He then founded the WEF as a non-profit organization based in Geneva and drew European business leaders to Davos for the annual meetings each January. (Davos, 2012)