вторник, 13 мај 2008
Life of jesus christ
The life of Jesus Christ is a very emotional yet religious topic to explain about. His birth was miraculous, the way he lived was very sin free and religious and his death changed people's lives forever. The innocence and loyalty that Jesus portrayed was still not enough for the Roman Empire. He was just too over powering for the government and other peoples lives and was considered a risky individual.
The birth of Jesus was said to be on December 25 yet in the bible there was no set date on which he was born. Jesus was born in Jerusalem 200 years ago to a young woman named Mary. Mary was a virgin who had been visited by angels and had been explained about this miraculous birth that was going to take place. It was said that Joseph was uncomfortable with this idea of Mary having a baby of a holy spirit. Jospeh and Mary were planning their engagement and Joseph wasnt comfortable with following through with this whole idea. The angels and prophets had also predicted his birth to Mary and had it planned and explained it to Mary. People in the city of Jerusalem were waiting for this event to come, the event of his birth. The day had finally come when Jesus was making his arrival. He was born in the hills, unwillingly, of Judea in a very small village called Bethlehem. The birth of Jesus Christ was according to God's eternal purpose. Before he was born, Jesus was in the form of God but he was the spirit of God in a human form. God in no way wanted to make Jesus of any reputation of him. Jesus had a fraternal father named Joseph. Joseph raised Jesus for most of his life. Jesus was considered a miracle but what people didn't know was how much of an impact he would have on the nation and worldwide. His birth, death and teachings changed our world in a positive aspect.
In Jesus' early years he had worked as a carpenter as well as a teacher and others had thought of him as a prophet. He just lived his life like any other normal jewish individual would.
Jesus had healed hundreds of people from sickness and desiese on several occasions and he also raised people from physical death. People had saw the amount of power that Jesus had witheld and people knew he was a great religious leader. In his thirties, Jesus began public teaching and display of public miracles. From all the teachings and healing he had done, he had never travelled more than 200 miles from his birthplace. After thress years of his teachings, his reputation has spread worldwide and people all around the world were studying his teachings.
>From all of the radical claims he had made, this had attracted thousands. The authorities had decided that they had to do something about this before he took over too much power. The Roman Empire were afraid that they would lose power to Jesus.
The authorities had decided that something had to be done about this religious leader. Pilate, which was the head of the Roman authorities didn't want to kill Jesus because he knew he was innocent. In order to keep up his reputation, Pilate had sentanced him to execution because he didnt want the people in the community and society to hate on him. Pilate had ordered that he'd be beaten so he could be restless when hung up on the cross. It was said around noon, Jesus had been executed around 12:00 pm. Jesus was brutally tortured and then hung by his hands, which were nailed to a horizontal wooden beam (cross). This torture had taken place for16 hours straight. You can only imagine how painful it was. This method of execution restricted the airflow to his lungs, killing him in three hours. Jesus had shown no fear of death when they had warned him about his execution. He knew that he was dying as a sacrifice for the sins of people and for the freedom of his people. However, according to more than 500 witnesses, Jesus returned from the dead three days later on a sunday, and over the next 40 days journeyed in both the southern and northern provinces of Israel. To many, this was conclusive proof that Jesus' claims to be God were real. Then Jesus returned to Jerusalem, the city where he was recently executed, and according to witnesses, he left the earth alive by rising up into the sky. People could not believe what had happened. Could they have really had executed a great leader with amazing powers. A man that was so courageous, fearless, compassionate, forgiving, forsaking the riches and befriending the lowly had died a very unneccessary death.
After Jesus' execution, the christian faith increased immensley. People worldwide are now practising the faith of Jesus. His death has changed history and people's lives and the way they act, live and treat others around them. Within 100 years, people throughout the Roman empire (Asia Minor, Europe) became followers of Jesus. In 325 AD, the following of Jesus, Christianity, became the official religion of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Within 500 years, even Greece's temples of Greek gods were transformed into churches for followers of Jesus.
Although some of Jesus' messages and teachings were diluted or miscommunicated through the expansion of a religious institution, Jesus' original words and life still speak loudly for themselves. Only a few months later in that same city of Jerusalem one record states that some 3000 new followers were added in a single day. The religious leaders responded by trying to stomp out Jesus' followers. Many of these people chose to die rather than deny their belief that Jesus was truly God. This is how faithful Jesus' followers were. So as you can see Jesus Christ lived a hard yet experiencing life. He changed the lives of others, help them by taking away their sickness and giving them good health, and also helped those in need and started a very popular faith within christianity which is followed by million and millions of individuals each day, and is still increasing rapidly.
The birth of Jesus was said to be on December 25 yet in the bible there was no set date on which he was born. Jesus was born in Jerusalem 200 years ago to a young woman named Mary. Mary was a virgin who had been visited by angels and had been explained about this miraculous birth that was going to take place. It was said that Joseph was uncomfortable with this idea of Mary having a baby of a holy spirit. Jospeh and Mary were planning their engagement and Joseph wasnt comfortable with following through with this whole idea. The angels and prophets had also predicted his birth to Mary and had it planned and explained it to Mary. People in the city of Jerusalem were waiting for this event to come, the event of his birth. The day had finally come when Jesus was making his arrival. He was born in the hills, unwillingly, of Judea in a very small village called Bethlehem. The birth of Jesus Christ was according to God's eternal purpose. Before he was born, Jesus was in the form of God but he was the spirit of God in a human form. God in no way wanted to make Jesus of any reputation of him. Jesus had a fraternal father named Joseph. Joseph raised Jesus for most of his life. Jesus was considered a miracle but what people didn't know was how much of an impact he would have on the nation and worldwide. His birth, death and teachings changed our world in a positive aspect.
In Jesus' early years he had worked as a carpenter as well as a teacher and others had thought of him as a prophet. He just lived his life like any other normal jewish individual would.
Jesus had healed hundreds of people from sickness and desiese on several occasions and he also raised people from physical death. People had saw the amount of power that Jesus had witheld and people knew he was a great religious leader. In his thirties, Jesus began public teaching and display of public miracles. From all the teachings and healing he had done, he had never travelled more than 200 miles from his birthplace. After thress years of his teachings, his reputation has spread worldwide and people all around the world were studying his teachings.
>From all of the radical claims he had made, this had attracted thousands. The authorities had decided that they had to do something about this before he took over too much power. The Roman Empire were afraid that they would lose power to Jesus.
The authorities had decided that something had to be done about this religious leader. Pilate, which was the head of the Roman authorities didn't want to kill Jesus because he knew he was innocent. In order to keep up his reputation, Pilate had sentanced him to execution because he didnt want the people in the community and society to hate on him. Pilate had ordered that he'd be beaten so he could be restless when hung up on the cross. It was said around noon, Jesus had been executed around 12:00 pm. Jesus was brutally tortured and then hung by his hands, which were nailed to a horizontal wooden beam (cross). This torture had taken place for16 hours straight. You can only imagine how painful it was. This method of execution restricted the airflow to his lungs, killing him in three hours. Jesus had shown no fear of death when they had warned him about his execution. He knew that he was dying as a sacrifice for the sins of people and for the freedom of his people. However, according to more than 500 witnesses, Jesus returned from the dead three days later on a sunday, and over the next 40 days journeyed in both the southern and northern provinces of Israel. To many, this was conclusive proof that Jesus' claims to be God were real. Then Jesus returned to Jerusalem, the city where he was recently executed, and according to witnesses, he left the earth alive by rising up into the sky. People could not believe what had happened. Could they have really had executed a great leader with amazing powers. A man that was so courageous, fearless, compassionate, forgiving, forsaking the riches and befriending the lowly had died a very unneccessary death.
After Jesus' execution, the christian faith increased immensley. People worldwide are now practising the faith of Jesus. His death has changed history and people's lives and the way they act, live and treat others around them. Within 100 years, people throughout the Roman empire (Asia Minor, Europe) became followers of Jesus. In 325 AD, the following of Jesus, Christianity, became the official religion of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Within 500 years, even Greece's temples of Greek gods were transformed into churches for followers of Jesus.
Although some of Jesus' messages and teachings were diluted or miscommunicated through the expansion of a religious institution, Jesus' original words and life still speak loudly for themselves. Only a few months later in that same city of Jerusalem one record states that some 3000 new followers were added in a single day. The religious leaders responded by trying to stomp out Jesus' followers. Many of these people chose to die rather than deny their belief that Jesus was truly God. This is how faithful Jesus' followers were. So as you can see Jesus Christ lived a hard yet experiencing life. He changed the lives of others, help them by taking away their sickness and giving them good health, and also helped those in need and started a very popular faith within christianity which is followed by million and millions of individuals each day, and is still increasing rapidly.
What is Christianiy
What is Christianity?
Throughout the history of the world there has never been such as an epic movement than Christianity. In the course of the centuries this movement has influenced the cultural development of many nations with spiritual, social and moral values. However despite the great effect this movement has caused on the entire planet, the question remains, what is Christianity? People from the secular world answer that question by saying that Christianity is just another religion. Other religions answer by saying that Christianity is just a different faith. But Christians on the other hand, answer by stating that Christianity consists of a lifestyle that develops a personal relationship with God.
The Word Christianity derives from the word Christian, which means Christ-like, a follower or disciple of Christ. According to the Bible in the book of Acts in the chapter 11, verse 26, the term Christians was first referred to the disciples of Jesus Christ approximately around the years 60 and 63 in a city called Antioch in Asia Minor. The Bible, or the Holy Scriptures, is the text book Christians use for their daily devotion. These Scriptures play a very important role in the life of Christianity. The Bible is a collection of 66 books. These 66 books are divided into two parts. The first part is the Old Testament and the second part contains the New Testament. The Bible besides containing social, moral and spiritual values, it also contains vast information about world history as well.
According to the secular world, Christianity is defined just as another religion. When we see Christianity from a religious perspective, we find that it consist in a list of thousands of commandments that must be fulfilled by those belonging to the religion. All this is with the purpose to give the service and worship God deserves.
In religious practices the commandments perform several aspects in the life of those who practice them. For instance, one of these commandments, in the book of Exodus, chapter 20, verse 3 reads, "You shall have no other gods before me." This verse states a commandment or and order to the religious one to be faithful to his/ her God. Therefore such verse defines one aspect of religion as spiritual. Another example can be found in the same book, in chapter 20, verse 8, and it reads, "Remember the Sabbath day, (which represent the seventh day of the week, that is Saturday) to keep it." The characteristic of this verse differs from the previous commandment to a remembrance of keep it a specific day in the week to dedicate it in a way to set themselves apart from the worries that their daily activities caused them. Instead to dedicate that time to perform certain social activities with their families or neighbors in the service of their God.
In the service to God there are several ritual and ceremonies that take place in this religion. One of these ceremonies is the gathering of people or the church to worship God. This ceremony denotes a social aspect. Moreover we find in the book of Exodus, chapter 20, verse 13 the statement, "Thou shall not commit murder." The attitude of this verse is not only defined as spiritual but also as a moral aspect. The reason for that is because we find the value life has before God and how He exhorts man to contribute to conserve it.
Furthermore, supernatural events, acts of compassion and symbolic meanings are the results of the prospects of Christianity when defined as a faith. First of all, a faith consists of belief, trust and loyalty to God at any cost. Now, when a person believes trusts and is loyal to his/her God, such a person has great expectations from Him. Moreover, we find that another condition of faith is that faith does not rely on materialistic or physical facts to prove or approve belief in such faith. For example, in the letter to the Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, it reads, "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He rewards those who diligently seek him." The point marked in this verse declares the idea of believing in what they don't see and receiving what they expect.
Moreover, we find more specific events that took place in biblical times that reflect more aspects of this faith. For instance, in the gospel according to Saint John, in the second chapter, in the first eleven verses, there is a passage where miraculously water is turned into wine by Jesus. Such aspect can be defined as a supernatural event and at the same time soaked in symbolic meaning, since we find elements like water, wine and six water- pots of stone. Another example is also found in the same book of John, chapter 6, where Jesus fed a multitude of five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fishes. Once again we find two aspects of faith in this passage, which are a supernatural event and an act of compassion towards the hungry people. Last of all when we define this faith as a lifestyle, we find that there are three main aspects that describe this lifestyle. For example, one aspect consists of an evangelical purpose to evangelize the world or reach out to those who don't know the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the book of Mathew, chapter 28, verse 19 it reads, "Go therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Such scripture states the duty, obligation and responsibility of a Christian to share the gospel as part in his/her life. Another aspect that defines Christianity as a lifestyle is worship. This act implies a personal devotion of worship towards God in a personal relationship with Him. In the gospel according to Saint John, in chapter 4, verse 23 it reads, "But the hour cometh, and now I, when the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit and in truth: for the father seeketh such to worship him." In conclusion, Christianity is the term used to identify a religion whose faith is rooted in the Lord Jesus Christ (founder of Christianity and Savior of the World) and whose purpose is to follow the life of Jesus as an example through His word (The Holy Scriptures) and develop a closer relationship with God.
Throughout the history of the world there has never been such as an epic movement than Christianity. In the course of the centuries this movement has influenced the cultural development of many nations with spiritual, social and moral values. However despite the great effect this movement has caused on the entire planet, the question remains, what is Christianity? People from the secular world answer that question by saying that Christianity is just another religion. Other religions answer by saying that Christianity is just a different faith. But Christians on the other hand, answer by stating that Christianity consists of a lifestyle that develops a personal relationship with God.
The Word Christianity derives from the word Christian, which means Christ-like, a follower or disciple of Christ. According to the Bible in the book of Acts in the chapter 11, verse 26, the term Christians was first referred to the disciples of Jesus Christ approximately around the years 60 and 63 in a city called Antioch in Asia Minor. The Bible, or the Holy Scriptures, is the text book Christians use for their daily devotion. These Scriptures play a very important role in the life of Christianity. The Bible is a collection of 66 books. These 66 books are divided into two parts. The first part is the Old Testament and the second part contains the New Testament. The Bible besides containing social, moral and spiritual values, it also contains vast information about world history as well.
According to the secular world, Christianity is defined just as another religion. When we see Christianity from a religious perspective, we find that it consist in a list of thousands of commandments that must be fulfilled by those belonging to the religion. All this is with the purpose to give the service and worship God deserves.
In religious practices the commandments perform several aspects in the life of those who practice them. For instance, one of these commandments, in the book of Exodus, chapter 20, verse 3 reads, "You shall have no other gods before me." This verse states a commandment or and order to the religious one to be faithful to his/ her God. Therefore such verse defines one aspect of religion as spiritual. Another example can be found in the same book, in chapter 20, verse 8, and it reads, "Remember the Sabbath day, (which represent the seventh day of the week, that is Saturday) to keep it." The characteristic of this verse differs from the previous commandment to a remembrance of keep it a specific day in the week to dedicate it in a way to set themselves apart from the worries that their daily activities caused them. Instead to dedicate that time to perform certain social activities with their families or neighbors in the service of their God.
In the service to God there are several ritual and ceremonies that take place in this religion. One of these ceremonies is the gathering of people or the church to worship God. This ceremony denotes a social aspect. Moreover we find in the book of Exodus, chapter 20, verse 13 the statement, "Thou shall not commit murder." The attitude of this verse is not only defined as spiritual but also as a moral aspect. The reason for that is because we find the value life has before God and how He exhorts man to contribute to conserve it.
Furthermore, supernatural events, acts of compassion and symbolic meanings are the results of the prospects of Christianity when defined as a faith. First of all, a faith consists of belief, trust and loyalty to God at any cost. Now, when a person believes trusts and is loyal to his/her God, such a person has great expectations from Him. Moreover, we find that another condition of faith is that faith does not rely on materialistic or physical facts to prove or approve belief in such faith. For example, in the letter to the Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, it reads, "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He rewards those who diligently seek him." The point marked in this verse declares the idea of believing in what they don't see and receiving what they expect.
Moreover, we find more specific events that took place in biblical times that reflect more aspects of this faith. For instance, in the gospel according to Saint John, in the second chapter, in the first eleven verses, there is a passage where miraculously water is turned into wine by Jesus. Such aspect can be defined as a supernatural event and at the same time soaked in symbolic meaning, since we find elements like water, wine and six water- pots of stone. Another example is also found in the same book of John, chapter 6, where Jesus fed a multitude of five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fishes. Once again we find two aspects of faith in this passage, which are a supernatural event and an act of compassion towards the hungry people. Last of all when we define this faith as a lifestyle, we find that there are three main aspects that describe this lifestyle. For example, one aspect consists of an evangelical purpose to evangelize the world or reach out to those who don't know the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the book of Mathew, chapter 28, verse 19 it reads, "Go therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Such scripture states the duty, obligation and responsibility of a Christian to share the gospel as part in his/her life. Another aspect that defines Christianity as a lifestyle is worship. This act implies a personal devotion of worship towards God in a personal relationship with Him. In the gospel according to Saint John, in chapter 4, verse 23 it reads, "But the hour cometh, and now I, when the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit and in truth: for the father seeketh such to worship him." In conclusion, Christianity is the term used to identify a religion whose faith is rooted in the Lord Jesus Christ (founder of Christianity and Savior of the World) and whose purpose is to follow the life of Jesus as an example through His word (The Holy Scriptures) and develop a closer relationship with God.
Why I Became A Christian
I was raised Catholic, at the insistance of my parents. After many years of drinking and partying, I got very bored and thought, Is this ALL there is to life?!?! I thought, If there really IS any truth to a life after death, I should at least TRY to find the answer. I started to do some research on science and religion to see if I could come up with any TRUTH about the meaning of life. In school, I was taught that mankind was evolving and getting better, but it didnt appear that way to me. It SEEMED as though modern science had proven that God didnt exist. As I did more research on my own, I found out that this just isnt the case. I learned that the Universe and ALL matter have a DEFINITE beginning. Most atheists and re-incarnationists believe that the Universe has ALWAYS existed, but this contradicts the fact. Cause and effect tells us that the Universe must have been caused. It is logical to believe that an invisible, non-material God had caused the beginning of the Universe. Some think that aliens and U.F.O.s have something to do with our existence, but even if they DID exist, THEY would need a beginning as well! The evolutionists believe that evolution is a FACT, and that the fossil record PROVES it. I learned that neither evolution NOR creation are FACTS, they are only THEORIES! There is NO way to PROVE either one because they CANNOT be re-created in a lab experiment. Whatever THEORY you believe, you MUST believe by FAITH. I learned that when something dies, it does NOT become a fossil, it rots away VERY quickly. Fossils are formed by RAPID burial and destruction , NOT over SUPPOSED billions of years! What the fossil record DOES prove, is that there was a TERRIBLE global disaster. Scattered across mountain tops all over the world are fossils of both modern & extinct ocean and land creatures ALL MIXED TOGETHER. This fact can ONLY be explained by a RECENT Creation and a WORLDWIDE FLOOD, and NOT by evolution. I thought that evolution was true just because the majority accepted it. The MAJORITY also used to believe that the Earth was FLAT!!!
Then I was confused about all the different religions out there. Which God should I serve?!?! Does it REALLY matter as long as I am sincere and a GOOD PERSON ?? I thought, What if I am sincerely WRONG!?!? I started to do some more research to try to find the TRUTH. The only other major religion which believes in only one God, besides the Judeo/Christian is Muslim/Islam. Islam was founded by the MAN Mohammed, who was born as late as 570 AD. He had visions that he had ASSUMED were from his god, Allah. After being convinced by his WIFE that the visions really WERE from Allah, he recorded these in his book The Koran before his death in 632. The books of the Bible have been completed about 450 years before Mohammed was even BORN! There are also MANY prophecies written about Jesus before he was born, which are recorded in the Bibles Old Testament, but NONE were ever recorded about Mohammed. Look at Isaiah 7:14 & Chap. 53 in the O.T. for just a couple. I used to think that the Bible was a myth or only an outdated book that was written by superstitious men. I tried to read it, but I couldnt make any sense out of it. I doubted that ANYONE could really understand it or REALLY know if it was the TRUTH. Then I found out that there are A LOT of books that explain the Bible and give good, historical, scientific, archaeological, and logical reasons to believe it. These types of books are called APOLOGETICS. I was VERY skeptical, but I did a TON of reading! I figured that the chance that I may spend eternity in hell and NOT in Heaven was a subject worthy of my further investigation. Here are some more of the questions that I had, and the answers that I found.
Who wrote the Bible? The Bible contains 66 different books that were recorded by about 40 different people across a 1600-year time span. The Bible contains an AMAZING consistency, which could have ONLY been maintained by God. Which Bible should I read and believe? I found out that EVERY Holy Bible has the SAME message, it is PEOPLE who confuse it. Now, this is the main message of ANY Bible that you would pick up, and seems to be the only meaning to this CRAZY life. EVERYONE is born a sinner and separated from a relationship with God (Romans 3:23). God became the Perfect, sinless, Human being as the Person of Jesus Christ (John 1:1, Matt 1:22, Isaiah 9:5) EVERYONE who believes/trusts in Jesus Christ (John 3:16) is BORN AGAIN (John 3:3) and is restored to a relationship with God and HAS eternal life. BUT, whoever does NOT believe in Jesus, CANNOT have a relationship with God, and will be separated from Him forever in Hell (John 3:36). How could a LOVING God send people to Hell? People ALLOW themselves to end up in Hell !!! GOD loves YOU, sooo much!! Whatever you may have done,you havent been so BAD that HE wont forgive you if you ask Him!! Since GOD created you to be in a relationship with Him, if you die without accepting His love in THIS life, you will be separated from Him in the next, and in Hell. God gave us all free will, He will not FORCE you to choose to love HIM.
I used to think that being BORN AGAIN was some crazy cult, but it isnt. Being born again means to have your mind, heart, and life renewed for the things that honor God, instead of selfish things. It makes NO difference whether youre a Catholic, Protestant or belong to ANY OTHER denomination. YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN INTO A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST TO SPEND ETERNITY IN HEAVEN WITH GOD!!!
What about the Jehovahs Witnesses and The Mormons/ Church of Latter Day Saints? At first, groups like these APPEAR to be just another Christian denomination, but Ive learned that this is NOT true. BOTH of these groups were founded as late as the 1800s by MEN who claimed that people have been misinformed for THOUSANDS of years, and that they are each Gods only TRUE Revelation to mankind. The Jehovahs Witnesses even have their OWN version of the Bible called The New World Translation , which they have SUBTLY distorted to mean something completely different than every other Bible. It didnt make any sense to me that a loving God would have His Word around for 1900 years, but withhold the REAL TRUTH up until NOW, like BOTH of these groups insist. Both of these groups mention the name Jesus, but he isnt God like the Bible PLAINLY teaches. ANYTHING ANYONE SAYS OR DOES SHOULD BE CHECKED CAREFULLY WITH THE BIBLE TO MAKE SURE THAT THEY ARE TELLING THE TRUTH!!!!
Was Jesus REALLY God, or ONLY a good man and teacher? Jesus believed and TOLD people that He was God, so He could be God, a liar, or a lunatic, but never ONLY a good man. How do I know if Jesus even EXISTED? The 15th edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica uses more space describing Jesus than Aristotle, Alexander, Caesar or Napoleon.
What about the Jewish people? I learned that Jesus not ONLY began new relationship between God and ANYONE who wishes to have a PERSONAL relationship with Him, He was the FULFILLMENT of the Jewish religion. The animal sacrifices of the O.T. were ONLY a FORESHADOW of the once and for all, perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Isaiah 53 in the O.T. PLAINLY describes Jesus as the Jews suffering Messiah. Isaiah was written about 700 years BEFORE Jesus was even born. This early recording of Isaiah has been confirmed by the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The ONLY way for the Jews and ANYONE else to have a relationship with God is through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).
I learned a LOT! Much more than I could ever put on this one page. There are many books and Internet web sites , which explain things MUCH better than I EVER could. Some of the best books that I have read are A Ready Defense by Josh McDowell, and Many Infallible Proofs by Stephen Caesar(biblepm@hotmail.com). For these and MANY other APOLOGETIC books with LOGICAL reasons to believe in the Bible call Chirsitian Book Distributors,a world wide, mail order book company. C.B.D. will send you a free, big catalog if you call 978-977-5000. They have a TON of books and their prices are less than the stores. You can also find a good local church and Bible study to check out and ask questions. I am just writing this paper because I was SO surprised that I was able to find REALLY satisfying answers to all my questions, when I thought that no one could EVER really know the TRUTH for sure. I read some books on life after death and re-incarnation by people who have CLAIMED to have died. Then I thought If these people were REALLY dead, then they STILL would be!! I DONT expect anyone to just believe me or this paper, but I would HOPE that this article would at LEAST make people think about all of this on their OWN and do some of their OWN investigating!! I just wanted to share what I have learned and to give people a head start. I know how difficult it is to listen to someone else tell you about their religion, I was there. It all seemed so confusing to me, at first. Since Ive done all this research, I KNOW that the Bible is TRULY Gods Word to all mankind, and I believe it. I pray that THE LORD JESUS CHRIST uses this paper to open up the minds and hearts of everyone who reads this so that they may be saved from an eternity separated from GOD and in hell. Eternity is a loooong time to gamble with. If you died right now, do you know where YOU would go !?!?!
Then I was confused about all the different religions out there. Which God should I serve?!?! Does it REALLY matter as long as I am sincere and a GOOD PERSON ?? I thought, What if I am sincerely WRONG!?!? I started to do some more research to try to find the TRUTH. The only other major religion which believes in only one God, besides the Judeo/Christian is Muslim/Islam. Islam was founded by the MAN Mohammed, who was born as late as 570 AD. He had visions that he had ASSUMED were from his god, Allah. After being convinced by his WIFE that the visions really WERE from Allah, he recorded these in his book The Koran before his death in 632. The books of the Bible have been completed about 450 years before Mohammed was even BORN! There are also MANY prophecies written about Jesus before he was born, which are recorded in the Bibles Old Testament, but NONE were ever recorded about Mohammed. Look at Isaiah 7:14 & Chap. 53 in the O.T. for just a couple. I used to think that the Bible was a myth or only an outdated book that was written by superstitious men. I tried to read it, but I couldnt make any sense out of it. I doubted that ANYONE could really understand it or REALLY know if it was the TRUTH. Then I found out that there are A LOT of books that explain the Bible and give good, historical, scientific, archaeological, and logical reasons to believe it. These types of books are called APOLOGETICS. I was VERY skeptical, but I did a TON of reading! I figured that the chance that I may spend eternity in hell and NOT in Heaven was a subject worthy of my further investigation. Here are some more of the questions that I had, and the answers that I found.
Who wrote the Bible? The Bible contains 66 different books that were recorded by about 40 different people across a 1600-year time span. The Bible contains an AMAZING consistency, which could have ONLY been maintained by God. Which Bible should I read and believe? I found out that EVERY Holy Bible has the SAME message, it is PEOPLE who confuse it. Now, this is the main message of ANY Bible that you would pick up, and seems to be the only meaning to this CRAZY life. EVERYONE is born a sinner and separated from a relationship with God (Romans 3:23). God became the Perfect, sinless, Human being as the Person of Jesus Christ (John 1:1, Matt 1:22, Isaiah 9:5) EVERYONE who believes/trusts in Jesus Christ (John 3:16) is BORN AGAIN (John 3:3) and is restored to a relationship with God and HAS eternal life. BUT, whoever does NOT believe in Jesus, CANNOT have a relationship with God, and will be separated from Him forever in Hell (John 3:36). How could a LOVING God send people to Hell? People ALLOW themselves to end up in Hell !!! GOD loves YOU, sooo much!! Whatever you may have done,you havent been so BAD that HE wont forgive you if you ask Him!! Since GOD created you to be in a relationship with Him, if you die without accepting His love in THIS life, you will be separated from Him in the next, and in Hell. God gave us all free will, He will not FORCE you to choose to love HIM.
I used to think that being BORN AGAIN was some crazy cult, but it isnt. Being born again means to have your mind, heart, and life renewed for the things that honor God, instead of selfish things. It makes NO difference whether youre a Catholic, Protestant or belong to ANY OTHER denomination. YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN INTO A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST TO SPEND ETERNITY IN HEAVEN WITH GOD!!!
What about the Jehovahs Witnesses and The Mormons/ Church of Latter Day Saints? At first, groups like these APPEAR to be just another Christian denomination, but Ive learned that this is NOT true. BOTH of these groups were founded as late as the 1800s by MEN who claimed that people have been misinformed for THOUSANDS of years, and that they are each Gods only TRUE Revelation to mankind. The Jehovahs Witnesses even have their OWN version of the Bible called The New World Translation , which they have SUBTLY distorted to mean something completely different than every other Bible. It didnt make any sense to me that a loving God would have His Word around for 1900 years, but withhold the REAL TRUTH up until NOW, like BOTH of these groups insist. Both of these groups mention the name Jesus, but he isnt God like the Bible PLAINLY teaches. ANYTHING ANYONE SAYS OR DOES SHOULD BE CHECKED CAREFULLY WITH THE BIBLE TO MAKE SURE THAT THEY ARE TELLING THE TRUTH!!!!
Was Jesus REALLY God, or ONLY a good man and teacher? Jesus believed and TOLD people that He was God, so He could be God, a liar, or a lunatic, but never ONLY a good man. How do I know if Jesus even EXISTED? The 15th edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica uses more space describing Jesus than Aristotle, Alexander, Caesar or Napoleon.
What about the Jewish people? I learned that Jesus not ONLY began new relationship between God and ANYONE who wishes to have a PERSONAL relationship with Him, He was the FULFILLMENT of the Jewish religion. The animal sacrifices of the O.T. were ONLY a FORESHADOW of the once and for all, perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Isaiah 53 in the O.T. PLAINLY describes Jesus as the Jews suffering Messiah. Isaiah was written about 700 years BEFORE Jesus was even born. This early recording of Isaiah has been confirmed by the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The ONLY way for the Jews and ANYONE else to have a relationship with God is through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).
I learned a LOT! Much more than I could ever put on this one page. There are many books and Internet web sites , which explain things MUCH better than I EVER could. Some of the best books that I have read are A Ready Defense by Josh McDowell, and Many Infallible Proofs by Stephen Caesar(biblepm@hotmail.com). For these and MANY other APOLOGETIC books with LOGICAL reasons to believe in the Bible call Chirsitian Book Distributors,a world wide, mail order book company. C.B.D. will send you a free, big catalog if you call 978-977-5000. They have a TON of books and their prices are less than the stores. You can also find a good local church and Bible study to check out and ask questions. I am just writing this paper because I was SO surprised that I was able to find REALLY satisfying answers to all my questions, when I thought that no one could EVER really know the TRUTH for sure. I read some books on life after death and re-incarnation by people who have CLAIMED to have died. Then I thought If these people were REALLY dead, then they STILL would be!! I DONT expect anyone to just believe me or this paper, but I would HOPE that this article would at LEAST make people think about all of this on their OWN and do some of their OWN investigating!! I just wanted to share what I have learned and to give people a head start. I know how difficult it is to listen to someone else tell you about their religion, I was there. It all seemed so confusing to me, at first. Since Ive done all this research, I KNOW that the Bible is TRULY Gods Word to all mankind, and I believe it. I pray that THE LORD JESUS CHRIST uses this paper to open up the minds and hearts of everyone who reads this so that they may be saved from an eternity separated from GOD and in hell. Eternity is a loooong time to gamble with. If you died right now, do you know where YOU would go !?!?!
There are now more than 6 versions of the Bible
There are now more than 60 versions of the Bible (Different versions not translations. The different versions of the Bible are not merely different translations, but are actually versions i.e. they add and remove things from other versions).
These revisions serve as concrete proofs that all the Biblical books are not at all divinely inspired. This is because it is beyond man's ability to correct the work of his Creator, who alone is Almighty and perfect.
The Bible is a collection of writings by many different authors. The Qur'an is a dictation. The speaker in the Qur'an - in the first person - is God talking directly to man. In the Bible you have many men writing about God and you have in some places the word of God speaking to men and still in other places you have some men simply writing about history.
The previous scriptures were meant for a limited period (and a specific people) that ended with the revelation of what abrogated them and exposed what had taken place in them of distortion and change. That is why they were not protected from corruption.
Muslims believe in all Messengers of God without any discrimination among them, as every known nation has a Warner or messenger from God. They were chosen by God to teach humanity and deliver His Divine message. The Qur'an mentions the name of some of them including Jews including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elias, Jonah, John the Baptist, and Jesus (peace be upon them).
There is a violent debate amongst Christians regarding which Bible to use and which christianity... catholic...protestant...morman...arthosex..more than 70 they do not agree about who is GOD.
Muslims believe in the books of the previous prophets including the Torah which was sent to Moses, the Zaboor (Psalms) which were given to David, the Injeel (Gospel) which was given to Jesus, and the Qur'an which was given to Muhammad However, Muslims are told that the previous scriptures were tampered with by mankind and the Bible should only be accepted in as far as it is confirmed by the Qur'an. It is to be treated with respect, however any statements which clearly oppose those of the Qur'an are to be rejected as the work of mankind.
These revisions serve as concrete proofs that all the Biblical books are not at all divinely inspired. This is because it is beyond man's ability to correct the work of his Creator, who alone is Almighty and perfect.
The Bible is a collection of writings by many different authors. The Qur'an is a dictation. The speaker in the Qur'an - in the first person - is God talking directly to man. In the Bible you have many men writing about God and you have in some places the word of God speaking to men and still in other places you have some men simply writing about history.
The previous scriptures were meant for a limited period (and a specific people) that ended with the revelation of what abrogated them and exposed what had taken place in them of distortion and change. That is why they were not protected from corruption.
Muslims believe in all Messengers of God without any discrimination among them, as every known nation has a Warner or messenger from God. They were chosen by God to teach humanity and deliver His Divine message. The Qur'an mentions the name of some of them including Jews including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elias, Jonah, John the Baptist, and Jesus (peace be upon them).
There is a violent debate amongst Christians regarding which Bible to use and which christianity... catholic...protestant...morman...arthosex..more than 70 they do not agree about who is GOD.
Muslims believe in the books of the previous prophets including the Torah which was sent to Moses, the Zaboor (Psalms) which were given to David, the Injeel (Gospel) which was given to Jesus, and the Qur'an which was given to Muhammad However, Muslims are told that the previous scriptures were tampered with by mankind and the Bible should only be accepted in as far as it is confirmed by the Qur'an. It is to be treated with respect, however any statements which clearly oppose those of the Qur'an are to be rejected as the work of mankind.
Sexual Assault
Sexual assault is the most damaging form of abuse. This infectious and savage act should be forced to stop all together. A crime this emotionally damaging should not be taken lightly. Enforcement of the law does not adequately address the crime at hand and for this reason many guilty people walk free. On these grounds, numerous victims stay quiet about their assault. The after effects of sexual assault are both emotional and physical, leaving survivors scared for life. Sentencing to people guilty of this crime should be handed out in equality to second or third degree murder. The laws on rape as they are, are satisfactory, however, the enforcement of these laws is less than such. The sentencing ruled by most judges is far too light and does not sufficiently punish the assaulters. The Criminal Code of Canada does not seriously impose all penalties when an assault is sexual. Section 271 of the Criminal Code of Canada states that "a person commits a rape or sexual assault when that person commits an assault a) without the consent of another person, he applies force intentionally to that other person, directly or indirectly; b) he attempts or threatens, by an act or gesture, to apply force to another person, if he has, or causes that other person to believe upon reasonable grounds that he has, present ability to effect his purpose; or c) while openly wearing or carrying a weapon or an imitation thereof, he accosts or impedes another person or begs; of a sexual nature or with sexual overtones" (Greenspan, 2002, p. cc-503). People who commit crimes knowingly by forcing themselves upon another person deserve the maximum punishment possible. According to section 151 of the Criminal Code of Canada, "every person who, for a sexual purpose, touches, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, any part of the body of a person under the age of fourteen years is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction" (Greenspan, 2002, p. cc-250). Section 152 states that "every person who, for a sexual purpose, invites, counsels or incites a person under the age of fourteen years to touch, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, the body of any person, including the body of the person who so invites, counsels or incites and the body of the person under the age of fourteen years, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction" (Greenspan, 2002, p. cc-252). In section 153, it is stated that "every person who is in a position of trust or authority towards a young person or is a person with whom the young person is in a relationship of dependency and who a) for a sexual purpose, touches, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, any part of the body of the young person, or b) for a sexual purpose, invites, counsels or incites, a young person to touch, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, the body of any person, including the body of the person who so invites, counsels or incites and the body of the young person, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction" (Greenspan, 2002, p. cc-253). Each of these sections states that rape may be punishable as a summary conviction offence. Rape is far too serious an offence to be considered anything less than indictable. Too consider it anything less should be considered a crime in itself. Though the idea of the consequences may be improving to meet the seriousness of the crime, they are not fairly enforced. According to Stats Canada, "there were 24, 049 rapes committed in the year 2000, in Canada". "720f these rapes/sexual assaults are not reported to the police. Those rapists, of course, never serve a day in prison. If the rape is reported to police there is a 50.8hance that an arrest will be made. If an arrest is made, there is an 80hance of prosecution. If there is a prosecution, there is a 58hance of a felony conviction and if there is a felony conviction, there is a 69hance the convict will spend time in jail" (RAINN, 1999). So, even in those 280f rapes that are reported to the police, "there is only a 16.3hance the rapist will end up in prison. Factoring in unreported rapes, about 50f rapists will ever spend a day in jail and the other 95% will walk free" (RAINN, 1999).
With such little enforcement of the law being pit in place against people guilty of sexual assault, it gives few victims the incentive to report the crimes committed against them. According to Dr. Philip S.L. Beh, author of the report Rape- Why Are Victims Not Reporting?, many victims feel that the crime is too trivial and unimportant, that there is nothing the police would or could do about it or that there is a lack of evidence linking the attacker. Also there are factors coinciding with the legalities that follow the report, such as going to the hospital, testifying and identifying the assaulter, as well as dealing with the publication of being a sexual assault victim. This can be thought of as a social taboo. Dealing with the psychological and physical effects is often thought of as enough, without dealing with the actions of seeking justice. A raped victim, who has not even begun to recover psychologically, may be faced with the knowledge that their assaulter is being released back into society. Even worse, to know that the assaulter was never sent to prison in the first place.
Every survivor of sexual assault must face the emotional baggage that is left by the assaulter. Rape is not a crime of lust, but rather a crime of violence, aggression and anger. "It is the imposition of power over another person, involving no consent from the victim" (The young women's project, 2001, par 1). According to Rape: What Would You Do If... authored by Diane Booher, common reactions to sexual assault are severe and can put a person into a state of emotional shock. Many survivors many feel numb to the situation at hand and are confused by their lack of emotion. Fear is a factor in a survivor's decision of wither of not he or she wishes to report the case. Many victims are in fear of society's reaction given that a large number of survivors are often blamed for the assault and subject to social reprisals or accusations of the validity of their story. In addition to these reservations, victims are also subjected to fears caused by trauma endured during the assault, such as pregnancy and STDs. Long term lingering fears of being intimate and maintaining a relationship also exist. In addition to fear, feelings of guilt stay with the victim long after the sexual assault took place. Victims may internalize that the sexual assault was somehow their fault and that they might have been capable of preventing it, or that they may have provoked it. All of these feelings may stay with the victim their whole lives, taking away from the person's experience as a human being. One cannot imagine the depth of the pain caused by a rape. Measurement of psychological damage is difficult. Even with therapy, a person never really recovers from such an act of violation.
Sexual assault is the most heinous crime committable in our society today. When a person is sexually violated, there are very valuable things taken away from them. Their sense of safety, of trust and of self-determination is broken down. When the assaulter strikes, he brutally strips his victim of the ability of a normal, meaningful relationship with another human being. The laws that exist now may be well rounded, as they seem to cover a lot and protect the rights of the victims, however, the enforcement of these same laws is the complete opposite. This in turn effects the number of reported incidents of sexual assaults, leaving the number of free rapists higher and the amount of justice served lower. Sexual assault needs to be taken more seriously and the severity of the punishment for the criminals should be tremendously increased and better imposed.
With such little enforcement of the law being pit in place against people guilty of sexual assault, it gives few victims the incentive to report the crimes committed against them. According to Dr. Philip S.L. Beh, author of the report Rape- Why Are Victims Not Reporting?, many victims feel that the crime is too trivial and unimportant, that there is nothing the police would or could do about it or that there is a lack of evidence linking the attacker. Also there are factors coinciding with the legalities that follow the report, such as going to the hospital, testifying and identifying the assaulter, as well as dealing with the publication of being a sexual assault victim. This can be thought of as a social taboo. Dealing with the psychological and physical effects is often thought of as enough, without dealing with the actions of seeking justice. A raped victim, who has not even begun to recover psychologically, may be faced with the knowledge that their assaulter is being released back into society. Even worse, to know that the assaulter was never sent to prison in the first place.
Every survivor of sexual assault must face the emotional baggage that is left by the assaulter. Rape is not a crime of lust, but rather a crime of violence, aggression and anger. "It is the imposition of power over another person, involving no consent from the victim" (The young women's project, 2001, par 1). According to Rape: What Would You Do If... authored by Diane Booher, common reactions to sexual assault are severe and can put a person into a state of emotional shock. Many survivors many feel numb to the situation at hand and are confused by their lack of emotion. Fear is a factor in a survivor's decision of wither of not he or she wishes to report the case. Many victims are in fear of society's reaction given that a large number of survivors are often blamed for the assault and subject to social reprisals or accusations of the validity of their story. In addition to these reservations, victims are also subjected to fears caused by trauma endured during the assault, such as pregnancy and STDs. Long term lingering fears of being intimate and maintaining a relationship also exist. In addition to fear, feelings of guilt stay with the victim long after the sexual assault took place. Victims may internalize that the sexual assault was somehow their fault and that they might have been capable of preventing it, or that they may have provoked it. All of these feelings may stay with the victim their whole lives, taking away from the person's experience as a human being. One cannot imagine the depth of the pain caused by a rape. Measurement of psychological damage is difficult. Even with therapy, a person never really recovers from such an act of violation.
Sexual assault is the most heinous crime committable in our society today. When a person is sexually violated, there are very valuable things taken away from them. Their sense of safety, of trust and of self-determination is broken down. When the assaulter strikes, he brutally strips his victim of the ability of a normal, meaningful relationship with another human being. The laws that exist now may be well rounded, as they seem to cover a lot and protect the rights of the victims, however, the enforcement of these same laws is the complete opposite. This in turn effects the number of reported incidents of sexual assaults, leaving the number of free rapists higher and the amount of justice served lower. Sexual assault needs to be taken more seriously and the severity of the punishment for the criminals should be tremendously increased and better imposed.
Psychological Egoism
Psychological egoism is the view that people are always selfish. When was the last time you did a good deed? Did you do it for its own sake, or for your own? The egoist says that all of us are necessarily self-regarding. I shall argue that this view is incorrect.
First we should ask, what kind of claim is this? Is it an a priori claim, or a generalization from experience? If it were the latter, we could never conclusively prove it: we could never show that necessarily all actions are selfish. So it must be a priori. But no a priori claim could be substantive: a priori truths are all analytic (that is, the predicate is contained in the subject). So if this claim were analytic, it would become trivial. (It is worth noting that Kripke's claim that there are a posteriori necessary truths does not show that a priori truths are not analytic.)
The situation is paralleled by pseudo-sciences such as Freudian psychoanalysis. As Karl Popper has argued, any theory can be maintained so long as it is drained of empirical content. Like psychoanalysis, psychological egoism makes no genuine claims and can never be refuted. But it purchases certainty at the price of becoming vacuous. I shall have more to say on this below.
The simplest way to see the egoist's mistake is to distinguish between the side-effects of an action and the reason for which it was done. Suppose we grant that in doing a good deed, we usually get a pleasant feeling (though I suspect this is false). Even so, this would not show that that feeling was indeed the motivating factor in our behavior; it could simply be a side effect of doing the good deed. Compare the case in which someone types for hours on a philosophy paper and gets a cramp in his hand. Did I type in order to get the cramp? Of course not. To be sure, it was a foreseeable result of my typing, but it was not the motive for my heroic efforts.
Perhaps we can go further in refuting the egoist's claims. Phil Washburn presents the opposing view in his book Philosophical Dilemmas. This is called psychological altruism. The altruist points to phenomena such as love that seem to show that people can be genuinely other-regarding.
What will the egoist say? The egoist has to admit that there seem to be acts of selflessness, such as the soldier who jumps on a grenade to save his comrades. Here Washburn's egoist appeals to re-interpretation: there is always a competing story the egoist can give that makes the act turn out to be selfish. Perhaps the soldier wanted to avoid the pain of living on as a coward, or wanted to become a hero and bring glory to himself and his family.
Yes, perhaps. But it's not enough simply to present such a story: one must also give some reason to suppose that it is true in the case at hand. Since egoism is an a priori claim, as we have seen, it supposes that in every case such a story will be not just available but justified by the evidence. But this is totally implausible. The egoist's `just-so' stories are just so much hot air.
We need not leave matters like this, however. For we can grant the egoist his ability to reinterpret all acts as selfish. What, then, becomes of the claim that we are always selfish? It has thereby become immune to empirical refutation or empirical tests of any kind. But as Popper has shown, this only drains egoism of content.
First we should ask, what kind of claim is this? Is it an a priori claim, or a generalization from experience? If it were the latter, we could never conclusively prove it: we could never show that necessarily all actions are selfish. So it must be a priori. But no a priori claim could be substantive: a priori truths are all analytic (that is, the predicate is contained in the subject). So if this claim were analytic, it would become trivial. (It is worth noting that Kripke's claim that there are a posteriori necessary truths does not show that a priori truths are not analytic.)
The situation is paralleled by pseudo-sciences such as Freudian psychoanalysis. As Karl Popper has argued, any theory can be maintained so long as it is drained of empirical content. Like psychoanalysis, psychological egoism makes no genuine claims and can never be refuted. But it purchases certainty at the price of becoming vacuous. I shall have more to say on this below.
The simplest way to see the egoist's mistake is to distinguish between the side-effects of an action and the reason for which it was done. Suppose we grant that in doing a good deed, we usually get a pleasant feeling (though I suspect this is false). Even so, this would not show that that feeling was indeed the motivating factor in our behavior; it could simply be a side effect of doing the good deed. Compare the case in which someone types for hours on a philosophy paper and gets a cramp in his hand. Did I type in order to get the cramp? Of course not. To be sure, it was a foreseeable result of my typing, but it was not the motive for my heroic efforts.
Perhaps we can go further in refuting the egoist's claims. Phil Washburn presents the opposing view in his book Philosophical Dilemmas. This is called psychological altruism. The altruist points to phenomena such as love that seem to show that people can be genuinely other-regarding.
What will the egoist say? The egoist has to admit that there seem to be acts of selflessness, such as the soldier who jumps on a grenade to save his comrades. Here Washburn's egoist appeals to re-interpretation: there is always a competing story the egoist can give that makes the act turn out to be selfish. Perhaps the soldier wanted to avoid the pain of living on as a coward, or wanted to become a hero and bring glory to himself and his family.
Yes, perhaps. But it's not enough simply to present such a story: one must also give some reason to suppose that it is true in the case at hand. Since egoism is an a priori claim, as we have seen, it supposes that in every case such a story will be not just available but justified by the evidence. But this is totally implausible. The egoist's `just-so' stories are just so much hot air.
We need not leave matters like this, however. For we can grant the egoist his ability to reinterpret all acts as selfish. What, then, becomes of the claim that we are always selfish? It has thereby become immune to empirical refutation or empirical tests of any kind. But as Popper has shown, this only drains egoism of content.
Philosophy of life
This Essay shows how I think people should live, and the Necessities to do so. This quote is from Buddha “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment”. I think this a good quote that shows how I and other people should live, because if you dwell in the past on relationships, or things that you did for too long you won’t be able to move forward in life which is needed if you want to make new relationships, and if you dream of what the future will bring to you too often you’ll forget what is at hand, it’s best to focus on what you are doing. I think that People need 5 things to live a happy and successful life. The first thing that people need is Common sense so that they can know what’s right and wrong. Common sense is an important thing because it is what we use to make good decisions. The second thing that people need to live a good life is support from others because it helps you get through hard times in life. Without it you’ll have a hard times and nobody to help you through them. The third thing I thing people need is a good attitude so that they can get along with others. This will help you gat somewhere by being nice to others, because if you’re always being negative, nobody will want to be around you which can cause a hard time at getting a job, which will keep you from being successful. The fourth thing people need is a basic knowledge so that you can get a diploma, go to college and get a high end job and become successful and wealthy in life. Without a basic education the colleges you want to go to won’t want you because you don’t have the requirements. The fifth, and final thing people need is love because it is what drives us to do everything we do. People need this most so that they have something to help them get through life. But love is much more important then just having others support you. It shows someone personally cares for you. These 5 things are what I think are needed the most to live a life successfully and be happy. I believe people should live doing what makes them and others happy and allows you to enjoy your life. The reason why people should live like this is that if you have a job or do something that you like you wont end up turning to alcohol or drugs to feel good about yourself. But when you are doing something you don’t enjoy and you’re unhappy you could eventually turn to using drugs and alcohol which can end with you jail or even dead. If you do something that you like to do and are good at it you will eventually be able to enjoy your life and be wealthy. When people do something for a career and they really don’t like the way they are going they eventually turn to drugs or alcohol so that they can forget about it. When people waste money on drugs and become addicted they will sooner or later have to increase how much they use to just be normal, which will cause psychological problems. These are the reasons why people should live doing what brings them and others happiness, and allows them to enjoy life. With these things in mind I can make sure that I live a happy and successful life
Philosophy
Philosophy is a general overview of how our society functions by how we think and the many ways in which we act. It can also be described as the love of wisdom. As individuals, we are introduced to ideas that test our knowledge of the different concepts of life, with questions such as, Who are we? and Why are we put here? Philosophy and our daily lives are closely linked together. At work and or school, we are sometimes bombarded with question that may occasionally affect our way of thinking, and in some cases our moral beliefs. In the community, we are subjected to things that become integrated into our lives, and we are left with the agony of trying to figure out the right or wrong answers to the questions which was brought forward.
Philosophy is life. Without it we would not be able to ask the questions which are associated with the whole idea of philosophy; such as, Is there a God? Morally, we are brought up to believe that God truly exists through religion, but how can we be so sure? It has been said that philosophy does not have a right or wrong answer, but could it be that we as a community did not search hard enough for the answer? And can we use logic as a tool for answering philosophical questions? Philosophy has existed sine the beginning and it has begun to open our minds to new and different perspectives. To continue this process of intellectual thinking, we must first be open-minded and willing to accept change. The real question however, is whether or not society can accept the change that philosophical thinking can bring.
Philosophy is life. Without it we would not be able to ask the questions which are associated with the whole idea of philosophy; such as, Is there a God? Morally, we are brought up to believe that God truly exists through religion, but how can we be so sure? It has been said that philosophy does not have a right or wrong answer, but could it be that we as a community did not search hard enough for the answer? And can we use logic as a tool for answering philosophical questions? Philosophy has existed sine the beginning and it has begun to open our minds to new and different perspectives. To continue this process of intellectual thinking, we must first be open-minded and willing to accept change. The real question however, is whether or not society can accept the change that philosophical thinking can bring.
The Philosophy of Visual Disability
The greatest expression of the ultimate timeless civilisation of mankind, is the embodiment of unfeigned, absolute, active altruistic reverence for the universal equality, dignity and sanctity of humanity; the inability to perceive the declivity from behind an acclivity, or rather, the proclivity to infer the depth of a river from its breath is, no less, the antithesis, for verisimilitude isn’t proof, but verisimilitude. To be or not to be then, being is but a metaphysical idiom with a being, whose interpretation bears no physical traits that bears not a being, much the same as the paradoxical question of visual disability: a metaphysical idiom with a physical configuration that is, however, open to misconstruction; by which misconstruction merely a scratch of the surface to whose bottom can be at the bottom of its sophistication; upon which sophistication its decipherment is bound to bring man to labour under a misapprehension; a misapprehension from which only appreciating the objective for the objective and the subjective for the subjective, can deliver us; a deliverance that can howsoever, never be granted by sweeping the objective under the subjective carpet; under which selfsame carpet the efficacious spearheads for the reclamation of the birthright of persons with visual disability lies ensnared, grimed with the ignorance, intolerance and indifference of man. Better be it that one be one’s own worst enemy than to bear a lifelong imputation to elsewhere; by which reason I am not to draw in my horns from meeting head-on the reality; the reality I believe, forasmuch as there is no land that is no-man’s-land, its disclosure will be worth the weight of persons with visual disability in gold.
Expounding, then, the metaphysical correlation between the variant sociological and psychological make-up of human societies and the individuals of the societies respectively, vis-а-vis the idiosyncratic perceptions and conceptions on the relative universal identity and equality of humanity, hence the ideological heterogeneity or otherwise incongruity in relation to the nitty-gritty of visual disability, is a sine qua non inasmuch as it is obligatorily imperative for the explicit crystallisation of a clear-cut, utilitarian and epoch-making expedient, well geared towards the universal transpiration of a modernistic, cosmopolitan ideology apropos of visual disability, well-tailored for the far-reaching amelioration of the status quo anent the plight of persons with visual disability, and well-defined for the effective harmonisation of the relative social standing of visually handicapped persons, pursuant to the universally veritable social, cultural and economic well-being of humanity. In virtue of this a fortiori virtue of necessity, it is a profound ethical suasion and a sound social obligation for me to enlighten in my expatiatory, a posteriori exposition – the Philosophy of Visual Disability.
The Philosophy:
Behind any course that we may pursue in quest of our bequeathed legacy, are enchanted lands – uncharted, and futile wastelands beyond – unforeseen; an unnerving fateful pursuit that, long since, begets, disconcertingly, a confounding impasse, crestfallen men of yore lethargically learnt to rationalise dogmatically in a lead balloon as nothing, but a wild-goose chase. Yet, hitherto, we still fail, warped within the obscurity of the absurdity of this twilit ground, to realise that: by giving in our insight ignorantly to that which visually we do perceive, or intolerantly to that which insularly we do conceive, verily, we lose virtually all that which we were to, but definitely will not see elementally. So much the better if we can think twice and strive to read between the lines, having a single-track mind and conscientiousness of a funambulist, only can our percipience transcend our primitive purview and descry from beyond the back of beyond, the unveiled philosophies of being, so plain as a pikestaff, along with the merged fragments of one of the segments of the assembled jigsaw puzzle of being engraved: “Denounce only the paradox of my disability to renounce umpteen blessings of humanity.”
The ideal art of mankind, though subtly je ne sais quoi, is graphically modelled by man’s spontaneous, continuous impulsion to interpret his conscious, continuous sensual experiences; thence by an inherent compulsion to be sentient of the essence of his personal world’s continuous physical experiences relative to the external world within which he abides, as a prescriptive requisite towards the imperative consolidation of a mutually interactive correlation. The intrinsic existence of, particularly, a visual sensory entity – the eye – a biological decoder that actively deciphers the dimensional chromatic information world into a systematic dimensionless information world (visible to the mind) – which is the elemental medium of sight – the pro-informative faculty, act or instance of the (spontaneous ocular) capturing of the extrinsic dimensional and chromatic configuration of the objective world; wielded by the hypostatically inherent, integral virtual vision framework of cognitively coordinated, integrated dimensionless configurations of the very same dimensional and chromatic objective world – that is, the sense of sight; emphatically substantiates, implicitly, the authenticity of the afore-professed hypothesis: a seeming obligation for man to perceive, and an oblique compulsion by man to conceive. Irrespective of the natural complexity of the continuous optical catalysis of dimensional chromatic information into dimensionless data – inclusively involving: the spontaneous accommodation mechanics; the involuntary integration of the continuous, invariably 2-D visual sensory data from the screen of the retina (isochronously along with the synchronous, continuous tactual, lingual, aural and nasal sensory nerve impulses) by the thalamus; the ensuing unconscious registration of the integrated sensations, the subsequent subjective resolution of solidity and profundity entailing the cognitive realisation of a virtual 3-D impression of the dimensional objective world, the cognitive appreciation and assimilation of the dimensionless data, and the consequent initiation of voluntary muscular activity towards the dimensional world, a well-nigh split-second’s activity - all in the celebral cortex; the spontaneous muscular coordination by the cerebellum and brainstem; and the relative evocation of emotions by the limbic system; which is, all-inclusively, a sequentially consolidated macrocosm of the phenomenon of sight, the twain to which the invariable mechanics of the eye, per se, are a microcosm of - the eye, howsoever, retains its sole raison d’etre as the liaising interface of the twain: dimensional and dimensionless, objective and subjective worlds; wherefore the extrinsic configuration of the eye elementally lies beyond the purview of the eye itself!
In the nature of the vicissitudes of being, the physical, chemical, mechanical, biochemical and biological (inc. genetic and pathological) vitiation of visual acuity – the intrinsic relative ease of ocular appreciation of the extrinsic objective configurations – which culminates to the involuntary (and oft-unbidden) detriment of the liaison between the objective and cognitive worlds, that is visual disability, predicates the latter, visual disability, as a physically, chemically, mechanically, genetically, biochemically and pathologically effected condition or situation of the relative ocular miscarriage of relative absolute reciprocity between the ever-active dimensionally expressive, chromatic objective world and the then quasi-passive dimensionless visual sensory cognitive world – nothing more, nothing less; a contingent natural phenomenon whose ultimate incidence, nevertheless, neither cuts a swath through one’s sense of sight, nor does it present insuperable barricades towards one’s inherent cognitive capacity to appreciate the configurations of the objective world, but only calls for the complementary substitution or harmonisation of the impaired ocular liaison by dint of the transcendent consolidation of the tremendous abilities of the complementary senses, particularly, the tactile, olfactory and auditory senses.
Everyone has no less than two strings to one’s bow. What though the ocular string be slacken, one can nevertheless strike out on one’s own. The shoe pinches not on the miss of the optical arrow fired from the ocular string, but on the ease of the cognitive intelligibility of the dimensions of the chromatic target; the selfsame optical target whereunto cognitively propelled (and technologically steered) tactual and auditory arrows, let fly from the complementary tactile and aural strings, will still strike. Cognitive sight having precedence over ocular sight, it stands to reason beyond a shadow of doubt that it is not because of one’s blindness to the wider society that one is blind, but the wider society’s blindness to the striking shadow cast at length by the be-all and end-all dried-in-grain sense of sight of persons with visual disability, for we see not with the eyes, but the mind; our eyes – the elemental leverage of optical sensation, much the same as an oarlock, at most, puts a premium on the rowing of the mind’s eye within the invariable expanse of dimensions; in the default of which nothing can defy one from having recourse to paddling, yet effectuating the very effect: the cognitive appreciation and assimilation of the acquired dimensionless information which, otherwise, effectuates the propulsion of motive/impulse driven impetus/stimuli towards the dimensional world.
This universal ability of any person to paddle one’s own canoe, subversively insinuates the semantic obliquity, hence the vacuity of the terms blind/blindness, conventionally adopted in popular parlance as naturalistic fallacies of the homologous, but subtly non-homogeneous terms: vision or visual disability/ handicap/ impairment, which, prima facie, shades an illusive nuance of the irreconcilability of the objective and cognitive worlds; intimating, ipso facto, that the former terms are, literally speaking, monstrous misnomers and hence are of nominal import only. Thereupon, the deliberate, inveterate, arbitrary, colloquial, or rather, the conscious or unconscious usage of the terms blind/blindness, ignorantly, indifferently, intolerantly, otherwise unless upon the foundation of literal specification or bona fide emphasis, is, off the grounds of euphemism, grotesque solecism, objectionable, deplorable, an implicit debasement of the dignity of humanity, and to crown it all, explicitly betokens one’s own intrinsic blindness. All and above, the cultural and/or religious astringent manipulation of visual disability as an instrument of, inter alia, stigmatisation, discrimination, social stratification and occultism, is profoundly eloquent of objectivistically and dogmatically bridled cold feet dragging along a yellow streak towards reaching out for universal, modernistic, complementary (technological) frontiers.
Constituting visual disability is, essentially, the surmountable dimensional-dimensionless information divide and, trivially, the comparative pluckable thorn that, as likely as not, impales through one’s flesh. The former, a recondite verity, is a virtual chasm that can be spanned integrally by the systematic harmonisation of physiological sensory substitution systems along with adaptive/assistive electronic and communication systems; and the later, a microcosm of the former, is a dispensable sensation that can extensively be suppressed following psychological recuperation through effective psychological rehabilitation – if need be. If then the dimensional configuration of the objective chromatic world can take shape cognitively through this potent line of least resistance – technology – which, to all intents and purposes, redresses the balance and thus answers the purpose as the crow flies, what can preclude one from being entitled the king of the Jungle, if one can evince the heart of a lion? All roads lead to Rome! On what grounds can one stand and impugn this verity? The end specifies not the means; it anyhow justifies the means, regardless of how mean the means might be, for just as the innate buoyancy of driftwood, devoid of all conceivable will, and seemingly of no great shakes on the face of it, all the same wafts it ashore!
Apt to be riveted by the heterogeneity of the fashions of sensation, we are prone to be distracted from perceiving the homogeneity nature of perception – the cognitive conscious appreciation of the objective sensual impressions. To see is to perceive and to perceive is to see! No one is thus, literally speaking, blind, for we all are capable of perceiving; the means, justified by the perception, is what masquerades boldly without wings as a verisimilitude of dissimilitude, when, in actual fact, the similitude of the ultimate perception starkly stares us in the face. The ‘Night Writing System’, from which the conventional ‘Braille System’ was innovated, never was dreamt up with persons with visual disability in mind. Why would the soldiers opt then to adopt this system extensively, yet beyond the shadow of this brain child, were capable of perceiving with the eyes? Think it over! What lies behind the keen perception of nocturnal mammals or the practical phenomenon of dead reckoning? Ocular sensation, an elemental species of perception, is, thus, not such significant nor is it streets ahead of auditory, olfactory, tactual or lingual sensations, elemental species of perception as well, that it should draw a veil over the equal capacities of the latter, irrespective of its elemental capacity to ride runs round the latter in relation to the perception of the dimensional and chromatic configurations of the objective world, insomuch as the supplementary coordination of the latter can equally substitute it.
It only costs a rather supplementary refinement of man’s logic, and a transcendental situational scrutiny upon a non-objectivistic, impartial coign of vantage for man to dawn upon the fact that: “ Blindness exists not in man’s very eyes, but in the veriest eyes of ignorance”; the very eyes of ignorance that, in virtue of man’s partiality towards objectivism; man’s propensity towards needlessly depicting himself in effigy; man’s frivolity towards being diverted by the widow’s peak for the head of hair; and man’s proclivity towards underlining what extrinsically he can perceive for what intrinsically he cannot conceive, undermines the impalpable innate attributes inherent in the profundities of the intrinsic being: the intrinsic being that, nonetheless, fashions the extrinsic being and pro-actively influences the mutuality between the extrinsic being and the extrinsic objective world. A nigger in the woodpile then it is, that befogs the woods for the trees; a bed of quicksand so it seems, that like a whirlpool, swallows up whole the chrysalises for the cocoons; and with the acute ‘identity crisis’ of a homing pigeon, divested of its wild life to assume, in servility, the sway of man, so is the fundamental nature of the blindness of man’s ignorance that, despite it being disparate from the putative blindness of the eyes of man, sophistically assumes a feigned appearance as the fundamental nature of visual disability.
Iridescent then; visual disability isn’t what we do perceive it as being that it is what it is, but that which we do conceive it as being that it is what it seems; insomuch as the sociological form of the social matrix within which we do culturally and socially fabricate visual disability to be, so is the psychological form of which visual disability does sentimentally manifests to one as being; wherefore the flaw of human sentiment is with impunity and substantial ethical immunity to the detriment of the de facto and de jure dignity and sanctity of persons with visual disability. In line with this last straw that breaks the camel’s back, is the existence of innumerable societies of man, whose rationale for the relative characteristic attitudes within the societies towards persons with disabilities are variant and significantly incoherent. By virtue of the ease of one to conform with, and adhere to the (time-honoured) customs and/or the (orthodox) beliefs of one’s culture/religion respectively, it is, therefore, not uncommon that one is disposed to ignorantly give credence to bigoted customs and beliefs as regards persons with visual disability, so customary is it that one is inclined to contemplate one’s navel apropos of visual disability; no wonder, in oblivion to our liability for the so reputed realities underlying visual disability and our accountability for the desecration of the sanctity of humanity, we fail to realise… As a complement to the debt of nature, every man is born to be great, endowed with equitable talents and abilities, along with the inalienable faculties of will and consciousness. This greatness, however, blossoms to culmination if one can realise one’s abilities and wield one’s will with diligence, patience, persistence and perseverance within an enabling and an empowering sociological milieu, and a psychological climate of unbounded self-assurance and unrestrained self-motivation, A needle in a haystack, as it might be to the benighted; idealism, as it might sound to the sceptics and cynics who may, as well, take this axiom with a pinch of salt, it is, empirically, a fiat of fate that ultimately vindicates the absolute dispensability of the question of visual disability – a sociologically induced, psychological virtual scarecrow simulation on the threshold of one’s excellence and eminence – amid one’s pursuit of excellence and/or one’s quest of eminence , if only one, in one’s realism, can be conscious of existentialism and resolutely exercise one’s will-power and one’s staying power collaterally by valiantly bearing the patience to persist and persevere with one’s diligence over one’s abilities, within a socially, culturally and economically inclusive society - thereby treading triumphantly upon the scarecrow.
Nevertheless, swathed in oblivion beneath the inexorable shrouding murk of man’s very ignorance, lies a priceless treasure trove of multifarious untapped superlative latent talents and abilities, above rubies, under the faзade of visual disability, bursting at the seams of dreams unborn, borne with prodigies, geniuses and virtuosi – unrecognised; untold Keplers, Goethes and Aristotles – unsung; one great hope fountain of white hopes – unhoped-for, oft-brought to nought down the drain, to hope against hope in dire strangulation betwixt the stifling stiff jaws of a mummified ogre, wrought of prejudices, myths and fallacies; intolerantly enshrined, with indifference, within a consecrated frigid abyss of objectivism, fraught with stereotypes and inundated with a deluge of discrimination and marginalisation; one great pedigree of entitled legatees whose bequeathed legacy, hitherto, lies at stake on the verge of a stereotyped precipice, imminently to the prejudice of their rosy morrow in the wake of a recondite cause – the ‘disability of the societies’
In full view of this disability of the societies, in the least, the inability of able societies to be universally socio-economically inclusive, the subsequent inability of any individual within any society to implicitly cherish visual disability as, ironically, a crystal-clear paradigm of the essence of an ideogram, or explicitly as one of the greatest nature’s finest ironies, inductively authenticates that visual disability is, to outward seeming, a phenomenal, delusive skin-deep verisimilitude of the objective visual sensory world’s irreconcilability with the subjective visual sensation world; the universal psychological and sociological cradle of the wider society’s monstrous impressions of the relative inability and relative inferiority of persons with visual disability, actively fortifying the involuntary impairment of one’s proclivity towards the crystallisation of one’s latent abilities, the actualisation of one’s utmost capacity and the consolidation of one’s de facto integrity; consequently effectuating, more often than not, the pro-active inhibition of the extensive recognition of one’s de jure dignity, relative equality, social mobility, and the full realisation, thereof, by the wider society.
Translucent! Being a psychological legacy of objectivism, impregnated within the imagination through comparative perception, fostered by the wider society’s nescience of the ironical essence of existence and callously immolated in its infancy as an oblation to cultural and religious intolerance, the run-of-the-mill prima facie impression of visual disability – an a priori arrant travesty of the capacity of persons with disabilities, en masse, bears a substratum of grotesque ideological grave misrepresentations of the destiny of persons with visual disability – the root cause of unfavourable presuppositions and unbefitting predispositions by the wider society towards visually handicapped persons which relatively rubs salt in their wound insofar as taking the wind out of their sails.
These sophistic, erroneous ex parte impressions and implications of visual disability are but mirage phenomena diffracted at the cognitive interface of the physical and the metaphysical, that by virtue of the wider society’s susceptibility to the pervasive influence of the withering cultural and religious indoctrination, absurdly predicated upon mere conjectural speculation and/or upon the materialisation of self-fulfilling prophesies, artfully sculptured and principally fostered into transpiration, particularly, in consequence of the ideological apotheosis of an idealised extrinsic being (as the basis of, inter alia, the societies’ individualistic ideologies), hence otherwise by the upholding and cushioning of the spirituality of disability, en bloc, {which ultimately papers over the cracks and upon which the spacious convictions that attributes the phenomenon of disability as of supernatural causality, that is, inter alia, as manifesting an imprecation, infliction or a repercussion for some past (lineal) transgression(s) }; simulates a semblance of intricacy and delicacy, and thus broods a hoodwinking mentality of the inscrutability of the question of visual disability that belies its insuperability, effectually spurring the indiscriminate and indelicate assimilation of superficial, larger-than-life non sequiturs refutable by reductio ad absurdum; thence engendering a nodding acquaintance which eventually conduces to the proliferation and ossification of hives of abysmal ignorance that resonates cognitive dissonance upon the wider society’s revelation to the nitty-gritty of visual disability.
Though we cannot wave aside the possible relative contributory ignorance and/or pessimism by the individual, this cumulative preponderance of the disability of the societies over the faзade of visual disability makes it rather insignificant, hence making the contributory social, cultural and religious ignorance, intolerance and indifference too far-fetched an extraneous nuisance value to be overlooked. Not to put too fine a point on it, the pith of disability underlying the predominant idйe recue anent visual disability is, substantially, psychological and is substantially psychological and sociological in nature, rather than being, practically, a physical or physiological condition. That is, it has a psychological and sociological foundation and not just is it of biological, physical chemical or mechanical causality. It is notably a cognitive phenomenon, (the Cognitive Theory of Virtual Disability – Gary Ngara), that is, however, ignorantly generalised sweepingly as being an objective phenomenon, (the Objective Theory of Literal Disability – Gary Ngara). The latter, literal visual disability, (oft-passive), which is the apparent disability as perceived by the wider society, entails the former, virtual disability, (oft-active), which encompasses the subjective acquiescence by one to intra-psychological frustrations in virtue of one’s literal visual disability – (Intrinsic Impairment of one’s Competence) – which, for the most part, is an upshot of the influence of the sociological generation, implantation/instillation and fortification of the fallacious and delusive sense of the relative incompetence of persons with disabilities, en bloc, by virtue of the society’s culture(s) and religion(s) – (Extrinsic Impairment of one’s Competence). In the nature of the case, the synergy of the mutually inclusive – literal and virtual disability – gives rise to an abstract phenomenon of infused literal disability – (the Abstract theory of Conjugate Disability – Gary Ngara) – the nub of the question of disability; hence, the absence of only a dual-pronged approach towards the twain phenomena in brazening out the question of visual disability, accounts for its ostensible complexity and formidability, (the Fundamental theory of the Duality of Disability – Gary Ngara).
Virtual disability – a sociological taint and a psychological trait governing human misery – refers to the voluntary or involuntary, conscious or unconscious inability of one to avail oneself of one’s abilities. Thus, anyone can disable oneself or can extrinsically be disabled, consciously or unconsciously by being, voluntarily or involuntarily unable to actualise oneself with what one is capable of, or by being, voluntarily or involuntarily, unable to effectively utilise one’s abilities; to wit, the failure of one to apply oneself to one’s abilities, or the deflection of one from capitalising on one’s abilities, voluntarily or involuntarily, consciously or unconsciously, is manifestly symptomatic of virtual disability. Virtual disability, which is out of all proportion to literal disability, is a universal trait, common to every human being, for as long as our societies shall not epitomise Utopia.
As a species of self-efficacy, it is mercurial and hence a continuous variable, whose degree is fostered or repressed both by the social environment within which one is enculturated, physically and cognitively develops; and by oneself, owing to the extent of one’s self-assurance and self-motivation. However, although the degree of virtual disability is somewhat inappreciable in most individuals of the society, owing, in the main to the sociological flexibility of the compensation psychological defence mechanism, its impact is rather more pronounced in situations where the sense of relative deprivation prevails; those governed, chiefly, by the wider society’s ignorance, indifference and intolerance; those characterised by, inter alia, stigmatisation, marginalisation and hence discrimination – which is largely attributed to the underprivileged vulnerable groups within the societies viz. persons with literal disabilities, women, children, the minority groups and the destitute.
This virtual disability, a phenomenon wrapped in mystery, is, principally, the essence of ‘’infused literal disability’’, that accentuates as good as it distorts the prima facie perception of literal and hence visual disability, by which same brush the wider society tars visual disability. The stigmatisation by the wider society which follows and, on the whole, reflects upon and decries the relative competence of persons with literal visual disability, thereby defying the unsnarling of the resultant Gordian knot, fuels their stratification, more often than not, to the lower social strata, where they are prone to sustain undue privations, in particular, the deprivation of de facto social recognition and acceptance. This sociological catalysis of the psychological metamorphosis of the fundamental conviction of the sublimity of the abilities of persons with literal visual disability into the absurd impression or supposition of their mediocrity effectually sparks intra-psychological approach-avoidance conflicts – one’s feelings of ambivalence towards one’s ability to avail oneself of one’s abilities – and thus triggers off a psychological warfare between the "need for achievement" and the "fear of success", which, ultimately, can leave one who knows not to shrink from succumbing to the compelling sociological sterilisations and demoralisations, on the brink of the jeopardy of the crystallisation and/or realisation of one’s (latent) abilities, hence also the fruition of one’s self-actualisation, ipso facto, intensifying one’s virtual disability, and thus one’s infused literal disability.
Buttressed by the extrinsic impairment of one’s competence, it paradoxically follows therefore syllogistically that: one’s abstract disability ain’t a matter of one’s literal visual disability, neither is it of one’s virtual disability, but the disabilities of one’s society – the inability of an able society to be universally inclusive; its reluctance to facilitate the social mobility of persons with literal disabilities; its imperviousness to their cries and grievances; its insensitiveness to sympathise and empathise with their plight; its unawareness to the superb latent abilities endowed to persons with literal disabilities; and its unconsciousness to the power of empowerment and equal-status interaction as the efficacious antidotes for the repression of virtual disability, dissolution of the significance of literal disability and the obliteration of its own disability.
Nevertheless, it is a moral certainty that visual disability is not the last extremity on humanity for it never predestines the futility of the fertility of one’s latent abilities. Lo and behold, notwithstanding his blindness, the quintessence of fortitude, Eric Weihenmayer, made it to the top of the world by climbing to the summit of the world’s topmost mountain – Mt. Everest (8848) – a phenomenal expedition dreaded by many: accomplished by a few; the awe-inspiring Kent Cullers (PhD), a physicist and an astronomer, is going strong; Dean Du Plessis is an international cricket analyst; Peter Torpey (PhD) is an engineering physicist; Amy Bower (PhD) is a research oceanographer; David Hartman (PhD) is a psychiatrist; the charismatic chemist, Judy Summers-Gates, is specialising in colour analysis; the inspirational Hein Wagner, is a motorist; the astrophysicist, David Mehringer (PhD) writes astronomical software; Joseph Monks, is a movie director; Pete Eckert, is a photographer; Michael Borgonia (Dr) is a medical transcriptionist.
There are economists, advocates, mathematicians, to mention but just a few of the very many self-willed paragons of excellence from all walks of life, who never hitched their wagons to the stars, but under the moral courage of their solemn convictions, extricated themselves from the dragnet of stereotypes; valiantly stood up, head over heels, to the scourge of swimming with the stream against their better judgement; feeling their way clear, put their best foot forward and took in their stride, straining every nerve shoreward; high-flyingly going great guns with a stiff upper lip from strength to strength in the wind’s eye, but on the scent, and made their way into the world to their hearts’ content ,only to be attestations to the fact that: visual disability, per se, is by no manner of means an impediment to one’s self-actualisation; on no account does it govern one’s level of intelligence; not in the slightest does it guarantee the curtailment of the ultimate degree of one’s competence; and thus therefore, in no wise does visual disability encumber one from attaining one’s beau ideal, or rather, ne plus ultra excellence – but the disabilities of one’s society.
Born visually impaired with only two percent (2%) sight, an exceptional electronic engineer of eminent ingenuity who blossomed out to be the father of, inter alia, the Galarneau Braille Computer and Printer – Ronald Galarneau (Engr.)(Canada); the kindered spirits, uncrowned Queens of determination, twin incarnations of tenacity and sagacity, famed poets, writers and lecturers who all died in the last ditch striking blows for the ultimate inclusion of persons with literal disabilities – Tilly Aston (Australia) and Helen Adams Keller (PhD)(US); Zimbabwe’s very own unprecedented touchstone who set the Thames on fire as the first Zimbabwean visually disabled advocate, lecturer and, among other things, professor (of Law) – Pearson Nherere (Prof.); the legendary Louis Braille (France); Bob Artkinson (US); Robert Irwin (US), and many others beyond mention, godsend, set no one on their pedestal, but with the will of their own, squared up to winning their spurs up their solid resolution: never to stop short of taking the (reputed) bull by the horns, and of course, on a winning streak, as anticipated, found a niche for themselves in the temple of fame, coming into prominence as icons of the cardinal virtues – truly, idols of an era, today’s era and the untold eras to come!
Although they lived as visually handicapped, they are today ’living lighthouses’. Some enlightened upon issues that, for long, had been held in obscurity; others dazzled the entire world with their second-to-none capacity; others blazed the trails and set the trend, which the forthcoming generations shall still follow. The selfsame spirit is still existent and shall forever be, since everyone is destined to flourish in one-way or the other, profitable to one’s society and the world at large. Thus, the indifference and intolerance by the wider society towards persons with visual disability on the strength of adhering to the ethos of one’s society, or under the banner of cultural fundamentalism or religious conformism, is not braced by rationalism, pragmatism or utilitarianism; neither is it logically vindicable, nor is it ethically creditable, but a grave act of undermining the tower of strength for the progressive sustainable, social, cultural, economic and political reformation of our societies into Utopia!
We need, then not to culturally standardise humanity unless otherwise we standardise the cultures of humanity. In other words, that standard which best stands up for the standards of each and everyone as individuals is the best standard that stands out best. Subservient to the ultimate realisation of this standard – individualism, if only we can learn to dignify and sanctify mankind veritably with a common resonant heart of impartiality and benignity, and consensually strike a blow for the intensive adoption of the principle of egalitarianism, that seeks to, inter alia, give prominence to the de facto and de jure respect for, observance of, protection and promotion of the fundamental rights, freedoms and privileges of persons with visual disability; profusely staff the pro-social behaviour cushion of the norms of altruism and humanitarianism (inc. social responsibility); supplant any obscurantist feelings of pessimism or negativism by subversively inculcating the reality of the very same relative great potential of visually handicapped persons, viva voce and by actively advocating for equal-status contact; stipulate for the streamlining of their independence and self-help socio-economic endeavours by dint of the mobilisation of sufficient efficient (assistive and adaptive) technical resources; and fully integrate persons with visual disability into the mainstream of the society’s social, cultural, economic and political activities seeing to it that the contact between the wider society and persons with visual disability is on a fifty-fifty footing, in whatsoever situation and under whatsoever circumstances…
… Definitely, persons with visual disabilities will arise, en bloc, by leaps and bonds from their misconceptualised level of mediocrity with the ethereal effulgence of unfathomable self-efficacy, ultimately immune from any dissuasions and disparagements, overwhelmingly shining with an empyrean resplendence to excellence, eminence and prominence as the diadem of their societies, never to be eclipsed again by the disability of the societies – if ever it shall be prevailing. It is not a prophecy, but philosophy. The incredible is to the incredulous, but it shall never be too late to mend.
It is an ill wind that blows no good. Verily, there is more in persons with visual disability than meets the eye. A modicum of sight that man may recognise in visual disability is but a tip of the iceberg, the thin end of a wedge, and a drop in the ocean of sight that lies behind the eyes. Verisimilitude is no proof, but verisimilitude. The only proof of the pudding lies in the eating. Why then prejudge one’s paces if we are capable of putting one through one’s paces?
The so purported ‘able-bodied’ are not the only pebbles on the beach. There is absolutely nothing to choose between man, neither is there a logical ground upon which we should make a difference between man. For how long, then, shall we keep on rubbernecking relentlessly to the warbles of winchers on the wing, hither and tether, yet deliberately impervious to the whimper of that wincing within the clutch of our very hands? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!
Visual disability is not what it is!
Expounding, then, the metaphysical correlation between the variant sociological and psychological make-up of human societies and the individuals of the societies respectively, vis-а-vis the idiosyncratic perceptions and conceptions on the relative universal identity and equality of humanity, hence the ideological heterogeneity or otherwise incongruity in relation to the nitty-gritty of visual disability, is a sine qua non inasmuch as it is obligatorily imperative for the explicit crystallisation of a clear-cut, utilitarian and epoch-making expedient, well geared towards the universal transpiration of a modernistic, cosmopolitan ideology apropos of visual disability, well-tailored for the far-reaching amelioration of the status quo anent the plight of persons with visual disability, and well-defined for the effective harmonisation of the relative social standing of visually handicapped persons, pursuant to the universally veritable social, cultural and economic well-being of humanity. In virtue of this a fortiori virtue of necessity, it is a profound ethical suasion and a sound social obligation for me to enlighten in my expatiatory, a posteriori exposition – the Philosophy of Visual Disability.
The Philosophy:
Behind any course that we may pursue in quest of our bequeathed legacy, are enchanted lands – uncharted, and futile wastelands beyond – unforeseen; an unnerving fateful pursuit that, long since, begets, disconcertingly, a confounding impasse, crestfallen men of yore lethargically learnt to rationalise dogmatically in a lead balloon as nothing, but a wild-goose chase. Yet, hitherto, we still fail, warped within the obscurity of the absurdity of this twilit ground, to realise that: by giving in our insight ignorantly to that which visually we do perceive, or intolerantly to that which insularly we do conceive, verily, we lose virtually all that which we were to, but definitely will not see elementally. So much the better if we can think twice and strive to read between the lines, having a single-track mind and conscientiousness of a funambulist, only can our percipience transcend our primitive purview and descry from beyond the back of beyond, the unveiled philosophies of being, so plain as a pikestaff, along with the merged fragments of one of the segments of the assembled jigsaw puzzle of being engraved: “Denounce only the paradox of my disability to renounce umpteen blessings of humanity.”
The ideal art of mankind, though subtly je ne sais quoi, is graphically modelled by man’s spontaneous, continuous impulsion to interpret his conscious, continuous sensual experiences; thence by an inherent compulsion to be sentient of the essence of his personal world’s continuous physical experiences relative to the external world within which he abides, as a prescriptive requisite towards the imperative consolidation of a mutually interactive correlation. The intrinsic existence of, particularly, a visual sensory entity – the eye – a biological decoder that actively deciphers the dimensional chromatic information world into a systematic dimensionless information world (visible to the mind) – which is the elemental medium of sight – the pro-informative faculty, act or instance of the (spontaneous ocular) capturing of the extrinsic dimensional and chromatic configuration of the objective world; wielded by the hypostatically inherent, integral virtual vision framework of cognitively coordinated, integrated dimensionless configurations of the very same dimensional and chromatic objective world – that is, the sense of sight; emphatically substantiates, implicitly, the authenticity of the afore-professed hypothesis: a seeming obligation for man to perceive, and an oblique compulsion by man to conceive. Irrespective of the natural complexity of the continuous optical catalysis of dimensional chromatic information into dimensionless data – inclusively involving: the spontaneous accommodation mechanics; the involuntary integration of the continuous, invariably 2-D visual sensory data from the screen of the retina (isochronously along with the synchronous, continuous tactual, lingual, aural and nasal sensory nerve impulses) by the thalamus; the ensuing unconscious registration of the integrated sensations, the subsequent subjective resolution of solidity and profundity entailing the cognitive realisation of a virtual 3-D impression of the dimensional objective world, the cognitive appreciation and assimilation of the dimensionless data, and the consequent initiation of voluntary muscular activity towards the dimensional world, a well-nigh split-second’s activity - all in the celebral cortex; the spontaneous muscular coordination by the cerebellum and brainstem; and the relative evocation of emotions by the limbic system; which is, all-inclusively, a sequentially consolidated macrocosm of the phenomenon of sight, the twain to which the invariable mechanics of the eye, per se, are a microcosm of - the eye, howsoever, retains its sole raison d’etre as the liaising interface of the twain: dimensional and dimensionless, objective and subjective worlds; wherefore the extrinsic configuration of the eye elementally lies beyond the purview of the eye itself!
In the nature of the vicissitudes of being, the physical, chemical, mechanical, biochemical and biological (inc. genetic and pathological) vitiation of visual acuity – the intrinsic relative ease of ocular appreciation of the extrinsic objective configurations – which culminates to the involuntary (and oft-unbidden) detriment of the liaison between the objective and cognitive worlds, that is visual disability, predicates the latter, visual disability, as a physically, chemically, mechanically, genetically, biochemically and pathologically effected condition or situation of the relative ocular miscarriage of relative absolute reciprocity between the ever-active dimensionally expressive, chromatic objective world and the then quasi-passive dimensionless visual sensory cognitive world – nothing more, nothing less; a contingent natural phenomenon whose ultimate incidence, nevertheless, neither cuts a swath through one’s sense of sight, nor does it present insuperable barricades towards one’s inherent cognitive capacity to appreciate the configurations of the objective world, but only calls for the complementary substitution or harmonisation of the impaired ocular liaison by dint of the transcendent consolidation of the tremendous abilities of the complementary senses, particularly, the tactile, olfactory and auditory senses.
Everyone has no less than two strings to one’s bow. What though the ocular string be slacken, one can nevertheless strike out on one’s own. The shoe pinches not on the miss of the optical arrow fired from the ocular string, but on the ease of the cognitive intelligibility of the dimensions of the chromatic target; the selfsame optical target whereunto cognitively propelled (and technologically steered) tactual and auditory arrows, let fly from the complementary tactile and aural strings, will still strike. Cognitive sight having precedence over ocular sight, it stands to reason beyond a shadow of doubt that it is not because of one’s blindness to the wider society that one is blind, but the wider society’s blindness to the striking shadow cast at length by the be-all and end-all dried-in-grain sense of sight of persons with visual disability, for we see not with the eyes, but the mind; our eyes – the elemental leverage of optical sensation, much the same as an oarlock, at most, puts a premium on the rowing of the mind’s eye within the invariable expanse of dimensions; in the default of which nothing can defy one from having recourse to paddling, yet effectuating the very effect: the cognitive appreciation and assimilation of the acquired dimensionless information which, otherwise, effectuates the propulsion of motive/impulse driven impetus/stimuli towards the dimensional world.
This universal ability of any person to paddle one’s own canoe, subversively insinuates the semantic obliquity, hence the vacuity of the terms blind/blindness, conventionally adopted in popular parlance as naturalistic fallacies of the homologous, but subtly non-homogeneous terms: vision or visual disability/ handicap/ impairment, which, prima facie, shades an illusive nuance of the irreconcilability of the objective and cognitive worlds; intimating, ipso facto, that the former terms are, literally speaking, monstrous misnomers and hence are of nominal import only. Thereupon, the deliberate, inveterate, arbitrary, colloquial, or rather, the conscious or unconscious usage of the terms blind/blindness, ignorantly, indifferently, intolerantly, otherwise unless upon the foundation of literal specification or bona fide emphasis, is, off the grounds of euphemism, grotesque solecism, objectionable, deplorable, an implicit debasement of the dignity of humanity, and to crown it all, explicitly betokens one’s own intrinsic blindness. All and above, the cultural and/or religious astringent manipulation of visual disability as an instrument of, inter alia, stigmatisation, discrimination, social stratification and occultism, is profoundly eloquent of objectivistically and dogmatically bridled cold feet dragging along a yellow streak towards reaching out for universal, modernistic, complementary (technological) frontiers.
Constituting visual disability is, essentially, the surmountable dimensional-dimensionless information divide and, trivially, the comparative pluckable thorn that, as likely as not, impales through one’s flesh. The former, a recondite verity, is a virtual chasm that can be spanned integrally by the systematic harmonisation of physiological sensory substitution systems along with adaptive/assistive electronic and communication systems; and the later, a microcosm of the former, is a dispensable sensation that can extensively be suppressed following psychological recuperation through effective psychological rehabilitation – if need be. If then the dimensional configuration of the objective chromatic world can take shape cognitively through this potent line of least resistance – technology – which, to all intents and purposes, redresses the balance and thus answers the purpose as the crow flies, what can preclude one from being entitled the king of the Jungle, if one can evince the heart of a lion? All roads lead to Rome! On what grounds can one stand and impugn this verity? The end specifies not the means; it anyhow justifies the means, regardless of how mean the means might be, for just as the innate buoyancy of driftwood, devoid of all conceivable will, and seemingly of no great shakes on the face of it, all the same wafts it ashore!
Apt to be riveted by the heterogeneity of the fashions of sensation, we are prone to be distracted from perceiving the homogeneity nature of perception – the cognitive conscious appreciation of the objective sensual impressions. To see is to perceive and to perceive is to see! No one is thus, literally speaking, blind, for we all are capable of perceiving; the means, justified by the perception, is what masquerades boldly without wings as a verisimilitude of dissimilitude, when, in actual fact, the similitude of the ultimate perception starkly stares us in the face. The ‘Night Writing System’, from which the conventional ‘Braille System’ was innovated, never was dreamt up with persons with visual disability in mind. Why would the soldiers opt then to adopt this system extensively, yet beyond the shadow of this brain child, were capable of perceiving with the eyes? Think it over! What lies behind the keen perception of nocturnal mammals or the practical phenomenon of dead reckoning? Ocular sensation, an elemental species of perception, is, thus, not such significant nor is it streets ahead of auditory, olfactory, tactual or lingual sensations, elemental species of perception as well, that it should draw a veil over the equal capacities of the latter, irrespective of its elemental capacity to ride runs round the latter in relation to the perception of the dimensional and chromatic configurations of the objective world, insomuch as the supplementary coordination of the latter can equally substitute it.
It only costs a rather supplementary refinement of man’s logic, and a transcendental situational scrutiny upon a non-objectivistic, impartial coign of vantage for man to dawn upon the fact that: “ Blindness exists not in man’s very eyes, but in the veriest eyes of ignorance”; the very eyes of ignorance that, in virtue of man’s partiality towards objectivism; man’s propensity towards needlessly depicting himself in effigy; man’s frivolity towards being diverted by the widow’s peak for the head of hair; and man’s proclivity towards underlining what extrinsically he can perceive for what intrinsically he cannot conceive, undermines the impalpable innate attributes inherent in the profundities of the intrinsic being: the intrinsic being that, nonetheless, fashions the extrinsic being and pro-actively influences the mutuality between the extrinsic being and the extrinsic objective world. A nigger in the woodpile then it is, that befogs the woods for the trees; a bed of quicksand so it seems, that like a whirlpool, swallows up whole the chrysalises for the cocoons; and with the acute ‘identity crisis’ of a homing pigeon, divested of its wild life to assume, in servility, the sway of man, so is the fundamental nature of the blindness of man’s ignorance that, despite it being disparate from the putative blindness of the eyes of man, sophistically assumes a feigned appearance as the fundamental nature of visual disability.
Iridescent then; visual disability isn’t what we do perceive it as being that it is what it is, but that which we do conceive it as being that it is what it seems; insomuch as the sociological form of the social matrix within which we do culturally and socially fabricate visual disability to be, so is the psychological form of which visual disability does sentimentally manifests to one as being; wherefore the flaw of human sentiment is with impunity and substantial ethical immunity to the detriment of the de facto and de jure dignity and sanctity of persons with visual disability. In line with this last straw that breaks the camel’s back, is the existence of innumerable societies of man, whose rationale for the relative characteristic attitudes within the societies towards persons with disabilities are variant and significantly incoherent. By virtue of the ease of one to conform with, and adhere to the (time-honoured) customs and/or the (orthodox) beliefs of one’s culture/religion respectively, it is, therefore, not uncommon that one is disposed to ignorantly give credence to bigoted customs and beliefs as regards persons with visual disability, so customary is it that one is inclined to contemplate one’s navel apropos of visual disability; no wonder, in oblivion to our liability for the so reputed realities underlying visual disability and our accountability for the desecration of the sanctity of humanity, we fail to realise… As a complement to the debt of nature, every man is born to be great, endowed with equitable talents and abilities, along with the inalienable faculties of will and consciousness. This greatness, however, blossoms to culmination if one can realise one’s abilities and wield one’s will with diligence, patience, persistence and perseverance within an enabling and an empowering sociological milieu, and a psychological climate of unbounded self-assurance and unrestrained self-motivation, A needle in a haystack, as it might be to the benighted; idealism, as it might sound to the sceptics and cynics who may, as well, take this axiom with a pinch of salt, it is, empirically, a fiat of fate that ultimately vindicates the absolute dispensability of the question of visual disability – a sociologically induced, psychological virtual scarecrow simulation on the threshold of one’s excellence and eminence – amid one’s pursuit of excellence and/or one’s quest of eminence , if only one, in one’s realism, can be conscious of existentialism and resolutely exercise one’s will-power and one’s staying power collaterally by valiantly bearing the patience to persist and persevere with one’s diligence over one’s abilities, within a socially, culturally and economically inclusive society - thereby treading triumphantly upon the scarecrow.
Nevertheless, swathed in oblivion beneath the inexorable shrouding murk of man’s very ignorance, lies a priceless treasure trove of multifarious untapped superlative latent talents and abilities, above rubies, under the faзade of visual disability, bursting at the seams of dreams unborn, borne with prodigies, geniuses and virtuosi – unrecognised; untold Keplers, Goethes and Aristotles – unsung; one great hope fountain of white hopes – unhoped-for, oft-brought to nought down the drain, to hope against hope in dire strangulation betwixt the stifling stiff jaws of a mummified ogre, wrought of prejudices, myths and fallacies; intolerantly enshrined, with indifference, within a consecrated frigid abyss of objectivism, fraught with stereotypes and inundated with a deluge of discrimination and marginalisation; one great pedigree of entitled legatees whose bequeathed legacy, hitherto, lies at stake on the verge of a stereotyped precipice, imminently to the prejudice of their rosy morrow in the wake of a recondite cause – the ‘disability of the societies’
In full view of this disability of the societies, in the least, the inability of able societies to be universally socio-economically inclusive, the subsequent inability of any individual within any society to implicitly cherish visual disability as, ironically, a crystal-clear paradigm of the essence of an ideogram, or explicitly as one of the greatest nature’s finest ironies, inductively authenticates that visual disability is, to outward seeming, a phenomenal, delusive skin-deep verisimilitude of the objective visual sensory world’s irreconcilability with the subjective visual sensation world; the universal psychological and sociological cradle of the wider society’s monstrous impressions of the relative inability and relative inferiority of persons with visual disability, actively fortifying the involuntary impairment of one’s proclivity towards the crystallisation of one’s latent abilities, the actualisation of one’s utmost capacity and the consolidation of one’s de facto integrity; consequently effectuating, more often than not, the pro-active inhibition of the extensive recognition of one’s de jure dignity, relative equality, social mobility, and the full realisation, thereof, by the wider society.
Translucent! Being a psychological legacy of objectivism, impregnated within the imagination through comparative perception, fostered by the wider society’s nescience of the ironical essence of existence and callously immolated in its infancy as an oblation to cultural and religious intolerance, the run-of-the-mill prima facie impression of visual disability – an a priori arrant travesty of the capacity of persons with disabilities, en masse, bears a substratum of grotesque ideological grave misrepresentations of the destiny of persons with visual disability – the root cause of unfavourable presuppositions and unbefitting predispositions by the wider society towards visually handicapped persons which relatively rubs salt in their wound insofar as taking the wind out of their sails.
These sophistic, erroneous ex parte impressions and implications of visual disability are but mirage phenomena diffracted at the cognitive interface of the physical and the metaphysical, that by virtue of the wider society’s susceptibility to the pervasive influence of the withering cultural and religious indoctrination, absurdly predicated upon mere conjectural speculation and/or upon the materialisation of self-fulfilling prophesies, artfully sculptured and principally fostered into transpiration, particularly, in consequence of the ideological apotheosis of an idealised extrinsic being (as the basis of, inter alia, the societies’ individualistic ideologies), hence otherwise by the upholding and cushioning of the spirituality of disability, en bloc, {which ultimately papers over the cracks and upon which the spacious convictions that attributes the phenomenon of disability as of supernatural causality, that is, inter alia, as manifesting an imprecation, infliction or a repercussion for some past (lineal) transgression(s) }; simulates a semblance of intricacy and delicacy, and thus broods a hoodwinking mentality of the inscrutability of the question of visual disability that belies its insuperability, effectually spurring the indiscriminate and indelicate assimilation of superficial, larger-than-life non sequiturs refutable by reductio ad absurdum; thence engendering a nodding acquaintance which eventually conduces to the proliferation and ossification of hives of abysmal ignorance that resonates cognitive dissonance upon the wider society’s revelation to the nitty-gritty of visual disability.
Though we cannot wave aside the possible relative contributory ignorance and/or pessimism by the individual, this cumulative preponderance of the disability of the societies over the faзade of visual disability makes it rather insignificant, hence making the contributory social, cultural and religious ignorance, intolerance and indifference too far-fetched an extraneous nuisance value to be overlooked. Not to put too fine a point on it, the pith of disability underlying the predominant idйe recue anent visual disability is, substantially, psychological and is substantially psychological and sociological in nature, rather than being, practically, a physical or physiological condition. That is, it has a psychological and sociological foundation and not just is it of biological, physical chemical or mechanical causality. It is notably a cognitive phenomenon, (the Cognitive Theory of Virtual Disability – Gary Ngara), that is, however, ignorantly generalised sweepingly as being an objective phenomenon, (the Objective Theory of Literal Disability – Gary Ngara). The latter, literal visual disability, (oft-passive), which is the apparent disability as perceived by the wider society, entails the former, virtual disability, (oft-active), which encompasses the subjective acquiescence by one to intra-psychological frustrations in virtue of one’s literal visual disability – (Intrinsic Impairment of one’s Competence) – which, for the most part, is an upshot of the influence of the sociological generation, implantation/instillation and fortification of the fallacious and delusive sense of the relative incompetence of persons with disabilities, en bloc, by virtue of the society’s culture(s) and religion(s) – (Extrinsic Impairment of one’s Competence). In the nature of the case, the synergy of the mutually inclusive – literal and virtual disability – gives rise to an abstract phenomenon of infused literal disability – (the Abstract theory of Conjugate Disability – Gary Ngara) – the nub of the question of disability; hence, the absence of only a dual-pronged approach towards the twain phenomena in brazening out the question of visual disability, accounts for its ostensible complexity and formidability, (the Fundamental theory of the Duality of Disability – Gary Ngara).
Virtual disability – a sociological taint and a psychological trait governing human misery – refers to the voluntary or involuntary, conscious or unconscious inability of one to avail oneself of one’s abilities. Thus, anyone can disable oneself or can extrinsically be disabled, consciously or unconsciously by being, voluntarily or involuntarily unable to actualise oneself with what one is capable of, or by being, voluntarily or involuntarily, unable to effectively utilise one’s abilities; to wit, the failure of one to apply oneself to one’s abilities, or the deflection of one from capitalising on one’s abilities, voluntarily or involuntarily, consciously or unconsciously, is manifestly symptomatic of virtual disability. Virtual disability, which is out of all proportion to literal disability, is a universal trait, common to every human being, for as long as our societies shall not epitomise Utopia.
As a species of self-efficacy, it is mercurial and hence a continuous variable, whose degree is fostered or repressed both by the social environment within which one is enculturated, physically and cognitively develops; and by oneself, owing to the extent of one’s self-assurance and self-motivation. However, although the degree of virtual disability is somewhat inappreciable in most individuals of the society, owing, in the main to the sociological flexibility of the compensation psychological defence mechanism, its impact is rather more pronounced in situations where the sense of relative deprivation prevails; those governed, chiefly, by the wider society’s ignorance, indifference and intolerance; those characterised by, inter alia, stigmatisation, marginalisation and hence discrimination – which is largely attributed to the underprivileged vulnerable groups within the societies viz. persons with literal disabilities, women, children, the minority groups and the destitute.
This virtual disability, a phenomenon wrapped in mystery, is, principally, the essence of ‘’infused literal disability’’, that accentuates as good as it distorts the prima facie perception of literal and hence visual disability, by which same brush the wider society tars visual disability. The stigmatisation by the wider society which follows and, on the whole, reflects upon and decries the relative competence of persons with literal visual disability, thereby defying the unsnarling of the resultant Gordian knot, fuels their stratification, more often than not, to the lower social strata, where they are prone to sustain undue privations, in particular, the deprivation of de facto social recognition and acceptance. This sociological catalysis of the psychological metamorphosis of the fundamental conviction of the sublimity of the abilities of persons with literal visual disability into the absurd impression or supposition of their mediocrity effectually sparks intra-psychological approach-avoidance conflicts – one’s feelings of ambivalence towards one’s ability to avail oneself of one’s abilities – and thus triggers off a psychological warfare between the "need for achievement" and the "fear of success", which, ultimately, can leave one who knows not to shrink from succumbing to the compelling sociological sterilisations and demoralisations, on the brink of the jeopardy of the crystallisation and/or realisation of one’s (latent) abilities, hence also the fruition of one’s self-actualisation, ipso facto, intensifying one’s virtual disability, and thus one’s infused literal disability.
Buttressed by the extrinsic impairment of one’s competence, it paradoxically follows therefore syllogistically that: one’s abstract disability ain’t a matter of one’s literal visual disability, neither is it of one’s virtual disability, but the disabilities of one’s society – the inability of an able society to be universally inclusive; its reluctance to facilitate the social mobility of persons with literal disabilities; its imperviousness to their cries and grievances; its insensitiveness to sympathise and empathise with their plight; its unawareness to the superb latent abilities endowed to persons with literal disabilities; and its unconsciousness to the power of empowerment and equal-status interaction as the efficacious antidotes for the repression of virtual disability, dissolution of the significance of literal disability and the obliteration of its own disability.
Nevertheless, it is a moral certainty that visual disability is not the last extremity on humanity for it never predestines the futility of the fertility of one’s latent abilities. Lo and behold, notwithstanding his blindness, the quintessence of fortitude, Eric Weihenmayer, made it to the top of the world by climbing to the summit of the world’s topmost mountain – Mt. Everest (8848) – a phenomenal expedition dreaded by many: accomplished by a few; the awe-inspiring Kent Cullers (PhD), a physicist and an astronomer, is going strong; Dean Du Plessis is an international cricket analyst; Peter Torpey (PhD) is an engineering physicist; Amy Bower (PhD) is a research oceanographer; David Hartman (PhD) is a psychiatrist; the charismatic chemist, Judy Summers-Gates, is specialising in colour analysis; the inspirational Hein Wagner, is a motorist; the astrophysicist, David Mehringer (PhD) writes astronomical software; Joseph Monks, is a movie director; Pete Eckert, is a photographer; Michael Borgonia (Dr) is a medical transcriptionist.
There are economists, advocates, mathematicians, to mention but just a few of the very many self-willed paragons of excellence from all walks of life, who never hitched their wagons to the stars, but under the moral courage of their solemn convictions, extricated themselves from the dragnet of stereotypes; valiantly stood up, head over heels, to the scourge of swimming with the stream against their better judgement; feeling their way clear, put their best foot forward and took in their stride, straining every nerve shoreward; high-flyingly going great guns with a stiff upper lip from strength to strength in the wind’s eye, but on the scent, and made their way into the world to their hearts’ content ,only to be attestations to the fact that: visual disability, per se, is by no manner of means an impediment to one’s self-actualisation; on no account does it govern one’s level of intelligence; not in the slightest does it guarantee the curtailment of the ultimate degree of one’s competence; and thus therefore, in no wise does visual disability encumber one from attaining one’s beau ideal, or rather, ne plus ultra excellence – but the disabilities of one’s society.
Born visually impaired with only two percent (2%) sight, an exceptional electronic engineer of eminent ingenuity who blossomed out to be the father of, inter alia, the Galarneau Braille Computer and Printer – Ronald Galarneau (Engr.)(Canada); the kindered spirits, uncrowned Queens of determination, twin incarnations of tenacity and sagacity, famed poets, writers and lecturers who all died in the last ditch striking blows for the ultimate inclusion of persons with literal disabilities – Tilly Aston (Australia) and Helen Adams Keller (PhD)(US); Zimbabwe’s very own unprecedented touchstone who set the Thames on fire as the first Zimbabwean visually disabled advocate, lecturer and, among other things, professor (of Law) – Pearson Nherere (Prof.); the legendary Louis Braille (France); Bob Artkinson (US); Robert Irwin (US), and many others beyond mention, godsend, set no one on their pedestal, but with the will of their own, squared up to winning their spurs up their solid resolution: never to stop short of taking the (reputed) bull by the horns, and of course, on a winning streak, as anticipated, found a niche for themselves in the temple of fame, coming into prominence as icons of the cardinal virtues – truly, idols of an era, today’s era and the untold eras to come!
Although they lived as visually handicapped, they are today ’living lighthouses’. Some enlightened upon issues that, for long, had been held in obscurity; others dazzled the entire world with their second-to-none capacity; others blazed the trails and set the trend, which the forthcoming generations shall still follow. The selfsame spirit is still existent and shall forever be, since everyone is destined to flourish in one-way or the other, profitable to one’s society and the world at large. Thus, the indifference and intolerance by the wider society towards persons with visual disability on the strength of adhering to the ethos of one’s society, or under the banner of cultural fundamentalism or religious conformism, is not braced by rationalism, pragmatism or utilitarianism; neither is it logically vindicable, nor is it ethically creditable, but a grave act of undermining the tower of strength for the progressive sustainable, social, cultural, economic and political reformation of our societies into Utopia!
We need, then not to culturally standardise humanity unless otherwise we standardise the cultures of humanity. In other words, that standard which best stands up for the standards of each and everyone as individuals is the best standard that stands out best. Subservient to the ultimate realisation of this standard – individualism, if only we can learn to dignify and sanctify mankind veritably with a common resonant heart of impartiality and benignity, and consensually strike a blow for the intensive adoption of the principle of egalitarianism, that seeks to, inter alia, give prominence to the de facto and de jure respect for, observance of, protection and promotion of the fundamental rights, freedoms and privileges of persons with visual disability; profusely staff the pro-social behaviour cushion of the norms of altruism and humanitarianism (inc. social responsibility); supplant any obscurantist feelings of pessimism or negativism by subversively inculcating the reality of the very same relative great potential of visually handicapped persons, viva voce and by actively advocating for equal-status contact; stipulate for the streamlining of their independence and self-help socio-economic endeavours by dint of the mobilisation of sufficient efficient (assistive and adaptive) technical resources; and fully integrate persons with visual disability into the mainstream of the society’s social, cultural, economic and political activities seeing to it that the contact between the wider society and persons with visual disability is on a fifty-fifty footing, in whatsoever situation and under whatsoever circumstances…
… Definitely, persons with visual disabilities will arise, en bloc, by leaps and bonds from their misconceptualised level of mediocrity with the ethereal effulgence of unfathomable self-efficacy, ultimately immune from any dissuasions and disparagements, overwhelmingly shining with an empyrean resplendence to excellence, eminence and prominence as the diadem of their societies, never to be eclipsed again by the disability of the societies – if ever it shall be prevailing. It is not a prophecy, but philosophy. The incredible is to the incredulous, but it shall never be too late to mend.
It is an ill wind that blows no good. Verily, there is more in persons with visual disability than meets the eye. A modicum of sight that man may recognise in visual disability is but a tip of the iceberg, the thin end of a wedge, and a drop in the ocean of sight that lies behind the eyes. Verisimilitude is no proof, but verisimilitude. The only proof of the pudding lies in the eating. Why then prejudge one’s paces if we are capable of putting one through one’s paces?
The so purported ‘able-bodied’ are not the only pebbles on the beach. There is absolutely nothing to choose between man, neither is there a logical ground upon which we should make a difference between man. For how long, then, shall we keep on rubbernecking relentlessly to the warbles of winchers on the wing, hither and tether, yet deliberately impervious to the whimper of that wincing within the clutch of our very hands? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!
Visual disability is not what it is!
Creation and Evolution
Since the 19th century, biologists have questioned the origin of life, asking the question “How did life first begin?” To answer that question, they have come up with two contradicting yet plausible theories, Creation and Evolution. The theory of Creation states that an intelligent being designed each organism. On the other hand, the theory of Evolution states that some form of stimuli sparked one of the earliest forms of life and that every single organism living today evolved from it. Starting with the evidence and the criticism for the theory of Evolution, this paper will provide the main arguments and criticism for both theories and explain why Creation is the true explanation for the origin of the world.
One argument used to support the idea of Evolution that some form of stimuli sparked one of the earliest forms of life is “The Miller-Urey experiment.” In this experiment, which was performed in the 1950s, an American graduate student Stanly Miller, and his PhD. Advisor, Harold Urey succeeded in producing some of the chemical building blocks of life by sending an electric spark through a mixture of gases they thought simulated the Earth’s primitive Atmosphere (Wells 11). They postulated a strongly reducing gas, or gas that lacks oxygen. This is reasonable because people thought that the Earth was made out of interstellar gas (13), which is primarily made out of hydrogen, not oxygen. Anyways, seeing that lightning could produce the basic building blocks of life, evolutionists claimed that this is how life first originated!
In addition to the statement above, whether oxygen was prevalent or not prevalent back then is crucial to understanding the result of this experiment because a living cell could not have emerged from a place abundant of oxygen. This is because the same oxygen that is obligatory for respiration is often fatal to organic synthesis (12), which is the process by which the first organism has been created (if it ever was). Therefore, if oxygen existed at the site where life emerged, there would have been an explosion instead of a creation! However, because Stanley and Miller postulated an oxygen-lacking atmosphere, which was reasonable as discussed earlier, their experiment is widely used as evidence for evolution.
Another argument used to support the idea of Evolution that living things evolved from a primordial organism is natural selection. This idea, proposed by Charles Darwin, simply states that only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and pass genetic characteristics to their offspring (Williams). It also states that these genetic characteristics affect the organism’s fitness (Williams).
For example, Charles Darwin observed thirteen species of finches in the Galapagos Islands (Wells 159). They were very similar to each other, except that their beaks were different in shape and that they lived in different environments, which provided them with various types of food sources. After careful recordings and observations, he concluded that all thirteen finches had a common ancestor and that their beaks were modified (162), in a way that made them suitable to the environment they were in, over time. For example, the beak of the large ground finch, Geospiza magnirostris, is suited to cracking the seeds that compose the bird’s diet (Feldkamp 286). Another type of finch, the woodpecker finch Camarynchus pallidus has a beak that is specialized for capturing insects (286).
Logically, if natural selection takes place for ages, populations will eventually differ. And as the hour hand of a clock spins around, there is eventually going to be a lot of change in the fitness of an organism (Williams). Thus, many people reason that evolution did occur and that it is still occurring through natural selection.
Another widely used piece of evidence for supporting Evolution is that apes and humans have the same ancestry. Inevitably, there are evidences that suggest this idea. For example, Thomas Henry Huxley, the author of “Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature,” compared the skeletons of apes and humans, and found out that they have similar bone structures (Wells 214). Having observed that, he concluded that the only way for them to have similar bone structures is through evolution; for evolution is thought to result in similar organisms, which would have similar bone structures. Thus he concluded that humans and apes have the same ancestry.
A British paleontologist named Charles Dawson also provided evidence by discovering some pieces of human skull with an ape-like lower jaw with two teeth, now known as the Piltdown Skull because it was found in Piltdown, Britain (217). Many people concluded that this is the missing link between humans and apes. With these remarkable findings, evolutionists claim that humans and apes have evolved from a common ancestor and thus, they concluded that evolution does/in fact occur.
Albeit evidences for Evolution may seem tenable against criticism as of now, evolutionists are actually posed with arguments that if true, would prove evolution wrong. “The Miller-Urey experiment” will be discussed firstly. This experiment was actually a failure because it as discovered that Miller’s postulation about the primitive atmosphere was wrong! As discussed earlier, Miller’s postulation was that it lacked oxygen. However, people now acknowledge that it actually consisted quite a bit of oxygen. According to Princeton University geochemist Heinrich Holland and Carnegie Institution geophysicist Philip Abelson, the earth’s primitive atmosphere was not derived from interstellar gas clouds, but from gases released by the Earth’s own volcanoes, which also release various substances including water vapor. (14-15).
These water vapors would then produce oxygen through a process called photodissociation. In this process, water vapor in the upper atmosphere contact with the ultraviolet rays from the space (15, 17). When contacted, water vapor is separated into hydrogen and oxygen. Because hydrogen is too light, it leaves the atmosphere to space. However, oxygen remains (15, 17). Thus, if Holland and Abelson’s assumption is correct, there must have been at least some amount of oxygen in the primitive atmosphere. Hence, there could not have been the building blocks of life forming.
Another criticism for the experiment is biogenesis, which states “all living things come from other living things.” (Feldkamp 261) For instance, pick up a soccer ball. Then kick it, punch it, worship it, talk to it, and wash it. Leaving it on the ground for few hundred years would also be a good idea. Now, are there any living creatures crawling out of the ball? If there are, it should be a worm from the ground that climbed up the ball. As such, any stimulus to a non living thing can not produce a living thing! Burning it with fire may result in ashes, which would be a chemical reaction. This occurs in both non living things and in living things. Thus, it is possible to conclude that the result of the experiment is merely a chemical reaction.
Although the experiment produced some interesting results, they are invalid because the experiment failed to simulate the correct atmosphere. And even if the primitive atmosphere was actually oxygen lacking, the result of the experiment still does not hint to us how life originated. The reason this is still uncertain is because biochemists can mix all the building blocks of life and still not create an organism (Wells 24). It is true that it produced some building blocks of life, but scientists of today have proved that life cannot be formed by mixing building blocks of life. With these reasons, “The Miller-Urey experiment” was proven incorrect.
Secondly, the criticism for natural selection will be discussed. According to natural selection, complex organisms have evolved from simple organisms. Because this is a slow process, there should have been a time when an intermediate organism, neither completely complex nor completely simple, roamed the earth. This process is just like how an elevator works. If an elevator is at the sixth floor, it must have had a time when it passed the second, third, fourth, and the fifth floor. Thus, there must be fossils of those intermediate organisms. However, the problem is that archaeologists have never found such fossils (Kathleen! This suggests no other conclusion, but that natural selection does not bring about evolution!
To add on to that, natural selection is a tautologous concept, or in other words, it is circular reasoning. This is because it simply requires the fittest organisms to leave the most offspring and at the same time it identifies the fittest organisms as those that leave the most offspring (Duane IV). This is just like saying ‘You are ugly because I think you are ugly. I think you are ugly because you are ugly.’ As such, natural selection is circular reasoning. And it is something people must avoid when trying to prove something. Hence, it can not be used as evidence for evolution.
Thirdly, the criticism for the statement that apes and humans have the same ancestry will be discussed. This statement has been proven to be incorrect by Joseph Weiner, Kenneth Oakley, and Wilfred Le Gros Clark. After careful inspection, it was discovered that the Piltdown skull belongs to a modern human and that the jaw has been chemically treated to make it look like a fossil and that the teeth had been deliberately filed down to make them look human. With all due respect, Charles Dawson’s discovery has been declared as a forgery! Thus, the discovery can not be used as evidence for the statement, which leaves it without any evidence. Hence, the statement is still invalid and thus can not be used to support evolution.
Similar to the theory of Evolution, the theory of Creation also has both evidence and criticism. One substantial piece of evidence for creation is that there are no intermediate fossils (The Fossil…). Of the hundreds of millions of fossils, not a single one of them suggests the existence of an organism, such as a half-fish and a half-amphibian organism (Sonnichsen 3). And those that were once considered to be intermediate fossils were discovered as forgeries (Wells 123, 217).
The absence of intermediate fossils indicates that organisms did not evolve into other organisms. When you know that one of two side roads will lead you to your destination and that the one on the right leads to a garbage can, you automatically know that you should take the one on the left. It applies same for this controversy. If you know that organisms do not evolve into other organisms, then you also know that they must have been created.
The fossil records also provide people with another piece of evidence for creation. It is an absolute fact that life appears abruptly, that it appears in complex forms and that gaps appear systematically between various living kinds in the fossils (Duane II). This suggests that life was obviously created, not coming about through evolution.
Another evidence is manifest in the Earth’s magnetic field. “Scientific observations since 1829 have shown that the Earth’s magnetic field has been measurably decaying at an exponential rate. (Baugh), demonstrating its half-life to be approximately 1400 years.” In application, the Earth’s strength about 20,000 years ago would be similar to that of a magnet star. And under this condition, many of the atoms necessary for life processes could not form (Baugh). Thus, some intelligent being must have created organisms.
Even the famous British evolutionists paleontologist Derek V. Ager states, “The point emerges that if we examine the fossil records in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find – over and over again – not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another (The Fossil…).” Another evolutionist paleontologist Mark Czarnecki explains, “A major problem in providing the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth’s geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin’s hypothetical intermediate variants – instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God (The Fossil…).” As such, the existence of an intelligent being is obligatory to understand the devoid of transitional fossils.
Along with evidence, creation faces some criticism. The one criticism that I have about creation is this: “All people acknowledge that non-living things do not perform any kinds of actions unless an outside force is exerted and that all religions that believe in some type of creator do not state that their creator is a non-living thing.” Thus, the intelligent being must have the six characteristics of life because he is also a living thing.
To pick on one specific religion, I have picked Christianity. The bible states that humans were created in the image of God. Thus, God must have had lungs. Therefore, in order for him to survive, there must have been oxygen around him. Also, he must have had to consume food. Thus, there must have been creatures which he consumed. But where did the oxygen and the creatures originate in the first place?
Following the theory of creation, there must be another intelligent being above God who created God, oxygen, and the creatures. And there would be another intelligent being that created the latter. Hence, there would be numerous intelligent beings. However, this fact contradicts the biblical belief that there is only on God. Thus, there is a discrepancy within the religion. Because it is hard to prove something using evidence with a discrepancy, creation logically does not seem to be a legitimate reason for this topic.
Despite its criticism, the theory of Creation seems to be the true explanation for the origin of organisms. This is because none of the evidence for evolution answers how life first originated. Thus, I am convinced that there existed some kind of an intelligent being and that he created organisms through a supernatural process which I am not able to apprehend, just like the fifteen dimensional world.
One argument used to support the idea of Evolution that some form of stimuli sparked one of the earliest forms of life is “The Miller-Urey experiment.” In this experiment, which was performed in the 1950s, an American graduate student Stanly Miller, and his PhD. Advisor, Harold Urey succeeded in producing some of the chemical building blocks of life by sending an electric spark through a mixture of gases they thought simulated the Earth’s primitive Atmosphere (Wells 11). They postulated a strongly reducing gas, or gas that lacks oxygen. This is reasonable because people thought that the Earth was made out of interstellar gas (13), which is primarily made out of hydrogen, not oxygen. Anyways, seeing that lightning could produce the basic building blocks of life, evolutionists claimed that this is how life first originated!
In addition to the statement above, whether oxygen was prevalent or not prevalent back then is crucial to understanding the result of this experiment because a living cell could not have emerged from a place abundant of oxygen. This is because the same oxygen that is obligatory for respiration is often fatal to organic synthesis (12), which is the process by which the first organism has been created (if it ever was). Therefore, if oxygen existed at the site where life emerged, there would have been an explosion instead of a creation! However, because Stanley and Miller postulated an oxygen-lacking atmosphere, which was reasonable as discussed earlier, their experiment is widely used as evidence for evolution.
Another argument used to support the idea of Evolution that living things evolved from a primordial organism is natural selection. This idea, proposed by Charles Darwin, simply states that only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and pass genetic characteristics to their offspring (Williams). It also states that these genetic characteristics affect the organism’s fitness (Williams).
For example, Charles Darwin observed thirteen species of finches in the Galapagos Islands (Wells 159). They were very similar to each other, except that their beaks were different in shape and that they lived in different environments, which provided them with various types of food sources. After careful recordings and observations, he concluded that all thirteen finches had a common ancestor and that their beaks were modified (162), in a way that made them suitable to the environment they were in, over time. For example, the beak of the large ground finch, Geospiza magnirostris, is suited to cracking the seeds that compose the bird’s diet (Feldkamp 286). Another type of finch, the woodpecker finch Camarynchus pallidus has a beak that is specialized for capturing insects (286).
Logically, if natural selection takes place for ages, populations will eventually differ. And as the hour hand of a clock spins around, there is eventually going to be a lot of change in the fitness of an organism (Williams). Thus, many people reason that evolution did occur and that it is still occurring through natural selection.
Another widely used piece of evidence for supporting Evolution is that apes and humans have the same ancestry. Inevitably, there are evidences that suggest this idea. For example, Thomas Henry Huxley, the author of “Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature,” compared the skeletons of apes and humans, and found out that they have similar bone structures (Wells 214). Having observed that, he concluded that the only way for them to have similar bone structures is through evolution; for evolution is thought to result in similar organisms, which would have similar bone structures. Thus he concluded that humans and apes have the same ancestry.
A British paleontologist named Charles Dawson also provided evidence by discovering some pieces of human skull with an ape-like lower jaw with two teeth, now known as the Piltdown Skull because it was found in Piltdown, Britain (217). Many people concluded that this is the missing link between humans and apes. With these remarkable findings, evolutionists claim that humans and apes have evolved from a common ancestor and thus, they concluded that evolution does/in fact occur.
Albeit evidences for Evolution may seem tenable against criticism as of now, evolutionists are actually posed with arguments that if true, would prove evolution wrong. “The Miller-Urey experiment” will be discussed firstly. This experiment was actually a failure because it as discovered that Miller’s postulation about the primitive atmosphere was wrong! As discussed earlier, Miller’s postulation was that it lacked oxygen. However, people now acknowledge that it actually consisted quite a bit of oxygen. According to Princeton University geochemist Heinrich Holland and Carnegie Institution geophysicist Philip Abelson, the earth’s primitive atmosphere was not derived from interstellar gas clouds, but from gases released by the Earth’s own volcanoes, which also release various substances including water vapor. (14-15).
These water vapors would then produce oxygen through a process called photodissociation. In this process, water vapor in the upper atmosphere contact with the ultraviolet rays from the space (15, 17). When contacted, water vapor is separated into hydrogen and oxygen. Because hydrogen is too light, it leaves the atmosphere to space. However, oxygen remains (15, 17). Thus, if Holland and Abelson’s assumption is correct, there must have been at least some amount of oxygen in the primitive atmosphere. Hence, there could not have been the building blocks of life forming.
Another criticism for the experiment is biogenesis, which states “all living things come from other living things.” (Feldkamp 261) For instance, pick up a soccer ball. Then kick it, punch it, worship it, talk to it, and wash it. Leaving it on the ground for few hundred years would also be a good idea. Now, are there any living creatures crawling out of the ball? If there are, it should be a worm from the ground that climbed up the ball. As such, any stimulus to a non living thing can not produce a living thing! Burning it with fire may result in ashes, which would be a chemical reaction. This occurs in both non living things and in living things. Thus, it is possible to conclude that the result of the experiment is merely a chemical reaction.
Although the experiment produced some interesting results, they are invalid because the experiment failed to simulate the correct atmosphere. And even if the primitive atmosphere was actually oxygen lacking, the result of the experiment still does not hint to us how life originated. The reason this is still uncertain is because biochemists can mix all the building blocks of life and still not create an organism (Wells 24). It is true that it produced some building blocks of life, but scientists of today have proved that life cannot be formed by mixing building blocks of life. With these reasons, “The Miller-Urey experiment” was proven incorrect.
Secondly, the criticism for natural selection will be discussed. According to natural selection, complex organisms have evolved from simple organisms. Because this is a slow process, there should have been a time when an intermediate organism, neither completely complex nor completely simple, roamed the earth. This process is just like how an elevator works. If an elevator is at the sixth floor, it must have had a time when it passed the second, third, fourth, and the fifth floor. Thus, there must be fossils of those intermediate organisms. However, the problem is that archaeologists have never found such fossils (Kathleen! This suggests no other conclusion, but that natural selection does not bring about evolution!
To add on to that, natural selection is a tautologous concept, or in other words, it is circular reasoning. This is because it simply requires the fittest organisms to leave the most offspring and at the same time it identifies the fittest organisms as those that leave the most offspring (Duane IV). This is just like saying ‘You are ugly because I think you are ugly. I think you are ugly because you are ugly.’ As such, natural selection is circular reasoning. And it is something people must avoid when trying to prove something. Hence, it can not be used as evidence for evolution.
Thirdly, the criticism for the statement that apes and humans have the same ancestry will be discussed. This statement has been proven to be incorrect by Joseph Weiner, Kenneth Oakley, and Wilfred Le Gros Clark. After careful inspection, it was discovered that the Piltdown skull belongs to a modern human and that the jaw has been chemically treated to make it look like a fossil and that the teeth had been deliberately filed down to make them look human. With all due respect, Charles Dawson’s discovery has been declared as a forgery! Thus, the discovery can not be used as evidence for the statement, which leaves it without any evidence. Hence, the statement is still invalid and thus can not be used to support evolution.
Similar to the theory of Evolution, the theory of Creation also has both evidence and criticism. One substantial piece of evidence for creation is that there are no intermediate fossils (The Fossil…). Of the hundreds of millions of fossils, not a single one of them suggests the existence of an organism, such as a half-fish and a half-amphibian organism (Sonnichsen 3). And those that were once considered to be intermediate fossils were discovered as forgeries (Wells 123, 217).
The absence of intermediate fossils indicates that organisms did not evolve into other organisms. When you know that one of two side roads will lead you to your destination and that the one on the right leads to a garbage can, you automatically know that you should take the one on the left. It applies same for this controversy. If you know that organisms do not evolve into other organisms, then you also know that they must have been created.
The fossil records also provide people with another piece of evidence for creation. It is an absolute fact that life appears abruptly, that it appears in complex forms and that gaps appear systematically between various living kinds in the fossils (Duane II). This suggests that life was obviously created, not coming about through evolution.
Another evidence is manifest in the Earth’s magnetic field. “Scientific observations since 1829 have shown that the Earth’s magnetic field has been measurably decaying at an exponential rate. (Baugh), demonstrating its half-life to be approximately 1400 years.” In application, the Earth’s strength about 20,000 years ago would be similar to that of a magnet star. And under this condition, many of the atoms necessary for life processes could not form (Baugh). Thus, some intelligent being must have created organisms.
Even the famous British evolutionists paleontologist Derek V. Ager states, “The point emerges that if we examine the fossil records in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find – over and over again – not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another (The Fossil…).” Another evolutionist paleontologist Mark Czarnecki explains, “A major problem in providing the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth’s geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin’s hypothetical intermediate variants – instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God (The Fossil…).” As such, the existence of an intelligent being is obligatory to understand the devoid of transitional fossils.
Along with evidence, creation faces some criticism. The one criticism that I have about creation is this: “All people acknowledge that non-living things do not perform any kinds of actions unless an outside force is exerted and that all religions that believe in some type of creator do not state that their creator is a non-living thing.” Thus, the intelligent being must have the six characteristics of life because he is also a living thing.
To pick on one specific religion, I have picked Christianity. The bible states that humans were created in the image of God. Thus, God must have had lungs. Therefore, in order for him to survive, there must have been oxygen around him. Also, he must have had to consume food. Thus, there must have been creatures which he consumed. But where did the oxygen and the creatures originate in the first place?
Following the theory of creation, there must be another intelligent being above God who created God, oxygen, and the creatures. And there would be another intelligent being that created the latter. Hence, there would be numerous intelligent beings. However, this fact contradicts the biblical belief that there is only on God. Thus, there is a discrepancy within the religion. Because it is hard to prove something using evidence with a discrepancy, creation logically does not seem to be a legitimate reason for this topic.
Despite its criticism, the theory of Creation seems to be the true explanation for the origin of organisms. This is because none of the evidence for evolution answers how life first originated. Thus, I am convinced that there existed some kind of an intelligent being and that he created organisms through a supernatural process which I am not able to apprehend, just like the fifteen dimensional world.
Are Viruses Life Forms?
When we think of life, we usually think of the basics; Plants and Animals. It is, of course, much more complex than that. There is a massive amount of Kingdoms of living things, all different in many ways, all unique, but they all have one thing in common; The Cell.
The Virus, the focus of this paper, does not contain cells, and given it's size, it is not a cell. This is why, in my opinion, Viruses must not be considered living things.
But what is life? Many groups and induviduals have different opinions of what the qualities of living things are, but they are all generally the same.
The universal description is the following
MOTION -- does it seem to move under its own power? Does it move with some discernible purpose? (Toward food, away from heat, etc)REPRODUCTION -- does it have some way of making more of itself, either through sexual reproduction or by budding or fissioning in some way?CONSUMPTION -- does it eat or drink? Does it take in nutrients in one way or another in order to survive, grow, and eventually multiply?GROWTH -- does the organism develop over time, increase in complexity, until it reaches a mature stage?STIMULUS RESPONSE -- does the organism respond to external stimuli, i.e. has a nervous system of some sort to detect external conditions?(Newton Biological Resources:http://newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/bio99/bio99171.htm [University of Chicago Newton BBS])
This description shows the basic requirements of an organism to be considered 'living', and as you can see by the Italics, one requirement is met. The term reproduction, is also a very loose idea. If anything that reproduces can be considered alive, then one could easily state that Energy is alive, seeing as how energy is constantly replicating into true and virtual duplicates, most of which destroy each other, but some of which escape and exist, thereby being two from one, and therefore being alive.
The main problem with attempting to generally identify life is the fact that we, as a species, feel the need to organize and classify everything. But the problem with this is the fact that there are many uncertainties and things which break off from the mainstream.. both on earth and everywhere else in the universe.
We are still lacking an adequate definition of life. This difficulty in defining our object of study adds an important factor of complexity and uncertainty to the discussions of its existence (Life in the Universe: http://www.lifeinuniverse.org/noflash/Lifedefinition-04-01.html)
As stated here, we will have great difficulty defining things when we aren't even sure of what our definitions are.
However, I still have a concrete argument to state, so I will do so. The reason I think Viruses (using our current template for classification) should not be considered living is the simple fact that they do not conform to enough of the basic rules for life.
Viruses do not move, they are merely carried along by whatever substance they reside in. They do not consume, they merely use living cells as sweatshops to grow duplicated, which do the same thing. They do not grow, after being produced in their host, they are the final shape and size. (as for injecting genetic material when contacting a cell, that is not stimulus response, it is mechanical response.)
A good way to compare Viruses with actual living organisms, is to find an organism comparable to a virus, but that is defined as living. For the comparison, I have chosen the Infestational fungus called Mycoplasmata.
Mycoplasmata is a living fungus that until recently, was allways believed to be a virus, not only because of the way it operates but also because of it's unusually small size.
When biologists did tests on Mycoplasmata, they were stumped by the fact that it passed through semi-permiable membranes designed to retain cells. When they studied it's habits, they saw that it: a) acted as a parasite to other organisms and b) drew it's nourishment from that host, and could not reproduce without a host organism.
This, of course, led them to believe that this was a Virus, after all, it was far smaller than living cells, and was a parasite. But why is it no longer classified as a Virus? the advent of powerful, high magnification imaging hardware showed biologists that Mycoplasmata is, in fact a cellular organism. Instantly, it was moved from Viral status to a living organism.
There you have it, the composition of cells is the barrier. Living things are made of Cells. Period.
Viruses are nothing more than genetic fragments, which, being genetic in nature, reproduce, but nothing else.
That is my place on the argument of Viruses, living or not. This is, of course, simply my humble opinion, and however right is may be, my correctness simply relies on our current classification methods, which are, like all other human creations, flawed.
We are trying to control something which is powerfully beyond ourselves, and even though it seems we've got it, in reality, we have absolutely no clue. I am a proponant of unified theories. Life is far to simple at it's source to turn into some product catalog of science. Until we develop an extremely simple unified biological theory (such as the one I have theorised in a document which I will never release) biology, like all other sciences, while vastly interesting and stimulating, will allways be a filthy mess of Human error.
The Virus, the focus of this paper, does not contain cells, and given it's size, it is not a cell. This is why, in my opinion, Viruses must not be considered living things.
But what is life? Many groups and induviduals have different opinions of what the qualities of living things are, but they are all generally the same.
The universal description is the following
MOTION -- does it seem to move under its own power? Does it move with some discernible purpose? (Toward food, away from heat, etc)REPRODUCTION -- does it have some way of making more of itself, either through sexual reproduction or by budding or fissioning in some way?CONSUMPTION -- does it eat or drink? Does it take in nutrients in one way or another in order to survive, grow, and eventually multiply?GROWTH -- does the organism develop over time, increase in complexity, until it reaches a mature stage?STIMULUS RESPONSE -- does the organism respond to external stimuli, i.e. has a nervous system of some sort to detect external conditions?(Newton Biological Resources:http://newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/bio99/bio99171.htm [University of Chicago Newton BBS])
This description shows the basic requirements of an organism to be considered 'living', and as you can see by the Italics, one requirement is met. The term reproduction, is also a very loose idea. If anything that reproduces can be considered alive, then one could easily state that Energy is alive, seeing as how energy is constantly replicating into true and virtual duplicates, most of which destroy each other, but some of which escape and exist, thereby being two from one, and therefore being alive.
The main problem with attempting to generally identify life is the fact that we, as a species, feel the need to organize and classify everything. But the problem with this is the fact that there are many uncertainties and things which break off from the mainstream.. both on earth and everywhere else in the universe.
We are still lacking an adequate definition of life. This difficulty in defining our object of study adds an important factor of complexity and uncertainty to the discussions of its existence (Life in the Universe: http://www.lifeinuniverse.org/noflash/Lifedefinition-04-01.html)
As stated here, we will have great difficulty defining things when we aren't even sure of what our definitions are.
However, I still have a concrete argument to state, so I will do so. The reason I think Viruses (using our current template for classification) should not be considered living is the simple fact that they do not conform to enough of the basic rules for life.
Viruses do not move, they are merely carried along by whatever substance they reside in. They do not consume, they merely use living cells as sweatshops to grow duplicated, which do the same thing. They do not grow, after being produced in their host, they are the final shape and size. (as for injecting genetic material when contacting a cell, that is not stimulus response, it is mechanical response.)
A good way to compare Viruses with actual living organisms, is to find an organism comparable to a virus, but that is defined as living. For the comparison, I have chosen the Infestational fungus called Mycoplasmata.
Mycoplasmata is a living fungus that until recently, was allways believed to be a virus, not only because of the way it operates but also because of it's unusually small size.
When biologists did tests on Mycoplasmata, they were stumped by the fact that it passed through semi-permiable membranes designed to retain cells. When they studied it's habits, they saw that it: a) acted as a parasite to other organisms and b) drew it's nourishment from that host, and could not reproduce without a host organism.
This, of course, led them to believe that this was a Virus, after all, it was far smaller than living cells, and was a parasite. But why is it no longer classified as a Virus? the advent of powerful, high magnification imaging hardware showed biologists that Mycoplasmata is, in fact a cellular organism. Instantly, it was moved from Viral status to a living organism.
There you have it, the composition of cells is the barrier. Living things are made of Cells. Period.
Viruses are nothing more than genetic fragments, which, being genetic in nature, reproduce, but nothing else.
That is my place on the argument of Viruses, living or not. This is, of course, simply my humble opinion, and however right is may be, my correctness simply relies on our current classification methods, which are, like all other human creations, flawed.
We are trying to control something which is powerfully beyond ourselves, and even though it seems we've got it, in reality, we have absolutely no clue. I am a proponant of unified theories. Life is far to simple at it's source to turn into some product catalog of science. Until we develop an extremely simple unified biological theory (such as the one I have theorised in a document which I will never release) biology, like all other sciences, while vastly interesting and stimulating, will allways be a filthy mess of Human error.
Statement of Purpose
Having a notorious record at badgering my Biology teachers in school with questions like why ‘our old oak tree’ had to fall prey to a dreadful parasite called loranthus;why the local fish market had shut down mysteriously in 1993 owing to some ungraspable phenomenon termed “eutrophication” saw to it that I was offered, with all dignity, a permanent membership to the highly esteemed Naturalists’ Society at a tender age of thirteen to “quell the curiosity of this pesky questioner (as my worthy seniors had put it).” This initial curiosity and active participation not only helped me to instill a great liking for Biology but also offered other opportunities to work on important projects like Integrated Farming, art of Bonsai cultivation and a curtailed study about AIDS, a global threat.
My weekly visits to the Sitagarah AIDS Hospital only brought me closer to realize how I yearned to be a part of this beautiful world of Medicine. Here I got to know how people suffering from AIDS were tackled; how the precautionary measures were maintained and also shared experiences with the patients who despite knowing that they had no future lived every moment to its fullest. However with the kind of ostracism they received from society, only deepened the aloofness between them and the outside world, with little expectations. It was here where I felt a strong need to address this issue to all around me as a doctor.
Accompanying my father to the monthly Psychiatric Meet with my own initiative, I noted the tremendously rising number of cases suffering from depression, insecurities and high tension levels-all leading to mental instability. Surprisingly, I also got to see how people still harboured this convention that visiting a psychiatrist was a weakness-a kind of embarrassment. Here I felt the need of an understanding doctor who needs to help people come out of their shells to share their problems and make them confide in him. I was determined more than ever to fill in this place.
Helping my father to organize events, keep a check on the intra-venous fluids given to patients at the ‘Durga Mandap’, a charitable home (where doctors serve voluntarily every Sunday), stands an unparalleled experience and an inspiration to work willingly for a larger cause.
Over the years I have seen a deadly wedge creeping in between patients and their doctors, destroying the sanctity of their time- honoured relationship, and placing each at the mercy of powerful interests whose only real concerns are costs, profit and power.
I guess one has to be in the system to change the system, all for the better and I guess I need a chance to be a part of the system as well.
Before I set out into this world, I owe much to my school Sherwood College for instilling in me all the basic ingredients required for the making of a good human being that will be my greatest weapons in striving to be a good doctor-be it compassion, advocacy, interpersonal skills, leadership or genuine willingness to serve a place unconditionally.
I am yet to become a part of this noble profession and have much to learn but I already have a dream, a vision for something that’s still to be a part of me. My dream and sole ambition in life is to become a fine, qualified doctor who understands the need for the improvement of basic health-care facilities imparted to all sections of society. And I know for sure that nothing is as real as a dream-because the dream is within you which nobody can take away.
My weekly visits to the Sitagarah AIDS Hospital only brought me closer to realize how I yearned to be a part of this beautiful world of Medicine. Here I got to know how people suffering from AIDS were tackled; how the precautionary measures were maintained and also shared experiences with the patients who despite knowing that they had no future lived every moment to its fullest. However with the kind of ostracism they received from society, only deepened the aloofness between them and the outside world, with little expectations. It was here where I felt a strong need to address this issue to all around me as a doctor.
Accompanying my father to the monthly Psychiatric Meet with my own initiative, I noted the tremendously rising number of cases suffering from depression, insecurities and high tension levels-all leading to mental instability. Surprisingly, I also got to see how people still harboured this convention that visiting a psychiatrist was a weakness-a kind of embarrassment. Here I felt the need of an understanding doctor who needs to help people come out of their shells to share their problems and make them confide in him. I was determined more than ever to fill in this place.
Helping my father to organize events, keep a check on the intra-venous fluids given to patients at the ‘Durga Mandap’, a charitable home (where doctors serve voluntarily every Sunday), stands an unparalleled experience and an inspiration to work willingly for a larger cause.
Over the years I have seen a deadly wedge creeping in between patients and their doctors, destroying the sanctity of their time- honoured relationship, and placing each at the mercy of powerful interests whose only real concerns are costs, profit and power.
I guess one has to be in the system to change the system, all for the better and I guess I need a chance to be a part of the system as well.
Before I set out into this world, I owe much to my school Sherwood College for instilling in me all the basic ingredients required for the making of a good human being that will be my greatest weapons in striving to be a good doctor-be it compassion, advocacy, interpersonal skills, leadership or genuine willingness to serve a place unconditionally.
I am yet to become a part of this noble profession and have much to learn but I already have a dream, a vision for something that’s still to be a part of me. My dream and sole ambition in life is to become a fine, qualified doctor who understands the need for the improvement of basic health-care facilities imparted to all sections of society. And I know for sure that nothing is as real as a dream-because the dream is within you which nobody can take away.
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