Humanities+2

=Humanities= Topic: The Philosophy of Religeon Unit Question: Can We Prove the Existence of God? Area of Interaction: Approaches to Learning

Summative Assesment: Summa Theologica (summary of theology) – Is it POSSIBLE to prove the existence of god Research:
 * Arguments For God || Arguments Against God (counter) ||
 * Bible || Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion ||
 * Karen Armstrong, The case for God || Christopher Hitchens, God is not great” ||
 * The Dawkins Delusion || Freud – Origins of Religion ||
 * St Anselm || Suffering and Evil ||
 * St.Thomas Aquinas || Feuerbach ||
 * Pasquals Wager || Karl Marx ||
 * Mysticism – Fatima, Knock || Darwinism ||
 * Kant’s Moral Argument || Sartre Existentialism ||

Criteria: 1000 Words minimum, Everything must be relevant, sources cited, and complicated words explained.


 * //__ Summa Theologica – Can We Prove the Existence of God? __//**

God in Christianity is a transcendent* being, which lives outside of the Tempe spatial* World. God is described as all Omnipotent*, Omniscient* and Omnipresent*. St.Thomas Aquinas described god as the unmoved mover who created everything in his 5 ways. Attempts to prove the existence of god go back to Greek and Roman hard polytheism*. However, Christianity supports monotheism* which begun in ancient Canaan*, where god promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. Monotheism grew in popularity throughout the medieval ages. There have been several philosophical arguments for and against god, all with valid counter arguments. So can we today actually prove the existence of God?

St.Anselum of Canterbury was a Benedictine* monk and a philosopher who lived from 1033 to 1109. He tried to prove the existence of the Abrahamic god using his a priori* “Ontological Argument”. The Ontological Argument states that god must exist because he is known to be the greatest being conceivable*. Existence is one of the qualities that the greatest being conceivable must have. Therefore god must exist. However, the ontological argument was heavily criticized on the basis that if god invented all of time and space, he would have had to live outside of the conceivable world, and therefore he would be unconceivable. Something that is unconceivable cannot have traits, like St.Anselum described. St.Thomas Aquinas, (a doctor of the church*) argued that the ontological argument would be meaningful only to someone who understands the essence of God completely. Aquinas reasoned that, as only God can completely know his essence, only he could use the argument. Scottish Philosopher and empiricist*, David Hume argued that nothing could be proved using only a priori reasoning because nothing is demonstrable. Richard Dawkins, A military atheist, biologist and amateur philosopher, dismissed the Ontological argument as a play on word in his book “The God Delusion”. Quoting Dawkins, “Never has there been such a ridiculous argument. Something does not come into existence simply by imagining it does.” However Richard Dawkins has been criticized because of his lack of experience in the field. A review in Prospect magazine had this to say about the God Delusion “it’s an incurious*, dogmatic*, rambling, and self-contradictory book”.

The most famous and largely read attempts to prove gods existence are the 5 ways of St.Thomas Aquinas found in his Summa Theologica or summary of theology. St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) was a Dominican priest, theologian*, and philosopher. Called the Doctor Angelicus (the Angelic Doctor). Aquinas is considered one the greatest Christian philosophers to have ever lived. The 5 ways are different aspects of reality that he thought made gods existence obvious. The first three ways can be summarized as the cosmological argument and they all deal with the fact that a movement or an object cannot exist without an original causer or mover that is unmoved and independent of creation. At the time, his 5 ways were extremely well known and widely accepted.


 * //The first way is called the argument of motion//**. St. Thomas Aquinas studied the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle and concluded based on his own research and observation that any object that is in motion is put in motion by some other object or force. If this were completely true then there would be an infinite amount of movers. However this can’t be because there would never be a first mover and therefore no movement at all. Based on this he argued that ultimately there must have been an unmoved mover who first put things in motion. He defines this being as god. **//The second way is called the “Causation of Existence”//.** It deals with the issue of existence and is similar to the argument of motion in principle. Aquinas knew that no object could create itself. In other words, some previous object had to create it. Aquinas believed that ultimately there must have been an uncaused first cause who began the chain of existence for all things. If there had been an infinite amount of causes then there would never have been a causer at all, and therefore nothing would have existed. **//The third way is sometimes referred to as the modal cosmological argument//**. Modal is a reference to contingency and necessary. The argument follows the logic that Contingent beings are caused as a result of something another Contingent* being does. However similar to the logic used in the other two parts of the cosmological argument, there cannot be an infinite chain of contingent beings causing contingent beings to exist. Therefore there must have been a first necessary being that does not depend on another being for it’s existence. St.Thomas Aquinas, again, identified this being as god.

The other two arguments, which he wrote about in his summa Theologica, were “the argument from degrees and perfection” and “the argument from intelligent design”. The argument from degrees of perfection is based on the observation that humans have a tendency to access things based on their degrees or gradation of a quality. Based on this observation, Aquinas concluded that for any given quality there must be a perfect standard by which all such qualities are measured. He argued that these perfections are contained in God.

The final way that St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of has to do with the observable universe and the order of nature. When St.Thomas Aquinas observed nature he came to the conclusion that the earth is far too complex and uniformed to exist without a god. Therefore god must exist. However, Darwin proved that the universe could exist in all of its complexity and uniformity without a god using his Theory of Natural Selection.

In addition to the philosophical attempts to prove the existence of god made by both St.Anselum and St.Thomas Aquinas, there is also the argument of miracles and spiritual encounters. These events cannot be explained scientifically, and would require the existence of a god. In Portugal, in the town of Fatisma 70,000 people testified to have seen the sun dancing and changing colors in the sky at the Cova da Iriainon ob the 13th October, 1917. An overwhelming amount of these people claimed to have seen images of Jesus and The Virgin Mary in the sky. Lucia dos Santos, aged 10 started the mass sighting when she had to sudden urge to tell everyone to look up into the sky. Lúcia dos Santos, and her two cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto claimed to have been visited on the 13th repeatedly for 6 consecutive months by The Virgin Mary prior to the incident. As noted by Professor Auguste Meessen of the Institute of Physics, Catholic University of Leuven, looking directly at the Sun can cause phosphene * visual artifacts and temporary partial blindness. He has proposed* that the reported observations were optical effects caused by prolonged staring at the sun. However many people have used this unexplainable event as proof for god’s existence because it was so well documented and observed by such a large crowd. One re-occurring and rather violent religious experience is that of stigmata, were a person inexplicably experiences the wounds of Jesus on the cross. The first recorded stigmata victim was St.Francis of Assisi who claimed that his injuries suddenly appeared after he had had a vision of a crucified angel. The most famous stigmata patient however was Pio of Pietrelcina who lived from 1887 till 1968. The wounds were reportedly unexplainable even after they had been thoroughly observed. They never became infected. His wounds healed once, but reappeared. Luigi Romanelli, chief physician of the City Hospital of Barletta, examined the wounds for about one year. Dr. Giorgio Festa, a private practitioner, also examined them in 1920 and 1925. Professor Giuseppe Bastianelli, physician to Pope Benedict XV , agreed that the wounds existed but made no other comment. Pathologist Dr. Amico Bignami of the University of Rome also observed the wounds, but could make no diagnosis. Both Bignami and Dr. Giuseppe Sala commented on the unusually smooth edges of the wounds and lack of edema *. Dr. Alberto Caserta took X-rays of the hands in 1954 and found no abnormality in the bone structure. Despite the fact that Medical science was evolving rapidly at the time, no one was able to come up with a scientific explanation for his wounds. Pope Benedict the third argued that this was proof of the sheer power of god. However, Edward Harrison’s book titled “Stigmata a medieval practice in the modern age” explains that stigmata is not caused by solely one thing but that it can be the result of several different things. Stress and the placebo affect* can cause rashes to appear on the hands and feet of the stigmata sufferer. There is also a definite link between religious fasting and self-harm, which would explain why there is a higher amount of these injuries in religious communities.

In conclusion, it is my belief after internalizing the arguments for god’s existence, that it is impossible to prove gods existence because St.Thomas Aquinas and the bible both say that god must exist outside of the conceivable world. If god himself cannot be conceived, then it is impossible to prove his existence because inconceivable by definition means that we cannot possibly know of his existence. In addition, almost every argument for god will have an equally valid counter argument. For example, the 5th way of St.Thomas Aquinas, “The argument from intelligent design” can be countered with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution that explains how the world can have intelligent design and uniformity, without the mandatory presence of a god. The argument of stigmata can be medically explained by the placebo effect, self harm and stress. The Ontological argument, ironically, can be countered using Roman Catholic tradition. The church itself maintains the belief that god is un-comprehensible. During the religious practice of transubstantiation, everyone in the church will avert their eye for fear of seeing god, which they believe would result in instant death.


 * //__ Complicated Language Guide __//**
 * // Transcendent //** - existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe
 * // Tempe Spatial //** – Conceivable
 * // Omnipotent //** - having unlimited power; able to do anything.
 * // Omniscient //** – Knowing Everything
 * // Omnipresent //** – Present Everywhere at all time
 * // Polytheism //** – the belief or worship of more than one god
 * // Monotheism //** – The belief or worship of only one god
 * // Canaan //** - the biblical name for the area of ancient Palestine west of the Jordan River, the Promised Land of the Israelites, who conquered and occupied it during the latter part of the 2nd millennium BC
 * // Benedictine //** – A monk or nun of an order following the rule of St. Benedict
 * // Conceivable //** – Capable of being imagined or grasped mentally
 * // Doctor of the Church //** - one of the early Christian theologians
 * // Dogmatic //** – Inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true
 * // Incurious //** – not eager to know something, lacking curiosity
 * // Contingent //** – Subject to change
 * // Phosphene //** – A ring or spot of light produced by pressure on the eyeball or direct stimulation of the system other than by light.
 * // Emporicist //** – Someone who believes that all knowledge is derived from sense experience

= New Unit - How do we use the land in barbados? =

Terms
Primary Industry - People taking things we need from nature, these are called natural resources. Secondary Industry - Product made of raw materials Systems - Any set of interrelated components or objects which are connected together to form a working unit or unified whole.

Closed Systems = where the system does not need to be replenished as there are no outputs, a continual loop

Open Systems = Where systems receive inputs and transfer outputs of energy and/or matter across the boundaries between them. Most natural systems are open ones.

Overpopulation = Overpopulation is when there are too many people in the area for the resources available. It has passed the carrying capacity of the land Underpopulation = When there are few people to make maximum use of the resources

Homework Questions:
a) give one example of a physical input and one example of a human input: labour and soil

b) give one example of a process that takes place on an arable farm and one example of one that takes place on a pastoral farm: Planting and Feeding

c) Give on example of an output of an arable farm and one example of an output of a pastoral farm: milk/wool and vegetables/fruit

Tom Malthus and Ester Boserup
Can resources and Population balance out?

Thomas Malthus – Believed that eventually our growth as a race would exeed our capacity to feed ourselves

Ester Boserup – Believed that as we grow as people we will continue to develop new ways to feed ourselves

Personally I believe in a combination of the both, I think that eventually what is going to happen like what happened during the plague is that the standard of living will continue to drop because our population is going to exceed our current ability to feed ourselves. We will come up with ways to level out the portions and produce more food for the population, but we will ultimately reach a point where we are going to exceed our ability to feed ourselves, when that happens the population will level itself out either because of government intervention (population control) or because of starvation.

What are and what are the differences between subsistence and commercial farming?
In subsistence agriculture, the farmers focus on growing just enough food to feed themselves and their families. The typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to eat and clothe themselves during the year. Planting decisions are made principally with an eye toward what the family will need during the coming year, and secondarily toward market prices. In commercial agriculture, animals and plants are grown to be sold. Commercial farming can be broken down into small family farming and factory farming, where the produce is kept in a compact area and sold in the masses although there are several shades of grey.

Case Study - Cuban Subsistence Farming
In the 1950’s, Cuba used to be the Las Vegas of the Caribbean. They had thriving sex and tourism industries.

This all ended when in 1953 Che Guevara and Fidel overthrew patista, who was the current dictator. Here are some of the changes that he made:

Advantages:

-Some democracy

-Free Housing

-Free Education

-Free Healthcare

-A lot of money put towards medical research

-Free Cars

-Free Food

-Redistribution of land

Disadvantages:

-Dictatorship

-Limited Democracy

-No passports

-Exact same Salary

-Poverty à Famine

-Extreme Censorship

-Police State

Case Study - British Farmer
In recent years, the idea of only eating food that has been grown in your area has become very popular. A man in Yorkshire, England decided that he was going to take that idea to a whole new level by eliminating the gap between the supplier and the customer. He decided that for an entire month he was going to live off of whatever he could grow or raise in his backyard. This is an example of extreme modern day subsistence farming. He had a goat in his garage that he kept for milk, plenty of fruits and vegetables in his back garden, a machine that he used to turn his potatoes into vodka and animals that he kept for lard and butter. Obviously, there are some things that he just couldn’t produce (salt, pepper, grain etc.) that he had to do without unless it was crucial to his wellbeing.

Wheat is one of the UK’s largest agricultural exports:

Here’s a chart I made showing what would normally go into, happen at and come out of a wheat farm: Human: Labor, Pesticide, advice and training, workers, money, machines, fertilizers ||
 * Inputs || Physical: Precipitation, Manure, seeds, Temperature
 * Processes || Planting, weeding, harvesting, spraying ||
 * Outputs || Grain, money ||

Population Transition Model
Population Pyramid =GREEN REVOLUTION= Green Revolution refers to a series of research, development and technoly transfer initiatives, occurring between the 1940's and the late 1970. It was envisioned by Norman Borlaug who's goal is to use technology, machinery and genetic manipulation to maximize the output of farming in every conceivable way. They see it as a way to feed the starving world population. The downside is that farmers have to pay for these new technologies and will become dependent on the the large organizations. We are also unclear about the long term effects of genetic modification and growth hormone use.

Norman Borlaug

Different Breakthroughs IR8 In the 60's through a painstaking process of plant breeding, IRRI developed a new rice plant type known as IR8. It was hailed as "Miracle Rice" and helped to spark what is now known as the Green Revolution. IR8 gave double the yield of previous rice varieties when grown in irrigated conditions, had greater resistance to diseases and insects, and was more responsive to fertilizers. The benefits were huge, IR8 helped several areas in china and india avoid starvation and actually created exportation industries. Unfortunately, the excess use of pesticides killed off most of the animals living off the crop. In the 70's india was on the brink of mass famine. They even forced sterilization on the untouchables and the lower CAS because they didn't have enough food to feed the country. They brought IR8 into their farms, and they haven't experienced mass famine since. India saw annual wheat production rise from 10 million tons in the 1960s to 73 million in 2006. In the philipines, and in china...the same has happened.

CGIAR In 1970, foundation officials proposed a worldwide network of agricultural research centers under a permanent secretariat. This was further supported and developed by the World Bank on 19 May 1971, the Consultative Group onInternational Agricultural Research was established, co-sponsored by the FAO, IFAD and UNDP. CGIAR, has added many research centers throughout the world.

Common Agricultural Policy was introduced by the EU in 1962 with a number of aims: - Minimum Pricing/Price Guarantees - Subsidies (farmers were given money to buy machinery, pesticides and fertilizers)

Human Impact Surpluses: The original CAP didn't limit how much each farmer could produce, it just bought all that they had. This rapidly led to the establishment of huge surpluses in many agricultural products, such as beef, butter, cereals, milk and wine.

Money Wasted: By the 1980's CAP accounted for 70% European budget. Many considered this to be excessive spending on farming that only accounts for 3% of GDP and employment in the EU

Environmenta Impacts Hedgerow Removal: between 1945 and 1995 over 60% of hedgerows in england were removed. Hedgerows are important wildlife habitats

Pollution - Pesticides: The increased use of pesticides used on the fields, are easily washed into rivers by rainwater and can seriously affect the fish, birds and plants of the river

Pollution - Fertilizers: Fertilizers are washed into rivers and lakes and cause rapid algae growth. The algae feed on the nutrients of fertilizers deoxygenating the water for other plants, and fish. This process is called eutrophication.

Blue Babies - Nitrogen from fertilizers goes down through the soil and into our ground water supply. high levels of nitrates in our drinking water have been linked to birth defects.

Soil Erosion: The hedgerows kept the soil in place. Their removal led to erosion



What is money? The History of Money -In the first societies, no trade or barter was needed as people produced and consumed everything they made -Then they specialised into hunters and farmers, which required trade -However as more and more products were made, things got complicated because barter requires on double coincidence of wants". It only works when one traider is willing to exchange his product for something the other trader has and the second trader wants from the first. -To solve this problem, they started to assign commodities values. Some societies used shells, rocks, carvings, etc. -In the 1700's the kings started to collect peoples gold to keep it safe. They then spent it, and when people asked for it back, they gave them a paper promising them their gold. This was the invention of paper money.

In production there are two goals: "Maximizing the retail price" and "minimizing the cost" the function of money the importance if money

MYP 4 Assessment - How Should Barbados Use it's Farmland?

With references to supply and Demand, you must argue how Barbados can best use an area of farm land 1000m. You must support your argument with examples and references to solutions.

If I was given 1000m of farmland in Barbados, I would use 80% of it to farm sea island cotton, and I would build a staff building and a machinery storage shed. Cotton requires a long period without cold weather, plenty of sunshine, and a moderate rainfall, usually from 600 to 1200 mm. The soils usually need to be rich. In general, these conditions are met within the seasonally dry tropics and subtropics in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Therefore, the best cotton is grown in the Caribbean. Cottons worth is determined by it's staple lenght. Egyptian cotton, which is praised as some of the best in the world has a staple lenght of 1.5 inches to 2.25 inches. Sea island cotton has a fiber length of 1.5 to 2.5 inches and thrives in tropic climates. Cotton with such a long staple fiber is scarce and the demand is average, therefore, you can get a heafty price for this commodity. Barbados already has a great knowledge of the agricultural processes involved, barbados already has a small scale cotton gin and a close knit community of growers. Then theres the matter of actually growing the cotton and the labour required. I think that is the biggest dilemma that I would face. Unlike sugar cane or cheaper cottons that can be machine harvested, sea island cotton has to be hand picked. However, I believe that I would be able to find the workforce required, if I ensured that I was paying them high wages and maintained the employee building. The cotton would be sold to european and asian buyers to be weaved into fabric.

Causes of World War 1 1848 - Karl Marx wrote the communist mannifesto 1871 - Unification of Germany which had previously had 39 different countries Then Germany, Austro Hungary and Italy created the triple alliance, because of that, Russia, Great Britain, Syria, and France