Differences Between Christianity And Buddhism - 1481 Words

Working in a Catholic Hospital does not mean your patients will all be Christians. In fact, the Catholic belief that all life is sacred opens the door to people of all faiths and all walks of life. One may even refer to an inner city emergency department (ED) as a spiritual melting pot. On any given day, a nurse is likely to take care of multiple patients with different worldviews from their own. While this may present a challenge, most ED nurses face this head on, as they do the other life-saving responsibilities they are presented with during their shift. Each patient brings a unique situation to the table, and the nurse must respond quickly and appropriately to meet the patient’s physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Although†¦show more content†¦According to James Sire, one’s worldview can be expressed by answering some basic questions (Sire, 2015). Seven of Sire’s questions will be addressed when comparing Buddhism and Christianity. The first of Sire’s question asks about the prime reality, or what is otherwise known as the really real (Sire, 2015). For a Christian, this can easily be summed up as God, the creator of all people, and everything around us (Gen 1:1-2, NIV). For Buddhists, the answer is not as easy. Those who practice Buddhism, in its original form, are somewhat atheistic. They are devoted to the Buddha, which is a descriptive title that means â€Å"Awakened One or Enlightened One† (Harvey, 2012, p. 1), but do not necessarily believe in God. Siddhartha Gautama, founded Buddhism in the 6th Century B.C., and many people refer to him as the Buddha. He is not a God though, and did not claim to be. Gautama is seen as a great teacher, and what every Buddhist should strive for. According to Harvey (2012), many have thought there were Buddhas prior to Gautama and there will be more Buddhas in the future. The focus of Buddhism is not on Buddha, but rather on the teachings. It is believed that those seeking salvation should look within themselves. With this in mind, one could surmise that the prime reality for Buddhists is oneself. Sire’s second question is focused on the â€Å"nature of external reality† (Sire, 2015) or how humans see the world.

National African American History Year - 876 Words

Every year, February is to be known as the Black History Month, or formally known as National African American History Month. It is an annual commemoration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing the central role of African Americans in United States history. Black History Month had its origins in 1915 when Dr. Cater G. Woodson and his colleagues founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (African American History Month, 2014). This organization is now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Through this organization, Dr. Cater G. Woodson played the greatest role in helping all Americans know the Black past by initiating Negro History Week in Washington, D.C. in February 1926 (Bunch, 2012). Dr. Woodson selected the week in February that included the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass due to the fact they were key figures in the history of African Americans (African American History Mont h, 2014). According to Bunch (2012), Woodson believed that the black experience was too important simply to be left to a small group of academics. Dr. Cater G. Woodson, a son of a slave, was born in New Canton, Virginia on December 19, 1875 (Bellis, n.d.). Although he did not enter high school until the age of 20, he continued to study at Berea College, the University of Chicago, the Sorbonne, and Harvard University, where he earned a PhD in 1912 (Bellis, n.d.). During this time,Show MoreRelatedWhat was the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and How did it Change America?711 Words   |  3 Pagespolitical elections. The men in America have always had the right to vote. They have always had the right to do whatever they wanted. Women, on the other hand, have not. They haven’t always been allowed to vote. 1920 marked a significant landmark in American history. Women in all parts of the country voted in a political election for the first time. This may not sound like that big of a deal, but to the women of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 1800s, women were not allowed to have a say in what wasRead MoreEssay on African Americans in the Great Depression1210 Words   |  5 PagesAmerica. Unemployment rates of over 25%. A 50% decrease in national income. Billions of dollars lost in a single day. (Trotter, pg.8) The Depression affected everyone in America. Young and old, rich and poor, black and white, none were spared. However, for America’s 12 million African Americans (Encyclopedia of Race and Racism) the Depression didn’t just start in 1929.(Africa to America: From the Middle Passage Through the 1930s) African Americans were a subjugated minority. Racism wasn’t only presentRead MoreThe Sport Of Baseball : America s Favorite Pastime1093 Words   |  5 PagesThe sport of baseball, otherwise known as â€Å"America’s favorite pastime†, has reportedly been around since the 17th century. It has had its ups and downs like every other sport, but the crazy history of how it came abou t is quite extensive. Having to find new players that no one would think of to play and eventually having the first ever World Series; the sport has changed throughout time. The beginning of baseball can be accredited to Thomas Wilson who was a conformist leader in England. WilsonRead More Ineffective N.A.A.C.P. in James Baldwins Down at the Cross Essay1689 Words   |  7 Pages The Effect of the N.A.A.C.P. There are many different opinions of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.), the premier organization for African-American rights around the world. Some believe that the organization has made great strides towards equality and fairness across the country, and that segregation could still be a prominent fixture today if not for the N.A.A.C.P. Others scrutinize the efforts of the N.A.A.C.P., and claim that it is nothingRead MoreAfrican American History : African Americans1269 Words   |  6 Pagesare countless examples of how African Americans have transformed history or made a mark on our country. African Americans have displayed heroism and bravery for what we believe in. Without Black History Month as a holiday, these people would not have been recognized for all of their many achievements. We must continue to celebrate the achievements of African Americans, and we must correct the inconsistences of the past. Black History Month sh ould be kept as a national holiday as long as we are theRead MoreRacial Profiling : The National Institute Of Justice Essay1311 Words   |  6 Pages Racial Profiling in U.S History Selyna Copeland Professor Dora Leal Social Science 180 10 November, 2016 The National Institute of Justice (â€Å"Racial Profiling†) stated that racial profiling, which is a form of discrimination, racism, and stereotypes is when law enforcement, based on a person’s race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion targets a person for suspicion of crimes. Today people can turn on their television, go online, and even listen to their radios and they will hear aboutRead MoreA Short Note On Oklahoma Race Riots And The Black Wall Street928 Words   |  4 PagesRiots. Being a segregated city like the rest of Oklahoma, many of Tulsa’s African American citizens resided in Greenwood- an area composed of predominately African American communities and business locations. The discovery of oil is the number one reason why Tulsa’s economy flourished. There was an abundance of wealthy African Americans due to of this discovery. Because of the affluence and success within the African American community going on in this one particular area, it became known as the BlackRead MoreThe Confederate Flag And The Civil War1508 Words   |  7 PagesFlags have been a part of history since the beginning of time and the Confederate flag is a large part of the United States history. People need to learn what the flag has represented. The true meaning. Not what they think the flag has represented. Teaching the meaning of the Confederate flag needs to start in the schools with young children. Without knowing the true history and meaning of the Confederate f lag the war over the flag may never stop. People cannot change history by removing a flag fromRead MoreThe African American Civil Rights Movement1450 Words   |  6 PagesThe African American civil rights movement was a long journey for African American nationwide. The success involved many people, hardships and time in order to advance the African American community in America. The purpose of the movement was to achieve their rights, cease discrimination, and racial segregation. During the start of the African American civil rights movement, Africans Americans still were faced with Jim Crow laws which segregated them from whites. Under the Jim Crow laws AfricanRead MoreThe Era Of Freedom : A Generation After The Emancipation Proclamation1599 Words   |  7 PagesThe Era of Freedom A Generation after the Emancipation Proclamation, banned slavery, African Americans were trapped in a country full of harsh discrimination, and humiliation. The twentieth century brought an era that changed the lives of every African Americans across the U.S. The Civil Rights Movement, a movement to sees the cruelty that every African American faced on a daily bases, was one of the greatest events that took a step into a direction that no one would ve imagined during the

Knowledge and Justified True Belief Free Essays

Prior to Edmund Gettier, philosophers believed that knowledge was equivalent to justified true belief.   Since Plato, it had generally been agreed among philosophers that there are three criteria of propositional knowledge, individually necessary and jointly sufficient (Pryor, 2005; Cushing, 2000).   Before the Gettier philosophy, the following JTB Analysis (justification, truth, and belief) formed the basis of the theory of knowledge: â€Å"S knows that P iff: P is true (truth criterion) S believe that P (belief criterion) S is justified in believing P (justification criterion)† A classic example of the above proposition would be the one by Carl Ginet on fake barns. We will write a custom essay sample on Knowledge and Justified True Belief or any similar topic only for you Order Now    A person is driving through rural Pennsylvania where there are a lot of fake barns: mere wooden fronts that look like barns from the road.   The person driving through is not aware of this and has no reason to suspect it.   As the person looks off to his or her right, and sees something that looks like a barn, then that person believes, â€Å"That’s a barn.†Ã‚   As a matter of fact, it is a barn, as it is one of the few barns in the region which is not a fake.   But then that person would just be lucky.   If he or she had looked at a fake barn instead, then he or she would have believed that it was a barn (Pryor, 2005). In this case then it would seem that the person’s belief that he or she drove by a barn is justified or reasonable simply because it looks like a barn and the person was not informed that the region was full of fake barns.   Then in this case, the person’s belief is also true.   But then the question is if that person knows that he or she is driving by a barn (Pryor, 2005). It seems then that justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge.   It is this theory that Edmund Gettier is criticizing. Exposition Gettier’s main objection is to the claim that justified true belief is sufficient for knowledge.   He presented examples in which the subject has a justified true belief which intuitively fails to count as knowledge (Pryor, 2005).   He does not question whether the three criterion are each necessary.   Rather, what Gather provides is that these propositions are not jointly sufficient.   In other words, Gettier provides that we can justifiably believe the true proposition P but not necessarily know P (Cushing, 2000). In his philosophy, Gettier (1963) makes two important points.   First, the proposition wherein S is justified in believing P is a necessary condition of S’s knowing that P is open to the possibility that a person is justified in believing a proposition that is in fact false. The second point is that for any proposition P, if S is justified in believing P, and P entails Q, and S deduces Q from P and accepts Q as a result of this deduction, then S is justified in believing Q (Gettier, 1963).  Ã‚   Stated differently, these two points represent two assumptions: 1) it is possible for someone to be justified in believing something false; and 2) if S is justified in believing P and P entails Q, then S is justified in believing Q (Cushing, 2000). A classic Gettier example to illustrate these two points or assumptions would be the one about the Ford car.   Suppose a person called Smith has a justified belief   that someone in his office owns a Ford.   It is also true, as a matter of fact, that someone in the office does indeed own a Ford.   However, Smith’s evidence for his belief concerns Jones, from his office, who as it turns out does not own a Ford.   Smith’s belief that someone in the office owns a Ford is true because someone else in the office owns a Ford (not Jones). The person who in fact owns a Ford is actually, for example, called Brown.   Yet all of Smith’s evidence concerns Jones, and not Brown, so it seems that intuitively, Smith doesn’t know that someone in his office owns a Ford.   It would seem then that Smith doesn’t know, even though Smith has a justified belief that someone owns a Ford, and as it turns out, this belief happens to be true (Pryor, 2005). From the above example, it would seem that Smith has a justified belief in a true proposition (in that someone in his office owns a Ford), but this is not to say that he has knowledge of that proposition (since the owner of the Ford is Brown, not Jones, as Smith thought).  Ã‚   What Gettier (1963) thus tells is that even if the three criterion composed of truth, belief, and justification are individually necessary for knowledge, they are not jointly sufficient (Cushing, 2000).   This has been widely called as the Gettier Problem (Pryor, 2005; Cushing, 2000; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006). Thus, the JTB Analysis, previously mentioned as the existing proposition prior to the Gettier problem, does not state a sufficient condition for someone’s knowing a given proposition (Gettier, 1963).  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the example given on the Ford, the Gettier problem arises because of the proposition that a person knows that someone owns a Ford based on evidence that falls short of certainty.   If knowledge requires absolutely certain evidence, then the person Smith in the Ford example would not be in a position to know that someone owns a Ford .   His (Smith’s) evidence after all was not absolutely certain or infallible because he was mistaken as to who owned the Ford (Pryor, 2005). Assuming that Gettier’s philosophy is correct, then a possible solution to the Gettier problem then would be that knowledge is justified true belief where the reasoning on which a person’s belief is based on does not proceed through any false steps or falsehood (Pryor, 2005).   However, the Gettier examples need not involve any inference, so there may be cases of justified true belief in which the subject fails to have knowledge although the S’s belief that P is not inferred from any falsehood. The lesson from the Gettier problem then is that the justification condition by itself cannot ensure that belief that is true cannot be mistakenly identified as knowledge.   Even a justified belief (which is belief based on good evidence), can be true because of luck (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006), such as the example on the Ford car wherein Smith’s belief that someone owns a car is true in the sense that someone (Brown) does indeed own a car, but Smith’s justified belief or good evidence as to the someone who owns the Ford actually pertains to someone else (Jones). Assuming that Gettier is correct, a possible option for working out an account of what knowledge is.  Ã‚   Knowledge is justified true belief absent luck or accident.  Ã‚   Gettier’s fourth condition to knowledge (on the absence of falsehood) is not necessary as his cases indicate that a person can still hold on to a true belief based on luck or accident.   The third criterion in the JTB Analysis, on justification, itself requires that luck be excluded (Sudduth, 2005).   Thus, justified true belief may be sufficient for knowledge only if you eliminate luck or accident. Conclusion According to Gettier (1963), justified true belief can fail to constitute knowledge.   Justified true belief may not be sufficient for knowledge, and he further tells us that the three criterion of truth, belief, and justification are not jointly sufficient.   Gettier proposes a third condition, that true belief should not be based on any falsehood.   However, his philosophy involves the elements of luck or accident which allows the subject to hold on to a true belief.   Thus, it would seem that justified true belief may be sufficient for knowledge providing luck or accident are eliminated from the justification criterion. REFERENCES Cushing, Simon.   (2000).   Edmund Gettier: â€Å"Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?†Ã‚   University of Michigan-Flint.   Retrieved November 1, 2006 from Gettier, Edmund L.   (1963).   Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?   Analysis 23: 121-123.   Transcribed into hypertext by Andrew Chrucky, September 13, 1997.   Retrieved November 1, 2006 from: http://www.ditext.com/gettier/gettier.html Pryor, Jim.   (Spring 2004).   Theory of Knowledge – The Gettier Problem.   Princeton University.   Retrieved November 1, 2006 from: http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/courses/epist/notes/gettier.html Sudduth, Michael.   (2005).   Justification and the Gettier Problem.   Dr. Michael Sudduth’s Philosophy Courses Webpage.   Retrieved November 1, 2006 The Analysis of Knowledge.   (January 16, 2006). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.   Retrieved November 1, 2006 from: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/ How to cite Knowledge and Justified True Belief, Essay examples