Galileo's Accomplishments... Through His DAUGHTER?!?!

Galileo, despite being very famous even today, would not have become as famous without the help of his daughter, Maria Celeste. Maria Celeste was a nun residing in a cloister, working at the church apothecary. While working as a medicinal nurse, Maria took the time to help her father, Galileo Galilei, because of his poor health. Maria made medicines for him because of his sickness, took care of his housework, and many more. Galileo was the first to use a telescope to study the sky, and discovered irregularities with the Church dogma about the stars and the sun. What Galileo discovered, were sun spots, which were basically solar storms that darkened a portion of the sun. Galileo recorded these findings and wrote a dialogue, The Diagolo, between an intellectual who argued on the Copernican side and a fool who just mouthed out the church doctrine. Maria aided Galileo in the publishment and editting of the book, which Galileo could not have done on his own due to his poor health. At around the age of 70, Galileo was put under the Inquisition due to his "heretical" writings in The Diagolo. Galileo confessed, and was therefore put under house arrest along with several other long-term punishments such as reading only Holy scripts and praying. Maria also helped her father with this, doing all of the prayers for him instead of just leaving him to do it himself. Galileo's The Diagolo was banned and stored in the Church's records. Maria's taking over of the prayers allowed Galileo more time to study more about his past works on physics and created the basis for Newton. Without Galileo, we would probably not have physics today.

St. Thomas Aquinas and His Five Ways - Do They Show That God REALLY Exists?!?!

St. Thomas Aquinas was a theologian, a philosopher, and a Dominican priest that gave rational arguments to prove that God truly existed. These five arguments today are called Aquinas' Five Ways. Aquinas believed that reason should be embraced by Christianity and developed rational arguments to prove God's existence through this reason. Aquinas believed that God intended us to use reason, that he made us that way, and when we use this reason we can see the world as being an emanation of God. In order to get closer to God, we must first understand him better, and the only way to do that was to use our logic and get to know God better. Aquinas brings reason back into the Middle Ages and teaches how to prove Christian faith through it.

In my own opinion, Aquinas' Fourth Way is the most reasonable to me, because it does not make an exception to God. In the other Ways presented by Aquinas, it says that all things had to be created by something else, EXCEPT God. The Fourth Way does not give God an exception. The Fourth Way basically states that there are objects in the world with greater quality, beauty, then others do. To say that something is more beautiful than another, however, there must be a perfect standard through which we compare things, and that standard would be God. The perfect standard would be God because, by religious standards, God is an almighty, perfect force through which all good things arise from. However, there are a few arguments that could be posed against this Way presented by Aquinas.

With this Way stating that some things have more quality than others, and that the perfect model would be God, a problem arises with that of perspective. Not everybody has the same opinion about a certain object. For example, the dollar bill has more or less value in different countries around the world. Therefore, there are different views as to what is perfect, what has more quality, and what has less quality. Which one is right?

Despite the argument that could be posed against this Way, I believe that Aquinas' Fourth Way is the most reasonable compared to the other Ways.

Colorful Lights... From a Church Window?!?

As we look into the Gothic cathedrals in our Art History class, we see many stained-glass windows depicting images of biblical stories. The purpose of these very large, colorful windows was to fill people with a sense of amazement and awe for the Holy Spirit that resided within the walls of the cathedral. Also, these stories might have depicting stories of punishment, and would instill fear in those that have sinned. Throughout the Gothic period, we see cathedrals being remodeled to allow more light into the church through their windows because of the Manichean idea of light. The Manicheans were a philosophical group that believed that light was actually rays of God poking around in the world, and a certain amount of this Holy Light resided in each of our bodies. Augustine was influenced by the Manicheans, and believed that by looking inwards (introspection?) you could achieve happiness. With the Gothic architecture we can see these beliefs in physical form, because of the enlarged and decorated windows. Within the churches, we have intricate designs and beautiful windows. The outer surfaces of the churches, however, are very plain, going with the Manichean idea that the outer world was ugly but the inside the body was beautiful. St. Augustine had a message about a Beatific Vision, which would come about through introspection and then up to God, which would provide the "looker" with salvation and happiness.

We also discussed St. Augustine's book, Just War, in which he explains what conditions have to be met in order for a war to be a righteous or just war. In this book, he lists and describes 7 conditions which have to be met in order for a war to be just. These 7 conditions being:
1. Last resort
2. Initiated by the government or a higher power
3. Chance of success
4. Right intentions
5. Re-establish peace
6. Proportionality
7. Do not attack the civilians
1. Last Resort
A just war can only be initiated if all other non-violent options have been used.
2. Initiated by the Government or a Higher Power
A war is only just if an authoratative figure approves it is justified.
3. Chance of Success
A war can only be fought if there is a chance of success. Deaths and injuries that occur during this war are mortally justified.
4. Right Intentions
A just war can only be fought in order to "redress a wrong suffered". The only objective of a war is to solve the problem. Self-defense against an armed attack is always a just cause.
5. Re-establish Peace
The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. A war should improve the peace that existed before this war or would exist if the war had never been fought.
6. Proportionality
You must use the minimum amount of force to obtain your objective. Violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered.
7. Don't Attack Civilians
Civilians are never the target of war, and all measures to avoid killing them should be used.

All these conditions, however, were not met throughout the Crusades, which makes them somewhat of a sin because all those conditions made war just, and the Crusades did not meet those conditions.

Adolf Hitler Racist?!? NO WAY!

In class we read Mein Kampf (or however you spell that), a book written by Adolf Hitler which was chock full of different fallacies. Fallacies are deceptive and misleading false beliefs, and as you can probably recall Hitler was very good at presenting fallacies to convince others to follow him. Many different types of fallacies emerge in the segment of Mein Kampf that we read today. Throughout the text, he mentions Mother Nature and her plan, and those that go against her plan that must be swept from the world. However, that would be an example of the fallacy of Faulty Use of Authority, which is the attempt to add credibility to a claim by citing opinions, or in this case making them up, of supposed experts. Through Hitler's deceptiveness and his ability to convince many of those who listen to him he was able to lead what he supposed a great revolution. In the case with Mother Nature, he does not refer to Mother Nature herself, but he is actually basing all his arguments off his own beliefs and just saying that it is the law of the creator that what he is doing is right. Hitler's book is very degrading for those that read it, unless of course you were in the class that Hitler appointed to be the top. Just by reading the small portion that we read got me mad because of all the things that Hitler pointed out about other races, how "nature's laws" allows him to exterminate other races and what not. Whatever, all I know is that I NEED SLEEP! XD

Are We Intelligently Designed? 0.o

The topic of evolution is a much debated topic between scientists and priests, and has been for a long time. One side says that we were all designed and created by a higher being, this side being the religious side and the higher being being God. There are various theories brought up by scientists, among them the Big Bang theory where there was a huge explosion and everything suddenly appeared from that. Opposing this theory would be Genesis, where God created the universe and man and woman and all that good stuff. However, there are some theories that what some scientific theories state are true, but underlying all the evidence they claim that God made the most basic building block in life. Intelligent Design would be the middle ground, the mean between the two extremes. (See that philosophy right there Mr. Basinger? ;)) Because Intelligent Design is a combination of both science and religion, there are many that approve of it but many that disagree with it at the same time. For me, I'm on the fence again with this subject. I am religious, but I really don't see the point in arguing about this kind of stuff. Let bygones be bygones because I'm just lazy like that. XD However, there are scenarios in which this could apply. In class, we talked about a watch just sitting in a field. What would the explanation be for that appearance?

Today's Debate..

Today's debate was pretty interesting. Hearing other people's opinions and hearing the objections against them were kind of fun. The debate was whether Affirmative Action was needed because Barack Obama is now president. There were many different opinions as to whether it was needed or not, and Basinger helped us along the way by providing good arguments for the pro and con sides of the debate. I have one question, however: Say there's a family with a set of twins. They are both the same ethnicity and they were both risen up in the same manner. However, one twin actually attempts to do well in school while the other twin does not. They both end up getting the same grades and do not have the ability to pay for college. Would it be fair to give both twins the Affirmative Action when only one actually tried? Would it be fair to deny the Affirmative Action to the twin who has the will to actually try in school? Imagine if they were White, African-American, Hispanic, Korean, Salvadorean, whatever you want to fit in this argument. I'm actually on the fence for this debate, which is why my question goes to both sides of the argument.

Deductive logic...

Today in class we learned about deductive logic. Although there are many types, we learned about the three that were the most important for this unit: Syllogisms, Modus Ponens, and Modus Tollens.

Syllogisms:
Syllogisms are a type of deductive logic thought up by Aristotle, and have three major components: the Major Premise, the Minor Premise, and the Conclusion. In each categorical syllogism, there should be three terms, two terms in each component of the syllogism. The formula for a categorical syllogism is A=B, B=C, A=C. An example of a syllogism would be (B) Humans are (A) mortal. (C) Socrates is (B) human. (C) Socrates is (A) mortal.

Modus Ponens:
A second type of deductive logic would be modus ponens, which is a positive statement with only two terms. The two terms, labeled P and Q, are presented in two statements. The formula for a modus ponens would be "If P then Q. P, therefore Q." An example of a modus ponens would be "If Iran has WMD, then we'll invade Syria. Iran has WMD, therefore we'll invade Syria. "In this example, P would be "Iran has WMD" and Q would be "we'll invade Syria". However, does a modus ponens statement mean "if and ONLY if?"

Modus Tollens:
The third type of deductive logic we learned would be modus tollens, which is a negative statement with two terms. The terms are also labeled P and Q, and this type of deductive logic is very similar to modus ponens. The formula for a modus tollens would be "If P then Q. Not Q, therefore not P." An example of this type of deductive logic would be "If it's raining, it will be cold outside. It's not cold outside, therefore it's not raining." In this example, P would be "raining" and Q would be "cold outside".

As we can see, Modus Tollens and Modus Ponens are very similar, it is just they are the opposite of each other. Tollens is negative whereas Ponens is positive. Both have the same number of terms as well as the same number of statements that make up the whole logical statement. However, both differ from the first type of deductive logic, the syllogism. Ths syllogism has three statements, with three statements that make up the logical statement. The syllogism, so far, is neither negative nor positive, it is just reaching a conclusion from a given truth. The syllogism basically goes from a given truth to something that must be true because of the given truth. However, the Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens statemements are more like cause and effect theories: if this were to happen, then another thing will happen.

Did I spell Ponens right? Is it Ponens or Pones? I'm confused....