'Was the Order of the Knights Templar actually fathered by the Essay

'Was the Order of the Knights Templar actually fathered by the POLITICS of Bernard of Clairvaux (St.Bernard) If so, what were his (possibly hidden)intentions - Essay Example In this age of turmoil, Bernard de Fontaine, or St. Bernard of Clairvaux, emerged as a man of religious fervor and political acumen who devoted his considerable talents to advance the cause of the Church. Motivated by his perception of the Church’s need in the prevalent political and ecclesiastical climate, St. Bernard used the Order of the Knights Templar to further his vision of an independent, secure Church. St. Bernard of Clairvaux was the embodiment of religious devotion coupled with political astuteness. Bernard was born at Fontaine, near Dijon, France, to Champagne nobility. Even in his formative years, â€Å"Piety was his all† (Bousset, qtd. by Gildas, Catholic Encyclopedia). In 1113, Bernard joined the Benedictine Order at Citeaux. He founded a new House in June, 1115 at Clairvaux, the ‘Valley of Light,’ and served as its’ Abbot for the rest of his life. Bernard practiced a rigid austerity and advocated the revival of the original regularity and devotion of monasticism. Under his charismatic influence, men flocked to his Order. Bernard founded 163 monasteries in different parts of Europe (Gildas, Catholic Encyclopedia). He spurned all opportunities to attain high ecclesiastical office and lived a life characterized by holiness and reputed miracles. His mystical theology deeply influenced Catholic spirituality. He authored about 330 sermons, 500 existing letters and thirteen treatises, whose commendable style secured for him the title, ‘Mellifluous Doctor.’ Bernard’s erudition, eloquence and devotion made him â€Å"the most powerful religious influence in France, and, in time, in all Western Europe† (Questia, Encyclopedia). Bernard died in August 1153 and was canonized in 1174 as St. Bernard of Clairvaux. In addition to his piety, Bernard was a consummate politician, as evidenced by the innumerable occasions on which he played the role of

A Report On Snowboarding Sport Essay

A Report On Snowboarding Sport Essay Snowboarding Snowboarding is a kind of sport that evolved from surfing and skateboarding. Often, its a sport described as skateboarding or surfing on snow. Before one goes to the slopes, it is advisable to have some stretching and warm up exercises. After snowboarding, the same exercises and stretching must be repeated. We normally do this to minimize pain. It can be frustrating the first time one goes down a hill. But it can be interesting if the right procedures are followed. We are required to dress properly for snowboarding. A helmet must be worn properly because it prevents one from getting injured if it is not moving around the neck and its below the eyes. However, it should not be too tight. Boots must be comfortable and tight. Always wear high socks. For safety reasons, wear only one pair of snowboarding socks as wearing two pairs will make the boots too tight thus giving no room for blood circulation on the feet. Every person has got his/her lead foot. Snowboarding requires us to determine our lead foot before we put our foot on the snowboard. Lead foot may be determined by sliding on ice, running on hardboard floor and slide or standing with the feet squared and then having a friend push us from behind. In all these instances, the foot that we put forward naturally is the lead foot. The lead foot should then be put in the front binding. Make sure the bindings are fastened tightly and get the real bindings. This should be repeated for the other foot. It is advisable to move around and bounce to get a feel of the snowboard. In order to prevent a runaway board which is normally serious, we loop a lead chain around the lead binding. This is then clipped into the lead boot lace. An angle of 15+ degrees for the lead foot binding is allowed so that the ankle is not sprayed after falling. Every beginners big toe is supposed to be angled towards the boards nose. From here, we get on the ski lift with our board. After getting off the ski lift, we dont go speeding down a hill once we are off the chairlift. We start from a little hill where we can then turn to the larger one. Going to a bunny/practice hill which can give a speed of 5 miles in an hour helps you to have enough practice. When on the edge of the bunny hill, it is a requirement to sit with your board perpendicularly and then check whether the binding and the boot are tight enough. If this is okay, one can then stand and apply pressure on his lead foot. The best position is to keep the back straight while the knees are bent so that balance is maintained. Slowing down is done by switching to the toe or the heel. This is very important to learn as it vital when turning. Always, the board follows our body. Thus when switching to the heel edge from the normal stance, the torso must be turned to face downhill. Sometimes balance is lost and falling back means that we have leaned back too far. But this is better rather than having the toe edge catch snow while falling forwards. Leaning backwards also accelerates stopping. Its very similar to switching the toe edge where we turn the torso uphill. In this case, applying the pressure on the rear leg and placing weight over the toes through leaning little forward is advised. Controlling turning is the same way as switching the toe edges. This is important when one gets to the edge of the hill where we are supposed to get back to the foot forward stance as we aim for chair lift line. Snowboarding is an interesting activity. Its through snowboarding that our bodies are toned and at the same time getting a good cardiovascular workout. This is a sport that keeps on strengthening our heart muscles. Oxygen is excellently delivered to our muscles through snowboarding. Since snowboarding is a physically demanding activity, in one way or the other it assists us to loose weight thus lowering risks of several diseases. The warm up exercises and stretching help in burning of calories and thus such people look better than those who dont. We escape some dangerous diseases like high blood pressure and type 2diabetes. Its a sport that keeps benefiting all body parts. The exercises involved help in secretion of endorphins. This is a chemical that helps us to feel happy and more peaceful. Its even possible to sleep better after snowboarding. Once we are able to go down a given hill, there is that feeling of accomplishment and pride that there is a goal achieved. This helps a pers on to age so well. Snowboarding is a risky sport. Several people have their careers in snowboarding as skiing instructors while other design snowboards. Others have been employed as terrain park designers, event organizers, filmers, product testers, resort managers and sales material designers. Due to the risks associated through accident and personal injury, there is provision of insurance policy that deals with medical costs. Where one experiences an injury or a minor accident, compensation is always at hand. These are considered to be special benefits offering standard coverage. The skiing equipment is expensive too. Loss of this equipment may leave a person out of pocket. Thus, those in this career are provided with cover for any replacement costs. This also assists in payment of hire fees. A ski pass is not cheap too. There are several policies that have been in use in order to award compensation coverage just in case one loses the ski pass. Most importantly, the major benefit in snowboarding is t hat one can compete in organized sports and a win earns him/her the prize money.

Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe and the Virtues of Protestantism Essay

Robinson Crusoe and the Virtues of Protestantism Many people have pointed out that Robinson Crusoe's experiences on the island seem to be a reflection of the growth of civilization and society. Considering the prominent role that religion plays in the novel, it would be worthwhile to examine the progression of religious and political thought in Crusoe's "society." Through the experiences of one man, we can observe the progression of religion from the private realm to the public realm, the conflicts inherent in such a progression, and the resolution to these conflicts. This evolution of religious and political thought affirms two ideas: 1) in the personal realm, it affirms religious individualism--the idea that one can and should find his God independently from any human authority or intermediary (i.e. priests); and 2) in the public realm, the novel affirms that religious toleration, especially on the part of those in power, is the appropriate way to resolve those conflicts that are inherent in the transition of religion from the pr ivate to the public. Crusoe discovers (primarily through trial and error and constant introspection) both of these ideas and eventually succeeds in implementing both of them. He "finds God" without the guidance of anyone, and he ultimately becomes a tolerant ruler of the island with respect to religion. Surprisingly, Crusoe never lives up to his personal definition of a "good Christian." But perhaps this is just a touch or realism by Defoe, since Crusoe is otherwise so successful at recognizing religious individualism and instituting religious toleration on the island, both of which are very important to Defoe.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The first step in the religious progression of Crusoe is his personal di... ...bsolute morality of Christianity, primarily with regard to cannibals and others whom God had apparently chosen to be left in the dark (this question pops up multiple times--142, 151, 168). For in these "questioning" scenes, Crusoe does not exempt Protestantism from critique; he is questioning Christianity in general, and whether or not its hold on truth is real or illusory. It seems to me that Defoe was concerned with religious toleration for more than selfish reasons; he saw religious toleration as a moral responsibility of all Christians, including Catholics and Protestants, and as the only resolution to the conflict between the personal and public realms of religion. So Robinson Crusoe turns out to be just as concerned about toleration in general as it is about the virtues of Protestantism. At least in Robinson Crusoe, Defoe turned out to be fairly open-minded.

Prototype

Prototype Theory Rosch (1976) has proposed an alternative to the view that concepts are com ¬posed from sets of features which necessarily and sufficiently define instances of a concept. Rosch proposes that concepts are best viewed as prototypes: a ‘bird’ is not best defined by reference to a set of features that refer to such matters as wings, warm-bloodedness, and egg-laying characteristics, but rather by reference to typical instances, so that a ‘prototypical bird’ is something more like a robin than it is like a toucan, penguin, ostrich, or even eagle.This is the theory of prototypes. As we saw in the preceding section, individuals do have ideas of typical instances of colors, and these ideas are remarkably similar among vari ¬ous cultural groups. Such similarity in views, however, is found not only in reference to birds and colors.A variety of experiments has shown that people do in fact classify quite consistently objects of various kinds according to what they regard as being typical instances; for example, (1) furniture, so that, whereas a chair is a typical item of furniture, an ashtray is not; (2) fruit, so that, whereas apples and plums are typical, coconuts and olives are not; and (3) clothing, so that, whereas coats and trousers are typical items, things like bracelets and purses are not (Clark and Clark, 1977, p. 64). The remarkably uniform behavior that people exhibit in such tasks cannot be accounted for by a theory which says that concepts are formed from sets of defining features. Such a theory fails to explain why some instances are consistently held to be more typical or central than others when all exhibit the same set of defining features. Hudson (1996, pp. 75-8) believes that prototype theory has much to offer sociolinguists.He believes it leads to an easier account of how people learn to use language, particularly linguistic concepts, from the kinds of instances they come across. He says (p. 77) that: a prot otype-based concept can be learned on the basis of a very small number of instances– perhaps a single one– and without any kind of formal definition, whereas a feature-based definition would be very much harder to learn since a much larger number of cases, plus a number of non-cases, would be needed before the learner could work out which features were necessary nd which were not. Moreover, such a view allows for a more flexible approach to understanding how people actually use language. In that usage certain concepts are necessarily ‘fuzzy,’ as the theory predicts they will be, but that very fuzziness allows speakers to use language creatively. According to Hudson, prototype theory may even be applied to the social situations in which speech occurs.He suggests that, when we hear a new lin ¬guistic item, we associate with it who typically seems to use it and what, appar ¬ently, is the typical occasion of its use. Again, we need very few instances †” even possibly just a single one — to be able to do this. Of course, if the particular instance is atypical and we fail to recognize this fact, we could be in for some discomfort at a later time when we treat it as typical. Prototype theory, then, offers us a possible way of looking not only at how concepts may be formed, i. . , at the cognitive dimensions of linguistic behavior but also at how we achieve our social competence in the use of language. We judge circumstances as being typically this or typically that, and we place people in the same way. We then tailor our language to fit, making it appropriate to the situation and the participants as we view these. (Wardhaugh, Ronald. 1998. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. 3rd ed. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. pp. 232-233. )

Oates v Emerson Essay

In class out of the three essays we read I choose to do a compare-contrast between Ralph Waldo Emerson’s and Joyce Carol Oates’s essays. I choose these two because they both had different feels towards nature. Oates is against nature and Emerson is about becoming one with nature. Even though both have different meaning, both Oates and Emerson successfully uses rhetorical strategies such as appeal to credibility, emotion, and logic to support their claims on nature. In Emerson’s â€Å"From Nature† he uses credibility when he refers to god. He states that â€Å"I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing†¦I am part or particle of God†. Emerson is basically saying that he is one with nature. He is persuading the reader to think this. Emerson relates to his audience through the feelings that nature by its self can inspire. In Oates â€Å"Against Nature† she uses credibility at the very beginning of her essay by stating, â€Å"I was lying o n my back in the dirt†¦staring up at the sky†¦Ã¢â‚¬  By this statement you get an image in your head of what’s occurring. Oates uses credibility again in her essay when referring to â€Å"Edmund of King Lear†. In both of their essays, Emerson and Oates effectively use credibility to support their claims. In Oates essay she uses emotion when mentioning something quite gruesome. She states â€Å"†¦the raccoon†¦tearing at his own belly with his teeth, so that his intestines spill out†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Another example is when she mentions that she has â€Å"paroxysmal tachycardia† and that it just so happens to be â€Å"fatal†. You cannot help but to feel bad for her. Is this the reason she doesn’t enjoy nature since her condition can attack so unexpectedly? In Emerson’s essay he uses emotion when states that â€Å"but none†¦owns the landscape†. He is saying that anyone can enjoy nature. Next he says that â€Å"In the woods, is perpetual youth†. This is emotion because Emerson mentions childhood, and this is something that people remember. He has felt that he has been changed by nature, and that you should to. Both essays use logic in order to support their position on nature. Oates uses logic in her essay when stating the dangers of her medical condition. She mentions why it’s â€Å"fatal† by reason, and that the most important thing you can do with tachycardia is that â€Å"you must prevent  panic†. She with this statement also includes statistics on the amounts of heartbeats it takes for the condition to be fatal. Another example is when Oates refers poems of writers such as â€Å"Flowers and Fruit† by Colette and â€Å"Taking the Side of Things† by Ponge. Now in Emerson’s he uses the appeal of logic when he convinces his reader that â€Å"we have no questions†¦are unanswerable†. This statement is reasoning that nature will answer all questions. He proves that nature is greater than man, and that it deserves respect. To conclude, both Oates and Emerson effectively use the appeals of credibility, emotion, and logic to support their position when it comes to nature. They both are complete opposites when it comes to nature. Emerson feels that nature is not only beautiful, but that it holds something different for everyone. Oates on the opposing side dismisses nature and all its glory. Oates has her view against nature and Emerson’s essay is successful in uncovering truths about nature and man’s role in nature.