St. Augustines Confessions Essay Example for Free

St. Augustines Confessions Essay There was nothing in Augustines Confessions that will help reveal his background especially concerning his socio-economic status. One has to consult other sources for that. But knowing fully well that education in ancient times is prized by the rich and the elite it is easy to deduce from the well written Latin masterpiece that indeed Augustine belong to the creme de la creme of society. This is a significant insight because not only is Augustine part of the highly educated and well-to-do crowd he also is a man who longs for God. A close study of the Confessions will lead one to understand how Augustine views Christianity. Based on the document, Augustine believed that Christianity is about striving to be intimate with God and at the same time a daily struggle to make the flesh obedient to the call of a godly life in Christ Jesus. Intimacy with God One of the most radical concepts about Christianity is the notion that mere mortals can be intimate with God. In order to appreciate this idea one has to first understand that Christianity like Judaism believes in one Almighty God who is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. They are not simply worshipping someone that is ruler of a particular locale, like a god that is in-charge of a really old Oak tree or some ancient hill. This God is the one and only. Aside from that the God of St. Augustine is a great Deity whose power is evident in the Old Testament portion of the Bible. The God of Augustine is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. And yet Augustine wanted to be close to Him. This is evident in Book I: The Early Years. In the first few paragraphs Augustines deep longings was evident by expressing near panic not knowing what to do first. Is it to call Him or to praise Him? Having the ultimate goal in mind Augustine said that, â€Å"You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you† (Book I: Early Years). This desire for intimacy is actually radical. One only has to take a casual review of ancient religions, Greek and Roman mythology to realize that for thousands of years before Augustines Confessions God or the gods were considered to be mean and cruel. The ultimate goal of the worshiper is not to be intimate with the gods but to appease them. God according to other religion is indeed mighty but He is unapproachable. As one continues to read, one will find that Augustine was simply warming up. He is not merely content with the getting to know you stage and his desire to know God goes deeper not willing to accept a superficial relationship. Augustine did not write the Confessions because he simply wanted to earn the favor of God. He went one step further and in the first few sentence of Book II, Augustine declared that he desires to love God (see Book II: Adolescence). The Flesh The words coming from his pen were profound and those who may mistake Augustine’s longing for intimacy with the Almighty as wishful thinking. Augustine as agreed in beginning of this study was a man born to privilege and highly educated. If what he is saying is truth then it will be either as a mockery to God or as an honest desire to really know and be known by Him. One has to continue digging deeper into the Confessions in order to understand that Augustine was not deluded into thinking that this quest will be an easy one. It is at the point of realization that knowing God will not be an easy task Augustine begins to pour out his frustration that he is a sinner and has no illusion that he will be able to walk like the great and godly men of old like Moses and Elijah. In Book VIII: The Birthpangs of Conversion, Augustine mentioned his past, the desire for women and being enamored with the world and its intoxicating temptations. In Book VIII Augustine began to provide the resolution to a very complicated proposition that was made in the beginning of this study. It is possible to be intimate with God but its not going to be easy. The first step in order for a man to know God and be known by him, before a loving relationship between child and God can commence there is a need to first forsake worldly desires. In short a conversation from darkness to light must first occur and Augustine promises that there is nothing like it and that every sacrifice is worth every good thing that one can receive from Christ Jesus. Conclusion Aside from the fact that Augustine a highly educated, intelligent and very talented man to give up all the pleasures of this world to embrace the cross of Christ, there are other facets to the Confessions that are very radical. As mentioned earlier the concept that God is approachable and that one can build a relationship with him is an idea that is so advanced it is impossible to find any precedent other than the New Testament of the Christian Bible. But Augustine emphasized that he is not merely content to know God he is in the quest to learn how to love God. This is raising the bar so high it is almost impossible to reach it. It is a good thing to know that Augustine took time to explain that his goal of being intimate with God will not be a walk in the park. In fact, according to his own â€Å"confessions† there are many obstacles that must be overcome in order to achieve that goal. And it begins with conversion from darkness to light. At the end St. Augustine set an example and encourages many to strive for the impossible because it is only through God that one can find meaning, satisfaction and rest in this life. References Saint Augustine. (1998). Confessions. H. Chadwick (Trans. ). New York: Oxford University Press.

Smoking Cigarettes :: Argumentative Persuasive Example Essays

In 1990, 72 million bottles of a popular mineral water were voluntarily recalled because of small traces of benzene. The smoke from one pack of unfiltered cigarettes has as much benzene as 169 bottles of the contaminated water. Main points What’s in a cigarette? What’s are the effects What’s a smoking addiction What’s in a cigarette? In a cigarette there are many bad substances. Some of them that are listed behind me are: Carbon monoxide, Nitrogen oxides Hydrogen cyanide, Ammonia, Nicotine, Tar, and many other toxic irritants. Tobacco smoke is a mixture of gases and small particles made up of water, tar and nicotine. The tar is a mixture of hundreds of toxic chemicals, many of which are known to cause cancer. The high temperature from the burning end of a cigarette is like a miniature chemical factory. It puts out many more chemicals than are found in tobacco that has not been lit. Altogether more than 4,000 chemical compounds have been identified in tobacco smoke. The chemicals that cause cancer are mainly in the tar. Tar, together with some of the irritant gases, may also be partly responsible for chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Nitrogen oxides are suspected, but the main agents responsible are not yet known. Neither nicotine nor carbon monoxide causes cancer, but they probably work together as causes of the heart diseases associated with smoking. What is an addiction? A smoking addiction means a person has formed an uncontrollable dependence on cigarettes to the point where stopping smoking would cause severe emotional, mental, or physical reactions. Everyone knows that smoking is harmful and addictive, but only a few people realize just how dangerous it can be and how addictive it is. Chances are that about one in three smokers who do not stop will eventually die because of their smoking. On average, they will die 10 to 15 years earlier than they would have died from other causes. Most smokers’ want to stop and do try, but only one in three people try to stop permanently before age 60. By this time there body has been deteriorating. The reason why so many people fail to stop is because they are addicted. Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction. It is absorbed and enters the bloodstream, through the lungs when smoke is inhaled, and through the lining of the mouth. Nicotine is drug that affects the activity of the brain. It als o has a relaxing effect, especially at times of stress.

The Right to Education

The Right to Education – A Global Perspective â€Å"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. † Nelson Mandela This saying of Nelson Mandela reveals a lot about the importance of education as a mean of achieving the changes we want to see in the world. Realizing the importance of education is highly significant for the nation and the world as a whole; however, giving equal education opportunities to people within specific countries and around the world remains a challenge for the global society.In order to overcome, or at least ease, such challenges, the right to education has been a subject of matter of international law, as well as state constitutions. While a great number of countries have been signatories and ratifiers of international conventions that protect the right to education, many countries have failed to provide the essential capacities to assure this right for various reasons. The failure to protect this right, no matter the reasons, has been quite harsh for the most vulnerable groups of different societies; hence, leaving millions of people worldwide without the capacity to contribute to a better world.As such, this paper will firstly focus on the protection of this right by international law, and it will later focus on the protection of the right to education in the following countries: Finland, Venezuela, India and finally Kosova. The Right to Education and the International Law The right to education, as a human right, has been highly guaranteed and protected by international law for many decades now. To begin with, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 marked the universal recognition of the right to education.The Declaration guarantees the right to education through Article 26, which among others states that: â€Å"Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Techni cal and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit . † Furthermore, the right to education is protected by the Convention against Discrimination in Education, adopted in 1960.This convention, through its 19 articles plays a high significance in the struggle of the global society to hinder the discriminations and separations in education . Later on, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979, guarantees women equal rights with men in terms of education . In addition, in 1966, the right to education was also preserved in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, specifically through articles 13 and 14.Both article of ICESCR make primary education compulsory and free of charge, as well as oblige the states to make secondary and higher education easily accessible to all . Nevertheless, the Convention on The Rights of The Child (CRC), adopted in 1989, was a significant step in the protection of children from discrimination of any form. Articles 28-32 of this convention particularly deal with discriminations made in education. Signatories of this convention â€Å"recognize the right of the child to education,†¦with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity . As mentioned previously, besides international law, the right to education is also enshrined in many regional instruments and most of the countries’ constitutions, though the compliance to the international/regional/national instruments varies to a great extent from country to country. As such, there are great disparities between school enrollment rates in different countries, and the following sections of this paper will deal with the protection/application of the right to education in specific countries and their effects on the education activities. FinlandFinland proved to be one of the most successful countries in the education field. Actually, it was ranked as the fourth country out of 48 countries belonging to different development phases. Undoubtedly, one of the crucial factors that facilitated this achievement was Finland’s hard work in protecting the right to education. First of all, Finland is a signatory of all of the above-mentioned international instruments, which make Finland legally binding to all of the above articles. Furthermore, the Constitution of Finland protects the right to education through Section 16 of Chapter 2 .The constitution makes primary education free and compulsory to all children. Nevertheless, the constitution makes the state accountable for providing equal opportunities to all citizens even after finishing the compulsory education . The right to basic education in Finland is further protected by the Basic Education Act, which makes the municipalities responsible for providing education in both languages (Sweedi sh and Finnish), as well as providing free school materials, meals, and transportation to all students of pre – primary and primary education.The Basic Education Act also protects the right to education of the disabled children by making them entitled to special â€Å"interpretation and assistance services†, all for free . Furthermore, the Universities Act of Finland makes undergraduate studies free of charge for studies in Finnish and Swedish, as well as freeing from undergraduate studies tuition students of EU member countries . As mentioned previously, Finland is one of the few countries where the right to education is well protected, and cases of violations of this right are not common at all and are hard to find. VenezuelaVenezuela has ratified all the international instruments mentioned above, which means that Venezuela is obliged to comply with those articles that regulate the right to education. Besides that, the right to education in Venezuela is also protecte d under the Venezuelan Constitution. Chapter VI of this constitution deals specifically with education, and Article 102 of this chapter states that â€Å"Education is a human right and a fundamental social duty, it is democratic, free of charge and obligatory . † Further, Article 103 guarantees equal opportunities for all students, including disabled students .In addition to the Venezuelan Constitution, the right to education in Venezuela is also protected by the Organic Law of Education, decreed on 2009. Article 3 of this law, makes education â€Å"public, social, compulsory, free of charge†¦ quality, secular, comprehensive, and permanent, of social pertinence, creative, artistic, innovative, critical, multicultural, multiethnic, intercultural, and multilingual †. Article 6 of the Law gives access to education to disabled students and students in the â€Å"Adolescent Responsibility Penal System† .Furthermore, Article 6 makes the state responsible for devel oping the mechanisms that control the right to education. However, despite the progress Venezuela made in legally protecting the right to education, many challenges still remain and make the reality less desirable, one of those issues being the certification of the asylum students. Asylum seekers deal with delays in getting certified for their studies because they have to first be recognized as refugees, a process that often takes a lot of time.Furthermore, if an asylum seeker finishes a certain level of education in his/her home country, that certification will not be recognized until the student receives Venezuelan documents. As Rodrigo de La Barra puts, such delays of certification, prohibit students to continue with their studies, hence hindering motivation and increasing drop-out rates. It is important to mention that both these cases are violation of the Convention on the Rights of Children, a convention to which Venezuela is legally binding . IndiaContrary to Finland and Vene zuela, India is not legally binding to the International Convention against Discrimination in Education. Still, it is legally binding to the other international conventions dealing with education . The right to education in India is protected in its constitution in the Article 21A, which obliges the state to offer free/compulsory basic education to children 6-14 years old. Furthermore, Article 29. 2 prohibits the discrimination in education made to minorities, whether that is racial, religious, or caste based discrimination.Nevertheless, Article 30 gives them the right to develop their own educational institutions . A highly significant step on the improvement of protection of the right to education in India was made in year 2009, when the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act was passed. This Act’s aim is guaranteeing every child of age 6-14 free and qualitative education, as well as defining the ways the state shall use in protecting such rights. Besides ma king education free and compulsory, this act also says that children cannot be left out because the admission period is over, or because of the lack of documents.Furthermore, the act gives the disabled students the opportunity to participate in the mainstream education . Noticeably, the government of India has made important steps in protecting the right to education; still, what lies in papers is quite different from the actual situation in India. Though the school enrollment rates have increased in India after passing the Act, the participation rates and drop-out rates are not so optimistic. Yet another concern in India is the low quality education, which is a result of †poor curriculum and syllabus, deficient pedagogy, negligent teachers † and parents.Nevertheless, discrimination, though prohibited by the Act, is still prevalent in the Indian education system. It is the Act itself that leaves space for such discrimination since it allows for school categorization as f ollows: â€Å"a) government schools b)aided private schools c)special category schools and d)non-aided private schools †. By allowing the existence of such school categorization, the Act legitimizes the discrimination of the poorer children who become subjects of lower quality education, as compared to the rich students.That violations of the right to education, guaranteed by the Act, are a serious concern in India, is shown by the great number of cases of violation. According to Amod Kanth , 10,500 cases of violation of the act have been recorded in Delhi, within a nine-month period after the implementation of the act. Kanth states that such violations are â€Å"of at least 15 kinds, like screening tests before admissions, corporal punishment, admission denial, mental harassment and others . These figures of the violations in the capital city seem quite concerning, and I believe that they clearly picture the state of the right to education in India. Conclusion In conclusion , education is an essential process which enhances the intellectual development of human beings. Despite being a right in itself, it is also a tool to achieve many other rights. Therefore, ensuring an education to every child is of a high significance, not only for the child alone, but also for the well-being and the development of the society.As such, guaranteeing that every human being is given the opportunity to be provided with such a development activity has been an important subject of many international, regional, and national instruments, among them: Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention against Discrimination in Education, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, Convention on The Rights of The Child (CRC), as well as the national constitutions of almost all countries.However, as the cases in Venezuela and India, show, the protection of the right to education by l egal instruments is not sufficient unless its implementation in the real life is ensured. Problems related to the application of this right arise every day, leaving millions of children worldwide, including highly developed countries, without even basic education; hence, without the potential to contribute to the improvement of the global society.Therefore, it is crucial that we, as individuals, start contributing to the gradually easing of the obstacles preventing the world from becoming a better place for everyone, either by making better laws or by implementing those laws better.

Chapter 10 The Massachusetts Experience - 873 Words

Chapter 10: The Massachusetts Experience The scenario of Massachusetts was one of my favorite readings this week. The main reason is that people from the business, education, politics, parents, teachers and members of the community were involved in the creation of an educational reform in the state of Massachusetts. The system’s lack of clear goals, lack of accountability, uneven performance of school, failures rates in some areas and for some children, are some of the most salient features that impress the business leaders in the late 1980s (Blankstein Noguera, 2015). The program of these business leaders, called â€Å"Every Child a Winner!† â€Å"reshaped the Commonwealth’s public education system with a combination of standards and accountability measures, systems improvements ranging from new executive authority for superintendents to the establishment of charter schools, and a finance system overhaul resulting in a more progressive distribution of school finance.† (Blankstein Nogue ra, 2015, p. 188). Through this program, the educational system of Massachusetts were transformed to be the first in the whole nation by having a diverse, nonpartisan leadership, explicit equity arguments, high expectation, investment in infrastructure, inclusive approach to policy and implementation, and long-term commitment by various partners. (Blankstein Noguera, 2015). 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