So many Gods, So Little Time: Contemplating Religion :: Religious Religion Biblical God Essays

So many Gods, So Little Time: Contemplating Religion The man watched with a blank gaze out the window of the plane. The scenery below passed him by; buildings and streets mostly. But they were remarkably close to the plane; much closer than they should be. This man had previously been sitting in the passenger section of the plane, but he now sits in the pilot seat. The real pilot lay on the floor with his throat splayed open by a box-cutting knife. His bloody gurgles had long since ceased as his eyes fixed on the ceiling with a stare only death can bring. He was of no matter; only one of many deaths that would come today. The other men in the cockpit chanted prayers silently to themselves. Prayers to a wrathful and unsympathetic God. A God that had sent them on this ‘holy’ quest. A building comes into view, and the plane begins heading straight for it. It lands home, searing concrete from metal, flesh from bone, disintegrating bone to dust. People die, and others rejoice in it. People die, and other s thank God for their homicidal salvation. People die, and the survivors ask God ‘why?’ I ask God not ‘why did this happen’, because no God had a hand in this. No person was on a quest from God. Fanatics who had handed themselves the will of God did this. I ask God ‘why do we end lives over pointless arguments about you?’ Religion can be a funny thing. It can cause many events to happen, good and evil. Many people have found a sense of peace through religion while others have found a reason to kill people and cause war. What is this creature called religion that can cause two such completely opposite things to happen? What is it about religion that is appealing to any human being? Why do people give up so much to follow the ways of religion? Because, in the end, religion is designed to force its followers into a form of submission in which the follower gives up his or her most basic of urges for the greater good of society and themselves.

Maya Angelou Stories Essay Essay

Maya Angelou, within amazing stories has revealed the importance of perseverance, staying strong in moments of struggle, having the will to overcome difficulties, as well as having dreams that sometimes seem unreachable and yet believing that it is a gift to survive. In many of her motivating quotes, she expresses, â€Å"I’m always inspired by men and women who rise†¦That ability to rise is nobleness of the human spirit. This clearly displays how her optimism in life has made her rise when fallen and has helped her make life teaching contributions by writing stories and poems that become valuable for all humans to endure life’s rough path also helping readers see life with a different perspective. In the stories, â€Å"I know why the Caged Bird Sings†, â€Å"New Directions†, and in the poems â€Å"Caged Bird† and â€Å"Woman Work†, Angelou has written about many of her own experiences and taught us what humans will encounter, â€Å"fail at, dream, and still survive. † Even the ones who have suffered the most have a lot to teach. The story, â€Å"I know why the Caged Bird sings† and poem, â€Å"Caged bird† are important comparison regarding Angelou’s lesson. These contents are both similar since in the story, Angelou observes how all the cotton pickers long freedom making it a metaphor to caged birds in a way that all they want is to be free and able to fly. Most commonly, they both share the same feeling of being lost and trapped and lack the same rights as the ones that are free. The caged bird represents the cotton pickers and the African Americans meaning that they cannot have freedom and are ensnared in a world of no rest and hard work, regarding their colored skin. This shows how the cotton pickers and caged birds have dreams that sometimes even seem unreachable and impossible to defeat since they never even had the chance to think that someday, freedom would form part in their lives. Angelou reveals throughout these selections, how people faced hardships growing up in the segregated south. This story also shows Angelou’s true account of growing up as the poem connects to the way she probably felt as she experienced difficulties. She recites, â€Å"The sounds of the new morning had been replaced with grumbles bout cheating houses, weighted scales, snakes, skimpy cotton and dusty rows. In later years I was to confront the stereotyped picture of gay song-singing cotton pickers with such inordinate rage that I was told even by fellow Blacks that my paranoia was embarrassing. But I had seen the fingers cut by the mean little cotton bolls, and I had witnessed the backs and shoulders and arms and legs resisting any further demands. † This clearly illustrates how hard everything became and how the only thing she could do to bring her hopes up and release her anger, was sing, just like the caged bird. Angelou says in her poem, â€Å"the caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. † Indeed, as Angelou? s feelings relate to the caged birds’ feelings, all they could ask for was freedom. In the selection, â€Å"New Directions,† Angelou as the speaker is very motivational in what life may teach to people and how they should deal with certain outcomes of failure. She is a persevering woman that always looks forward for what good is to come and is very conscious about difficulties she may encounter in the way. This story shows how life has many courses from which people can choose and sometimes there are possibilities of getting lost or going the wrong way but what she tries to display and let people interpret is that no matter how many ways one turns, or how many times one gets lost, it is never too late to change direction and strive for success. Clearly, failure is an important step that leads to success; it all depends on one? s attitude towards achieving it. Angelou really shows the value of perseverance and how humans should encounter problems. She says, â€Å"She had indeed stepped from the road which seemed to have been chosen for her and cut herself a brand-new path. In years that stall became a store where customers could buy cheese, meal, syrup, cookies, candy, writing tablets, pickles, canned goods, fresh fruit, soft drinks, coal, oil, and leather soles for worn-out shoes. † This displays a great example on how she failed in many jobs, took different paths, but with will and tenacity ended up with her own perfect stall that finally succeeded and made her feel proud. To achieve goals, humans have to turn many ways which sometimes will be full of rocks and others full of flowers until they find their own piece of land and make up their garden. This is what Angelou reveals with this great selection. A good mother does not only care for her child, guide him all way through, pay for his education but keeps on working until sometimes rest is not even part of their lives due to all the duties and responsibilities that are far more important than rest. This next poem, â€Å"Woman Work† expresses in detail how even though some people work the entire day with almost no hours of sleep and rest, still survive. Angelou illustrates how the only thing some humans desire is to rest while others complain about working for a few times a day or even a few times a week or month. This deeply reveals how hard life can be for some people that do not even ask for luxurious gifts but for the gift of rest only. In this poem, Angelou tries to convey how the woman feels by listing various activities making it seem never ending by the use of rhythm. She states, â€Å"Storm, blow me from here with your fiercest wind let me float across the sky ‘Til I can rest again. † This shows how the woman even sees the serenity in life as an unreachable goal. It is deeply a strong theme of how the ones who have freedom and have the necessary money to live have to be grateful while others, who do not, are entirely grateful for few hours of rest. To conclude, Angelou was not only a woman who went through many hard times as a child and further on learned life lessons, but is a woman to venerate and thank for great contributions that she has made by her amazing written selections; both poems and stories that help readers build their own perspective of life in general. To display these contents, within her stories and poems, she used many metaphors, rich language, rhythm and descriptive actions that bring the audience into the readings and make them feel as if they were living it themselves. They once said anonymously, â€Å"Sometimes you have to get knocked down lower than you’ve ever been, to stand up taller than you ever were. † This quote defines the rule of life. To rise, everyone has to have fallen. Every time life brings people down, life itself teaches them to come back up with perseverance and handling problems properly. All themes that Angelou reveals are lessons that will only make humans fly freely, sing higher and rise into better persons granting them the choice of what direction to go and what path to build.

Analyze the Effect of Education on the Development

Analyze the Effect of Education on the Development of Countries Education can teach us how to be a real man, how to get along with others in the society and also can make talents to let countries’ power stronger. Education can have significant effects on the development of a country. It is mainly reflected in three aspects. The first is the economic growth, the second is the population and employment in society and the third is stability and fair in politic. In addition, this essay will also show education of different levels has impacts on different aspects of different countries. Universal education has a significant effect on developing economy growth of countries. Developed educational system is better than undeveloped educational system to economic increase. An example of successful developed educational system can be found in China and India. More than 30 percent population of the world lives in China and India totally, and most of them are still stay in poverty. Facing such a large problem, Chinese government enacted Nine-Year Compulsory Education Policy to improve the quality of primary education, and Indian government provides more educated chances for girls and women. With more and more people being educated, the economy of two countries increases dramatically. One of the reasons is that educated farmers who can read the agriculture instructions get more skills to farm well, which results in a growth in agricultural productivity (Brown, 2008). These educated farmers know how to water, apply fertilizer more efficiently, and finally they harvest more crops which results in a higher income. Dollar and Gatti’s research (1999) illustrates that increase one percentage point chances for women with secondary education results in a 0. percentage points for a country’s annual per capita increase. To sum up, it would appear that economic growth and developed education system cannot be separated. The more investment in education system, the more positive influences be reflected in the economy increase. Compared with developed education system, undeveloped educational system has an opposite consequence that is economy decline. Firstly, children who are not educated as well as their children will stay at low class, which is the reason why the gap between poverty and wealth becomes wider. Naturally, if a country has a large amount of destitute people, the economy is decreasing (Brown, 2008). Next, it is unreasonable for government to pay less attention to education, because there is a close connection between less education, poverty and instability. Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya said (2008):†Illiteracy and innumeracy are a greater threat to humanity than terrorism. † That means no education is a source of instability. It is possible that most violence and conflicts are caused by the poor, because they are lacking of food, clothes, fresh water and their homeland. They do not have enough knowledge to protect themselves and they do not know where they can get justice. Finally they will have to take such violent means to seek their own interests, and it leads to serious consequence, such as the war. The two different countries that conduct different education systems have opposite results in higher education. Mauritius is a small island which is connected with Tanzania surrounded by the Indian Ocean. Numerous nature resources can be made use of by Tanzania, such as gold, gas, diamonds, tin, and coal while Mauritius does not have (Bloom et al. 006). With these disadvantages, Mauritius government intensifies their efforts to increase the chances for children being educated and the quality of higher education. The UIS cited in Higher Education (2005) suggests that half of the populace in Mauritius are tertiary students, and the number is increasing from 1 per cent in 1985 to 15 per cent now (TFHE cited in Higher Education, 2000). The system also lays a foundation for the primary and secondary education, and the subjects of university are added to meet the needs of students (2005). In contrast, the government of Tanzania does not pay attention to higher education, and the gap between female students and male students is wider, more male students. The subjects connected with science are not performed well by students. Finally, Mauritius has a high per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $12,800 and it is still growing dramatically. In contrast, the GDP in Tanzania is lower, no more than $700. Today Mauritius has become a middle-income nation since 1960 while Tanzania is still one of the poorest countries in the world (Bloom, 2005). It appears that education can help dispose of poverty. If a country has an appetite to be stronger, the government must invest more time and energy in education system. As well as affecting the economy, education also affect on the society. Women’s education, which affects the population growth rate, has strong impact on fertility. Women who have a good education will consider their own targets and will spend more time in achieving the target, which could lead to them having fewer children, and the fertility will be lower. Ethiopia is a dramatic example of this. Besides Population Reference Bureau (2007) shows that Ethiopian women without education have an average of 6. 1 children. In contrast, women with at least a secondary education have an average of 2. 0 children. Moreover, woman who receives high level education will think over the family’s expenses and social burden. So well educated women know how much will they undertake for a child as a parent. Cleland and Kaufmann (1993) argue that attempting to explain the relationship between education and fertility should pay more attention to distinguishing the determinants of reproductive decision making. To sum up, women’s education is the emphasis for fertility. Education, which can increase the children’s health and decrease the number of disease, is one of the most important factors for mortality. The population growth rate is fertility plus mortality. Hence both fertility and mortality should be low. Firstly, hungry and malnutrition is important to the health of children. If students are hungry and malnutrition, they will get ill and will result in giving up education in that they have no power and money to study, which will cause negative affects for the society. Sachs (2008) states that most ill children give up going to school forever because of healthy problem. Furthermore girls who have not been educated appear to have no consciousness about serious diseases, such as HIV and AIDS. Countries such as Brazil and Bangladesh are implementing policies to overcome this problem; such supporting scholarships for girls or stipends to their parents where needed. Girls are inspired spending more time in school and marrying in older age, paying more attention to health care. Finally, both fertility and mortality will be apparently lower; the social problem of population may be alleviated. The effect of education on employment, which is one of the most important factors in the society, has been becoming stronger and stronger. Employment is associated with individual income, the families’ life quality and the social development. In addition, unemployment can cause hunger, poverty and social problems, such as crime . In China, because of the serious employment situation, there are numerous graduates who are unemployed every year. It seems that if someone has low level education, the opportunity to be employed is quite small. In contrast, those who achieved high level education will have more chance to be successful and have high salary. Evidence suggests that literate abilities have large economic impacts on individual income and on development of countries (Hanushek and Woessmann, 2007) and that workers’ efficiency are decided by both the time and content of education (Heckman, Layne-Farrar, and Todd 1995; Murnane, Willett, and Levy 1995). However, because most people in European or North American countries focus on high level education, the supply and demand for high-tech skilled workers is imbalanced now. Williams (2009) states that the demand for skilled workers is greater than the supply. Therefore high-tech education seems to be an opportunity for someone who is illiterate and it may relieve the severe employment situation. Finally, it will have a positive impact on social development. In addition, since politic is based on economy and society, education of different grades could also be thought as one of the main causes which affects politic well. Firstly, universal primary and secondary education can stabilize the society and country, which is the base of the development of a country, especially in African countries. Basic education offers uneducated child and adult knowledge that can instruct them to contribute to their society and country instead of committing crimes to make a living. According to Brown (2008), the implementation of a school lunch programme in some African countries have kept students staying at school longer, studying to gain a proper knowledge of behaving well but not follow terrorism that does serious harm to countries. Basic education of individuals also keeps people’s life over a good level. Furthermore, education is an efficient way to narrow the gap between the rich and poor that could lead to the conflict between different classes. Such situation could result in the revolution and leads to the turbulence of the country, which is considered as a serious threaten to societies and countries as well as the terrorism (Sen cited by Brown 2008). Furthermore, education also improves the political environment of countries. Primary and secondary education that can be conducted widely in countries promotes the national quality of countries, which make people have more knowledge and participate in political activities such as elections. Moreover, women benefit politically from education. Women political status is greatly increased by the different grade of education received. In all ages, in male dominated and traditional communities, girls’ education is considered as unnecessary luxury in that men fear that woman independence would threaten their main position in the political area (Plan 2008). Education on girls and women can ameliorate this unfair situation. The ignorance of educating women has done great harm to some African countries. World Bank (2008) issued that Human Development Network that the damage of failing to educate girls as boys in 65 â€Å"low and middle income and transitional countries† is about 92 billion dollars per year (cited in Plan 2008). Such a shocking number shows that creating a fair political environment will bring countries great good and the vital impacts of education on politics. Not only the universal education but also the tertiary one contributes to the development of politic of countries. Government of both developing and developed countries invests great quantity of expenses in tertiary education. The research of Yao, John, Shunming and Xiliang (2008) shows that the policy of education of China pays more attention to improving tertiary education. Such policy results in the situation that more and more talented politicians trained and elected from the country. One of other countries which focus on higher education is United States. Statistics shows that 8 out of 10 best universities in the world such as Harvard University and Massachusetts Inst Tech (MIT) come from United States, which means tertiary education of America greatly contributes to cultivating talents who is important to the development of American politics. Such great effort on improving tertiary education leads to a better consequence than China. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of the grandest president of United States, was sent to Groton School where is famous for training political talents. Then he majored politic science in Harvard University, which is the base of his success in political field. More than 10 of the America presidents come from these top universities, which shows the significant contributions tertiary do to the politics of United States. So, different grades of education can greatly promote politic of countries which also pushes the procedure of spreading education. The more education affects politic the more it promotes education. Universal education has great impacts on the development of countries in three main aspects. Firstly, it promotes the economy of countries worldwide, changing the life of people in poverty and improving the national strength. Secondly, education also contributes to the balance of the population of the world, including fertility and health care of different people, and the employment of countries which are important factors that influences countries’ procedure of development of society. Finally, different grades of education improve the politic development of countries. It stabilizes countries in poverty through primary and secondary education and improves the political environment through the tertiary one. Therefore, education counts in the development of countries, so improving the education of different levels in order to benefit countries in different aspects is an important issue for people to consider.