Judaism and Christianity Essay Example for Free

Judaism and Christianity Essay What beliefs and practices does Islam share with Judaism and Christianity? Specify what is distinctive about the Islamic form of those beliefs and practices. The relationships between Islam, Judaism and Christianity in the later parts of the 20th century appear to have improved as well as worsened from different perspectives as compared to any other period in history. A noteworthy aspect of the current relationships is that Muslims are now engaged in dialogues with Christians and Jews. Islam is now the fastest growing religion in the world and Muslim leaders and clerics can be observed functioning together with ministers, priests and rabbis in several religious endeavors. However, the three religions continue to have major differences and are engaged in nationalist and territorial conflicts that have gradually been characterized with religious or sectarian differences. This paper makes an analysis of the beliefs and practices that Islam shares with Christianity and Judaism because the misunderstandings between the three religions can be resolved only in recognizing that they have the same roots and share several social and religious practices. Islam is a monotheistic religion and is the second biggest in the world after Christianity. The religion has its origin in the Middle East and has several customs and beliefs that are the same as Christianity and Judaism. These three religions are commonly referred to as the Abrahamic religions; they believe in one God and trace their lineage from the Prophet Ibrahim, as evident in the Hebrew. Islam, Christianity and Judaism believe there is only one God who is the creator of all things that exist in the world and He is the one who takes care of every living being. The three religions provide that God believes in justice and He has established fundamental rules in guiding people about how they can become virtuous and honorable in complying with His intentions. The three religions hold that God believes in mercy and that with His grace people get the power to become more like what is desired of them to become (Wells, 2011). Islam, along with Christianity and Judaism, holds that all human beings are Ibrahim’s children and are the most capable living beings on Earth. Human beings were created with an element of mystery in being given immense potential to grow constantly, individually as well as a species. When people strive towards achieving good, righteous and loving qualities they transform into what God desired them to become. If such freedom is misused and others are harmed with one’s actions, it implies that such people are transgressing God’s will, which makes them evil. The three religions believe that it is possible for every individual to seek God’s help in achieving the capability to ward off evil influences. Eventually, the message in all three religions is to be devoted and obedient to God (Los Angeles Chinese Learning Center, 2012). In being monotheistic, the three religions are different from Buddhism and Hinduism. They share common beliefs about history being the arena of God’s activities and His encounters with human beings, Satan, angels, heavenly revelation and prophets. All three religions focus on t he importance of Judgment Day, accountability, responsibility and perpetual rewards and punishments. The three religions give immense importance to peace, which is evident from historical patterns of greeting one another, implying Peace Be Upon You, beginning with Assalamalaikim in Islam, with pax vobisum in Christianity and salom aleicham in Judaism. However, such greetings of peace have primarily pertained to greeting one another in a given community or society. All three religions believe that it is essential to engage in holy wars to espouse the cause of empires and to protect societies. The relationships between religion and politics is apparent in the present times also although in different ways, such as the circumstances that prevail in present day Israel, Palestine, Middle East and other parts of the world. All the three religions share the same ancestry and believe in scriptures that were delivered through heaven. They have similar religious practices and rites relative to charity and regular prayers, value of pilgrimage and common holy places. The three religions give the promise that appropriate behaviors will be rewarded and inappropriate behaviors will be punished in life as well as in the afterlife. They balance and integrate many elements of piety, devotion, legalism and mysticism and appear to be suitable in co-existing mutually in reinforcing one another (Peters, 1990). Islam has similarity with Judaism in regard to the focus on practice instead of beliefs. The main basis of religious obedience in Islam and Judaism is religious law, while in Christianity the focus is on theology. Across history, the main differences between Islam and Judaism have pertained to disagreement of religious practices and religious law. The disputes between Islam and Christianity have pertained primarily to the divide amongst communities about theological belief systems, relative to the relationships between divine and human characteristics. Christianity and Judaism are given special consideration in Islam in view of the Islamic beliefs that God had conveyed His will through His Prophets, namely Ibrahim, Moses and Jesus. In this regard, the Quran specifically states that God revealed his will throug h Ibrahim, Ismail and their progeny, as well as through Moses and Jesus. There is no difference amongst them and in what they say, which is why Muslims adhere to what was said by these Prophets (Newby, 1996). Islam and the Quran hold that Christians and Jews are Ibrahim’s children and relate to them as people of the book (Esposito, 2011). This is because the three religions originate from the same lineage of Ibrahim. Muslims trace their lineage from Ibrahim and his servant Hagar, while Christians and Jews trace their lineage from Ibrahim and his spouse Sarah. Muslims hold that God’s revelation in the form of the Torah was first delivered to the Jews by Prophet Moses and later to Christians by the Prophet Jesus. Muslims are in agreement about some biblical prophets such as Jesus and Moses and use their names as Isa and Musa respectively (Hipps et al, 2003). They also use the Virgin Mary’s name as Mariam and it is evident that her name appears more frequently in the Quran than in the New Testament. Muslims do not refute the status of Virgin Mary and Jesus’ virgin birth but they hold that in due course, over the centuries, the original revelation as made to Jesus and Moses became despoiled. Muslims view the Old Testament as a mix of human manufacture and of God’s messages. They hold the same views about the New Testament and believe that doctrines referring to Jesus as the Son of God are erroneous without any truth. They do not believe that the death of Jesus represented the redemption and atonement for mankind’s sins. It is apparent that Islam, Christianity and Judaism have some common roots and share several common practices. This is because they are all having the same Abrahamic heritage. Islam, Christianity and Judaism are monotheistic religions as they believe in a single God in focusing on the unity and oneness of God. The confirmation of one God in Christianity has been often debated because of its adherence to the Holy Trinity but this cannot be considered as a refutation of monotheism. It is only an acknowledgement of the ways in which God is viewed because in Christianity the Divine Being is God. Islam, Christianity and Judaism hold that God is the source and foundation of all that exists in the world and takes care of all His creations in ensuring their wellbeing. All the three religions confirm that people are governed and guided by basic rules that make them take the right path and become righteous in complying with God’s will. References 1. Esposito, John L. (2011). What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam, Oxford University Press. 2. Hipps, Amelia., Kayanaugh, Dorothy., and Khaled Abou El Fadl. (2003). Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Mason Crest Publishers. |Los Angeles Chinese Learning Center. (2012). Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Similarities, | |http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Judaism-Christianity-Islam.html, Accessed on 16 October, 2012. | |Newby, Gordon. (1996). Muslim, Jews and Christians Relations and Interactions,The Muslim Almanac, Gale Research Inc, Detroit, p.423-429. | |Peters, F. E. (1990). Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,Volume 1: From Covenant to Community, Princeton University Press | |Wells, Mark. (2011). Comparison of Islam, Judaism and Christianity, http://smileyandwest.ning.com, Accessed on 16 October, 2012 | | |

Social Security in the 21st Century :: essays research papers

The 2004 Report of the Social Security Trustees is in; but the jury is still out à ½arguing the findings of the report. Agree or not, the masses have a good idea of à ½the final ruling and they all agree that the current state of the social security à ½system has suffered, for a very long time, from an ongoing deficit problem that à ½will continue to grow unless immediate steps are taken to address the problem. à ½People, on both sides of the fence, argue in support or against the president’s à ½proposed plan to save the Social Security system. Yet, they all concede and à ½acknowledge that in reality a problem does exist; and unless calculated à ½measures are taken, this problem cannot be controlled and will snow ball the à ½Social Security System into bankruptcy.à ½ The Social Security system was designed in 1935 for a world that is very à ½different from today. In 1935, most women did not work outside the home. Today, à ½about 60% of women work outside the home. In 1935, the average American did à ½not live long enough to collect retirement benefits. Today, life expectancy is 77 à ½years. (2004 Report of the Social Security Trustees, p. 81) Benefits are expected à ½to rise dramatically over the next few decades. Because benefits are tied to wage à ½growth rather than inflation, benefits are growing faster than the rest of the à ½economy. This benefit formula was established in 1977. As a result, the current à ½Ãƒ ½20-year old contributor is promised benefits, which are 40% higher than what will à ½be paid to seniors who retire this year. However, the current system does not à ½have the money to pay these promised benefits. Furthermore, the retirement of à ½the Baby Boomers will accelerate the problem. In just 2 years, the first of th e à ½Baby Boom generation will begin to retire, putting added strain on a system that à ½was not designed to meet the needs of the 21 century. By 2031, there will be à ½almost twice as many older Americans as today, a drastic increase from 37 à ½million today to 71 million. à ½ Currently, there are fewer workers to support our retirees. When Social à ½Security was first created, there were 40 workers supporting every one retiree. At à ½the same time, most workers did not live long enough to collect retirement à ½benefits from the system. Since then, the demographics of the society have à ½changed dramatically where people are living longer and having fewer children.

Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains

This one of the famous paintings In Chinese history has highly long shape and this painting has influenced on later ages. Characteristic in his painting makes viewers to confuse as they feel reality. In painting, there are similar geographical features. For example, similar shape of landscape appears repeatedly such as mountains shape on the enormous river and the shape of the coastlines. For these reasons, a viewer would be able to feel sitting on opposite sides of a hill. In this sense, Huang Gongwang had a gift for making his art look very realistic On the other hand, if looking closely, each part of the painting has very unique brushstroke method. For instance, the mountains located on the left side and the right side of painting were painted by using light paint and not detailed comparing to the other mountains. In other words, the brushstroke method applied in the middle of this painting is drier, detailed and non-washed by comparison with other parts of this painting. The painter may intend for viewer to focus on the middle part of ‘Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains’. A close look, however, detailed description such as trees and rocks especially were not made by using one-touch brush strokes. These things which require a lot of works were not made by simple stroke. In order to make cubic and lifelike effect, the painter painted darker paint on the lighter ones. This painting was very carefully designed in this sense. The overall atmosphere of this painting is very peaceful, calm and restfulness. The reason why this masterpiece looks serene is not only peaceful scenery but also low-key human presence. As viewers can see, the painter tried to restrain to show the existence of human and he could be the focus on natural beauty. Besides, this painting was made for a friend of Huang Gongwang and took 3 years to complete all of his works. For this reason, Huang Gongwang would design this picture as if he would like to show this peaceful scene to his friend. This is probably why not showy, austere mood could be felt on the painting. As viewers can see, there are lots of inscription on the painting. Huang inscribed ‘Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains’ at its end. He stated that he sketched the entire composition in one sitting, then from time to time would add a little when he was in the mood. All told, it took him three years to finish the painting. All things considered, this inscription would be for his friend to let his friend know, how much he exerted himself to draw this masterpiece and how much he wanted to share of this beautiful scenery with his friend. The style of this painting is greatly naturalistic and overall visual effect is so austere. As painter didn’t do to excess, he calmly expressed beautiful scenery without using fancy technique and exaggeration. Therefore, it wouldn’t be looked as a pleasant and engaging work. However, wouldn’t it be difficult for painter to draw a very normal painting which will be remembered as a famous masterpiece?

Thermodynamics Definition of the Adiabatic Process

In physics, an adiabatic process is a thermodynamic process in which there is no heat transfer  into or out of a system and is generally obtained by surrounding the entire system with a strongly insulating material or by carrying out the process so quickly that there is no time for a significant heat transfer to take place. Applying the first law of thermodynamics to an adiabatic process, we obtain: delta-Since delta-U is the change in internal energy and W is the work done by the system, what we see the following possible outcomes. A system that expands under adiabatic conditions does positive work, so the internal energy decreases, and a system that contracts under adiabatic conditions does negative work, so the internal energy increases. The compression and expansion strokes in an internal-combustion engine are both approximately adiabatic processes—what little heat transfers outside of the system is negligible and virtually all of the energy change goes into moving the piston. Adiabatic and Temperature Fluctuations in Gas When gas is compressed through adiabatic processes, it causes the temperature of the gas to rise through a process known as adiabatic heating; however, expansion through adiabatic processes against a spring or pressure causes a drop in temperature through a process called adiabatic cooling. Adiabatic heating happens when gas is pressurized by the work done on it by its surroundings like the piston compression in a diesel engines fuel cylinder. This can also occur naturally like when air masses in the Earths atmosphere press down on a surface like a slope on a mountain range, causing temperatures to rise because of the work done on the mass of air to decrease its volume against the land mass. Adiabatic cooling, on the other hand, happens when expansion occurs on isolated systems, which force them to do work on their surrounding areas. In the example of air flow, when that mass of air is depressurized by a lift in a wind current, its volume is allowed to spread back out, reducing the temperature. Time Scales and the Adiabatic Process Although the theory of adiabatic process holds up  when observed over long periods of time, smaller time scales render adiabatic impossible in mechanical processes—since there are no perfect insulators for isolated systems, heat is always lost when work  is done. In general, adiabatic processes are assumed to be those where the net outcome of temperature remains unaffected, though that does not necessarily mean that heat is not transferred throughout the process. Smaller time scales can reveal the minute transfer of heat over the system boundaries, which ultimately balance out over the course of work. Factors such as the process of interest, the rate of heat dissipation, how much work is down, and the amount of heat lost through imperfect insulation can affect the outcome of heat transfer in the overall process, and for this reason, the assumption that a process is adiabatic relies on the observation of the heat  transfer process as a whole instead of its smaller parts.