What sorts of support did people get from religion in the ancient Essay

What sorts of support did people get from religion in the ancient world - Essay Example In other words, it could be asserted, that the Greek Mythology was the forebear for all subsequent performance arts. In the primitive world, mythology served as a primitive form of theatre. But this is only one side of the truth. Myths were cleverly used by the religious leaders to impose their authority on the unsuspecting masses. This was done by distorting and warping historical truth in a way that strengthened their present hold over the masses. (Bremmer 1994) Ancient Religion laid the foundation for Rational Enquiry: It is surprising to learn that the Ancient Stoics sought religion for intellectual reasons. For them religion is an avenue for rational enquiry into the natural laws. The Ancient Stoics reasoned thus – since all physical phenomena followed natural laws and explainable by reason, the creator of this world himself must be comprehensible through the same instrument. Reason itself is divinity. This is quite an advanced usage for religion, one has to admit. But this theological framework had its failings, for rationality does not answer all questions on nature. Religion, inevitably it would seem, belong to a realm beyond rational enquiry. On this account, when the oracle at Delphi proved difficult to interpret and understand the Greek were not surprised. Gradually, the Stoics came to associate exclusively all that is unknown to the divine, thus deviating from their more advanced provisions for rational enquiry in religio n. Religion as a Means of Control: The Greek and Roman theologians detested the concept of religious tolerance. Religion was little more than a cult at this time, centred on tradition and manifested through elaborate rituals. When contact with new cultures brought notice to new gods, they were assimilated or added to the existing pantheon. Britain is a good example – here altars to Mars, Hercules and Epona are found. On the darker side, it was common in Rome to make sacrifices to the new god in the way of

Compare the beginning of the novel and Sinises film version Of Mice and Men Essay Example for Free

Compare the beginning of the novel and Sinises film version Of Mice and Men Essay The opening of the novel and the film differ from each other in many ways. The film has a tense and dramatic start where as the novel is set in a quiet and peaceful woodland area as Steinbeck sets the scene in clear detail. The film opens with a haunting, chilling melody lingering in the background of a black screen with white credits appearing for several minutes. Sinise puts the credits at the beginning rather than at the end so that he adds to the drama at the beginning and doesnt ruin the ending with them. As the music fades the black background remains with the occasional, faint beam of moonlight, streaming through the open cracks in the wagon of a train. The camera shot focuses on a lonely figure, crouched in the corner, looking by the expression on his face as if he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, as the frequent train whistles drown out his thoughts. This makes the audience curious about who the man is, which makes them want to watch on to find out the identity of this mysterious character. Suddenly the film explodes into colour in a dramatic style as a panic-stricken woman, with her dress ripped, runs towards a group of men working on a ranch. The next clip is of the group of men, carrying guns on horseback, all laden in denim chasing two apparently un-armed men. These two men are Lennie and George, who are racing through the grassy shrubs of the plains. A sense of danger and menace is created as George is continually looking over his shoulder and dragging Lennie along as the men on horseback continue to hunt the two men. We later realise that this is symbolic of the two mens relationship, as George always has to look over his shoulder in real life. It symbolises a mother always looking over her shoulder to see if her baby is all right. Both of the men fall into a stream and hide under the overgrown reeds and grass from the prairie. The men pass by the stream and this causes a sense of excitement and tension within the audience. The first close up on Lennie shows us his big, frightened eyes, worried like a child, with his dilated pupils reflecting the sunlight. The heavy breathing stops but both men remain silent, and as time goes by the crickets begin to chirp and the audience get a chance to get their breath back. It then goes back to a train noise and by this time night has fallen. Both men jump onto a train, Lennie goes first and is hoisted up by George; this is symbolic of a mother picking up her child after it has fallen down, or is struggling to get up. Lennie tells George that he is tired, so George tells him to lie down and go to sleep. Lennies jacket is wet so George helps him to take it off. This action is symbolic of the mother/child relationship that the two men have. George takes Lennies jacket off like a mother undressing a child. The beginning of the novel is very different as Steinbeck sets the scene in clear detail. He creates a very quiet and peaceful atmosphere by using phrases such as fresh and green with every spring and the leaves lie so deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering if he runs among them. Unlike this, the film shows an exciting chase in a tense and dangerous atmosphere. The first time you see Lennie and George in the novel they are calmly walking through the trees and peacefully drinking from the pool. His huge companion dropped his blankets and flung himself down as he drank from the surface of the green pool. This is another symbol of Lennie behaving like a child. On the other hand when we first see Lennie and George in the film they are running away from a gang of rampant ranchers, seething for their blood. In the film they are both wearing different clothes. George is wearing denim and Lennie is wearing dungarees to make him look like a big kid. This differs from the novel as Steinbeck has the two men in identical dress. Both were dressed in denim trousers and in denim coats with brass buttons. Also they both wore black shapeless hats. The end of the novel is also very different to the end of the film. At the end of the novel Lennie hides in the bush where George said it was safe. While he waits he hallucinates and sees an enormous rabbit appear and speaks to him, telling him that he has done wrong and has let George down for all that he has done for him. Then his Aunt Clara appears and starts scolding him for his behaviour. This does not happen in the film as the audience may loose attention and it takes the edge off the seriousness of the atmosphere, that Sinise tries to create. At the end of the film George is looking for Lennie, trying to reach him before the angry mob do and painfully kill him. George runs to find Lennie, running as at the beginning of the film, but this time running by himself, running and falling, which is symbolic of his prediciment with Lennie. George finally finds Lennie wandering at a cut by the stream. Lennie runs to George and falls over in the water by Georges feet. Lennie persists to cuddle George like a child cuddling its mother. There is a long focussed camera shot of George and Lennie in the water. This is the first time we see George taller than Lennie and this is symbolic of the parent/child relationship they have with each other. The camera focuses on them for several seconds to emphasise this aspect of their relationship and to show how close the two men are. In the novel the two men are not in the water when they cuddle and there is no indication that George is bigger than Lennie. They are both on the banks near to the water. Sinise just adds this part in to the film to make it look as if Lennie has just fallen over emphasising his helplessness. In the novel Lennie asks George to tell him the story of how it is gonna be, and after several attempts George shoots him in the head and helps him die painlessly and with a certain amount of dignity. At the sound of the shot the men appear and surround George. They think there has been a struggle and George has shot Lennie in self-defence, only Slim realises what has really happened. Although George is left all alone there is the possibility that Slim and he will develop a closer friendship. Many changes were made from this original ending in the film version. When George was telling Lennie the story of how it was gonna be he shoots him first time after Lennie says and I get to tend the rabbits. Lennie, who was crouched on his knees, is curled up like a baby or an embryo with George standing over him after he had been shot. Once again this is symbolic of the mother child relationship between them and also symbolises Lennie being like a child. The final camera shot on them both expands on a large shot of the pool where George told Lennie it was supposed to be safe. The audience visualises the trust Lennie had in George and this is emphasised in this scene. The next shot goes back to the beginning where it is George who was on the train sitting in the corner lonely and isolated. He has a flashback and remembers the good times that he and Lennie had. In this flashback they both walk side by side, smiling and laughing, Lennie puts his arm around George like a child wanting affection from his mother. This caption is in slow motion to make the audience remember how good the friendship was between the two and to make the audience feel sorry for the lonely George. It then goes silent, the picture fades to a black screen and it ends. Another major difference between the novel and the film is the way in which Curleys wife is portrayed. In the novel she is pictured as a flirtatious tart, where as in the film she is depicted as pretty and only gently flirts. In the novel she is seen as being a tart. She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers. This extract clearly shows that she is unsuitably dressed for her surroundings. She wore backless shoes (mules) with ostrich feathers on the instep, with a red dress. This was not the clothing you would expect to be worn on a ranch. She only dresses this way so the men pay attention to her because she is bitterly lonely. In the film Curleys wife is seen as very different to this as she has a very pretty face and is only slightly flirtatious, whereas in the novel she blatantly flirts with Lennie. When she asked Lennie what had happened to Curleys hand, Lennie immediately looks at Candy for help and with no reply, he turns his gaze downwards towards his lap. This shows the reader a side of Lennie that is trying to reach out for help like a young child. Needing guidance he vaguely replies, Curley got his hand caught in a machine. Curleys wife laughed Ok machine. Ill talk to you later. I like machines. She picks out Lennie as he is the weakest and probably the most likely to fall for her charm due to his mental immaturity. Again she persists to flirt with Lennie when the four are talking about George. Lennie says Thats the guy, and hes gonna let me tend the rabbits, to which Curleys wife adds Well if thats all you want, I might get a couple rabbits myself. She comes across as very manipulative in this pa rt of the novel. In the film, she seems very lonely, and director Sinise adds a scene, which is not in the novel. In this scene Curleys wife tells George and Lennie of how Curley broke all of her records, which are her only company. This makes the audience feel sorry for her, as she is very lonely as if she has lost all of her friends. In the novel the reader sees Curleys wife as being lonely, but they do not feel sorry for her as she has a very nasty nature. An example of this is when she is in Crooks room and continually calls the men bindle stiffs and bindle bums. She says, they left all the weak ones here. She repeats this vicious nature when saying, Standin here talking to a bunch of bindle stiffs a nigger an a dum-dum an a lousy ol sheep an likin it because they aint nobody else. Crooks tells her to get out of his room and she bombards him with a vicious racial assault saying, Listen Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it aint even funny. This inner personality is only released when she is most lonely, as she believes that Curley cannot satisfy her emotionally or physically, in a marriage she is in to escape a spiral of her self-loneliness. This results in her need to lust for the other men on the ranch, as this may be her only chance to find the happiness she secretly yearns for. This tone that she speaks to people in is exempt from many parts of the film as the director tries to make the audience feel sorry for her, whilst in the novel you are made to think that she deserved to be killed due to the way she threatened Crooks. I feel Sinise did this to make you feel sorry for her when she dies and to bring Georges killing of Lennie into a deeper prospective. The age of Curleys wife also differs in both the novel and the film. In the novel Curleys wife is merely the tender age of fifteen/sixteen, whilst in the film she is portrayed as a much older and more mature age. My personal favourite between the novel and the film, is the novel as it is an epic and thrilling read. I think that the film version is very emotional, and the director Sinise portrays the novel in a different way, although the detail and description of the film can never compare with the original novel. You will find that in most cases the film cannot reproduce the same empathy and imagination used when the author first creates their masterpiece.

The History Of The Arduino Microcontroller

The History Of The Arduino Microcontroller The Arduino microcontroller was initially created as an educational platform for a class project at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea1 in Milan (Italy) in 2005. It derived from a previous work of the Wiring microcontroller designed by Hernando Barragà ¡n2 in 2004. From the beginning, the Arduino board was developed to attract artists and designers. The Wiring microcontroller was created by Hernando Barragan to be used for parsing data to electronic devices. His aim was that it could be used by non-technical people who only had basic experience with using computers. He first of all wanted it to be used as a prototyping tool. Since he needed help to create an easy software tool to programme the board he engaged Casey Reas3 and Massimo Banzi4 as his assistants. Reas created the visual programming language for the prototyping tool. He had studied interaction art as an undergraduated, and continued studying with John Maeda5 at the MIT6. After that he developed Processing7, an easy programme language oriented to designers and artists. Banzi was more interested in developing the microcontroller as an art and design tool. So he decided to brake up with Barragan and to instead create a new prototype that would fit with his ideals. The Arduino creators were Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles8, Dave Mellis9, Gianluca Martino10 and Tom Ignoe11. This team wanted to simplify the Wiring board through the Arduino microcontroller (created by Banzi), making it easier and friendlier for the non-technical audience. And that was one of their goals to make this device triumph against others. The price was another goal to make them win against others. The Wiring Board costs about  £ 54 while the Arduino Board is  £ 20. That makes sense because it is less powerful and smaller than the Wiring Board. But this isnt a problem for designers and artists because they were searching for something that could be destroyed and your wallet wouldnt suffer from that. David Zicarelli12 (): I was really struck by the idea of what a radically inexpensive computer could mean to people making art a design goal of the Arduino project was that you could make installations and not have to tear them apart when you were done because you needed your laptop to read your e-mail. So then you can leave it embedded into projects permanently. Another way to assist users was the USB connection. The Wiring Board works with a Serial port, which is more difficult to have in a normal computer or laptop and to work with. The Arduinos plug and play nature makes it easy to understand and easy to manipulate the interaction of a project. Further goals were to achieve competitive advantage in IDE13 and open source14 supported by the community. 3. IDE. The software tool Every microcontroller needs software to be programmed. The Arduino board is not a case apart. It has its own integrated development environment (IDE). It is free and everyone can download it from its official website using either the Windows, Mac OS X or Linux platform. That allows Arduino Board to gain more users and it also helps it to grow. The IDE is very easy to understand. It contains only three different sections. The compiler, the text editor and the debugger. In the compiler part we can find the verifying tool that shows the user if the code was well written. Next to that tool, there is a button to make a new project. Then, we can see the open and save buttons; the project can be opened or saved in any folder. In addition we can find the most important tool, the compiler tool that allows you, when the code is verified, to upload the code into the Arduino Board. And the last button that it has is the serial monitor tool, which is used to debugging and monitoring data from your project. The next section is the text editor tool where the code is written. Arduino works with processing language. This language was designed with the intention to make cryptic looking instructions comprehensible and useful. It contains a lot of libraries15, which make it easier for artists and designers to prototype their ideas. However, experienced users are allowed to work in a lower programmatic level to access certain aspects of the Arduino code. In other words this means the more experience a user has the lower is the level in which he can work. And the last section is where the debugger is placed. This one provides feedback to the user fostering confidence to move forward at a rapid pace. It also helps to find the bugs in the code when this doesnt work. The whole Arduino project is supported by a community. The IDE and the Arduino microcontroller continuously advance in hardware design, software examples and popularity because users save and share documents, codes and designs online. This method of allowing other users to freely use someone elses documents is called open source. This means that every user contributes a part even if it is only a very small one to the fast development of Arduino project. However, the Arduino project is not only useful for artists and designers but also for other groups of people such as engineers, hardware hackers, interaction designers, educators and robotics enthusiasts. For example, if you are an engineer you can work on artistic projects and if you are and artist you could work on engineer project as well. This means those groups of people are blending ideas each other to growing up the Arduino community.

Queen Sondok Essays -- Korean History

Queen Sondok Queen Sondok was the first woman to become a queen in the Korean Silla kingdom in 632 A.D. Queen Ma-ya, Sondok's mother, did not bear any sons to become king, so King Chinpyong sent her to a convent in the mountains to become a nun. This brought a great deal of sadness to Sondok, she said, "The monastery has swallowed everyone I love." (7) After Queen Ma-ya was gone, King Chinpyong, who had reigned for fifty years, remarried a woman who also could not bear him a son (7). Since Sondok was the eldest daughter, Sondok became queen after the king died. She became the most famous queen of a Korean state. Queen Sondok was born in Korea in 610 A.C.E. She ruled for fourteen years, holding the realm together against external and internal threats. During this period, women already had a certain degree of influence as advisers, queen dowagers, and regents. Throughout the kingdom, women were heads of families since matrilineal lines of descent existed alongside patrilineal lines. The Confucian model, which placed women in a subordinate position within the family, was not to have a major impact in Korea until the fifteenth century and most of people throughout the kingdom believed in Buddhism, Daoism, and Shamanism (6). During the Silla kingdom, women's status remained relatively high. Early in her life Sondok had displayed an unusually quick mind. For example, when she was seven, her father received a gift from the Emperor of China. It was a beautiful painting of peonies, accompanied by a box of the flower's seeds. Sonduk commented that the flower was beautiful, but it was a pity, because it had no sweet perfume. Her father, brow knit in confusion, asked her how she could know that, since she had never se... ... (http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/heroine7.html) 2. Still More Women Rulers 3. Women of Royalty - Sondok, Queen of Silla (http://royalwomen.tripod.com/womenofroyalty/id17.html) 4. Muses – The Graces—Graeco-Roman (http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/1582/muses.html) 5. Lee, Ki-baik -1984 ANew History of Korea Translated by Edward W.Wbner. Harvard University Press, London. (http://ko-m.hp.infoseek.co.jp/Miruk.htm) 6. Famous Koreans – Six Portraits by Mary Connor. Education about Asia, volume 6, number 2, Fall 2001. (http://www.aasianst.org/EAA/connor.htm) 7. Sondok: Princess of the Moon and Stars, Korea, A.D. 595 (The Royal Diaries) by Sheri Holman 8. The Influence of China on the Three Kingdoms and Unified Silla (http:// www.marymount.k12.ny.us/marynet/TeacherResources/SILK% 20Road/html/sillatang.htm)

Cybercrime in Today’s World Essay

I have been asked to write a paper concerning cybercrime in the world today. I will go over what cybercrime is, how much it is affecting the United States, possible ways of enforcement and why or why not enforcement would be effective. What is a cybercrime, in your own words? Cybercrime is using computers or technology in order to steal information or to create fake identities over the World Wide Web. It is a growing problem in the world today, especially in countries like China, Japan and the United States where populations are high. Phone scams are another type of cybercrime as people will try to glean vital information from another by pretending to be a grandchild or a salesman. Cyberspace allows people to invade another person’s or company’s computer and download sensitive materials such as social security numbers, birth certificates and tax information. What is the extent of cybercrime in the United States? Computerescape. om says that â€Å"Cybercrime is widespread throughout the United States with 73% of American internet users being victims of cybercrime, either through viruses, online credit card or identity theft†*. With over 300 million Americans in the US, that comes out to 219 million Americans that have been or are currently victims of a cybercriminal. Most of the victims of identity theft are infants and the elderly. My own infant cousin had his social security number stolen shortly after his death. It took several months to recover it. How do you think we should control / enforce cybercrime? I personally believe that the only way to control cybercrime is to attach a major virus to sensitive files, so that when an unauthorized person tries to access it, it attaches itself to that person’s computer, downloads any information regarding the owner of the computer, sends that information to the authorities, and finally scrambles all data on the computer. The authorities will then be able to make an arrest and unscramble the computer so that evidence can be obtained. The offender should then have an appendage cut from their body on national television, so that others thinking of committing the same crime will hopefully be deterred. If the person should offend again, then they should be stoned until dead by the people that they have stolen from. Do you think enforcement can be effective? Why or why not? I don’t think that any type of enforcement would be effective as tracking anything in cyberspace is time consuming and if the person was determined enough, they would find a way around the enforcement. Security cameras are an excellent point. You can have the main points of a store being watched by cameras, but the only places you have issues with theft is in the cameras blind spots. A security system will alert you if someone comes in through a door or window, but isn’t programmed to respond if a person decides to cut a hole in the wall or ceiling and enter the premises without ever tripping the system. If someone wanted to commit a robbery and they knew that a police patrol car passed by every 45 minutes, they would wait until 10 minutes after the patrol car had passed and then rob the business, knowing that it would be at least another 10 minutes before police could respond. Criminals will always find a way to circumvent the enforcers of the law.

Brian Lowe Essays - Medicine, Friendship, Philosophy Of Love, Virtue

Brian Lowe Essays - Medicine, Friendship, Philosophy Of Love, Virtue Brian Lowe Goals Paper #1 The goal, what exactly is it? According to Google.com, it is "the object of a person's ambition or effort." Every person in the world has strived to achieve a goal whether it was walking as a child to graduating college obtaining a degree. I've completed many goals in my life but I am far from finished. I completed a goal by being fully admitted into Western Illinois University to raise my knowledge to a higher standard. Regarding my intellectual goal, I want to strive hard and effortlessly to have a 3.1 -grade point average throughout my first four years at WIU. Having a 3.1 in college is a task many people look at is difficult, but it can be achieved through focus and commitment. Time management plays a big part in keeping my intellectual goal into full effect. One of the first steps in completing my goal to 3.1 is to stay on a fixed study schedule. Staying on a fixed schedule during the week will close out any possible distractions away from studying and finishing homework. Regarding my social goal, I want to make more friends of all different races. Keeping different friends will broaden my perspective on specific situations because every person has a different outlook on life and situations. The first step I want to take to start my social goal is to attend every First Year Experience (FYE) event to relate to others. It would keep me up to date on how to keep friendships and be supportive. Having friends also means help with school work. Some situations are difficult for people while easy to others. Making friends in my classes will benefit me greatly regarding understanding the work when the professor is not present. Regarding my physical goal, I really want to skip gaining the "freshman 15" and get enough sleep since the stigma in college is we as students never get enough sleep. I want to keep my asthma under control. The first step in doing so is getting a physician in Macomb to do a regularly scheduled check-up on my asthma so there are no surprises on campuses. It will also allow me to get the medication to keep my asthma at bay. Asthma has a way of sneaking up on the person when fall hits which are right when classes begin, meaning it is mandatory to get a physician at the BEU health center. Regarding my emotional goal, I must continue to keep the relationships that mean the most to me around. I have to respond the right way towards people, it is very beneficial to be around people in college. It is additive to help with school work and social activities. The first goal to keep people around is to alert the people how much they mean to me. People enjoy hearing how much they are needed and or wanted.