Islamic Religion Essays -- Islam Religion Religion Essays History

Islamic Religion Islam has been characterized inequitably by historians and the media as a religion of violence. Islam was mainly spread through Arab territorial conquests. Upon examination, it is not fair to make the generalization that Islam is a religion of violence. One can see when looking at world religion on a whole that Islam was no more violent than any other religion. In fact, not only is Islam not a fundamentally violent philosophy, but we can also see that many other religions normally considered "non-violent," such as Christianity or Hinduism, have been spread through bloody conquest. Thus, in searching for a universal constant of history, we should not fall into the "fallacy of abstractions," and assume that because of isolated incidents and conflicts of territorial ambitions, that all religions have violent tendencies. Throughout the centuries Islam has been a victim of circumstance. It has been perceived by many as oppressive and cruel. This belief originated over a thousand years ago, when Islamic people first threatened the western world. As they slowly undermined Byzantine authority, Christians became terrified of their presence, resulting in widespread animosity and aversion. Hindus and Buddhists from the South Asian subcontinent lived under Islamic law for hundreds of years. Eventually, in the twentieth century, split the region into angry factions. Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, was a great warrior. This invariably led defeated people to believe that he begot a cult of war and violence. Over the centuries, it has developed the ability to instill a sense of holy purpose onto its believers and soldiers, where they go into a battle of certain death for their faith in the holy war. The holy war is still a potent source of conflict and aversion, as many of the problems in the Middle East center around the issue of Islamic Fundamentalism and the holy wars. Originally, Islam was perceived by western historians as a religion of violence and conquest, "by preying on the caravans of the Quraish, Mohammed weakened them to the point of submission† (Anonymous, 1996). In fact, Mohammed was a warrior, aristocrat, and brilliant strategist, a stark contrast to many other holy men of history. He was forced to both defend his cities and force submission. Because of the strong military powers of his religious predecessors and oppresso... ...hile Hinduism remained relatively non-violent throughout the centuries, when the first Muslim invaders appeared and they clashed in both a philosophical and violent sense. Hindu violence returned in the mid-twentieth century, when they finally regained control of India. They smashed a Muslim temple at Ayodhya, and Sikh and Tamil rebel groups rebel against their authority. What is even more notable about Hinduism, is its rigid caste system, in which peoples have set social classes that are totally unchangeable and are products of the religion. The untouchables were considered as low as animals, and forced to do menial work such as sweeping and leather working. They were forced into a life of separatism and the rest of Hindu culture either ignored them completely or hated them. On the other side of the world, in Central America, the Aztec people were powerful warriors, who swept across the Mexican plains, conquering villages and whole peoples. Their religion consisted of brutal hum an sacrifices of enemy slaves, in fact the sacrifices grew so many in number that they were watching their population decline significantly, which eventually allowed the Spanish invaders to dominate them.

The Bobo Experiment

The Bobo Experiment was performed in 1961 by Albert Bandura to try and prove that people, especially children, learn their social skills and behaviors from copying or mimicking adults in their lives rather than through heredity genes. Bandura wanted to show, by using aggressive and non-aggressive adult-actors, that a child would be apt to replicate and learn from the behavior of a trusted adult (Shuttleworth, M. 2008). These issues have been present for many years, even before the media used these factors as selling points for newspapers. During the 1960’s, there was several concerns and debates about how children developed whether it be from genetics, environmental factors, or social interactions. For this reason, Bandura created the Bobo Doll Experiment to prove that children are taught from the adults in their lives through role-modeling (Shuttleworth, M. 2008). Bandura had several hypotheses about the results of the Bobo Doll Experiment that were appropriate with his vision on the concepts of social learning (Shuttleworth, M. 2008). 1. Children observing an adult role model operating in an overly hostile manner would be likely to replicate similar behavior themselves, even if the adult was not there (Shuttleworth, M. 2008). 2. Subjects who had witnessed a non-aggressive adult would be less likely to show violent inclinations, even if the adult was not present. They would be even less likely to exhibit this kind of aggression than the control group of children, who had seen no role model at all (Shuttleworth, M. 2008). 3. Bandura believed that children would be much more expected to mimic the behavior of a role model of the same sex. He wanted to show that it was much easier for a child to recognize and relate with an adult of the same gender (Shuttleworth, M. 2008). 4. Bandura’s last prediction was that boys would tend to be more aggressive than girls, because society has always endured and promoted violent behavior in men more than women (Shuttleworth, M. 2008). The results for the Bobo Doll Experiment showed, as expected, that children who were exposed to the aggressive model were more apt to show derivative aggressive behavior themselves. Another prediction was proved correct in that boys were nearly three times more likely to imitate physically violent behavior than girls (Shuttleworth, M. 2008). The overall conclusion of the Bobo Doll Experiment proved to be somewhat incomplete where most of the predictions were not being fully proved. It is not certain that children learn socially, however, it is likely that children watching an adult model using violent behaviors are more apt to believe that this kind of behavior is acceptable. Therefore, they may become users of this type of action themselves when faced with similar situations (Shuttleworth, M. 2008). Bandura discovered that girls were much less likely to become physically violent, but were equally as susceptible to verbal aggression as boys. This finding is often seen in society, where bullying at school, by boys, is more often of a physical nature; intimidation amongst girls tends to be more verbal and social (Shuttleworth, M. 2008). My theory on childhood development is that there are several factors that â€Å"mold† a child into the adult that the child grows to become. These factors include, but not limited to, social interaction with adults and peers, environmental factors, heredity genes (i. e. , bi-polar disorders, ADHD, etc†¦), and the economic standing on their community. Children are susceptible to most things in their lives. One could envision a child as a sponge in that they absorb all information around them. Children learn manners, basic living skills, language, and the like from their closest adults (i. e. , parents, grandparents, teachers, and friends’ parents). Children could possibly inherit disorders that cause obstacles in their learning abilities of how to conduct themselves appropriately in society. I think the most important factor that children learn from the adults and peers in their lives are how to solve problems with a little confrontation as possible. I feel that most adults today have trouble in this particular area; therefore, these adults are inadvertently teaching their children the same problem-solving skills that they hold when in actuality these adults want their children to solve their problems in a different and better way. The factor of an economic standing of their community is that if a child and their family live in a community of poor value, there tends to be less opportunities for a child to develop the necessary skills to survive and be self-sufficient in today’s world. The communities of today need to provide outlets for children to express their dreams, concerns, and goals where the child feels safe. I think every community should have some sort of community center or boys & girls club that promotes activities for the children, counseling for the children who need and want it, study tutors for children who need assistance with their homework, and proper teachings of appropriate social interaction. In my personal life, I have discovered that, as an adult, I replicate today a lot of my mother’s behaviors that I saw when I was a child. Remember saying to yourself, â€Å"I’ll never grow up to be my mother! † I do. Unfortunately, I have become her as an adult through how I conduct my attitudes, moods, facial expressions, and outlook on life. Through what I know of myself and what I experienced as a child, I can say with certainty that children are very influenced by their parents’ behaviors, attitudes, and moods. Children tend to believe that their parents are perfect and can do no wrong. I think that children are too young to realize that their parents are human just like they are and are just as likely to make several, if not numerous, mistakes on a daily basis. Without question, children are influenced, guided, and â€Å"molded† by the factors of life that surround them. References Shuttleworth, M. (2008). The Bobo doll experiment. (pp. 1-1). Experiment-Resources. com. Retrieved July 10, 2009, from Experiment-Resources. com. http://www. experiment-resources. com/bobo-doll-experiment. html#ixzz0KuMD9ZEw&C

“Necessity Is Something in the Mind, Not in Objects”

Hume believed that the common notion of cause and effect is wrong. This conviction on his part stemmed directly from the assumptions he made earlier on when creating his philosophical system. He divided human perception into two: â€Å"impressions† were supposed to be instant, strong feelings or perceptions, whereas â€Å"ideas† are those that have already faded away, leaving us with only a partial knowledge of what we felt.Ideas have their source in impressions; therefore if there exists a rational idea of necessity, it has to come from an earlier impression. Yet no impression coming from our external environment can give us any idea about necessity. Nor can we find it in ourselves, because even if we see our body move a hand, how can we be sure it is us who moves it? As it inevitably turns out, according to Hume, because we have no experience of necessity, it is our mind that creates these connections we are so sure about.It is our habit to look for cause and effect, because that’s the way to easily explain how world functions to ourselves. We are assuming that certain causes will create equal effects as in the past not because we can prove it, but because it has been this way before. A good example of this is how we expect the Sun to rise every morning – using the mathematical method of induction we assume that what has been true in the past, will be true in the future as well.Of course, something might stop the Sun from rising in the morning, so the right thing would be to say that it is highly probable that it will rise, but there is no certainty. We skip all of this, because it’s more convenient, and it lies in human nature to take advantage of it. Of course, Hume does not say, that causality/necessity doesn’t in fact exist, he only points to the fact that we are unable to derive its existence from hard facts and are instead using a very defective method of reasoning.

Julian Opie

By Billie-Jo Ellis ? ? ? He was born in London in 1958, but was raised in Oxford. He is recognised for his distinctive contribution to contempory art over the last 3 decades. He graduated from Goldsmith’s School of Art in 1983. In 2008, the four-sided LED sculpture ‘Ann Dancing’ was installed in Indianapolis, USA, as the first artwork on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail. ‘Ann’s’ dress will sway and her arms will move. This is the name given to the work of a group of artists, sculptors and installation artists who began to exhibit together in London in the early 80’s.Many of these were exhibited in the Lisson Gallery. A few examples of artists in the NBS are: Edward Allington; Stephen Cox; Grenville Davey; Anthony Gormley; Julian Opie; Rachel Whiteread; Bill Woodrow and many more. Tim Wood identified 4 major themes in the New British Sculpture movement: ? A synthesis of pop and kitsch. ? A assemblage of the decaying UK urban environment an d the waste of consumer society. ? An exploration of the way in which objects are assigned meanings. A play of colour, wit and humor. I heard about Julian Opie about 2 years ago in school and have liked his work ever since. I like the simplicity of it all, yet he still captures the person in the picture, even his faceless LED work still captures a persona and this is why I like him. I got all my information from own personal knowledge, research on the internet (wikipedia. org and Julianopie. com) and books such as Tate Modern Artists.

Music Video Games Essay

Since 1972, video game industry has shown drastic changes concerning music in video games. And its progression has led to the stream of revenue not only to the game developer but also has publicized the music composers of the video games. With the passage of time, explicit improvements can be seen in the quality likewise, increment in the output channels, a great improvement in the quality of timbres, and also shifted to programmatic music in a game to make it more interesting. The increase in portrayal of human emotions was one of the first steps towards the programmatic music in video games which attracts more people towards video gaming. One would examine by the contribution of the former technological advancements that the technology is the main cause of great improvements for music in the video game industry. One of the top music composers John Wall tells host Andrea Seabrook in an interview that he never bother to listen the sounds of arcade games as it never attract his mind. But music video games invade one’s brain and force player to concentrate on the music as well. The purpose of the music video games is to make one feel and deeply connect them to the world of video games. Tallarico see video game music as proactive experience. And for that reason he used to say that if Beethoven were with us today, he would love to compose music for video games. In current times, similar to movies, games also have complex soundtracks. And these video games soundtracks has been publicized so much commercially that more and more revenue is being generated by selling tickets of concerts that focus on video game music. It has not just increase the purchasing of video game but also gave popularity to artists and composers. Previously released or recorded music streams and new music streams that are specifically made for video games, both of them are usually use to develop sound tracks in today’s world. X-games sports-based video games like, SSX, Tony Hawk, Initial D come with popular artists’ releases whereas, videogames like, Grand Theft Auto and Need For Speed: Underground has come with heavy cultural demographic themes. Sometimes the combinations of both are used in video games, as used in Dance Dance Revolution. A famous composer, Nobuo Uematsu got fame for his outstanding performance for the popular video game Final Fantasy. All the tickets were sold out with three days and even fans fought at the box office when they couldn’t get tickets. As mentioned above, video game music is also one of the most marketable products even if separate from the game in the form of concerts by popular artists or by distributing game music CDs. Businesses starts flourishing with the entrance of music in video games that it had little before. Employment rate prosperous as many of the music composers and pop artist have been hired for composing music for upcoming videogames as they would like to produce for theatrical movies. Japan was the first country in the world, who sold video game music separately from games and later on many other countries adopted this practice. Sub-genres of music like, remixes, live performances and interpretive albums were also distributed. Koichi Sugiyama was one of the former music composers in the practice of releasing sub-genres like the Dragon Quest game that he produced in 1986. Later, a live performance CDs were published that was gigged by the London Philharmonic Orchestra In the early 2000s, music industry has seen declining sales but on the other hand, the video game industry starts to grow. PwC’s Global managing partner, media practice and entertainment, Marcel Fenez perceive video gaming as the most electrifying stories which grows and grows. He further elaborates the generated revenue in U. S. by online and wireless games. The estimated amount should be $1. 1 billion to $2.7 billion till 2011 in online games whereas, the estimation should be double till 2011, from $499 million to $1 billion. According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers project, the game industry will get success and its market will go beyond the expectations whereas, music sector will not at the best next year in 2008. It shows that games markets are flourishing far better than the music industry which is down because game industries are providing music of their favorite composer with games as well. Advertising industry is also generating stream of revenue from video games in U. S. The expected estimated amount will grow much higher till 2011 from $80 million last year to $950 million. But still can’t say because many youngsters would be attracted if more and more new games will be advertise. In recent times, Rock Band is one of the newest hit for published music in video games, owned by Harmonix Music Systems and published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. In this game, at elementary level the player has to complete playing a song. New and difficult songs unlocked as well as the instruments to play and an avatar of a rocker also unlocked with the difficulty of level. The use of their favorite rocker’s avatar and the popular songs in the game stick the player to the gaming experience and make them feel themselves as Rock Star. Many songs in Rock Band are major radio and sales successes. Furthermore, the release date of rock band music announced much before which highly motivate music lovers to get a song they have heard before. In 2007, Rock Band video game has received the sale of 4 million copies and generated $600 million in revenue. 30 million downloadable songs were purchased by the players since Rock Band Releases. (Bhaskaran, Blankenship, Cohen, Koparkar and Rashid, 2010, pg 2) The video game industry has changed so thoroughly that it has come out from the sounds of bleep blips to the programmatic music and human emotions. As far as music is concerned, over the last decade it has progress beyond the limitation of human expectations. Music has not given new dimension to video game industry only but also expands gaming audiences which were not attracted before. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bhaskaran, Blankenship, Cohen, Koparkar, Rashid. â€Å"Collaboration and Learning in the Video Game Rock Band† Proceedings of the Emerging Technologies Conference (ETC) (2009): Web. 31th July. 2010. â€Å"The Evolution of Video Game Music,† Interview. Npr Music: Music Interviews. April 12, 2008. Web. 31 July 2010. â€Å"Video-Game Sales Overtaking Music. † Msn. com. June 26, 2007. Web. 31 July 2010.

Influence Internet and Digital Technologies on Supply Chain Essay

Influence Internet and Digital Technologies on Supply Chain - Essay Example From the report it is clear that  organisations demonstrate concern on the agility of supply chain, reduction of product time cycle, efficiency, and product delivery. The essence of the above contention is to achieve high performance through introduction of effective and efficient services. The move from the traditional system to the electronic system was because of the influence created by the electronic system to the organisation performance.According to the paper findings the understanding of internet or information technology with respect to SCM would refer to a system where the organisation has no boundaries of sharing its information. Supply chain management is a process where an organisation coordinates, plans, and controls materials (goods) from supply to consumer. The chain consists of geographical facilities of distribution and links created through the transport system that connect the chain to the facilities. The chain would begin from the manufacturing organisation and would end with the consumer. The length of the chain determines the efficiency of the organisation.  Supplier to buyer relationship shows some degree of interdependence. Factors, which influence the interdependence, are bargaining power and supply power among others. The development of organisation’s strategy largely depends on its supply power.  The effectiveness of the chain would depend on the trust demonstrated by the concerned parties. Analysts contends that application of electronic system in product marketing i.e. IT reduces costs associated with coordination because it drastically cut cost of communication and the assets which offer create chain relationship (Salo and Karjaluoto, 2006:56). The competitiveness of a product in the market depends on the consumer information about the product. The essence of digital technology is to influence the traditional supply chain by creating effective operations. Study on traditional chain show that information availability i s limited thus leading to in adequate performance (Simchi-Levi, et.al. 2004:132). Communication is a vital element in the supply chain because it dictates terms of service between the suppliers and the buyers. The effectiveness of the system leads to strategic approaches, which influence the performance of the organisation. Researchers have observed that many organisations have embraced internet and other digital systems in their supply chain process. The shortcoming of the traditional chain includes limited functionality of the enterprise, inflexibility to adapt to environmental changes, limited support functionality in decision-making and limited modularity (Gordon, et.al. 2008:58). Supply Chain in the Book Industry Research on internet influence on SCM in book industry indicates that the application has an influence in the following areas procurement, supply relationship management, customer relationship management, and logistics (Wang, et.al.2011:13). The processes involved in s upply chain of books include publishing, creation, consumption and distribution. The trend is similar to other trends employed by other organisations. A bid to understand the impact of internet application to SCM leads to the following approach of explanations. Internet and other digital technologies on purchasing Availability of information through internet has influenced processes involve

White New Brutality Films Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

White New Brutality Films - Essay Example The white cultural identity is directly proportional to the understanding of the effective power of new-brutality films. The movies and documentaries attract viewers because of the historical significances and violent contents. The book of Paul Gormley regards the films related to race and violence as the new-brutality films. According to the author, the issues related to discrimination of race in the United States were extraordinary and a white filmmaker could not use the word nigger without evoking the white suppression in past and the problems faced by the black community in America. Gormley has also stated in the book that films such as, Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs give people a complete understanding about the anarchic and unveiling racial age in the white society, however, the films like Menace II Society presents the imagination of the white culture in crisis. Most of the films of the 1990s were populated with the thoughts related to the African-American cultural bodies fo r their negative power in the Western Society. In the 1990s, one of the utmost striking scenes of the United States that was filmed for ten minutes is the disreputable torture part in the Reservoir Dogs. This scene is viewed as one of the pivotal parts which contained numerous features that lead to the advent of different development in the history of Hollywood cinema. Pulp fiction and Menace II society films have signified a new strand in the aesthetic direction. These films are viewed by author Paul Gormley as the new-brutality films which share one common theme to revive and renegotiate the affecting qualities and proximity of the experience of cinema. These films created a new aesthetic direction in the commercial Hollywood. In the year 1994, the American black crime and comedy film was directed by Quentin Tarantino named as Pulp Fiction. The film is primarily renowned for its ironic mixture of violence and comicalness, eclectic dialogue, cinematic allusions and a nonlinear storyline.