b) Why is the worship of Rama popular with devotees? (12)

Why is the worship of Rama popular with devotees? (12) Rama and Shakti are two of the most important deities in Hinduism. Rama is one of the most popular avatars of Vishnu and is worshipped by many Hindus. Jamison describes him as "the perfect example of dharma in action." Shakti is the consort of Siva, and is described by Ling as "the goddess of Nature, she creates only in order to destroy, and she creates because she destroys." The actual term Shakti is ambiguous because it could refer to an actual goddess such as Parvati or Kali, all goddesses together, or the feminine power behind all divine beings. b) Rama is an extremely inspiration figure throughout the world as a manifestation of God, and also as a legendary hero of myths and stories. Hindu stories are rapidly increasing in popularity by Jainists, Sikhs and Hare Krishnas who regard Rama to be similar to Krishna, their main inspiration. Rama's story is very popular and is told to Hindu children from a young age. The Ramayana is an exciting and interesting story which is fun for the children to listen to, but it also teaches them morals. Such morals include how to follow dharma regardless of the circumstances. Jamison explains this as "Rama is put forward as the perfect example of dharma in action, the exemplar of righteous behaviour." Rama is also popular to be worshipped because he and Sita are thought to be the

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  • Subject: Religious Studies & Philosophy
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Socrates was a fascinating yet exasperating philosopher who influenced many Western thinkers of today.

Socrates was a fascinating yet exasperating philosopher who influenced many Western thinkers of today. Socrates unusual methods of his time made him a philosophical martyr. Today Socrates methods and philosophies are used almost on an everyday basis by most people in the world. Socrates helped to shape our modern everyday values. Socrates was born (470BC) and lived in Athens, Greece for all of his life. Athens was filled with several sophers, traveling teachers who taught for money. Athens was a beautiful city with buildings covered in gold. In Socrates's time, he saw many of the gorgeous buildings such as the Acropolis and the Parthenon The center of the city or the agora was where one could most often find Socrates. It was here that he taught his philosophies. Socrates was described as ugly. He was potbellied with large bulging eyes and a snub nose. Anyone who knew him knew that inside he was "perfectly delightful." Socrates considered himself a "philo-sopher," or one who loves wisdom. He thought he was different from other philosophers of his time, according to him most bragged about how much they knew about their particular subject, when in fact they knew very little. Knowing this, Socrates considered himself a true philosopher- one who knows they know little about life and is troubled by knowing that. In 399 BC, Socrates was

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  • Subject: Religious Studies & Philosophy
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Outline and explain two criticisms of the teleological argument

Outline and explain two criticisms of the teleological argument The word teleology comes from the Greek word telos which means 'an account of' and originally meant the final ends, but now takes the meaning that everything has a purpose and a goal. The teleological argument attempts to establish the existence of God relevant to the observations of order and purpose in the universe, the teleological argument is also referred to as the argument from design as it takes the view point that there is evidence for the God, the designer. Although as Antony Flew had discovered that really it is an argument to design where as an argument from design infers that it argues from the premise that the world had been designed which petition principi, assumes what it is trying to prove. William Paley's argument from analogy begins with him imagining himself kicking a stone whilst walking, and then later finding a watch; he asks the same question of 'how did that object come to be here?'. Paley can accept that the stone may have been there forever, but the watch which is a man-made object surely could not have been there forever, therefore there must be something about the presence of the watch which requires further explanation. Paley notes down the differences between the watch and the stone, he discovers that the watch has means, ends and adaptation as it is able to tell the time; the

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Religious Studies & Philosophy
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The two-volume set of Luke-Acts was an ancient scholar's attempt at defending Christianity as not only a religion, but also as a way of life.

The Speeches Of Acts The two-volume set of Luke-Acts was an ancient scholar's attempt at defending Christianity as not only a religion, but also as a way of life. While the first volume focused on the life of Jesus, the second volume, focused on the origins of the Christian Church. The speeches found within the book of Acts are ordered in such a way to plainly demonstrate how Christianity progressed from one man's idea into the dominant religion of the time period in which Acts was written. Each speech given is representative of a theme found in the book of Acts. When studying the speeches from Acts, it is important to keep the broader context in mind. The book of Acts itself is about the spread of Christianity and it's church throughout the Roman world. It was the story of a spiritual conquest that eventually spread throughout the entire known world. And as with any epic story, it was made up of many smaller stories. Most of these stories found in the book of Acts revolved around a singular speech or occasionally, a group of speeches. In the second volume of Luke-Acts, these speeches make up about one quarter of the entire text. By inserting these unbroken speeches into the book of Acts, the author was able to convey a sense of immediacy that did not normally exist to the reader. When these speeches are observed in their larger context however, they begin to take on an

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Assess Kant's philosophy: How successful do you find his approach?'

Stacey Mottershaw 61/Wb 0th November 2003 'Identify and explore the central features of Kant's theory. How successful do you find his approach?' Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 and is known as being one of the greatest philosophers of all time. He is also one of the last philosophers to create an entire philosophical system that covers most of the major issues in ethics. In this essay I am going to be looking into Kant's Ethical Theory and the first and second formulation of his categorical imperative test. I am going to evaluate how successful they are in completing the aims they were originally given. Kant is a deontologist who only ascribes worth to the deontological approach and he does not administer his theory around consequences. This means that he believes all agents should perform their actions out of duty, with no other motivation and with no regard to the consequences of the action. Deontological theories differ over the basis or grounding of duty. For some, the duty is to God's will whereas to others (including Kant) the duty would be to the moral law, which is generated by the application of reason. He believes that to do something out of duty is to do it simply because it is the right thing to do. If a moral agent acts merely out of duty because it is the right thing to do then Kant would ascribe them moral praise. However, if they performed the same

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  • Subject: Religious Studies & Philosophy
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Plato's Theory of Forms

Essay Answers- Plato's Theory of Forms Plato had many philosophies but the main one was his theory of forms, which we sometimes refer to as the theory of ideas. Plato's Forms are not mental entities, nor even mind-dependent. They are independently existing entities whose existence and nature are graspable only by the mind, even though they do not depend on being so grasped in order to exist. He believed that as well as the world that we live in and experience, which is a material world, there is another eternal world of concepts or forms. This eternal world is more real than the world, which we experience through the senses and it the object of knowledge not opinion. The world of sense experience has constant change, and this was a popular topic in philosophy as there is no truth or evidence that the world never stays the same from one moment to the next. Plato believed that that the answer was that there is certain truth, but this material world cannot reveal it. It can only present appearances, which lead us to form opinions, rather than knowledge. The truth is to be found on a different plane, in the non-material world of ideas or forms. Plato believed that if something was real, it had to permanent and unchanging. He thought that reality and perfect. When the Socrates asked him complex questions such as 'what is beauty?' or 'what is justice?' he was not trying to

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  • Subject: Religious Studies & Philosophy
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The day the Buddha left.

One day, Siddhartha Gautama awoke Minister Channa and ordered him to get his horse Kandaka saddled. Then he went to the son and wife's rooms to see them before he went to the forest. He saw that his wife (Yasodara) and his son by her side were both sleeping. Siddhartha wanted to kiss his son for the last time but he realized that his wife would wake up and his journey to finding truth would be disturbed. He then left the castle and set off with his Horse and his friend Channa. He then got to the river Anoma. Once he crossed the river, Siddhartha took his hair-knot by one hand, and with a sword in the other, cut it off. He then threw up the hair-knot into the sky and it is said that it stayed in the sky. Next Siddhartha took an alms-bowl and yellow robes. And gave Channa his very expensive clothes and ordered him to return to the castle. Channa took the Horse Kandaka and the clothes to the castle. Half way through the journey the Horse Kandaka missed his master Siddhartha and died. So Channa continued the journey all by his own to the Castle. When the Sakya Tribe knew about Siddhartha they all cried out in tears. After leaving Channa, Siddhartha stayed in the mango grove called Anuppiya near the Anoma river for seven days and then he went to Rajagaha (a town). When he went into the town for food, the citizens looked admiringly at the splendid and graceful appearance of

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  • Subject: Religious Studies & Philosophy
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What do we learn about Luke's intentions from the birth and infancy narratives?

What do we learn about Luke's intentions from the birth and infancy narratives? Before answering this question, we need to find out what this question actually means. To do this, I feel that we need to find out why the birth and infancy narratives are important. First of all, theses narratives can only be found in the Gospels written by Mathew and Luke. They do not feature in Mark and John's accounts, or Paul's letters to different people. Mark's Gospel and Paul's letters were written much earlier than the gospels in question. This seems to suggest that the birth and infancy narratives are a late addition to the accounts. The evidence that we can find to support this, is by cross-referencing the first chapter in Luke, with the third one. In the latter, the chapter looks like the introduction to the orderly account promised in the prologue, found in the first chapter of the gospel. When looking at this Gospel, and particularly these narratives, I think that it is helpful to keep in mind the following Quote from Morna Hooker, which tells us the narratives 'are the keys to the gospels'. In the essay, I will also look to how we can understand Luke's intentions, and to understand them, we need to understand the man that the author was. To help do this, it would be helpful to look at the author's background and what the cultural setting of this particular gospel. During

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  • Subject: Religious Studies & Philosophy
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Before answering whether both poetry and science enjoy equal success in expanding human knowledge, one must first understand what poetry and science are and what they do.

Before answering whether both poetry and science enjoy equal success in expanding human knowledge, one must first understand what poetry and science are and what they do. Poetry is an artist's way of abstractly conveying his or her ideas through writing so as to stimulate the emotional side of the readers. Science on the other hand, is an objective way of clearly stating facts so as to stimulate the "formal" or fact craving side of the readers. Poetry presents an object in order to convey a particular message or feeling, whilst science merely presents an object objectively and describes how it is, clearly, in every way possible. Therefore, it is clear that the purpose of these two approaches is quite different. Furthermore, the ways of knowing in poetry and science are somewhat different. Poetry's ways of knowing are mainly emotion and language, while sciences are mainly language and reason. However, although they have language in common, both of them utilize language in different ways and for different purposes. As is obvious from above, both approaches aim to expand two completely different parts of human knowledge. Poetry aims to expand the aesthetic while science the scientific. Therefore, they cannot be assessed on their ability to expand human knowledge based on the same criteria but rather, they should both be assessed based on individual criteria in their

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Religious Studies & Philosophy
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Introduction to Hinduism.

Hinduism is the name given to a family of religions and cultures that began and still flourish in India. Like other Eastern religions, it doesn't fit comfortably into the same box as Western religions like Christianity. Hindus do not separate religion from other aspects of life. For Hindus in India, Hinduism is an inextricable part of their existence, a complete approach to life that involves social class, earning a living, family, politics, diet, etc., in addition to the things Westerners view as religious. The word "Hindu" comes from the name of the river Indus, which flows 1800 miles from Tibet through Kashmir and Pakistan to the sea. Originally the name referred to people living in a particular region of the world, regardless of their faith; so in the 18th century someone could quite sensibly be described as a "Hindu Muslim". There are 750 million Hindus in the world, and most of them live in India. In the UK there are 400,000 Hindus, 160,000 of whom are active in their faith. Hinduism includes a very wide range of beliefs and practices, so there aren't many things that are common to all Hindu groups. However they all have a "family resemblance" to each other. Hinduism has no founder, no creed, and no single source of authority. The things most often common to Hindus are a belief in a single Divinity or supreme God that is present in everything, belief in

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Religious Studies & Philosophy
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