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Suicide

Suicide

Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of willfully ending one's own life; it is sometimes a noun for one who has committed or attempted the act. Suicide is viewed in highly varying ways among the cultures, religions, legal and social systems of the world. It is considered a sin or immoral act in many religions, and a crime in some jurisdictions. On the other hand, some cultures have viewed it as an honorable way to exit certain shameful or hopeless situations. Persons attempting or dying by suicide sometimes leave a suicide note. According to stricter definitions of suicide, to be considered suicide, the death must be a central component and intention of the act, not just a certain consequence; hence, suicide bombing is considered a kind of bombing rather than a kind of suicide, and martyrdom usually escapes religious or legal proscription. Generally, there are only legal consequences when there is death and proof of intent. However, not all follow this narrower definition. Certainly, a suicide bomber knows that death will be part of the outcome of his or her actions.

Medical views on suicide

Modern medical views on suicide consider suicide to be a mental health issue. Severe suicidal thoughts are considered a medical emergency. Mental health practitioners consistently advise suicidal people to seek help. This is especially true if the means (weapons, drugs, or other methods) are available, or if a detailed plan is in place. Suicidal patients in mental hospitals may be temporarily bound, placed in padded rooms, or incapacitated with drugs to limit access to means of suicide.

Suicide as the form of fight and protest

Heroic suicide, for the greater good of others, is often celebrated. For instance, Gandhi went on a hunger strike to prevent fighting between Hindus and Muslims, and although they stopped before he died, if they hadn't, he may have indeed killed himself. For this, he earned the respect of many. Monks in the Communist Vietnam of the 1960s drew Western praise with their protests based on self-immolation (burning themselves to death). Similar events were reported in the previously independent Eastern Europe during the Soviet occupation (see Jan Palach). Not everybody would count all these actions as suicides, as the personal death was clearly not the primary purpose. The opponents argue that these persons would probably achieve the comparable result by spending the rest of their life in the active fight.

Arguments for Pro-Choice and Pro-Euthanasia

There are arguments in favor of allowing an individual to choose between life and suicide. This view sees suicide as a valid option. This line rejects the widespread belief that suicide is always or usually irrational, saying instead that it is a genuine, albeit severe, solution to real problems – a line of last resort that can legitimately be taken when the alternative is considered worse. No being should be made to suffer unnecessarily, and suicide provides an escape from suffering in certain circumstances, such as incurable disease and old age. In the past, the Japanese were often ordered to commit seppuku, a form of ritual disembowelment suicide, by their superiors, and were expected to do so as a matter of honor. They may also have done it as a matter of free choice, also for the sake of honor, and it was considered better than being taken prisoner. A few rare groups say that people should kill themselves for the greater good. For example, the Church of Euthanasia says that people should kill themselves in order to reduce mankind's stress on the environment.

Epidemiology

It is probable that the incidence of suicide is widely under-reported due to both religious and social pressures, and possibly completely unreported in some areas. Nevertheless, from the known suicides, certain trends are apparent: for example, in the Western world, males die much more often than females by suicide, while females attempt suicide more often. Suicide rates in various nations have followed significant patterns over time, and it's often possible to anticipate suicides based on a person's social, economic, and psychological condition. The radical view would be that in the countries with the extremely high rate this may reflect the psychological problems of the whole society rather than the problems of that particular individual. However, there is insufficient data to adequately compare suicide rates among nations.

Combination of homicide and suicide

Since crime just prior to suicide is often perceived as being without consequences, it's not uncommon to combine homicide with suicide. Motivations range from wishing to be with one's family in an expected afterlife to avoiding punishment to killing others as part of a suicide pact.

Attempted suicide and parasuicide

Many suicidal people participate in suicidal activities which do not result in death. These activities fall under the designation attempted suicide or parasuicide. Generally, those with a history of such attempts are almost 23 times more likely to eventually end their own lives than those without. Sometimes, a person will make actions resembling suicide attempts while not being fully committed, or in a deliberate attempt to have others notice. This is called a suicidal gesture (also known as a "cry for help"). Prototypical methods might be a non-lethal method of self-harm that leaves obvious signs of the attempt, or simply a lethal action at a time when the person considers it likely that they will be rescued or prevented from fully carrying it out. On the other hand, a person who genuinely wishes to die may fail, due to lack of knowledge about what they are doing; unwillingness to try methods that may end in permanent damage if they fail or harm to others; or an unanticipated rescue, among other reasons. This is referred to as a suicidal attempt. Distinguishing between a suicidal attempt and a suicidal gesture may be difficult. Intent and motivation are not always fully discernable since so many people in a suicidal state are genuinely conflicted over whether they wish to end their lives. One approach, assuming that a sufficiently strong intent will ensure success, considers all near-suicides to be suicidal gestures. This however does not explain why so many people who fail at suicide end up with severe injuries, often permanent, which are most likely undesirable to those who are making a suicidal gesture. Another possibility is those wishing merely to make a suicidal gesture may end up accidentally killing themselves, perhaps by underestimating the lethality of the method chosen or by overestimating the possibility of external intervention by others. Suicide-like acts should generally be treated as seriously as possible since if there is an insufficiently strong reaction from loved ones from a suicidal gesture, this may motivate future, more committed attempts. In the technical literature the use of the terms parasuicide, or deliberate self-harm (DSH) are preferred – both of these terms avoid the question of the intent of the action. Those who self-harm are, as a group, quite different from those who attempt to die from suicide. It is of utmost importance to note that self-harm is not a suicide attempt and should never be construed as such. There is a non-causal correlation between self-harm and suicide; individuals who suffer from depression or other mental health issues are also more likely to choose suicide. DSH is far more common than suicide, and the majority of DSH participants are females aged under 35. They are usually not physically ill and while psychological factors are highly significant, they are rarely clinically ill and severe depression is uncommon. Social issues are key – DSH is most common among those living in overcrowded conditions, in conflict with their families, with disrupted childhoods and history of drinking, criminal behavior, and violence. Individuals under these stresses become anxious and depressed and then, usually in reaction to a single particular crisis, they attempt to harm themselves. The motivation may be a desire for relief from emotional pain or to communicate feelings, although the motivation will often be complex and confused. DSH may also result from an inner conflict between the desire to end life and the desire to continue living. See the article on self-harm for an in depth discussion.

Distinction between Suicide and Attempted Suicide

An important distinction has also been made (see Erwin Stengel, 'Suicide and Attempted Suicide') between those who kill themselves and did not mean to, and those who did not kill themselves but did mean to. Thus a 'Suicide' (noun) may either succeed or fail in his/her goal (ie. succeed in killing himself/herself or not) and an 'Attempted Suicide' (noun) may either succeed or fail in his/her goal (ie. succeed in 'making a cry for help' or fail and, in doing so, probably die). This distinction, if correctly drawn, can have important ramifications for the treatment of people who are suicidal.

Suicide in literature

Suicide has been used as a dramatic plot element in a number of literary works, such as Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, The Awakening, Romeo and Juliet, and Death of a Salesman. Robert E. Howard wrote several poems, including The Tempter, about suicide. Also in the children's book series Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, the third book, the Wide Window, the protagonist's aunt supposedly died because of suicide.

Sources

- D.J. Shaffer, "The Epidemiology of Teen Suicide: An Examination of Risk Factors," Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 49 (supp.) (Sept. 1988): Ppgs 36-41.

External links

Crisis Lines

If you are in suicidal crisis, call a crisis line and talk to someone about it. In the United States, you can call 1-800-SUICIDE to reach a trained counselor near you.
- [http://www.suicidepreventioncenter.org/ Suicide Prevention Center Los Angeles] Serving Southern California
- [http://www.suicidehotlines.com/ Suicide Hotlines] Listing of suicide prevention lines in the United States and around the world. Look here to find a crisis line near you.

Support groups

- [http://www.samaritans.org.uk/ Samaritans (UK)]
- [http://ashbusstop.org #alt.suicide.bus.stop] – think about suicide differently. A support group for the suicidal, by the suicidal.
- [http://www.befrienders.org/ Befrienders International] (or [http://www.suicideinfo.org/ in other languages])
- [http://www.suicidetalk.com/ SuicideTalk.com Suicide forums]
- Open Directory Project: [http://www.dmoz.org/Health/Mental_Health/Disorders/Suicide/Support_Groups/ Support groups for those who are suicidal or in despair]

Latin

Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages, those being most notably Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian, are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. The Latin alphabet, derived from the Greek, remains the most widely-used alphabet in the world. It is said that 80 percent of scholarly English words are derived from Latin (in a large number of cases by way of French). Moreover, in the Western world, Latin was a lingua franca, the learned language for scientific and political affairs, for more than a thousand years, being eventually replaced by French in the 18th century and English in the late 19th. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the formal language of the Roman Catholic Church to this day, and thus the official national language of the Vatican. The Church used Latin as its primary liturgical language until the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Latin is also still used (drawing heavily on Greek roots) to furnish the names used in the scientific classification of living things. The modern study of Latin, along with Greek, is known as Classics.

Main features

Latin is a synthetic inflectional language: affixes (which usually encode more than one grammatical category) are attached to fixed stems to express gender, number, and case in adjectives, nouns, and pronouns, which is called declension; and person, number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect in verbs, which is called conjugation. There are five declensions (declinationes) of nouns and four conjugations of verbs. There are six noun cases: #nominative (used as the subject of the verb or the predicate nominative), #genitive (used to indicate relation or possession, often represented by the English of or the addition of s to a noun), #dative (used of the indirect object of the verb, often represented by the English to or for), #accusative (used of the direct object of the verb, or object of the preposition in some cases), #ablative (separation, source, cause, or instrument, often represented by the English by, with, from), #vocative (used of the person or thing being addressed). In addition, some nouns have a locative case used to express location (otherwise expressed by the ablative with a preposition such as in), but this survival from Proto-Indo-European is found only in the names of lakes, cities, towns, small islands, and a few other words related to locations, such as "house", "ground", and "countryside". Latin itself, being a very old language, is far closer to Proto-Indo-European than are most modern Western European languages; it has, in fact, about the same relationship with PIE as modern Italian or French has to Latin. There are six general tenses in Latin (technically they are tense/aspect/mood complexes). The indicative mood can be used with all of them. The subjunctive mood, however, has only present, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect tenses. These tenses in the subjunctive mood do not completely correlate in meaning to the tenses in the indicative. The following examples are of the first conjugation verb "laudare" ("to praise") in the indicative mood and the active voice:
Primary sequence tenses
# present (laudo, "I praise") # imperfect (laudabam, "I was praising") # future (laudabo, "I shall praise," "I will praise")
Secondary sequence tenses
# perfect (laudavi, "I praised", "I have praised") # pluperfect (laudaveram, "I had praised") # future perfect (laudavero, "I shall have praised," "I will have praised") The future perfect tense can also imply a normal future idea (like in "When I will have run...") and so may also sometimes be included in the primary sequence.
Latin and Romance
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Latin evolved into the various Romance languages. These were for many centuries only spoken languages, Latin still being used for writing. For example, Latin was the official language of Portugal until 1296 when it was replaced by Portuguese. The Romance languages evolved from Vulgar Latin, the spoken language of common usage, which in turn evolved from an older speech which also produced the formal classical standard. Latin and Romance differ (for example) in that Romance had distinctive stress, whereas Latin had distinctive length of vowels. In Italian and Sardo logudorese, there is distinctive length of consonants and stress, in Spanish only distinctive stress, and in French even stress is no longer distinctive. Another major distinction between Romance and Latin is that all Romance languages, excluding Romanian, have lost their case endings in most words except for some pronouns. Romanian retains a direct case (nominative/accusative), an indirect case (dative/genitive), and vocative. In Italy, Latin is still compulsory in secondary schools as Liceo Classico and Liceo Scientifico which are usually attended by people who aim to the highest level of education. In Liceo Classico Ancient Greek is a compulsory subject.
Latin and English
See Latin influence in English for a more complete exposition. English grammar is independent of Latin grammar, though prescriptive grammarians in English have been heavily influenced by Latin. Attempts to make English grammar follow Latin rules — such as the prohibition against the split infinitive — have not worked successfully in regular usage. However, as many as half the words in English were derived from Latin, including many words of Greek origin first adopted by the Romans, not to mention the thousands of French, hundreds of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian words of Latin origin that have also enriched English. During the 16th and on through the 18th century English writers created huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek roots. These words were dubbed "inkhorn" or "inkpot" words (as if they had spilled from a pot of ink). Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, but some remain. Imbibe, extrapolate, dormant and inebriation are all inkhorn terms carved from Latin words. In fact, the word etymology is derived from the Greek word etymologia, meaning "true sense of the word." Latin was once taught in many of the schools in Britain with academic leanings - perhaps 25% of the total [http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/teachem2/thennow/]. However, the requirement for it was gradually abandoned in the professions such as the law and medicine, and then, from around the late 1960s, for admission to university. After the introduction of the Modern Language GCSE in the 1980s, it was gradually replaced by other languages, although it is now being taught by more schools along with other classical languages.
Latin education
The linguistic element of Latin courses offered in high schools or secondary schools, and in universities, is primarily geared toward an ability to translate Latin texts into modern languages, rather than using it in oral communication. As such, the skill of reading is heavily emphasized, whereas speaking and listening skills are barely touched upon. However, there is a growing movement, sometimes known as the Living Latin movement, whose supporters believe that Latin can, or should, be taught in the same way that modern "living" languages are taught, that is, as a means of both spoken and written communication. One of the most interesting aspects of such an approach is that it assists speculative insight into how many of the ancient authors spoke and incorporated sounds of the language stylistically; without understanding how the language is meant to be heard it is very difficult to identify patterns in Latin poetry. Institutions offering Living Latin instruction include the Vatican and the University of Kentucky. In Britain the Classical Association encourages this approach, and there has been something of a vogue for books describing the adventures of a mouse called Minimus. In the United States there is a thriving competitive organization for high school Latin students, the National Junior Classical League (the second-largest youth organization in the world after the Boy Scouts), backed up by the Senior Classical League for college students. Many would-be international auxiliary languages have been heavily influenced by Latin, and the moderately successful Interlingua considers itself to be the modernized and simplified version of the language (le latino moderne international e simplificate). Latin translations of modern literature such as Paddington Bear, Winnie the Pooh, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Le Petit Prince, Max und Moritz, and The Cat in the Hat have also helped boost interest in the language.
See also

About the Latin language

- Latin grammar
- Latin spelling and pronunciation
- Latin declension
- Latin conjugation
- Latin alphabet
- List of Latin words with English derivatives
- Latin verbs with English derivatives
- Latin nouns with English derivatives
- ablative absolute
- Word order in Latin
About the Latin literary heritage

- Latin literature
- Romance languages
- Loeb Classical Library
- List of Latin phrases
- List of Latin proverbs
- Brocard
- List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names
- List of Latin place names in Europe
- Carmen Possum
Other related topics

- Roman Empire
- Internationalism
References

- Bennett, Charles E. Latin Grammar (Allyn and Bacon, Chicago, 1908)
- N. Vincent: "Latin", in The Romance Languages, M. Harris and N. Vincent, eds., (Oxford Univ. Press. 1990), ISBN 0195208293
- Waquet, Françoise, Latin, or the Empire of a Sign: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (Verso, 2003) ISBN 1859844022; translated from the French by John Howe.
- Wheelock, Frederic. Latin: An Introduction (Collins, 6th ed., 2005) ISBN 0060784237
External links

- [http://www.jambell.com/latin.html Latin Phrases for after dinner conversation (Thanks to Elaine Poole)]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=lat Ethnologue report for Latin]
- [http://forumromanum.org/literature/index.html Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum] is a comprehensive webography of Latin texts and their translations.
- [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ The Perseus Project] has many useful pages for the study of classical languages and literatures, including [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform?lang=Latin an interactive Latin dictionary].
- [http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe words by William whitaker] is a dictionary program online capable of looking up various word forms.
- [http://retiarius.org/ Retiarius.Org] includes a Latin text search engine.
- [http://www.nd.edu/~archives/latgramm.htm Latin-English dictionary and Latin grammar from U of Notre Dame]
- [http://latin-language.co.uk/ Latin language] History of Latin language, Latin texts with English translation and a collection of dictionaries.
- [http://augustinus.eresmas.net/scl/ Societas Circulorum Latinorum] gathers together Latin Circles all over the world.
- [http://www.learnlatin.tk LearnLatin.tk] - Free online course in Latin
- [http://www.latintests.net/ LatinTests.net] - Lets Latin learners test their grammar and vocabulary with self-checking quizzes.
- [http://thelatinlibrary.com/ The Latin Library] contains many Latin etexts
- [http://www.textkit.com/ Textkit] has Latin textbooks and etexts.
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Latin-english/ Latin–English Dictionary]: from Webster's Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.language-reference.com/ Language reference] Cross-foreign-language lexicon powered by its own search engine. All cross combinations between Latin and French, German, Italian, Spanish.
- [http://comp.uark.edu/~mreynold/rhetor.html Rhetor by Gabriel Harvey] was originally published in 1577 and never again reprinted.
- [http://freewebs.com/omniamundamundis omniamundamundis] Latin hypertexts from fourteen ancient Roman authors.
- [http://www.saltspring.com/capewest/pron.htm Pronunciation of Biological Latin, Including Taxonomic Names of Plants and Animals]
- [http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii Nuntii Latini (News in Latin)], written and spoken (RealAudio) news in latin. Weekly review of world news in Classical Latin, the only international broadcast of its kind in the world, produced by YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
- [http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?url=http%3A%2F%2F&type=text&text=Replace%20Me&from=eng&to=ltt InterTran Latin], Translate from Latin to ENGLISH or vice versa.
- [http://www.latinvulgate.com Latin Vulgate] The Latin and English of the Old & New Testaments in parallel, along with the Complete Sayings of Jesus in parallel Latin and English. Category:Classical languages Category:Ancient languages Category:Fusional languages Category:Languages of Italy Category:Languages of Vatican City als:Latein zh-min-nan:Latin-gí ko:라틴어 ja:ラテン語 simple:Latin language th:ภาษาละติน

Life

:For other uses, see Life and Living Life is a multi-faceted concept. Life may refer to the ongoing process of which living things are a part, the period between the conception (or a point at which the entity can be considered to be an individualized being) and death of an organism, the condition of an entity that has been born (or reached the point in its existence at which it can be established to be alive) and has yet to die, and that which makes a living thing alive.

Defining the concept of life

How can one tell when an entity is a lifeform? It would be relatively straightforward to offer a practical set of guidelines if one's only concern were life on Earth as we know it (see biosphere), but as soon as one considers questions about life's origins on Earth, or the possibility of extraterrestrial life, or the concept of artificial life, it becomes clear that the question is fundamentally difficult and comparable in many respects to the problem of defining intelligence. Also, loosely speaking, some theories are grounded in the basic assumption that "ideas have a life of their own".

A conventional definition

In biology, a lifeform has traditionally been considered to be a member of a population whose members can exhibit all the following phenomena at least once during their existence: #Growth, full development, maturity #Metabolism, consuming, transforming and storing energy/mass; growing by absorbing and reorganizing mass; excreting waste #Motion, either moving itself, or having internal motion #Reproduction, the ability to create entities that are similar to, yet separate from, itself or consisting solely of entities that exhibit the quality of reproduction. #Response to stimuli - the ability to measure properties of its surrounding environment, and act upon certain conditions. This property is also called homeostasis.

Exceptions to the conventional definition

These criteria are not without their uses, but their disparate nature makes them unsatisfactory from a number of perspectives; in fact, it is not difficult to find counterexamples and examples that require further elaboration. For example, according to the above definition, one could say:
- (most) mules and people who are infertile cannot reproduce and thus would not qualify as lifeforms. Also worker bees and other organisms living in colonies would not qualify; only the queen and the drones (or the whole colony) can be considered 'alive'.
- Fire and stars could be considered lifeforms.
- A virus does not grow and cannot reproduce outside of a host cell and thus would not qualify as a lifeform. Many individual organisms are incapable of reproduction and yet are still considered to be lifeforms; see mules and ants for examples. This is because the term "lifeform" applies on the level of entire species or of individual genes. (For example, see kin selection for information about one way by which non-reproducing individuals can still enhance the spread of their genes and the survival of their species.) It is important to keep in mind the difference between a "lifeform" and "a being that is alive." One example of sterility does not render the rest of the species a non-lifeform, any more than one dead animal renders the rest of the species dead. Note also that the two cases of fire and stars fitting the definition of life can be simply remedied by defining metabolism in a more biochemically exact way. Fundamentals of Biochemistry by Donald Voet and Judith Voet (ISBN 0471586501) defines metabolism as follows: "Metabolism is the overall process through which living systems acquire and utilize the free energy they need to carry out their various functions. They do so by coupling the exergonic reactions of nutrient oxidation to the endergonic processes required to maintain the living state, such as the performance of mechanical work, the active transport of molecules against concentration gradients, and the biosynthesis of complex molecules." This definition, in use by most biochemists, makes it clear that fire is not alive, because fire releases all the oxidative energy of its fuel as heat. (Note: Actually, the definition does not help much at all, for it is circular. What we are looking for, after all, is a definition of "living entity." We agreed that part of the definition is "capable of metabolism." We then tried to define "metabolism" in order to get clear on which entities are capable of it and which not. But the definition of "metabolism" just offered is in terms of living systems, and those are exactly what we are trying to define!) This could also be remedied by adding the requirement of locality, where there is an obvious structure that delineates the spatial extension of the living being, such as a cell membrane. A conceptual problem with saying that fire is life is that it collapses the distinction between "growth" and "reproduction." It is possible to think of a spreading flame as either growing or reproducing, but what would it mean to say that the same act is both growth and reproduction? Viruses reproduce, flames grow, some software programs mutate and evolve, future software programs will probably evince (even high-order) behavior, machines move, and some form of proto-life consisting of metabolizing cells without the ability to reproduce presumably existed. Still, some would not call these entities alive. Generally, all five characteristics are required for a population to be considered a lifeform.

Other definitions

Biologists who are content to focus on terrestrial organisms often note some additional signs of life, including these: # Living organisms contain molecular components such as: carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins. # Living organisms require both energy and matter in order to continue living. # Living organisms are composed of at least one cell. # Living organisms maintain homeostasis for some period of time. # Species of living organisms will evolve. All life on Earth is based on the chemistry of carbon compounds. Some assert that this must be the case for all possible forms of life throughout the universe; others describe this position as 'carbon chauvinism'. The systemic definition is that living things are self-organizing and autopoietic (self-producing). These objects are not to be confused with dissipative structures (e.g. fire). Variations of this definition include:
- Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana's definition of life (also widely used by Lynn Margulis) as an autopoietic (self-producing), water based, lipid-protein bound, carbon metabolic, nucleic acid replicated, protein readout system
- "a system of inferior negative feedbacks subordinated to a superior positive feedback" ([http://www.mol.uj.edu.pl/~benio/cyber_def_life.pdf J. theor Biol. 2001])
- Tom Kinch's definition of life as a highly organized auto-cannibalizing system naturally emerging from conditions common on planetary bodies, and consisting of a population of replicators capable of mutation, around each set of which a homeostatic metabolizing organism, which actively helps reproduce and/or protect the replicator(s), has evolved
- Stuart Kauffman's definition of life as an autonomous agent or a multi-agent system capable of reproducing itself or themselves, and of completing at least one thermodynamic work cycle
- Robert Pirsig's definition of life, found in his book Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, as that which maximizes its range of possible futures, in other words, that which makes decisions that result in the most future choices, or that which strives to keep its options open.
- A system converting entropy to negentropy, using flow of energy. Other definitions:
- That which seeks to continue its own existence (attributed to Clifford A. Schaffer).
- A self-replicating system that evolves through mutation.

Descent with modification: a "useful" characteristic

A useful characteristic upon which to base a definition of life is that of descent with modification: the ability of a life form to produce offspring that are like its parent or parents, but with the possibility of some variation due to chance. Descent with modification is sufficient by itself to allow evolution, assuming that the variations in the offspring allow for differential survival. The study of this form of heritability is called genetics. In all known life forms (assuming prions are not counted as such), the genetic material is primarily DNA or the related molecule, RNA. Another exception might be the software code of certain forms of viruses and programs created through genetic programming, but whether computer programs can be alive even by this definition is still a matter of some contention.

Origin of life

Main article: Origin of life There is no truly "standard" model of the origin of life, but most currently accepted scientific models build in one way or another on the following discoveries, which are listed roughly in order of postulated emergence: #Plausible pre-biotic conditions result in the creation of the basic small molecules of life. This was demonstrated in the Urey-Miller experiment. #Phospholipids spontaneously form lipid bilayers, the basic structure of a cell membrane. #Procedures for producing random RNA molecules can produce ribozymes, which are able to produce more of themselves under very specific conditions. There are many different hypotheses regarding the path that might have been taken from simple organic molecules to protocells and metabolism. Many models fall into the "genes-first" category or the "metabolism-first" category, but a recent trend is the emergence of hybrid models that do not fit into either of these categories.

The possibility of extraterrestrial life

Main articles: Extraterrestrial life, Astrobiology As of 2005, Earth is the only planet in the universe known by humans to support life. The question of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe remains open, but analyses such as the Drake equation have been used to estimate the probability of such life existing. There have been a number of claims of the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe, but none of these have yet survived scientific scrutiny. Today, the closest that scientists have come to finding extraterrestrial life is fossil evidence of possible bacterial life on Mars (via the ALH84001 meteorite). Searches for extraterrestrial life are currently focusing on planets and moons believed to possess liquid water, at present or in the past. Recent evidence from the NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity supports the theory that Mars once had surface water. See Life on Mars for further discussion. Jupiter's moons are also considered good candidates for extraterrestrial life, especially Europa, which seems to possess oceans of liquid water. Other highly speculative and somewhat doubtful places for present or past life include the atmosphere of Venus, Titan cryovolcanoes, or even Enceladus.

References

- Kauffman, Stuart. The Adjacent Possible: A Talk with Stuart Kauffman. Retrieved Nov. 30, 2003 from [http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kauffman03/kauffman_index.html]

External links

- [http://www.lifetheory.com Express your theory and meaning of life]
- [http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kauffman03/kauffman_index.html "The Adjacent Possible: A Talk with Stuart Kauffman"]
- [http://www.quotesandpoem.com/poems/SelectedPoetryTopic/Life Poems and Quotes about life and living]
- [http://www.angelfire.com/linux/vjtorley/ Animals and other living things: their interests, mental capacities and moral entitlements]
- [http://tolweb.org/tree?group=life Tree of Life Web Project - Life on Earth]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry]
- [http://web.archive.org/web/20041030074958/http://people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/DHB.html The Deep Hot Biosphere Theory (Thomas Gold)] Category:Biology ja:生命 ko:생명 ms:Benda hidup simple:Life

Sin

:This page is about sin in the context of religion. For other meanings, see Sin (disambiguation) Sin has been a term most usually used in a religious context, and today describes any lack of conformity to the will of God; especially, any willful disregard for the norms revealed by God is a sin. The word is from the old English synn, presumed to be from Germanic
- sun(d)jō (lit: "it is true"). It is recorded in use as early as the 9th century. The most common formal definition is an infraction against religious or moral law. Colloquially, any thought, word, or act considered faulty, shameful, harmful to oneself or to others, or which alienates self from others and especially from God, can be called a sin. Through sin, guilt is incurred; and according to guilt, punishment is deserved. Compare Impiety and Crime. Atonement is a concept of justice and mercy, and "payment" for one's sins. An example is found in traditions of animal sacrifice (as found in early Judaism, for example). Atonement for one's sins thought through the agency of a Messiah became the central idea of Christian theology. Repentance is the act of turning from and ceasing from sin. It also implies rectifying past sins, insofar as reasonably possible.

Etymology

The English word sin derives from Old English synn. The same root appears in several other Germanic languages, e.g. Old Norse synd, or German Sünde. The word may derive, ultimately, from
- es-, one of the Indo-European roots that meant "to be," and is a present participle, "being." Latin, also has an old present participle of esse in the word sons, sont-, which came to mean "guilty" in Latin. The root meaning would appear to be, "it is true;" that is, "the charge has been proven." The Greek word hamartia is often translated as sin in the New Testament; it means "to miss the mark" or "to miss the target".

Jewish views of sin

Judaism regards the violation of divine commandments to be a sin. Judaism uses this term to include violations of Jewish law that are not necessarily a lapse in morality. Judaism holds that all people sin at various points in their lives, and hold that God tempers justice with mercy. The generic Hebrew word for any kind of sin is aveira. Based on verses in the Hebrew Bible, Judaism describes three levels of sin.
- Pesha or Mered - An intentional sin; an action committed in deliberate defiance of God;
- Avon - This is a sin of lust or uncontrollable emotion. It is a sin done knowingly, but not done to defy God;
- Cheit - This is an unintentional sin. Judaism holds that no human being is perfect, and all people have sinned many times. However certain states of sin (i.e. avon or cheit) does not condemn a person to damnation; only one or two truly grievous sins lead to anything approaching some Christians' idea of hell. The Biblical and rabbinic conception of God is that of a creator who tempers justice with mercy. Based on the views of Rabbeinu Tam in the Babylonian Talmud (tractate Rosh HaShanah 17b), God is said to have thirteen attributes of mercy: # God is merciful before someone sins, even though God knows that a person is capable of sin. # God is merciful to a sinner even after the person has sinned. # God represents the power to be merciful even in areas that a human would not expect or deserve. # God is compassionate, and eases the punishment of the guilty. # God is gracious even to those who are not deserving. # God is slow to anger. # God is abundant in kindness. # God is a god of truth, thus we can count on God's promises to forgive repentant sinners. # God guarantees kindness to future generations, as the deeds of the righteous patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) have benefits to all their descendants. # God forgives intentional sins if the sinner repents. # God forgives a deliberate angering of Him if the sinner repents. # God forgives sins that are committed in error. # God wipes away the sins from those who repent. As Jews are commanded in imitatio Dei, emulating God, rabbis take these attributes into account in deciding Jewish law and its contemporary application. A classical rabbinic work, Midrash Avot de Rabbi Natan, states: :One time, when Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was walking in Jerusalem with Rabbi Yehoshua, they arrived at where the Temple in Jerusalem now stood in ruins. "Woe to us" cried Rabbi Yehoshua, "for this house where atonement was made for Israel's sins now lies in ruins!" Answered Rabban Yochanan, "We have another, equally important source of atonement, the practice of gemilut hasadim (loving kindness), as it is stated 'I desire loving kindness and not sacrifice'". The Babylonian Talmud teaches that "Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Eleazar both explain that as long as the Temple stood, the altar atoned for Israel, but now, one's table atones [when the poor are invited as guests]." (Tractate Berachot, 55a.) The traditional liturgy of the Days of Awe (the High Holy Days; i.e. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) states that prayer, repentance and tzedakah (charitable actions) are how one atones for sin.

Jewish conceptions of atonement for sin

Atonement for sins is discussed in the Hebrew Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament. Rituals for atonement occurred in the Temple in Jerusalem, and were performed by the Kohanim, the Israelite priests. These services included song, prayer, offerings and animal sacrifices known as the korbanot. The rites for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, are prescribed in the book of Leviticus chapter 15. The ritual of the scapegoat, sent into the wilderness to be claimed by Azazel, was one of these observances (Lev. 15:20-22). A number of animal sacrifices were prescribed in the Torah (five books of Moses) to make atonement: a sin-offering for sins, and a guilt offering for religious trespasses. The significance of animal sacrifice is not expanded on at length in the Torah, though Genesis IX:4 and Leviticus XVII suggest that blood and vitality were linked. Later Biblical prophets occasionally make statements to the effect that the hearts of the people were more important than their sacrifices - "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams" (I Samuel 15:22); "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6:6); (see also Psalm 40:6-8). Note that Judaism's views on sin and atonement are not identical to those in the Hebrew Bible alone, but rather are based on the laws of the Bible as seen through the Jewish oral law.

Hebrew Concept of Sin

The Hebrew word translated as sin is khate, Strong's Concordance:2399—a crime, sin, fault. The root of khate is khaw-taw, Strong:2398—to miss, to err from the mark (speaking of an archer), to sin, to stumble.

Christian views of sin

In General

In Western Christianity, sin is often viewed as a legal infraction or contract violation, and so salvation tends to be viewed in legal terms. In Eastern Christianity, sin is more often viewed in terms of its effects on relationships, both among people and between people and God. The Greek word in the New Testament that is translated in English as "sin" is hamartia, which literally means missing the target. Consequently, salvation is viewed more in terms of reconciliation and vastly improved relationships. These two perspectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive. 1 John 3:4 states: "Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness." (NRSV)

Roman Catholic Views

Roman Catholic doctrine distinguishes between personal sin and original sin. Personal sins are either mortal or venial. Mortal sins are sins of grave (serious) matter, where the sinner is aware that the act (or omission) is both a sin and a grave matter, and performs the act (or omission) with deliberate consent. The act of committing a mortal sin cuts off the sinner from God's grace; it is in itself a rejection of God. If left un-reconciled, mortal sins result in eternal punishment in Hell. Venial sins are sins which do not meet the conditions for mortal sins. The sin may be one that is not a grave matter, or if a grave matter, the individual does not realize that the act is a sin or grave matter, or does not deliberately consent to the sin. The act of committing a venial sin does not cut off the sinner from God's grace, as the sinner has not rejected God. However, venial sins do injure the relationship between the sinner and God, and as such, must be reconciled to God, either through the sacrament of reconciliation or receiving the Eucharist. Both mortal and venial sins have a dual nature of punishment. They incur both guilt for the sin, yielding eternal punishment, and temporal punishment for the sin. Reconciliation is an act of God's mercy, and addresses the guilt and eternal punishment for sin. Purgatory and indulgences address the temporal punishment for sin, and exercise of God's justice. Catholic doctrine also sees sin as being twofold: Sin is, at once, any evil or immoral action which infracts God's law and the inevitable consequences, the state of being that comes about by committing the sinful action. Sin can and does alienate a person both from God and the community. Hence, the Catholic Church's insistence on reconciliation with both God and the Church itself. According to Roman Catholicism, in addition to Jesus, the Virgin Mary also lived her entire life without sin. It is believed that Jesus assumed her directly into heaven after the end of her life on Earth; see Assumption of Mary. The belief in Mary's sinlessness is shared by many Eastern Orthodox theologians, but is not universally held and is not generally considered to be a point of dogma. In addition, the Orthodox view of the sinlessness of the Theotokos is not quite of the same nature as that held by Roman Catholics, since the Roman teaching of the Immaculate Conception is not an Orthodox doctrine. :See also: Seven deadly sins

Eastern/Oriental Orthodox Views

The Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox use sin both to refer to humanity's fallen condition and to refer to individual sinful acts. In many ways the Orthodox Christian view of sin is similar to the Jewish, although neither form of Orthodoxy makes formal distinctions among "grades" of sins.

Protestant Views

Many Protestants teach that due to original sin, man has lost any and all capacity to move towards reconciliation with God (Romans 3:23;6:23; Ephesians 2:1-3); in fact, this inborn sin turns humans away from God and towards themselves and their own desires (Isaiah 53:6a). Thus, humans may be brought back into a relationship with God only by way of God's rescuing the sinner from his hopeless condition (Galatians 5:17-21; Ephesians 2:4-10) through Jesus's ransom sacrifice (Romans 5:6-8; Colossians 2:13-15). Salvation is sola fide (by faith alone); sola gratia (by grace alone); and is begun and completed by God alone through Jesus (Ephesians 2:8,9). This understanding of original sin (Romans 5:12-19), is most closely associated with Calvinism (vid. total depravity) and Lutheranism. Methodist theology adapts the concept by stating that humans, entirely sinful and totally depraved, can only "do good" through God's prevenient grace. This is in contrast to the Roman teaching that while sin has tarnished the original goodness of humanity prior to the Fall, it has not entirely extinguished that goodness, or at least the potential for goodness, allowing humans to reach towards God to share in the Redemption which Jesus Christ won for them. Some non-Roman or Orthodox groups hold similar views.

Defined Types of Sin

- Original sin -- Most denominations of Christianity interpret the Garden of Eden account in Genesis in terms of the fall of man. Adam and Eve's disobedience was the first sin man ever commited, and their original sin (or the effects of the sin) is passed on to their descendants (or has become a part of their environment). See also: total depravity.
- Concupiscence
- Venial sin
- Mortal sin
- Eternal sin -- Commonly called the Unforgivable sin (mentioned in Matthew chapter 12, verse 31), this is perhaps the most controversial sin, whereby someone has become an apostate, forever denying himself a life of faith and experience of salvation; the precise nature of this sin is often disputed.
- Origin of Sin- The Bible gives us an insight into the origins of sin. Sin didn't originate with man, nowhere does the bible make this claim, in fact Paul tells us in Romans 5:12 'Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for all men have sinned' Paul is showing that sin was outside the world and entered, was not originated in the world. There is dispute about where sin originated some refer to Ezekiel 28 that suggests that sin originated with Satan when he coveted the position that righfully belongs to God.

Christian teachings on Atonement, or the Remedy for Sin

In Christianity, atonement refers to the redemption achieved by Jesus Christ by his crucifixion and resurrection. Its centrality means that it has been the source of much discussion and some controversy throughout Christian history. Christians begin with the proposition that the death of Jesus Christ was a sacrifice that relieves believers of the burden of their sins. But what was the actual meaning of Christ's death? Why did He have to die? The meaning of an event of such transcendent significance to Christians is hard to capture in any one verbal formula. But several have been ventured. Ironically, what Jesus himself is said to have taught on the subject of atonement when he was alive, differs from all of these. He stated that in order to find forgiveness from God for our sins, we first had to forgive one another, Mt. 6:14-15, see also Sermon on the Mount. Some later teachers who came after Jesus are as follows:
- Origen taught that the death of Christ was a ransom paid to Satan in satisfaction of his just claim on the souls of humanity as a result of sin. This was opposed by theologians like St. Gregory Nazianzen, who maintained that this would have made Satan equal to God.
- Irenaeus of Lyons taught that Christ recapitulated in Himself all the stages of life of sinful man, and that His perfect obedience substituted for Adam's disobedience.
- Athanasius of Alexandria taught that Christ came to overcome death and corruption, and to remake humanity in God's image again. See On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius.
- Augustine of Hippo said that sin was not a created thing at all, but that it was "privatio boni", a "taking away of good", and uncreation.
- Anselm of Canterbury taught that Christ's death satisfied God's offended sense of justice over the sins of humanity. Also, God rewarded Christ's obedience, which built up a storehouse of merit and a treasury of grace that believers could share by their faith in Christ. This view is known as the satisfaction theory, the merit theory, or sometimes the commercial theory. Anselm's teaching is contained in his treatise Cur Deus Homo, which means Why God Became Human. Anselm's ideas were later expanded utilizing Aristotelian philosophy into a grand theological system by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, particularly in his masterpiece, the Summa Theologiae, which eventually became official Roman Catholic doctrine.
- Pierre Abélard held that Christ's Passion was God suffering with His creatures in order to show the greatness of His love for them. This is often known as the moral influence view, and has dominated Christian liberalism.
- Martin Luther and John Calvin, leaders of the Protestant Reformation, owed much to Anselm's theory and taught that Christ, the only sinless person, was obedient to take upon Himself the penalty for the sins that should have been visited on men and women. This view is a version of substitutionary atonement and is called sometimes called substitutionary punishment or a satisfaction theory, though it is not identical to that of Anselm. Calvin additionally advocated the doctrine of limited atonement, which teaches that the atonement applies only to the sins of the elect rather than to all of humanity.
- Arminianism has traditionally taught what is known as "Moral Government" theology or the Governmental theory. Drawing primarily from the works of Jacobus Arminius and Hugo Grotius, the Governmental theory teaches that Christ suffered for humankind so that God could forgive humans while still maintaining divine justice. Unlike the perspectives of Anselm of Canterbury or Calvinism, this view states that Christ was not punished for humanity, for true forgiveness would not be possible if humankind's offenses were already punished. Christ's suffering was a real and meaningful substitutionary atonement for the punishment humans deserve, but Christ was not punished on behalf of the human race. This view has prospered in traditional Methodism and all who follow the teachings of John Wesley, and has been detailed by, among others, 19th century Methodist theologian John Miley in his classic Atonement in Christ and 20th century Church of the Nazarene theologian J. Kenneth Grider in his Wesleyan-Holiness Theology. Variations of this view have also been espoused by 18th century Puritan Jonathan Edwards and 19th century revival leader Charles Grandison Finney.
- Karl Barth taught that Christ's death manifested God's love and His hatred for sin. The several ideas of these and many more theologians can perhaps be summed up under these rubrics:
- Victory: the idea that Jesus defeated Death through his death, and gave life to those in the grave. Both following models may be understood as variations of the Victory idea:
- Participation: the idea that God's death on the cross completed his identification with humanity - God's participation in our sin and sorrow allowing our participation in his love and triumph;
- Ransom: the idea that Jesus released humanity from a legal obligation to the Devil, incurred by sin. (Theories involving ransom owed to divine justice are generally classified under Substitution, below.)
- Punishment: the idea that God assumed the penalty for human sins on the Cross, and volunteered punishment as the price paid to release humanity from so that the faithful might escape it;
- Government: the idea that God forgives the penalty due humans for their sins, provisioned on their acceptance of that forgiveness, but that Christ suffered on the Cross in order to demonstrate the seriousness of sin;
- Example: the idea that Jesus's death was meant as a lesson in ideal submission to the will of God, and to show the path to eternal life;
- Revelation: the idea that Jesus's death was meant to reveal God's nature and to help humans know God better. :See also: Penance; Repentance; Reconciliation; Catholic sacraments

Muslim views of sin

Islam sees sin (dhanb ذنب) as anything that goes against the will of Allah. Muslims believe that God is angered by sin and punishes some sinners with the fires of Hell (jahannam), but that He is also the Merciful (ar-rahman) and the Forgiving (al-ghaffar), and forgives those who repent and serve Him: :Say: "O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah: for Allah forgives all sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. (Qur'an 39:53) Some of the major sins are held to be legally punishable in an Islamic state (for example, murder, theft, adultery, and in some views apostasy; see sharia). Most are left to God to punish (for example, backbiting, hypocrisy, arrogance, filial disrespect, lying).

Hindu views of sin

In Hinduism, the term sin or papum is often used to describe actions that create negative karma. Sin, in Hinduism, besides creating negative karma, is violating moral and ethical codes as in the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In fact, it is much described in the scriptures that chanting the name of Hari or Narayana or Shiva is the only way to atone for sins, prevent rebirth and attain moksha. For reference, see the famous story of Ajamila, described in a story described in the Bhagavata Purana. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami explains in the lexicon section of his book, Dancing with Siva, that "sin is an intentional transgression of divine law and is not viewed in Hinduism as a crime against God as in Judaeo-Christian religions, but rather as 1) an act against dharma, or moral order and 2) one's own self." Furthermore, he notes that it is thought natural, if unfortunate, that young souls act wrongly, for they are living in nescience, avidya, the darkness of ignorance. He further mentions that sin in Hinduism is an adharmic course of action which automatically brings negative consequences. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami explains that the term sin carries a double meaning, as do its Sanskrit equivalents: 1) a wrongful act, 2) the negative consequences resulting from a wrongful act. In Sanskrit the wrongful act is known by several terms, including pataka (from pat, "to fall") papa, enas, kilbisha, adharma, anrita and rina (transgress, in the sense of omission). He comments that the residue of sin is called papa, sometimes conceived of as a sticky, astral substance which can be dissolved through penance (prayashchitta), austerity (tapas) and good deeds (sukritya). Note that papa is also accrued through unknowing or unintentional transgressions of dharma, as in the term aparadha (offense, fault, mistake). Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami further notes that in Hinduism, except for Dvaita school of Shri Madhvacharya, there are no such concepts of inherent or mortal sin, according to some theologies, which he defined as sins so grave that they can never be expiated and which cause the soul to be condemned to suffer eternally in hell. Adapted and cited from lexicon section of his book, Dancing with Siva., with italics to indicate non-quotes.

Atheist views of sin

To the atheist, the concept of sin does not make any sense at all. There is no god, there are no "commandments", and thus, human behaviour is not regulated by concepts of sin and guilt. This has given rise to accusations that atheists are hedonists. Accusations of nihilism commonly crop up, and the religious often accuse the atheist position of being amoral. Atheists generally state they follow a standard of ethics which renders this accusation baseless.

Notes and references

# - [http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE133.html Bartleby - Sin] # - [http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1148/k8.html Ajamakila] # - [http://www.atheists.org/Atheism/ethics.html Atheists.org Ethics]

External Links

- [http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect1chpt3.htm#art1 Catholic Catechism on The Moral Law]
- [http://www.yesselman.com/glosindx.htm#Sin Hebrew Concept of Sin] Category:Christian law Category:Christian philosophy Category:Religious law Category:Theology Category:Christian theology ja:罪 simple:Sin

Religion

)]] Religion (see etymology below) —sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system—is commonly defined as belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine; and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions and rituals associated with such belief. In its broadest sense some have defined it as the sum total of answers given to explain humankind's relationship with the universe. In the course of the development of religion, it has taken many forms in various cultures and individuals. Occasionally, the word "religion" is used to designate what should be more properly described as "organized religion" – that is, an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization). There are many different religions in the world today.

Etymology

religion-supporting organization] The origins of the word "religion" have been debated for centuries. Some explanations for the origin of the word are:
- re-reading--from Latin re (again) + legio (read), referring to the repetition of scripture.
- treating carefully--from Latin relegere (Cicero's interpretation)
- re-connection to the divine--from Latin re (again) + ligare (to connect, as in English ligament). This interpretation is favoured by modern scholars such as Tom Harpur, but probably originated with St. Augustine.
- to bind or return to bondage--an alternate interpretation of the "reconnection" etymology, possibly also originating with Augustine but emphasising a sense of servitude to God. However, the bondage interpretation, while popular with critics of religion, is often considered imprecise and possibly offensive in many modern religious contexts.
- concerning a gathering--from Latin ablative res (with regard to) + legere (to gather). More emphatically, religion concerns an organization. What is clear about the word "religion" is that the religious connotations (in the sense of gods, morality, afterlife, etc.) were not a part of the term's Latin precursors.

Religion and science

According to the religious, knowledge can be gained from a religious leader, a sacred text, or personal revelation. It is not limited in scope and can try to answer any question. Some religious people maintain that knowledge obtained in this way is absolute and infallible (religious cosmology). Religious knowledge tends to vary from religion to religion, from sect to sect, and from individual to individual. In contrast, the scientific method gains knowledge by interaction with the world, and can only answer cosmological questions about the physical universe. It tries to give theories of the world which best fit the observed evidence. All scientific knowledge is tentative, and subject to later improvement or revision in the face of better evidence. It should be noted that science can not only describe the world physically, but can also state facts that aren't physical, e.g. facts of economics, linguistics or much of psychology. Many early scientists held strong religious beliefs (see Scientists of Faith) and strove to reconcile science and religion. Isaac Newton, for example, believed that gravity caused the planets to revolve about the sun, but credited God with the design. In the concluding General Scholium to the Principia Mathematica he wrote "This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." Nevertheless, conflict arose between religious organisations and individuals who propogated scientific theories which they deemed unaccaptable. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, has reserved to itself the right to decide which scientific discoveries are acceptable and which are unacceptable. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for unacceptable scientific theories, while Galileo was tried and forced to recant the theory that the earth goes around the sun. The modern Roman Catholic Church accepts most current scientific theories, but still reserves the right to make the final judgment. Here are a few of the areas in which some scientists and the organized Church have come into conflict from time to time.
- Does the earth move around the sun or does the sun move around the earth?
- Is the earth a few thousand years old or more than a billion years old?
- Was there a flood that covered all the earth?
- Did the various species evolve or were they individually created by God? (see Evolution)
- Did the universe have a beginning or is it infinite?
- Is the speed of light constant and is Einstein's Theory of Relativity correct?
- Does radioactive decay occur at a predictable rate? (see Age of the Earth)

Philosophy and metaphysics

In between the doctrines of religion and science, stands the philosophical perspective of metaphysical cosmology. This ancient field of study seeks to draw logical conclusions about the nature of the universe, humanity, and god. One important philosophical tool that attempts to resolve the conflict between religion and science is Occam's razor, which was originally developed by William of Occam to support religion but is now often used in the philosophy of science to support science. Occam's razor cuts both ways. One should also take note of the related philosophic field of epistemology which questions the very nature of how we come to understand and accept that a belief is true or false, such as belief in Darwinian evolution as compared to Christian young earth creationism and vice versa. young earth creationism]

Esotericism and mysticism

:young earth creationism] Mysticism, in contrast with philosophy and metaphysics, denies that logic is the most important method of gaining enlightenment. Rather physical disciplines such as yoga, starvation, self-strangulation, or whirling (in the case of the Sufi dervishes) or the use of drugs such as LSD, lead to higher states of consciousness that logic can never hope to grasp. Mysticism ("to conceal") is the pursuit of communion with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct, personal experience (intuition or insight) rather than rational thought. Mystics believe in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible through personal experience. They believe that such experience is a genuine and important source of knowledge. Esotericism claims to be more sophisticated than religion, to rely on intellectual understanding rather than faith, and to improve on philosophy in its emphasis on techniques of psycho-spiritual transformation (esoteric cosmology). Esotericism refers to "hidden" knowledge available only to the advanced, privileged, or initiated, as opposed to exoteric knowledge, which is public. It applies especially to spiritual practices. The mystery religions of ancient Greece and the modern religion of Scientology are examples of Esotericism. Esotericism

Spirituality

Members of an organized religion may not see any significant difference between religion and spirituality. Or they may see a distinction between the mundane, earthly aspects of their religion and its spiritual dimension. Some individuals draw a strong distinction between religion and spirituality. They may see spirituality as a belief in ideas of religious significance (such as God, the Soul, or Heaven), but not feel bound to the bureaucratic structure and creeds of a particular organized religion. They choose the term spirituality rather than religion to describe their form of belief, perhaps reflecting a disillusionment with organized religion (see Religion in modernity), and a movement towards a more "modern" — more tolerant, and more intuitive — form of religion. These individuals may reject organized religion because of historical acts by religious organizations, such as Islamic terrorism or the Spanish Inquisition. Mahatma Gandhi who was born a Hindu wrote the following about religion in his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth :"Thus if I could not accept Christianity either as a perfect, or the greatest religion, neither was I then convinced of Hinduism being such. Hindu defects were pressingly visible to me. If untouchability could be a part of Hinduism, it could but be a rotten part or an excrescence. I could not understand the raison d'etre of a multitude of sects and castes. What was the meaning of saying that the Vedas were the inspired Word of God? If they were inspired, why not also the Bible and the Koran? As Christian friends were endeavouring to convert me, so were Muslim friends. Abdullah Sheth had kept on inducing me to study Islam, and of course he had always something to say regarding its beauty." He then went on to say: :"As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side." He also said the following about Hinduism: :"Hinduism as I know it entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being ... When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita." Later in his life when he was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied: :"Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew."

Myth

Hindu, Israel]] The word "myth" has two main meanings, according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary: # a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon # a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence Ancient polytheistic religions, such as those of Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia, are categorized under the heading of mythology. Religions of pre-industrial peoples, or cultures in development, are similarly called myths in the anthropology of religion. Mythology can be a term used pejoratively by both religious and non-religious people. But by defining another person's religious stories and beliefs as mythology, one implies that they are less real than one's own religious stories and beliefs. The term "myth" in sociology, however, has a non-pejorative meaning. There "myth" is defined as stories that are important for the group and not necessarily untrue. Examples include the death and resurrection of Jesus, which, to Christians, explains the means by which they are freed from sin, as well as being ostensibly a historical event.

Approaches to the study of individual religions

Methods of studying religion subjectively (in relation to one's own beliefs)

These include efforts to determine the meaning and application of "sacred" texts and beliefs in the context of the student's personal worldview. This generally takes one of three forms:
- one's own — efforts by believers to ascertain the meaning of their own sacred text or other traditions, and to conform their thoughts and actions to the principles enunciated in those traditions. For most believers, this involves a lifetime process of study, analysis, and practice. Some faiths, such as Hasidic Judaism, emphasize adherence to a set of rules and rituals. Other faiths, such as Christianity, emphasize the internalization and application of a set of abstract principles, such as Love, Justice, or Faith. Some believers interpret their scriptures literally, and apply the text exactly as it is written. Other believers try to interpret scripture and other tradition through its context, to derive abstract principles which they may apply more directly to their lives and contexts. Jesus
- another's compared to one's own — efforts by believers of one belief system attempt to describe a different belief system in terms of their own beliefs. One example of this method is in David Strauss's 1835 The Life of Jesus. Strauss's theological approach strikes from the Biblical text the descriptions of angels and miracles which, due to his presupposition that supernatural events do not occur, he does not believe could have occurred. He then concludes that the stories must have been inserted by a "supernaturalist" merely trying to make an important story more convincing. In this course of his argument, Strauss argues that the supernaturalist who inserted the angels into the story of the birth of Christ borrowed the heathen doctrine of angels from the Babylonians who had held the Jews in captivity. That is, the New Testament's fabulous role for angels "is evidently a product of the influence of the Zend religion of the Persians on the Jewish mind." Due to his presumption that supernatural events do not occur, he dismisses the possibility that both cultures came to believe in angels independently, as a result of their own experiences and context.
- another's as defined by itself — efforts by believers of one belief system to understand the heart and meaning of another faith on its own terms. This very challenging approach to understanding religion presumes that each religion is a self-consistent system whereby a set of beliefs and actions depend upon each other for coherence, and can only be understood in relation to each other. This method requires the student to investigate the philosophical, emotional, religious, and social presuppositions that adherents of another religion develop and apply in their religious life, before applying their own biases, and evaluating the other faith. For instance, an individual who personally does not believe in miracles may attempt to understand why adherents of another religion believe in miracles, and then attempt to understand how the individual's belief in miracles affects their daily life. While the individual may still himself not believe in miracles, he may begin to develop an understanding of why people of other faiths choose to believe in them.

Methods of studying religion objectively (in a scientific and religiously neutral fashion)

There are a variety of methods employed to study religion which seek to be religiously neutral. One's interpretation of these methods depends on one's approach to the relationship between religion and science, as discussed above.
- Epistemological and ontological approaches to religion deal with the very nature of how one comes to accept any belief or assumption as true on its own terms and questions such matters of the nature of reality and existence of the universe and humanity. Such an approach may begin from philosophic first principles of epistemology and philosophic logic such as the law of non-contradiction, the law of excluded middle and others. This is perhaps one of the strongest approaches as one's assumptions here will underline one's assumptions and subsequent approaches to analysis of all of the history, people, sciences (or pseudosciences), humanities and social sciences, texts, ideologies, literatures, emotions and experiences associated with religions.
- Historical, archeological, and literary approaches to religion include attempts to discover the sacred writings at the "dawn of humanity." For example, Max Müller in 1879 launched a project to translate the earliest sacred texts of Hinduism into English in the Sacred Books of the East. Müller's intent was to translate for the first time the "bright" as well as the "dark sides" of non-Christian religions into English. [http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe01/sbe01002.htm]
- Anthropological approaches include attempts to lay out the principles of native tribes that have had little contact with modern technology as in John Lubbock's The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man. [http://darwin.lib.cam.ac.uk/perl/nav?pclass=calent&pkey=7286] :The term "religion" is problematic for anthropologists, and their approaches to the subject are quite varied. Some take the view that religion, particularly in less technically complex cultures, is a form of proto-science--a primitive attempt to explain and predict phenomena in the natural world, similar to modern science but less advanced. :However, most modern anthropologists reject this view as antiquated, ethnically and intellectually chauvinistic, and unsupported by cross-cultural evidence. Science has very specific methods and aims, while the term "religion" encompasses a huge spectrum of practices, goals, and social functions. In addition to explaining the world (natural or otherwise), religions may also provide mechanisms for maintaining social and psychological well-being, and the foundations of moral/ethical, economic, and political reasoning. :While many early anthropologists attempted to catalogue and universalize these functions and their origins, modern researchers have tended to back away from such speculation, preferring a more holistic approach: The object of study is the meaning of religious traditions and practices for the practitioners themselves--religion in context--rather than formalized theories about religion in general.
- Sociological approaches include attempts to explain the development of the ideas of morality and law, as in for example, Auguste Comte's Cours de philosophie positive hypothesizing in 1842 that people go through stages of evolution 1) obeying supernatural beings, then 2) manipulating abstract unseen forces, and finally 3) exploring more or less scientifically the social laws and practical governmental structures that work in practice. Within a sociological approach, religion is but the earliest primitive stage of discovering what is morally right and wrong in a civilized society. It is the duty of intelligent men and women everywhere to take responsibility for shaping the society without appealing to a non-existent Divinity to discover empirically what moral concepts actually work in practice, and in the process, the shapers of society must take into account that there is no Divine authority to adjudicate between what are only the opinions of men and women. Comte wrote, in translation, "It can not be necessary to prove to anybody who reads this work that Ideas govern the world, or throw it into chaos; in other words, that all social mechanism rests upon Opinions. The great political and moral crisis that societies are now undergoing is shown by a rigid analysis to arise out of intellectual anarchy." The intellectual anarchy includes the warring oppositions among the world's religions. [http://www.forum-global.de/soc/bibliot/comte/comtepositivephilosophy.htm]
- Psychological approaches. The Psychology of religion involves the gathering and classification of data (usually wide ranging) and the building of the explanations of the psychological processes underlying the religious experiences and beliefs. It includes a wide variety of researches (psychoanalytical and others) : Sigmund Freud (Oedipus Complex, Illusion), Carl Jung (Universal archetypes), Erich Fromm (Desire, Need for stable frame), William James (Personal religious experience, Pragmatism), Alfred Adler (Feeling of inferiority, Perfection), Ludwig Feuerbach (Imagination, Wishes, Fear of Death), Gordon Alport (Mature religion and Immature religion), Erik Erikson (Influence on personality development), Rudolf Otto (Non-rational experience), James Leuba (Mystical experiences and drugs).
- Philosophical approaches include attempts to derive rational classifications of the views of the world that religions preach as in Immanuel Kant's 1788 Critique of Practical Reason. Within a philosophical approach, the reason for a religious belief should be more important than the emotional attachment to the belief. [http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/etext04/ikcpr10.txt] And in attempting to provide a reasonable basis for morality, Kant proposed the categorical imperative: "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." [http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/etext04/ikfpm10.txt]
- Neuroscientific approaches seek to explore the apparent similarities among religious views dominant in diverse cultures that have had little or no contact, why religion is found in almost every human group, and why humans accept counterintuitive statements in the name of religion. In neuroscience, work by scientists such as Ramachandran and his colleagues from the University of California, San Diego [http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/Eguae.html] suggests evidence of brain circuitry in the temporal lobe associated with intense religious experiences. See also neurotheology, the scientific study of the biological basis of spiritual experience.
- Sociological approaches include the work of Rodney Stark who has looked at the social forces that have caused religions to grow and the features of religions that have been most successful. For example, Stark, who claims to be an agnostic, hypothesizes that, before Christianity became established as the state religion of Constantinople, Christianity grew rapidly because it provided a practical framework within which non-family members would provide help to other people in the community in a barter system of mutual assistance. Similarly, evolutionary psychology approaches consider the survival advantages that religion might have given to a community of hunter-gatherers, such as unifying them within a coherent social group. : Critics assert that this approach is inadequate insofar as it asserts that people subscribe to religions merely because of practical advantages.
- Cognitive psychological approaches take a completely different approach to explaining religion. Foremost among them is Pascal Boyer, whose book, Religion Explained, lays out the basics of his theory, and attempts to refute several previous and more direct explanations for the phenomenon of religion. Religion is taken in its widest sense (from holy mountains over ancestral spirits to monotheistic deities). An explanation is offered for human religious behaviour without making a presumption, to the positive or the negative, about the actual subject matter of the religious beliefs. Essentially, the reasoning goes that religion is a side effect to the normal functioning of certain subconscious intuitive mental faculties which normally apply to physics (enabling prediction of the arc a football will take only seconds after its release, for example), and social networks (to keep track of other people's identity, history, loyalty, etc.), and a variety of others. For instance, the same mechanism that serves to link, without explaining, an event (e.g. rustling of tall grass) with a cause (the possible presence of a predator) will help to form or sustain a belief that two random events are linked, or that an unexplained event is linked to supernatural causes. The reasoning would imply that there is no direct causal link between the subject matter of a belief (e.g. whether the ancestors watch over us) and the fact that there is such a belief. :Critics assert that cognitive psychological approaches are unfalsifiable and hence are unscientific speculation. For a

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