Race Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Race - Essay Example Beliefs surrounding this concept maintained that this chain was created by God and was very close to God in terms of perfection. This paper will seek to bring out issues regarding race which range from its history to current views. It will also give an insight as to whether there is need to replace the term â€Å"race† with something else like â€Å"ethnicity†. The etymology of the word â€Å"race† indicates that the term means common descent. Intellectual analysis on the book opines that the Europeans sought to define the term race at the Age of Enlightenment as a biological concept. However, as time went by, scholars tried to define and classify race into types, origins, and correlations (Spiller 45). Concerted efforts by Ember, Peregrine, and Ember show that biomedical researchers, as well as forensic anthropologists, collected and analyzed information on populations and individuals and established that race denotes distinctions which are scientifically practi cal (Ember, Ember, & Peregrine 97). In view of Hippocrates and many other thinkers, factors like climate and geography held a very significant place in shaping the physical appearance of different people. Ideally, the 19th century naturalists made attempts that changed race from taxonomy into a biological concept using anthropometrics. ... time, social conservatives exacerbated their belief and maintained that certain races portrayed innate inferiority after examining their shortcomings. A number of scientists claimed that they could determine the race of certain population or an individual by evaluating the subject’s DNA or genes. On the other end, the largest number of scientists understood that race was a social construct. These scientists believed that certain phonotypical expressions of individuals were useful in determining their race (Napolitano 128). Language, culture, and environment also played a primary role in shaping the behavioral characteristics of an individual and they were of great importance in determining the race of that individual (Ember, Ember, & Peregrine 112). The current views expressed by different people regarding race are different and overwhelming. The authors of this book mention that publications based on race as the subject receive uncomfortable facts, especially with reference t o race differences and intelligence. Academic research point out that, as of today, many people including intellectuals and mainstream journalists become highly emotional when they come across race related debates (Todorova 26). This means that many historic events revolving around race are always rather disappointing. Other archival resources reveal that different authors, co-authors, and liberals, as well as conservatives, admit that the subject of intelligence and race should hedge out, disqualified, and rendered meaningless. Black multiculturalists describe white people as mean and cold by ascertaining that they like manipulating things. On the other side, the same multiculturalists paint black people as empathetic because they entertain love. This difference in IQ colors the existing views

Definition of Buddhism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Definition of Buddhism - Essay Example 500 B.C. on the basis of pantheistic Brahminism. The speculations of the Vedanta school of religious thought, in the eighth and following centuries, B.C., gave rise to several rival schemes of salvation" (Definition of Buddhism n.d.). Things might appear to be solid and self-existing, but with the development of the insight gained through meditation one discovered that this was not so. Also, Buddhists believe that the Buddha's death is only an illusion and that he remains accessible to suffering humanity. Sunyata, one of the central concepts, means emptiness and it is the logical development of the earlier Buddhist concept that the human being does not possess an enduring soul and that all things were conditioned by preexisting conditions (New Oxford American Dictionary 2001). The four Noble Truths are (1) life is suffering, (2) the origin of suffering is attachment, (3) there is an end of sufferings, (4) there is path out of suffering (Buddhism Information and Education Network 2007). Believers suppose that the first of these is that life is, in its essence, unsatisfactory. The second of these is the idea that the unsatisfactoriness of the world stem from the constant cravings which arises in the human being and from ignorance of the true nature of reality. The third Noble Truth is that this need not be the fate of all human beings, and that there is a way to cease being enslaved to this unsatisfactory world. The final Noble Truth is that the way to cessation of bondage to the world lay in the Eightfold Path. The eight components of this path of liberation are 1) right (i.e. correct or proper) viewpoint, 2) right intention, 3) right speech, 4) right actions, 5) right livelihood, 6) right effort, 7) right mindfulness, and 8) right concentration (Buddhism Information and Education Network 2007).. Here, encapsulated in a very few easy to remember steps, lies the entire Buddhist plan for salvation. When examined more closely this list divides into three separate parts. The first part, right viewpoint and right intention, relates to the underlying core of one's understanding of the nature of reality. In order for his program of liberation to be effective, the Buddha knew that its practitioners had to change fundamentally the way in which they perceived the world. In old tradition, this was the purpose of right viewpoint, an orientation away from the understanding of the world as made up of material things that were acted upon, and toward an understanding of the world as a series of constantly changing and interacting processes. From this new understanding of the world came the second step on the Eightfold Path, right intention. This was achieved when the individual decided that the Buddhist analysis of existence was correct and determin ed to follow the Buddhist plan for salvation. This meant acting in a benevolent, non-harmful manner and practicing the steps of the Eightfold Path (Definition of Buddhism n.d.). The next three steps on the Eightfold Path were designed to take the insights gained from the first two steps and to put them into practice in the world. Right speech, as its name implies, was based on a proper use of speech, but it really involves the entire way in which human beings interact with one another. Thus one was enjoined not to lie, not to slander, not to backbite, not, in a word, to say (or presumably even