BACON BITTS!!!!!

Francis Bacon provided the world with the scientific method. His heavy belief in experimentation and observation led to his scientific knowledge. Francis Bacon was not interested in scholasticism which had dominated the European education in universities at the time. These students of scholasticism would spend their time just pondering about works of Aristotle and making syllogistic arguments. They would not put much effort into observing the world around. Bacon strictly believed that the church and science could not go together and that led him to ultimately taking away the church's power to educate. Bacon wanted to transform the church because the committed idolatry according to him.

FOUR IDOLS

-Idols of the tribe are certain characteristics that everyone shares. These usually contain the tendency of our senses to deceive us about what is really there, our inclination to wishful thinking, and our hasty generalizing tendencies before a careful investigative work has been done.

-Idols of the cave are conceptions or doctrines which vary from person to person and are usually result of preconditioned system of every individual, comprising education, custom, or accidental or contingent experiences.

- Idols of the marketplace are false conceptions which arise from interactions between men, usually through language. The tendency to use language too casually and imprecisely can cause problems in inductive reasoning.

-Idols of the theatre are prejudices from received or traditional philosophical systems. The theories and dogmas by which we are already familiar with can possibly lead us away from investigating for the truth.

How Galileo's daughter (Maria Celeste) helped Galileo

The daughter of Galileo, Maria Celeste, help out Galileo is many ways. Some of which greatly effected our world today. Galileo's work would have never even been done if it wasn't for her. First of all, she greatly helped him to survive, including feeding him and giving him medicine and making sure that he was always healthy in order to make accurate observations. One of the most crucial and important things that she did for him was editing all of his writings, which saved Galileo so much time and allowed him to put that to use through better observations, which led to proving the church wrong. Furthermore, after Galileo was on trial for making fun of Pope Urban (can someone please tell me which one) in his book, Galileo was put on trial by the offended pope. Where Maria comes in in this situation is that fact that she fully prepared Galileo for his trial and told him exactly what to say to them.

Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225 in Italy. He was one of the greatest medieval thinkers, being both philosopher and theologian. Thomas Aquinas was initially a Benedictine priest, but later decides to become a Dominican priest. Thomas Aquinas produced lots of works, but did not write after December 6, 1273 when he had a religious experience. Thomas Aquinas died in 1274 in Italy, and was canonized in 1323.

Aquinas believed that reason should be embraced by Christianity and developed rational arguments to prove God's existence through this reason. Aquinas believed that God intended us to use reason, that he made us that way, and when we use this reason we can see the world as being an emanation of God. In order to get closer to God, we must first understand him better, and the only way to do that was to use our logic and get to know God better. Aquinas brings reason back into the Middle Ages and teaches how to prove Christian faith through it.

First Way: The Argument from Motion
- Aquinas concluded that an object that is in motion is put in motion by some other object or force. He believed that ultimately there must have been an unmoved mover (in this case God) who put things in motion in the first place.

Second Way: Causation of Existence
- Aquinas concluded that through common sense and observation, it is evident that no object can create itself, and that instead, some previous object must have made it. There must have been an uncaused first cause (again, God) who started the chain of existence for all things.

Third Way: Contingent and Necessary Objects
- Aquinas believed that the extence of contingent beings (objects that can't exist without a necessary being causing its existence) would inevitably need an already existing being (God) in order for all of the contingent beings to exist.

Fourth Way: The Argument from Degrees and Perfection
- Aquinas concluded that for any given quality, there has to be a standard of perfection from which all such qualities are measured. In other words, there has to be a form of perfection (God) to which we can compare.

Fifth Way: The Argument from Intelligent Design
- Aquinas states that by the way the universe works, it can be concluded that it was designed by an intelligent designer (God).

St. Augustine's Just War

In class, we discussed St. Augustine, a philosopher during the Middle Ages, and his ideas about war. He believed that war was necessary in order to achieve peace. Furthermore, that war is a sin, but i he knew that it was inevitable. He thought the only rationalization for war was to hope to achieve peace. His seven rules for crusades were:

1. Last Resort
- A just war can only be initiated if all other non-violent options have been used.

2. Initiated by the government or a higher power
- A war is only just if an authoritative figure approves it as justified

3. Chance of success
- A war can only be fought if there is a chance of success deaths and injuries that occur during a just war are morally justified. Therefore, you cannot kill out of your own enjoyment, but those deaths that are being caused must have a valid reason

4. Right Intentions
- A just war can only be fought in order to redress a wrong suffered.
- The only objective of war is to solve the problem.
- Self-defense against an armed attack is always a just cause.

5. Re-establish peace
- The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace.
- War should improve peace that existed before the war or would exist if the war had never
been fought.

6. Proportionality
- You must use the minimum amount of force to obtain peace, your objective.

7. Don't Attack Civilians
- Civilians never target war, and all measures to avoid killing them should be used.
- Civilians deaths are justified only if they're unavoidable victims of an attack or a military target.


From these seven rules, we are able to justify a connection to Pope Urban II, hwo was responsible for initiated the Crusades. Pope Urban II qualifies as a higher power, and an authoritative figure, and therefore, the Crusades were justified.

Hitlers Book - Mein Kampf

At the beginning of chapter 8 of Hitler's book, he stated, "There are some truths, which are so obvious that for this very reason they are not seen or at least not recognized by ordinary people." By this, he meant that sometimes the truth is so painfully obvious and it is just right there, and they are everyday things that people don't pay attention to. By stating this quote, he is claiming that these people are ordinary people and that ordinary people are stupid but he isn't because he is the only one smart enough to see them, and it completely distracts us from the real argument which is about the obvious truths. These are called Ad Hominems.

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

Even though I, for the most part, support the evolution idea, I am still not putting down intelligent design. The only reason I still think that it might of been intelligent design is because the earth just happened to turn out a little to perfect for evolution. However, I still support the idea of evolution because of adaptation. Many supporters of the intelligent design idea use the example of how humans breathe out carbon dioxide and that's what the plants breathe in, of which they exhale oxygen, which humans breathe in. However, this can also be used as an example of evolution because its shows how we adapted to breathe in what the plants breathe out, so we never run out of air. Furthermore, the first humans might have been breathing in something else, such as carbon dioxide, but eventually we adapted over time to breathe in oxygen, which is similar to other adaptations that most people believe in. For example, the change from cavemen to humans today, we eventually adapted and there is no way that this could be an example of intelligent design. This is no different from the idea of the plants and humans that give off what the other one needs to survive. However, this still does not mean that I am completely throwing out the idea of intelligent design, but more of just I find it a little more evident of the idea of evolution.

Affirmative Action

I fully support what i stated today in class. Because I feel that there shouldn't be a need for affirmative action, however, maybe just more financial aid towards the minorities, because minorities have the same exact potential as the whites and Asians(that is if Asians are not considered a minority in this situation). I understand that minorities mainly come from a typically poorer area than rich white people, but that should be factored into their application essays, and that they came from a school containing less-experienced teachers. Despite that, they still have the exact same potential to get at least a 4.0 and do some extra curricular activities. However, there is also the conflict of time, where minorities with less money have to work to help support their families while going to school, or they have to take care of younger siblings, and they don't have any extra time for sports, clubs, community service, or other activities. In that case, colleges consider that into your application. I even went to the college awareness thing last night and the college counselor talked about that, and if you don't have time for extra activities for certain reasons, she said to put that on their application and the colleges fully consider that factor. Furthermore, an example of my point earlier, is my brothers friend who graduated from the magnet program at Cleveland three years ago, and she was Guatemalan, with not that much money. However, she ended up getting over a 4.0 every year and was even the president of few clubs, and this bought her a full-ride scholarship to Harvard. This shows that despite where you come from, and despite what your parents do for a living and how much money they have, you can achieve this same experience and there is no excuse because everyone has the same potential.