Does Descartes Successfully Prove The Existence Of God Philosophy Essay

Does Descartes Successfully Prove The Existence Of God Philosophy Essay Descartes arch mission in the Meditations was to provide a theory that would help him get to the truth. Descartes book Meditations on First Philosophy consists of six meditations through which he addresses several uncertain issues in attempt to remove their uncertainties. Maybe the most essential meditation he speaks of is the third meditation in which he discusses the debatable issue of The Existence of God. Although the existence of God is an objective matter, Descartes method in proving this existence is perhaps the most efficient in removing any shadow of doubt which a person might have. This method, which will be further discussed, has its own imperfections and therefore it was fairly easy for doubters to come up with rebuttals and hence, the matter remains objective. Descartes begins his third meditation discussing the existence of himself and regards himself as a thinking thing. In addition to that, he erases any doubts having to do with his sensory experience saying that although he knows his sensory perception and imagination may not exist outside him, however, they do exist inside him and are means of thinking. This that has been said previously does help Descartes approach the truth he seeks but is still not sufficient. Furthermore he continues by saying that a person cannot exist independently; human beings were created by an infinite substance; a being that is eternal, independent and has the highest power plus intelligence. This infinite substance is the reason for the existence of human beings and everything surrounding them, this infinite substance is God. The existence of God to Descartes is a necessity and a crucial matter especially after he established that in order to exist as finite beings, an infinite substance must exist to create us. In previous meditations, Descartes talked about how doubts and desires come from an interpretation that people lack certain things and that people would not notice this lack if it werent for the existence of a more ideal presence that has the things lacked by people. Furthermore, Descartes saw that there is no reason to doubt the existence of God since his perception and understanding of God is an infinite reality and therefore is more likely to be authentic than other conceptions. Having inferred that God essentially exists, Descartes asks himself how he acquired the idea of God. That being said, he advised three types of ideas: Adventitious, factitious, and innate. Adventitious ideas are derived from knowledge that we encounter through life. Factitious ideas are ideas come from our creative imagination. Innate ideas come from within and so from this definition, Descartes considers God to exist as an idea which we were born with and which God himself placed in us. Descartes distinct and clear perception is that God exists as perfection. In order to be labeled as a betrayer, one must have defects and faults. Furthermore, since Descartes sees God as a faultless and infinite being, then God could not be a betrayer or a deceiver. Cogito, ergo sum is a Latin phrase meaning I think, therefore I am and which Descartes quotes. He then explains that as the cogito is there, so should the existence of God. Although meditation three mainly discusses the existence of God, Descartes raises the issue again in meditation five. Meditation five: The essence of material things, and the existence of God considered a second time, includes three principle matters. The first topic covers the essence of matter. The second topic discusses the ontological argument for Gods existence and the third matter involves getting to the route to perfect knowledge. In this meditation, Descartes distinguishes between two things; the essence and the existence. Before knowing of an existing thing, one must be aware of its essence. What he means by that is, knowing the essence of things is to find out whether these certain things could possibly exist and not be actually there. However, we will further see that this does not apply to God, and that God serves as an exception in this matter. Descartes was strongly against Aristotles argument of the essence. To Aristotle, one learns the essence of a triangle by observing and examining surrounding triangular objects. While Descartes says that we acquire knowledge of the essence mainly through the intellect and after that being done will we be able to observe objects in the world resembling triangles. Adding to that, Descartes continues with his argument against Aristotles belief and says that since there are no perfect triangles in the real world then how will we be able to understand them if they do not exist? He also discusses the issue of mathematically abstract equations which we have learned but have not derived from whats surrounding us in our world. He then decides to turn this argument of essence to a more important issue which is proving the existence of God a second time now. However, this second proof shows to be weaker than the one he has discussed in his third meditation. The fact that he considers he should add more proof in this meditation makes us wonder, is he not sure of his first proof? The proof he provides in the fifth meditation is a form of proof that was used amongst scholastic philosophers. We have already established that our formulated idea of God equals a perfect and infinite being. Hence, that would necessarily include existence; it would be considered ideal to exist than not to exist. According to the Descartes, the term existence is not just considered a characteristic of God but a crucial feature of Gods, so that means God cannot be created without associating existence with him. After that proof was known to people and philosophers, Kant pointed out that it contained flaws since he does not agree with the fact that existence defines and object. To Kant, existence does not accommodate a certain object as much as it accommodates the world. Therefore he concludes that existence is not a property of Gods. Although Descartes provided many explanations regarding his proofs, they still remain very objective thus raising many counter arguments presented by people and philosophers. Descartes claim that we have a clear and distinct idea of an infinite being is not a valid statement because we do not in any way have a clear idea of this infinite being. That being said, when we are able to think of an ideal being does not follow that this ideal being we are thinking of actually exists. Thinking of something does not validate its existence or make it actually exist. Furthermore, even if we have an idea of God within us, it does not necessarily mean that God put that idea in us. Our ideas are not all innate, we do possess adventitious ideas which enable us to think and imagine creatively thus creating the idea of God. In order for God to be able to create himself and exist independently, he must own the attribute of timelessness, and we cannot just assume that he does own that property; hence, we cannot say that God is the reason he exists. If we allow something to be there without a cause then we would be going against our nature, and if we do allow it, then how does that stop everything else from existing without a cause? These arguments are not denying the existence of God, they are just justifying that Descartes proofs and discussions are presented in a weak manner and do not successfully prove the existence of God. Descartes does present himself as an intelligent person with rational discussions, but has failed to provide much rational explanations with regards to the existence of God. Since the beginning of his meditations, Descartes did classify that his thoughts of God present God as a perfect infinite being and then he classified himself as an imperfect being. This poses a problem; how can an imperfect person decide and define which properties exist as being perfect and which do not? When he says that, it is as if he is saying that his judgments and explanations are as ideal as his idea of God. To conclude matters, it is possible to think of God and an imperfect being. However that does not summon the things I think of to existence. Every person can have a different thought or image of God according to his/her way of thinking. That is why, the existence of God remains a debatable issue and is very much objective regardless of the different present religions.

Wilderness Survival :: essays research papers

Whether you are simply going camping at a commercial campground, taking a short hike, or backpacking into a pristine wilderness area... be prepared. Never leave to chance those few articles that may become lifesavers. Above all, always let someone know your itinerary and the time you plan to return. The following is a list of items that should be included in a basic survival kit: bodyOffer(17619)You May Be Owed Unclaimed Money To Find Out, Enter Your Last Name Here: 1.Waterproof matches (stick matches in a 35mm film container) or a disposable lighter. 2.Fire starter 3.Rigid blade knife (Preferably serrated on one side of the blade) w/ sheath 4.Folding saw 5.Compass 6.Map of the area you are in 7.Signal mirror 8.Flashlight 9.Plastic tarp 10.50 to 100 feet of nylon cord (1/8 inch is adequate) 11.First aid kit 12.Coins for pay phones (here again a 35mm film container works well) 13.Full canteen 14.Emergency food rations 15.Water purification tablets/filter. 16.Fish hooks and fishing line 17.Police whistle 18.Toilet paper Fire: When starting a fire find dry wood. Use the inner bark of trees, or look for the dead branches at the very bottom of fir trees. These are dead because they were denied sunlight by the branches above them. These same branches have probably protected them from getting wet. Start your fire small and gradually increase its size. Tinder will greatly enhance your chance for success. Take small branches and shred then with a knife o r your fingers. You can use dead grass, bird’s nests, wasp nests (unoccupied of course), inner bark from dead trees, or a strip of cloth from the tail of your shirt. Use anything that will ignite quickly. Place this in the center. Around this, build a teepee of small dry twigs. Once this is burning, slowly feed your fire with larger and larger pieces of wood. Always making sure the fire is burning freely before you progress to a larger piece of wood. Once this fire is burning do not let it go out. bodyOffer2() Shelter: Do not make the mistake of trying to construct a large shelter. Make it just large enough to accommodate you. This is important, especially in cold climates, because you are going to have to heat it. Use the materials at hand. Dig out a pit and line it with something to insulate you from the ground. Your body heat can be lost very quickly lying on the bare ground. Wilderness Survival :: essays research papers Whether you are simply going camping at a commercial campground, taking a short hike, or backpacking into a pristine wilderness area... be prepared. Never leave to chance those few articles that may become lifesavers. Above all, always let someone know your itinerary and the time you plan to return. The following is a list of items that should be included in a basic survival kit: bodyOffer(17619)You May Be Owed Unclaimed Money To Find Out, Enter Your Last Name Here: 1.Waterproof matches (stick matches in a 35mm film container) or a disposable lighter. 2.Fire starter 3.Rigid blade knife (Preferably serrated on one side of the blade) w/ sheath 4.Folding saw 5.Compass 6.Map of the area you are in 7.Signal mirror 8.Flashlight 9.Plastic tarp 10.50 to 100 feet of nylon cord (1/8 inch is adequate) 11.First aid kit 12.Coins for pay phones (here again a 35mm film container works well) 13.Full canteen 14.Emergency food rations 15.Water purification tablets/filter. 16.Fish hooks and fishing line 17.Police whistle 18.Toilet paper Fire: When starting a fire find dry wood. Use the inner bark of trees, or look for the dead branches at the very bottom of fir trees. These are dead because they were denied sunlight by the branches above them. These same branches have probably protected them from getting wet. Start your fire small and gradually increase its size. Tinder will greatly enhance your chance for success. Take small branches and shred then with a knife o r your fingers. You can use dead grass, bird’s nests, wasp nests (unoccupied of course), inner bark from dead trees, or a strip of cloth from the tail of your shirt. Use anything that will ignite quickly. Place this in the center. Around this, build a teepee of small dry twigs. Once this is burning, slowly feed your fire with larger and larger pieces of wood. Always making sure the fire is burning freely before you progress to a larger piece of wood. Once this fire is burning do not let it go out. bodyOffer2() Shelter: Do not make the mistake of trying to construct a large shelter. Make it just large enough to accommodate you. This is important, especially in cold climates, because you are going to have to heat it. Use the materials at hand. Dig out a pit and line it with something to insulate you from the ground. Your body heat can be lost very quickly lying on the bare ground.

A Dirty Job Chapter 15

15 THE CALL OF BOOTY Fuck puppets,† Ray said out of nowhere. He was on the stair-climbing machine next to Charlie and they were both sweating and staring at a row of six, perfectly tuned female bottoms aimed at them from the machines in front of them. â€Å"What was that?† Charlie said. â€Å"Fuck puppets,† Ray said. â€Å"That's what they are.† Ray had talked Charlie into coming to his health club with him under the pretense of getting him into the flow of being single. Actually, because Ray was an ex-cop, watched people more closely than really was healthy, had too much time on his hands, and didn't get out much himself, the real reason he asked Charlie to come work out with him was so he could get to know him outside of the shop. He'd noticed a strange pattern that had developed since Rachel's death, of Charlie showing up with people's property shortly after their obituary appeared in the paper. Because Charlie kept to himself socially and was secretive about what he did when he was out of the shop, not to mention all the little animals that ended up dead in Charlie's apartment, Ray suspected that he might be a serial killer. Ray decided to try to get close to his boss and find out for sure. â€Å"Keep your voice down, Ray,† Charlie said. â€Å"Jeez.† Since Ray couldn't turn his head, he was talking right at the women's butts. â€Å"They can't hear me; look, every single one has on a headset.† He was right, every one of them was talking on a cell phone. â€Å"You and I are invisible to them.† Having actually been invisible to people, or nearly so, Charlie did a double take. It was midmorning and the gym was full of lean spandex-clad women in their twenties with disproportionately large breasts, perfect skin, and expensive hair, who seemed to have the ability to look right through him the way that everyone did when he was in pursuit of a soul vessel. In fact, when he and Ray had first come into the gym, Charlie had actually looked around for some object, pulsing red, thinking that he might have missed a name on his date book that morning. â€Å"After I was shot I dated a physical therapist that worked here for a while,† Ray said. â€Å"She called them that: fuck puppets. Every one of them has an apartment that some older executive guy is paying for – just like he paid for the health-club membership and the fake tits. They spend their days getting facials and manicures, and their nights under some suit out of his suit.† Charlie was wildly uncomfortable with Ray's litany, talking about these women who were only a couple of feet away. Like any Beta Male, he would have been wildly uncomfortable in the presence of so many beautiful women anyway, but this made it worse. â€Å"So like they're like trophy wives?† Charlie said. â€Å"Nuh-uh, like wannabe trophy wives. They don't get the guy, the house, whatever. They just exist to be his perfect piece of ass.† â€Å"Fuck puppets?† Charlie said. â€Å"Fuck puppets,† said Ray. â€Å"But forget them, they're not why you're here.† Ray was right, of course. They weren't why Charlie was there. Five years had passed since Rachel's death, and everyone had been telling him he needed to get back in the game, but that's not why he agreed to accompany the ex-cop to the gym. Because Charlie spent too much time on his own, especially since Sophie had started school, and because he'd been hiding a secret identity and avocation, he'd started to suspect that everyone might have one. And since Ray kept to himself, talked a lot about people in the neighborhood who had died, and because he really didn't seem to have a social life beyond the Filipino women he contacted online, Charlie suspected Ray might be a serial killer. Charlie thought he'd try to get closer to Ray and find out. â€Å"So they're like mistresses?† Charlie said. â€Å"Like in Europe?† â€Å"I suppose,† Ray said. â€Å"But did you ever get the impression that mistresses worked this hard to look good? I think fuck puppet is more accurate, because when they get too old to hold the attention of their guy, they've got nothing more going. They'll be done, like marionettes with no one at the strings.† â€Å"Jeez, Ray, that's harsh.† Maybe Ray is stalking one of these women, Charlie thought. Ray shrugged. Charlie looked up and down the line of perfect derrieres, then felt the weight of his years alone or in the company of a child and two giant dogs, and said, â€Å"I want a fuck puppet.† Aha! thought Ray. He's picking a victim. â€Å"Me, too,† he said. â€Å"But guys like us don't get fuck puppets, Charlie. We just get ignored by them.† Aha! Charlie thought. The bitter sociopath comes out. â€Å"So that's why you brought me here, so I could show I was out of shape in front of gorgeous women who wouldn't notice?† â€Å"No, the fuck puppets are fun to look at, but there's some normal women who come here, too.† Who won't talk to me either, Ray thought. â€Å"Who won't talk to you either,† Charlie said. Because they can tell that you are a psychokiller. â€Å"We'll see in the juice bar after our workout,† Ray said. Where I'll sit at an angle so I can watch you pick your victim. You sick fuck, they thought. Charlie awoke to find not one, but three new names in his date book, and the last one, a Madison McKerny, had only three days for him to retrieve her soul vessel. Charlie kept a stack of newspapers in the house and, typically, would go back for a month looking for an obituary of his new client. More often, if the hellhounds would give him some peace, he would simply wait for the name to appear in the obituary section, then go find the soul vessel when it was easy to get into the house, with mourners or posing as an estate buyer. But this time he had only three days, and Madison McKerny hadn't appeared in the obituaries, so that meant she was probably still alive, and he couldn't find her in the phone book either, so he was going to need to get moving quickly. Mrs. Ling and Mrs. Korjev liked to do their marketing on Saturdays, so he called his sister, Jane, and asked her to come watch Sophie. â€Å"I want a baby brother,† Sophie announced to her Auntie Jane. â€Å"Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry, you can't have a baby brother, because that would mean that Daddy had sex, and that's never going to happen again.† â€Å"Jane, don't talk to her that way,† Charlie said. He was making sandwiches for them and wondering why he always got stuck making the sandwiches. To Sophie, he said, â€Å"Honey, why don't you go in your room and play with Alvin and Mohammed, Daddy needs to talk with Auntie Jane.† â€Å"Okay,† Sophie said, skipping off to her room. â€Å"And don't change clothes again, those are fine,† Charlie said. â€Å"That's the fourth outfit she's had on today,† he said to Jane. â€Å"She changes clothes like you change girlfriends.† â€Å"Ouch. Be gentle, Chuck, I'm sensitive and I can still kick your ass.† Charlie spanked some mayonnaise onto a whole wheat slice to show he was serious. â€Å"Jane, I'm not sure it's healthy for her to have all these different aunties around. She's already had a hard time losing her mother, and now you've moved away – I just don't think she should keep getting attached to these women only to have them yanked out of her life. She needs a consistent female influence.† â€Å"First, I have not moved away, I've moved across town, and I see her every bit as often as when I lived in the building. Second, it's not like I'm promiscuous, I'm just shitty at relationships. Third, Cassie and I have been together for three months, and we're doing fine so far, which is why I've moved out. And fourth, Sophie did not lose her mother, she never had her mother, she had you, and if you're going to be a decent human being, you need to get laid.† â€Å"That's what I mean, you can't talk like that in front of Sophie.† â€Å"Charlie, it's true! Even Sophie can see it. She doesn't even know what it is and she can tell that you're not getting any.† Charlie stopped constructing sandwiches and came over to the counter. â€Å"It's not sex, Jane. It's human contact. I was getting my hair cut the other day and the hairdresser's breast rubbed against my shoulder and I almost came. Then I almost cried.† â€Å"Sounds like sex to me, little brother. Have you been with anyone since Rachel died?† â€Å"You know I haven't.† â€Å"That's wrong. Rachel wouldn't want that for you. You have to know that. I mean she took pity on you and hooked up with you, and that couldn't have been easy for her, knowing she could do so much better.† â€Å"Took pity on me?† â€Å"That's what I'm saying. She was a sweet woman, and you're much more pitiful now than you were then. You had more hair then, and you didn't have a kid and two dogs the size of Volvos. Hell, there's probably some order of nuns that would do you now, just as a holy act of mercy. Or penance.† â€Å"Stop it, Jane.† â€Å"The Sisters of Perpetual Nookiless Suffering.† â€Å"I'm not that bad,† Charlie said. â€Å"The Holy Order of Saint Bonny of the BJ, patron saint of Web porn and incurable wankers.† â€Å"Okay, Jane, I'm sorry I said that about you changing girlfriends. I was out of line.† Jane leaned back on her bar stool and crossed her arms, looking satisfied but skeptical. â€Å"But the problem remains.† â€Å"I'm fine. I have Sophie and I have the business, I don't need a girlfriend.† â€Å"A girlfriend? A girlfriend is too ambitious for you. You just need someone to have sex with.† â€Å"I do not.† â€Å"Yes, you do.† â€Å"Yes, I do,† Charlie said, defeated. â€Å"But I have to go. Are you okay to watch Sophie?† â€Å"Sure, I'm going to take her to my place. I have an obnoxious neighbor up the street that I'd like to introduce to the puppies. Will they poop on command?† â€Å"They will if Sophie tells them.† â€Å"Perfect. We'll see you tonight. Promise me you'll ask someone out. Or at least look for someone to ask out.† â€Å"I promise.† â€Å"Good. Did you get that new blue pinstripe tailored yet?† â€Å"Stay out of my closet.† â€Å"Don't you need to get going?† Ray figured that it had probably started when Charlie murdered all those little animals he brought home for his daughter. Maybe buying the big black dogs was a cry for help – pets that someone would really notice being gone. According to the movies, they all started out that way – with the little animals, then before long they moved up to hitchhikers, hookers, and pretty soon they were mummifying a whole flock of counselors at some remote summer camp and posing the crusty remains around a card table in their mountain lair. The mountain lair didn't fit the profile for Charlie, since he had allergies, but that might just be an indication of his diabolical genius. (Ray had been a street cop, so it hadn't really been necessary for him to study criminal profiling, and his theories tended toward the colorful, a side effect of his Beta Male imagination and large DVD collection.) But Charlie had asked Ray to use his contacts on the force and at the DMV a half-dozen times to locate people, all of whom ended up dead a few weeks later. But not murders. And while a lot of items belonging to the recently deceased had turned up in the shop in the last few years (Ray had found antitheft numbers etched on a dozen items and called them in to a friend on the force who identified the owners), none of them had been murdered either. There were a few accidents, but mostly it was natural causes. Either Charlie was devious to an extraordinary degree, or Ray was out of his mind, a possibility that he didn't discount completely, if for no other reason than he had three ex-wives who would testify to it. Thus, he'd devised the workout ruse to draw Charlie out. Then again, Charlie had always treated him really well, and if it turned out he didn't have a mountain lair full of mummified camp counselors, Ray knew he'd feel bad about tricking him. What if there was nothing wrong with Charlie except that he needed to get laid? Ray was chatting with Eduardo, his new girlfriend at when Charlie came down the back steps. â€Å"Ray, I need you to find someone for me.† â€Å"Hang on a second, I have to sign off. Charlie, check out my new squeeze.† Ray pulled up a photo on the screen of a heavily made-up but attractive Asian woman. â€Å"She's pretty, Ray. I can't give you any time off right now to go to the Philippines, though. Not until we hire someone to take Lily's shifts.† Charlie leaned into the screen. â€Å"Dude, her name is Eduardo.† â€Å"I know. It's a Filipino thing, like Edwina.† â€Å"She has a five-o'clock shadow.† â€Å"You're just being a racist. Some races have more facial hair than others. I don't care about that, I just want someone who is honest and caring and attractive.† â€Å"She has an Adam's apple.† Ray squinted at the screen, then quickly clicked off the monitor and spun around on the stool. â€Å"So who do you need me to find?† â€Å"It's okay, Ray,† Charlie said. â€Å"An Adam's apple doesn't preclude someone from being honest, caring, and attractive, it just makes it less likely.† â€Å"Right. It was just bad lighting, I think. Anyway, who do you need to find?† â€Å"All I have is the name Madison McKerny. I know he or she lives in the city, but that's all I know.† â€Å"It's a she.† â€Å"Pardon me?† â€Å"Madison, it's a stripper's name.† Charlie shook his head. â€Å"You know this woman?† â€Å"I don't know her, although the name seems familiar. But Madison is a new-generation stripper name. Like Reagan and Morgan.† â€Å"Lost me, Ray.† â€Å"I've spent some time in strip joints, Charlie. I'm not proud of it, but it's sort of what you do when you're a cop. And you pick up on the pattern of stripper names.† â€Å"Didn't know that.† â€Å"Yeah, and there's sort of a progression going back to the fifties: Bubbles, Boom Boom, and Blaze begat Bambi, Candy, and Jewel, who begat Sunshine, Brandy, and Cinnamon, who begat Amber, Brittany, and Brie, who begat Reagan, Morgan, and Madison. Madison is a stripper name.† â€Å"Ray, you weren't even alive in the fifties.† â€Å"No, I wasn't alive during the forties either, but I know about World War Two and big-band music. I'm into history.† â€Å"Right. So, I need to look for a stripper? Doesn't help. I don't even know where to start.† â€Å"I'll go through the DMV and the tax records. If she's in town we'll have an address on her by this afternoon. Why do you need to find her?† There was a pause while Charlie pretended to find a smudge on the glass of the counter display case, wiped it away, then said, â€Å"Uh, it's an estate thing. One of the estates we got recently had some items that were left to her.† â€Å"Shouldn't the executor of the estate take care of that, or his lawyer?† â€Å"It's minutiae, not named in the will. The executor asked me to handle it. There's fifty bucks in it for you.† Ray grinned. â€Å"That's okay, I was going to help anyway, but if she turns out to be a stripper I get to go with you, okay?† â€Å"Deal,† Charlie said. Three hours later Ray gave the address to Charlie and watched as his boss bolted out of the shop and grabbed a cab. Why a cab? Why not take the van? Ray wanted to follow, needed to follow, but he had to find someone to cover the store. He should have anticipated this, but he'd been distracted. Ray had been distracted since talking to Charlie, not just by the search for Madison McKerny, but also because he was trying to figure out how to work â€Å"Do you have a penis?† casually into the conversation with his sweetheart, Eduardo. After a couple of teasing e-mails, he could stand it no longer and had just typed out, Eduardo, not that it makes any difference, but I'm thinking of sending you some sexy lingerie as a friendship present, and I wondered if I should make any special accommodations for the panties. Then he waited. And waited. And granted that it was five in the morning in Manila, he was second-guessing himself. Had he been too vague, or had he not been vague enough? And now he had to go. He knew where Charlie was going, but he had to get there before anything happened. He dialed Lily's cell phone, hoping that she wouldn't be working at her other job and would do him a favor. â€Å"Speak, ingrate,† Lily answered. â€Å"How did you know it was me?† Ray asked. â€Å"Ray?† â€Å"Yeah, how did you know it was me?† â€Å"I didn't,† Lily said. â€Å"What do you want?† â€Å"Can you come cover the store for me for a couple of hours?† Then, as he heard her take a deep breath that he was pretty sure would be propellant for verbal abuse, he added, â€Å"There's fifty bucks extra in it for you.† Ray heard her exhale. Yes! After graduating from the Culinary Institute, Lily had gotten a job as a sous chef at a bistro in North Beach, but she didn't make enough to move out of her mother's apartment yet, so she let Charlie talk her into keeping a couple of shifts at Asher's Secondhand, at least until he could find a replacement. â€Å"Okay, Ray, I'll come in for a couple of hours, but I have to be at the restaurant by five, so be back or I'm closing up early.† â€Å"Thanks, Lily.† Charlie sincerely hoped that Ray wasn't a serial killer, despite all the indications to the contrary. He would never have found this woman without Ray's police contacts, and what would he do in the future if he needed to find someone and Ray was in jail? Then again, Ray's experience as a cop could account for his never leaving any evidence. But why, then, would he continue to pursue the Filipino women over the Internet if he was just looking to kill people? Maybe that's what he did when he went to the Philippines to visit his paramours. Maybe he killed desperate Filipinas. Maybe Ray was a tourist serial killer. Deal with it later, Charlie thought. For now, there's a soul vessel to retrieve. Charlie got out of the cab outside of the Fontana, an apartment building just a block up from Ghirardelli Square, the waterfront chocolate factory turned tourist mall. The Fontana was a great, curved, concrete-and-glass building that commanded views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, and that had drawn the disdain of San Franciscans since it had been built in the 1960s. It wasn't that it was an ugly building, although no one would argue that it wasn't, but with the Victorian and Edwardian structures all around it, it looked very much like a giant air conditioner from outer space attacking a nineteenth-century neighborhood. However, the views from the apartments were exquisite, there was a doorman, underground parking, and a pool on the roof, so if you could handle the stigma of residing in an architectural pariah, it was a great place to live. The address Ray had given him for Madison was on the twenty-second floor, and so, presumably, was her soul vessel. Charlie wasn't sure of the exact range of his unnoticeability (he refused to think of it as invisibility, because it wasn't), but he hoped that it reached twenty-two floors. He was going to have to get past the doorman and into an elevator, and posing as an estate buyer wasn't going to work. Ah, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. If he got caught, he'd just have to find another way in. He waited by the door until a young woman in business attire went in, then followed her into the lobby. The doorman didn't even look at him. Ray saw Charlie get out of the cab and told his own driver to stop a block away, where he hopped out, threw the driver a five and told him to keep the change, then dug in his pocket for the rest of the fare while the driver pounded on the wheel impatiently and cursed under his breath in Urdu. â€Å"Sorry, it's been a while since I took a cab,† Ray said. Ray had a car, a nice little Toyota, but the only parking place he could find was eight blocks away from his apartment in the parking lot of a hotel managed by a friend of his, and when you got a parking place in San Francisco, you kept it, so Ray mostly used public transportation and only drove the car on his days off to keep the battery charged. He'd jumped in a taxi outside Charlie's shop and shouted, â€Å"Follow that cab!† thus completely terrifying the Japanese family in the back. â€Å"Sorry,† Ray said. â€Å"Konichiwa. It's been a while since I took a cab.† Then he jumped back out and caught a cab that didn't have a fare. He sneaked quickly up the street, going from light post, to newspaper machine, to ad kiosk, ducking behind each, staying in his stealth-crouch, and achieving nothing whatsoever except to look like a complete loon to the kid standing at the bus stop across the street. He reached the underground parking entrance of the Fontana just as Charlie was making for the door. Ray crouched behind the key-card pillar. He wasn't sure what he was going to do if Charlie went for the building. Fortunately, he'd memorized Madison McKerny's phone number, and he could warn her that Charlie was coming. In the cab on the way down here he'd remembered where he'd seen her name: on the register at his health club. Madison McKerny was one of the midmorning fuck puppets from the gym, and as Ray suspected, Charlie was stalking her. He watched Charlie fall in behind a young woman in business dress who was heading up the walk into the Fontana, then Charlie was gone. Just gone. Ray came out onto the sidewalk to get a better angle. The woman was still there, she'd gone only a couple of steps, but he couldn't see Charlie. There were no bushes, no walls, the whole damn lobby was glass, where the hell had he gone? Ray was sure he hadn't looked away, he didn't even think he had blinked, and he would have seen any sudden move Charlie might have made. Reverting to the Beta Male's tendency to blame himself, Ray wondered if maybe he'd had some kind of petit mal seizure that had made him black out for a second. Whether he did or not, he had to warn Madison McKerny. He reached to his belt and felt the empty cell-phone clip, then remembered putting his phone under the register when he'd gotten to work that morning. Charlie found the right apartment and rang the bell. If he could get Madison McKerny to come out into the hallway, he could slip in behind her and look through her apartment for her soul vessel. Just down the hall there was a table with an artificial flower arrangement. He'd tipped it over, hoping she was compulsive or curious enough to come out of her apartment to get a closer look. If she wasn't home, well, he'd have to break in. Odds were that with a doorman downstairs, she didn't have an alarm system. But what if she could see him? Sometimes they could, the clients. Not often, but it happened, and – She opened the door. Charlie was stunned. She was stunning. Charlie stopped breathing and stared at her breasts. It wasn't that she was a young and gorgeous brunette, with perfect hair and perfect skin. Nor was it that she was wearing a thin, white silk robe that just barely concealed her swimsuit-model figure. Nor was it because she had disproportionately large but alert breasts that were straining against the robe and peeking out of the plunging neckline as she leaned out the door, although that would have been enough to render the hapless Beta breathless under any circumstances. It was that her breasts were glowing red, right through the silk robe, glowing right out of the dcolletage like twin rising suns, pulsating like the lightbulb boobies of a kitschy Hawaiian hula girl lamp. Madison McKerny's soul was residing in her breast implants. â€Å"I've got to get my hands on those,† Charlie said, forgetting that he wasn't exactly alone and he wasn't exactly thinking to himself. Then Madison McKerny noticed that Charlie was there and the screaming started.

How to get away with research

How to get away with research Rules to Entitle Research Paper Most of the readers will select an article, paper or a book judging from its title. And no matter what kind of content is hidden behind the heading, if the latter isn’t hackneyed, even the most captivating plot may remain undiscovered. But when it goes about scientific research paper entries, it’s not only title informativeness that matters. There are more important aspects to keep in mind. Make research paper title a self-sustainable one A title isn’t just a logical beginning of the paper. In fact, it’s a paper in itself though in a very concise form. Simply put, research paper heading should reflect the subject and the main purpose of the whole scientific work. If the title, taken separately from the content, doesn’t give an idea about the paper, it won’t attract readers’ attention either. Long or short title? - Make the one required by research paper type Many think that the shorter heading is, the more attractive it looks. Not always. Generally, all titles are divided into three categories: topic or nominal titles, statement or compound and sentence-long headings. Normally, nominal titles, that are the ones consisting of a few words, usually nouns, are the most popular. They are brief and laconic, but provide little information about the paper. Thus, they are more characteristic of an entertaining genre of writing. However, sentence-long titles aren’t peculiar for all research papers either. If, you’ve got an extended psychology research, for instance, then full-sentence heading is the best way to give a reader a focus of your paper. But in the rest of the cases up to 10-word long titles are preferable. Use appropriate language Writing a title for a research paper many limit themselves to a formal tone only. However, there are more â€Å"dos and don’ts† in crafting linguistically-correct heading for a research paper. Here is what you should do, when writing research paper title: Use scientific terms or words that define the nature of the research paper Use words or phrases that invite a reader to have a closer look at your research paper Use proper articles Make all notional words of the title capitalized And here is what can spoil your title and make it incorrect in terms of language use: Misuse of punctuation. While commas and even exclamatory mark are allowed to use in a title, other signs of punctuation such as semicolon and slash are forbidden Use of abbreviations Quotation marks that capture the whole title Remember that title is the first thing read. So, make it powerful using the rules above.

The Etymology (and Punctuation) of Fathers Day

The Etymology (and Punctuation) of Fathers Day The Etymology (and Punctuation) of Father’s Day Happy Fathers Day! And what better way to celebrate than with a little etymology? A slap-up meal followed by a nap in the sunshine, you say? There’ll be time for that later! For now, let’s look at where the word â€Å"father† comes from and why we use an apostrophe in â€Å"Fathers Day.† The Etymology of Father Our modern word â€Å"father† comes from the Old English fà ¦der, which meant â€Å"he who begets a child.† This is close to several words for fathers in other languages, including Old Norse (fathir), German (Vater), Sanskrit (pitar), and Latin and Greek (both use pater). In fact, the similarities between these words suggest a common source. As such, most experts trace â€Å"father† to a Proto-Indo-European term. And while we cannot know what this was exactly, it may have been something like pÉ™ter-. Fatherhood is tough when your kids look down on you. Pa, Papa, Dad, and More So if â€Å"father† comes from pÉ™ter-, where does this term come from? It may have evolved from the basic noise â€Å"pa,† which we still see in words like â€Å"papa.† The words â€Å"dad† and â€Å"dada† have similar origins in â€Å"da,† and we see these simple sounds in words for fathers all over the world. The main theory for why we see this pattern so much is that â€Å"da,† â€Å"pa,† and â€Å"ta† are some of the first noises babies can make. The same is true of the â€Å"ma† from â€Å"mama,† which becomes â€Å"mom.† As such, when babies start making noises like â€Å"da† and â€Å"pa,† we assume they’re addressing their parents. And over time, this has led to words like â€Å"dad† and â€Å"pa† entering our everyday speech. Fathers Day vs. Fathers Day As a rule, you should always include an apostrophe in Fathers Day. This is the traditional way of writing it, but it also makes sense. After all, you usually focus on your own father on this day. Thus, the â€Å"Father† in Fathers Day is typically one person, even if that person is different for each of us. Writing â€Å"Fathers Day† or â€Å"Fathers Day,† on the other hand, would imply you’re celebrating fathers in general. And while that would be admirable, you’d need a lot of stamps to send a card to every father in the world. All in all, then, you’re probably better off focusing on your own dad for today.

Fall of usher's house Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Fall of usher's house - Essay Example Readers are made to perceive the personality and the deteriorating mental condition of Usher through the narrator’s eyes. The fall of the House of Usher is a story in which the narrator exercises an immense control over readers. The narrator never even by chance drops in irrelevant or loose facts that may be used by readers to construct a parallel understanding of their own. Right from the very start, the narrator constructs an image of Usher, which appears to the unsuspecting readers as utterly strange and spooky. In fact, the narrator goes on to build on these personality attributes of Usher, by conveying a personal understanding of him, through the spectacles of his childhood recollections. The whole idea is to highlight the utter ominous nature of the house of Usher and Usher’s mysterious relation to this rotting and isolated property. Instead of extending to readers a guided tour through the narrative, the narrator rather makes them a partner in his own personal st ock of fears and apprehensions, as he says, â€Å"with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit (Poe 1).† Each new facet of Usher’s personality revealed by the narrator further strengthens this feeling of dread. It is a fact that people seldom fear those things that they can clearly see and understand. So to make the story more intimidating, disturbing and horrid, the narrator makes it a point to stun the readers’ understanding by bombarding it with a range of sensations, fears and visions. The details provided by the narrator, like the gloomy and dark atmosphere in the house, the tattered and dusty furniture, and his dread that he has entered another world tend to build on a mood of awe, fear and expectation. Moreover, in case of Madeline, the narrator allows readers only an apparition like brief glimpse of her, as he conveys, â€Å"I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread (Poe 1).† The narrator exploits

Historiography of the Failures of the Late Medieval Papacy Essay

Historiography of the Failures of the Late Medieval Papacy - Essay Example Particularly, their views on the causes of the fall of the papacy between 1400 and 1800 will be reviewed and compared. Reasons Ullmann’s main position with regards to the decline of the papacy during the late Middle Ages is that it was caused by the Church’s secularization. He has provided several arguments for this position. The most important of these is the allusion to the Great Schism that culminated in 1400s as the greatest crisis in the history of papacy, which, according to him, finally sank the institution enormously in European regard, dragging the Church with it as the world watched deeply pained and scandalized with the way the Church conducted its affairs during the period. There are several underlying issues entailed in this event. And these are excellently demonstrated in the way Ullmann recounted the elections of the pope. He cited the year-long process wherein the College of Cardinals elected a pope early in the fourteenth century with such bitterness of the debates and intrigue. A French-sponsored candidate was elected and because of this the papacy was moved to France wherein six consecutive French popes ruled until 1377 when the papacy finally returned to Rome. The election of the next pope saw rioting in Rome, as people clamored for a Roman pope, fearing further French influence. Ullmann highlighted how conclave, fearing for their lives, elected an Italian, who turned out later on to be not of their liking. According to Ullmann, the Reformation is not the fundamental reason for the decline of the papal authority and power. It was the succession of individuals whose sole qualifications were their wealth and Italian social status that made the papal institution fade into the background. The series of developments afterwards would then become the height of the so-called Great Schism, which severely damaged the papacy. Several popes would hold office at the same time, with a number of Church councils asserting their power further a ggravating the situation. Ullmann identified the Fifth Lateran Council, the last medieval council that aimed to reform the Church, as one of the demonstrations by which the Great Schism has damaged the papal institution: The papacy here showed itself in perhaps its worst light: instead of insisting upon the enforcement of the law it dispensed with from the observation of these decrees. And in so doing the whole panoply of papal weapons including the plenitude of power, was invoked. In a way, the fifth Lateran Council was a conciliar swan song of the medieval papacy and the precursor of Trent in this same century.1 Meanwhile, Misner also echoed Ullmann’s position, that the Church decline as undermined by the papacy has been a consequence of the corruption of the popes. Central to this argument is the system of infallibility, which, in Misner’s view, â€Å"formed a vicious cycle in which the Roman communion had imprisoned itself without hope of escape.†2 An import ant variable must be highlighted here. Misner also believed that the papal institution and the mechanisms and systems that it entails, had, not only corrupted the personalities that held the office but also provided no means of escape or alternative for a pope to pursue reform or impose a righteous regime. He noted that the pope was merely a figurehead and instrument of the system and that the Pope’s primacy could only be sustained if he upholds a corrupt system. The corruption