The Weaving Contest Between Athena and Arachne

While Athena was a friend of Greek heroes, she wasnt so helpful to women. The story of the weaving contest between Arachne and Athena is one of the most familiar myths about Athena, and its central theme is also popular. Greek mythology repeatedly hammers home the danger of comparing oneself with a goddess. The theme appears in the story of Cupid and Psyche, where Aphrodite is offended. While ultimately there is a happy ending, to avert Aphrodites wrath, Psyches family abandons her to death. In the mythological story of Niobe, Artemis punishes the mortal mother for boasting that she is a more fortunate mother than Artemis mother, Leto: Artemis destroys all Niobes children. The punishment Athena inflicts on her capable, but the merely mortal victim is more direct. If Arachne wants to claim to be a better weaver than Athena, so be it. Thats all shell ever be good for. Arachne Suffers a Metamorphosis The Roman poet Ovid writes about the metamorphosis Arachne suffers in his work on transformations (Metamorphoses): One at the loom so excellently skilld,That to the Goddess she refusd to yield, ( Ovid, Metamorphoses VI) In the myth, Athena challenges Arachne to a weaving contest in order to prove herself. The expert crafts goddess Athena is favorably impressed with Arachnes weaving of divine debaucheries: This the bright Goddess passionately movd,With envy saw, yet inwardly approvd.The scene of heavnly guilt with haste she tore,Nor longer the affront with patience bore;A boxen shuttle in her hand she took,And more than once Arachnes forehead struck. Athena cant tolerate the affront to her pride, though, so she turns Arachne into a spider doomed to weave forever. From the unfortunate spider-woman comes the name for the 8-legged creatures: arachnids.

Death Penalty - Justified Essay - 896 Words

Death Penalty - Justified There are many problems facing our criminal justice system today. Some of the more important ones are overcrowded jails, the increasing murder rate, and keeping tax payers content. In light of these problems, I think the death penalty is our best and most reasonable solution because it is a highly effective deterrent to murder. And, tax payers would be pleased to know that their hard-earned tax dollars are not being wasted on supporting incorrigible criminals who are menaces to society. In addition, they would not be forced to fund the development of new penitentiaries in order to make room for the growing number of inmates in our already overcrowded jails. Moreover, the death penalty would†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"The death penalty makes would be capital offenders think about weather committing a crime is really worth their lives† (Studyworld 3). Hence, capital punishment is the best solution to the increase in murder problem. Capital punishment is the best solution to the problem of overcrowded jails because all â€Å"lifers† would be sent to death row and executed. These â€Å"lifers† would no longer require a cell or take up space in an already crowded jail. This removal of â€Å"lifers† helps alleviate the congestion in jails because it creates vacancies in cells for convicts serving lighter sentences. For example, a federal penitentiary can accommodate on average 300 hardened criminals. If all convicts with life sentences, 50, were to be removed, a more manageable 250 convicts would remain in a less congested penitentiary. Clearly, the death penalty is the best way to eliminate overcrowded jails. In addition to eliminating overcrowded jails, Capital punishment is also the best way to keep tax payers content. The death penalty satisfies tax payers because it is a very costShow MoreRelatedThe Death Penalty Is Justified1143 Words   |  5 PagesAllison Shu 2/25/16 Period 2 Objective paper on the death penalty Capital punishment is legally authorized killing as punishment for a crime. The death penalty questions the morality of killing a person as justification for their crime. It also brings to question whether the death penalty actually serves as a deterrent for crime, and that some of the people executed are found innocent afterwards. The debates over the constitutionality of the death penalty and whether capital punishment should be usedRead MoreThe Death Penalty Is Justified And Ethical1190 Words   |  5 Pagesthe drugs had been administered. This occurrence expanded the widespread dispute over the death penalty. People began to acknowledge the risks involved with executions. 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The author of this letter, submitted to the New York Times, claims that the death penalty is wholly and morally justified, seeing as its existence results in the lessening of violent deaths and gun use due to the perpetrator’s fear of killing a person in haste and thus being given the death penalty. 2.) The author argues his claim of the death penalty being justified as a means of punishment for violent crimesRead MoreThe Death Penalty Is Justified923 Words   |  4 Pagespilots who also had to bomb innocents to win the war,† (Gorman). More recently, a common trend has been the disapproval of the death penalty, exhibited by the thirteen percent drop in the number of people on death row since Spring of 2005 (Death Penalty Info. Center). Life without parole has become the preferred sentence of unavoidable capital punishment. The death penalty has frequently been viewed as inhumane. However, isn’t lack of remorse for such vile acts inhumane? In cases of intentional murderRead MoreThe Death Penalty Is Justified995 Words   |  4 PagesThe Death penalty has been a controversial topic for many years and recently the debate about it has been getting bigger and bigger to where at some point soon a decision will have to be made. Many people will disagree with the death pen alty because it goes against their moral beliefs, this is thought process is seen more in the northern states. However, here in the south the death penalty is strongly believed in by most, but who is put to death and why? Did they deserve this sentence or were theyRead MoreThe Death Penalty Is Justified1603 Words   |  7 PagesTHE DEATH PENALTY Many nations have criminals to punish, but what’s changing is how they punish their criminals. Most countries, even some states, have come to the realization that the death penalty is an unfair, inhumane, unconstitutional, and irreversible punishment that’s much too severe and is an unfit punishment for a fair and just society. Internationally, the U.S. ranks fifth in terms of the number of prisoners put to death, putting America in such ill-esteemed company as the regimes

Doctrine Of Creation Essay Research Paper Doctrine free essay sample

Doctrine Of Creation Essay, Research Paper Doctrine of creative activity # 8216 ; What do we intend by creative activity? How helpful are doing, emanation and/or artistic work as analogies? Is it a philosophy about the universe # 8217 ; s beginnings or beginning, or about its present or future being, or what? Creation is frequently referred to as a # 8216 ; enigma # 8217 ; and this is due to its possibly equivocal nature. Christian divinity defines creative activity in many different ways, which differ greatly as point of views on the same subject. John Macquarrie tries to do the enigma clearer by utilizing two analogies to seek to depict what creative activity really is. The first of these is that of # 8216 ; doing # 8217 ; . This is best understood alongside the actual apprehension of creative activity, which can be found in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament ( Genesis ) . The analogy is that of a craftsman bring forthing an article that is to be used. It stresses the high quality of God ; there is both differences and distance between the craftsman and his merchandise # 8211 ; as there is transcendency between God and God # 8217 ; s animals. It treats creative activity as an act of free will on the portion of God, non as a procedure that is merely portion of the Natural Law, which is more a position expressed by the 2nd analogy. One job with the # 8216 ; doing # 8217 ; analogy is that it doesn # 8217 ; t embrace the traditional # 8216 ; creatio ex nihilo # 8217 ; ( creative activity out of nil ) position ; if God has made the universe in the manner in which a carpenter or a blacksmith would, out of what has he really created it? The 2nd analogy is that of # 8216 ; emanation # 8217 ; . To understand this analogy it would be best to conceive of God, the Godhead, as the Sun, with the created, Gods creatures, as the beams emanating from it. This position stresses more affinity between the beginning ( God ) and what has sprung from it, therefore doing this the antonym of the # 8216 ; doing # 8217 ; analogy, with a much stronger accent on immanency instead than transcendency. As already mentioned, this theory of creative activity dainties it more as a natural procedure that a self-generated act, which is considered by some to be traveling excessively far along the graduated table ; a happy mean between nature and free will is the ideal position. Emanation is non a really scriptural, hidebound position of creative activity, and as such is frequently seen as opposed to the position of doing. However, Macquarrie would non wish this, and says # 8216 ; It should non be regarded as a rival thought to the scriptural one # 8230 ; It should so be regarded as secondary to the scriptural thought, but as such it provides certain restoratives and gives look to penetrations which are non clearly presented in the image of making. # 8217 ; A suggested # 8216 ; in-between place between these two opposing images is sometimes put frontward, that of the # 8216 ; work of art # 8217 ; analogy. At first glimpse this seems to be a good balance between transcendency and immanency ; in making a work, an creative person does set something of himself into it, while at the same clip staying external to the existent thing itself. But does this make justness to the extent of the immanency of God in the creative activity of the universe? The creative person analogy now looks to be excessively external ; once more there is the incorrect balance. A manner of making the right balance would be to keep # 8217 ; side by side in their tenseness with one another the theoretical accounts of doing and emanation # 8217 ; . All of these images do hold something valuable in the hunt for the right position of God and creative activity, nevertheless they all need to be given equal weight in the head as they all have bad points and all have good. How you see the balance of transcendency and immanency in the creative activity enigma is a affair mostly for the person, nevertheless most Christian subjects view God as both transcendent and immanent at the same clip in the creative activity of the universe. Karl Barth claims that as we can non cognize through empirical observation about creative activity, the whole philosophy of creative activity is in fact a philosophy of religion ; the factual history of a universe coming into being could be re garded as a credo of kinds, an look of belief in God. Christian philosophy of creative activity is split into three subdivisions ; creatio originalis ( the individual act of creative activity in the beginning ) , creatio continua ( uninterrupted engagement of creative activity ) and creatio nova, the new creative activity still to come. The obvious instruction in the philosophy of creative activity is the actual Old Testament position stated in the Bible ; # 8216 ; In the beginning # 8230 ; # 8217 ; But this creatio originalis position can non be all there is to state about creative activity ; if God is one who creates immanently, he must be at that place for us in the present- we can merely cognize of the creative activity through the present after all. E. Mascall defends the creatio continua position by seting a philosophical angle on things ; he puts creative activity non merely as the act of conveying the universe into being but besides as something that # 8216 ; would still hold application to finite existences even if they had ever existed and hence had no beginning at all # 8217 ; . A protagonist of this position was St. Thomas Aquinas, though much earlier. He likened creative activity to the upkeep every bit good as the devising ; returning to our earlier analogy of the craftsman, God keeps us # 8216 ; well-oiled # 8217 ; . St. Thomas claimed that # 8216 ; if He [ God ] withdrew his action from them [ things God has brought into being ] they would return to non-existence # 8217 ; Creation is hence involved with both conveying things into being and keeping them ; it is a continual act, therefore creatio continua. Karl Barth provides us with a farther illation sing creatio continua when he says, pulling on Gods benevolence as a cogent evidence of creative activities continual province, # 8216 ; It would be a unusual love that was satisfied with the mere being and nature of the other, so retreating, go forthing it to its ain devices # 8217 ; The three fold position of creative activity is and has been a popular one in the philosophy of creative activity, nevertheless it and the eschatological instruction of creative activity have been slightly ignored with the coming of Darwinism and evolutionary theories. But certainly we can disregard the job of development when we think of creative activity as a continual act ; # 8216 ; # 8230 ; the act of creative activity gathers into one individual Godhead minute the whole of being, even though # 8230 ; extended in clip # 8230 ; # 8217 ; There is hence no struggle between development and archeological findings, and the traditional philosophy of creative activity provided that we think of the two as bing at the same time in two separate worlds. One manner to look at it is an analogy, which is sometimes used in order to seek and understand God # 8217 ; s ubiquity, a hard construct to hold on for human existences. Imagine a book that contains the universe # 8217 ; s narrative from get downing to stop, with the timescale in that book being that of Earth. God is the reader/writer/editor, and he is external to the book, both in footings of being able to redact it and in footings of clip ( if He is changeless and infinite so must He be outside the model of our clip ) . So God can redact the book ; he is something external ( transcendency ) but besides involved as a reader, author or editor ( immanency ) . This present engagement we can see is creatio continua. A narrative with a beginning and a in-between normally has an terminal ; we come now to the eschatological instructions of creative activity, creatio nova, the future engagement of God. Our fate as human existences can be seen to be written in the book ; the completion and stop finish of creative activity, still to be fulfilled. The three fold position of creative activity is one adopted by mot bookmans ; it is a reasonable, balanced position of the philosophy as a instruction on more than merely one act in clip, i.e. creatio originalis. Bibliography Study battalion, Doctrine of creative activity Barth, K: The Openness of Being Genesis 1 Bonhoeffer: Creation and Temptation Mascall, Tocopherol: The Openness of Being St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica Barth, K: Church Dogmatics 32f

Literary heroes in Middle English romances Essays - Cephalophores

Literary heroes in Middle English romances Literary heroes in Middle English romances often go on great quests, which can be both internal and external tests. The heroes often face many obstacles before their final tests. In Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain's external quest to find the Green Chapel is complicated by harsh weather and "met with many mishaps and mortal harms" (725): Now with serpents he wars, now with savage wolves, Now with wild men of the woods, that watched from the rocks, Both with bulls and with bears, and with boars besides, And giants that came gibbering from the jagged steeps. (720-723) These obstacles that Gawain faces are not described, which emphasizes the obstacles complicating Gawain's internal quest. The greatest obstacle Gawain faces is a woman, who he will blame for causing his downfall, which results when he fails his internal quest to be a courteous and loyal knight. Gawain begins his internal quest when Bercilak proposes a game, "'Whatever I win in the woods I will give you ate eve, / And all you have earned you must offer to me...'" (1106-1108). This game will test Gawain's morals by challenging his duty as a courteous knight to do as a lady wishes, even though this violates his loyalty to Bercilak. Gawain is tested for three days as the lady of the house attempts to seduce him, while her husband is in the woods hunting. The lady blatantly states: 'My body is here at hand, Your each wish to fulfill; Your servant to command I am, and shall be still'. (1237-1240) While it is clear that the lady wishes to give her body to Gawain, he does not accept her, thus she appeals to his courteous knighthood and asks for a mere kiss. Gawain responds, "'Good lady, I grant it at once! / I shall kiss at your command, as becomes a knight, / And more, lest you mislike, so let be, I pray.'" Gawain happily upholds his knightly duty to do as the lady requests, as well as enjoys listening to her constantly praise him. In his A Reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, J.A. Burrow states, "...the poet makes us aware-though only vaguely as yet-of the moral issues stirring beneath the surface of the dialogue....The knight faces a challenge in the lady's compliments." (83). That night when Bercilak gives Gawain the ribs from the days hunt, Gawain gives Bercilak the kiss that he received from the lady. While it seems that Gawain has past the test, it can be argued that he did not give Bercilak the praise that he received from the lady. Because Gawain does praise the game Bercilak killed, failing to praise Bercilak further may be viewed as a minor mistake, which does not deflect from Gawain's moral character. In both the first and the second temptation scenes, the lady presents sex as her objective. As in the first scene, Gawain resists sexual temptation the second day and merely kisses the lady. As Burrow states, "Notice that there is no question...of Gawain's being wrong to accept the lady's kisses. They are not in themselves adulterous, and-always providing Gawain pays them over at the exchange-they do not, apparently, involve any breach of faith with his host" (85). That night, Gawain kisses Bercilak, but fails to return the praise that he gained. This ethical shortcut does not concern the poet because he writes: Thus she tested his temper and tried many a time, Whatever her true intent, to entice him to sin, But so fair was his defense that no fault appeared, Nor evil on either hand, but only bliss they knew. (1149-1153) Once again, an ethical shortcut allowed Gawain to pass the moral test by being courteous to the lady and remaining loyal to the lord. The obstacle becomes more difficult in the third seduction scene when the lady changes her strategy. She no longer offers love or sex, instead she offers life with the green girdle, "'If he bore it on his body, belted about, / There is no hand under heaven that could hew him down, / For he could not be killed by any craft on earth.'" Gawain accepts the girdle and promises the lady that he will not tell the Bercilak about the gift. That night when