Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Jesus and Mohammad Essay

Jesus and Mohammad Essay Jesus and Mohammad Essay Christianity and Islam are two of the largest religions in the world. They both had origins around the same location, near present day Middle East. Although they are very different in practices and rituals, the two religions share many similarities. The religions both worship the Judeo-Christian-Islamic (JCI) concept of God. They can trace their origins to Abraham and his descendants. Christianity was founded on the beliefs of Jesus’s teachings as told by The Bible. Islam was formed by Muhammad, who is recognized as God’s prophet. Roughly two thousand years ago, Christianity began and set itself apart from Judaism by claiming that the religion is the final development of the religion prevalent in Hebrew communities. Christianity revealed that the New Testament was God’s new covenant with him. The man who lead this new religion was Jesus. Claiming to be the Son of God, his teachings were the basis for Christianity. Many scholars agree that Jesus was born a few years before the beginning of the time period known as Common Era. Jesus was born in Bethlehem where Old Testament Scholars believed that the new Messiah would be born. Bethlehem was the home of David. The gospel of Luke describes the ancestry of Jesus all the way back to Abraham. According to the Gospels in the New Testament, Jesus was born to Mary and was said to be immaculately conceived, as Mary was a virgin. Joseph was Mary’s husband but was not Jesus’s father. Very little is known of Jesus’s child and young adulthood. He was observed at a Jewish temple at the age of 12 speaking to rabbis, impressing them with his knowledge of the scriptures. After that Jesus doesn’t really appear in the bible until he has meets John the Baptist. After being baptized Jesus took a 40 day retreat where he was fasting and was tempted by the devil. Jesus eventually had a group of followers who accepted him as the their Messiah. Jesus and his disciples would then travel all over the area known as present day Israel performing miracles. Later in his life Jesus was accused of blasphemy and under pressure from the crowds Pilate sentenced him to death by crucifixion. Almost 600 years after Jesus’s death, Europe was in the midst of the dark ages. Then there was a man who many people looked up to and listened when he talked. Muhammad was Allah’s prophet. Muhammad was born into a poor clan in Mecca. When he was a young boy both of his parents died and he was later adopted by his uncle, with whom he worked as a shepherd. He worked in the caravan trade where he met his wife Khadija and married her when he was twenty-five years old. It was at this point that Muhammad’s life would change. He spent more and more time in isolation contemplating away from life’s distractions. When Muhammad was forty years old, the angel Gabriel appeared to him and forced him to recite the first words of the Qur’an. He was initially distraught about becoming the new prophet but his wife and family were very supportive of him. Three years later he was instructed to spread the word of Allah and was subject to ridicule by the Qurayshites. Af ter gaining a small following, Muhammad and his followers were banished and forced to fend for themselves. He came back a few years later and had eventually lost his wife and uncle. At this point he rose to the heavens and saw all of the prophets from Adam to Jesus. After this he went to Yathrib which was called the City of the Prophet. There he silently built a following. The citizens of Mecca were intimidated by all of the events and he led a negotiation between the two cities. He eventually died in 632 A.D from illness. The lives of Muhammad and Jesus Christ had incredible impact in the world. Jesus had started a new chapter of Gods testament towards his people and Muhammad had spoken the word of God. Their deaths may have had a larger impact on their religions than the short time the spent alive. Jesus had died by crucifixion and a disciple had asked to take his body

Saturday, November 23, 2019

The 1780s Crisis and the Causes of the French Revolution

The 1780s Crisis and the Causes of the French Revolution The French Revolution resulted from two state crises which emerged during the 1750s–80s, one constitutional and one financial, with the latter providing a tipping point in 1788/89 when desperate action by government ministers backfired and unleashed a revolution against the Ancien Regime. In addition to these, there was the growth of the bourgeoisie, a social order whose new wealth, power, and opinions undermined the older feudal social system of France. The bourgeoisie were, in general, highly critical of the pre-revolutionary regime and acted to change it, although the exact role they played is still hotly debated among historians. Maupeou, the Parlements, and Constitutional Doubts From the 1750s, it became increasingly clear to many Frenchmen that the constitution of France, based on an absolutist style of monarchy, was no longer working. This was partly due to failures in government, be they the squabbling instability of the kings ministers or embarrassing defeats in wars, somewhat a result of new enlightenment thinking, which increasingly undermined despotic monarchs, and partly due to the bourgeoisie seeking a voice in the administration. The ideas of public opinion, nation, and citizen emerged and grew, along with a sense that the states authority had to be defined and legitimized in a new, broader framework which took more notice of the people instead of simply reflecting the monarchs whims. People increasingly mentioned the Estates General, a three-chambered assembly which hadnt met since the seventeenth century, as a possible solution that would allow the people- or more of them, at least- to work with the monarch. There wasnt much demand to replace the monarch, as would happen in the revolution, but a desire to bring monarch and people into a closer orbit which gave the latter more say. The idea of a government- and king- operating with a series of constitutional checks and balances had grown to be vitally important in France, and it was the existing 13 parlements which were considered- or at least considered themselves- the vital check on the king. However, in 1771, the parlement of Paris refused to cooperate with the nations Chancellor Maupeou, and he responded by exiling the parlement, remodeling the system, abolishing the connected venal offices and creating a replacement disposed towards his wishes. The provincial parlements responded angrily and met with the same fate. A country which had wanted more checks on the king suddenly found that those they had were disappearing. The political situation seemed to be going backwards. Despite a campaign designed to win over the public, Maupeou never gained national support for his changes and they were canceled three years later when the new king, Louis XVI, responded to angry complaints by reversing all the changes. Unfortunately, the damage had been done: the parlements had been clearly shown as weak and subject to the kings wishes, not the invulnerable moderating element they wished to be. But what, thinkers in France asked, would act as a check on the king? The Estates General was a favorite answer. But the Estates General hadnt met for a long time, and the details were only sketchily remembered. The Financial Crisis and the Assembly of Notables The financial crisis which left the door open for revolution began during the American War of Independence, when France spent over a billion livres, the equivalent of the states entire income for a year. Almost all the money had been obtained from loans, and the modern world has seen what overstretched loans can do to an economy. The problems were initially managed by Jacques Necker, a French Protestant banker and the only non-noble in the government. His cunning publicity and accounting- his public balance sheet, the Compte rendu au roi, made the accounts look healthy- masked the scale of the problem from the French public, but by the chancellorship of Calonne, the state was looking for new ways to tax and meet their loan payments. Calonne came up with a package of changes which, had they been accepted, would have been the most sweeping reforms in the French crowns history. They included abolishing lots of taxes and replacing them with a land tax to be paid by everyone, including th e previously exempt nobles. He wanted a show of national consensus for his reforms and, rejecting the Estates General as too unpredictable, called a hand-picked Assembly of Notables which first met at Versailles on February 22nd, 1787. Less than ten were not noble and no similar assembly had been called since 1626. It was not a legitimate check on the king but meant to be a rubber stamp. Calonne had seriously miscalculated and, far from weakly accepting the proposed changes, the 144 members of the Assembly refused to sanction them. Many were against paying new tax, many had reasons to dislike Calonne, and many genuinely believed the reason they gave for refusing: no new tax should be imposed without the king first consulting the nation and, as they were unelected, they couldnt speak for the nation. Discussions proved fruitless and, eventually, Calonne was replaced with Brienne, who tried again before dismissing the Assembly in May. Brienne then tried to pass his own version of Calonnes changes through the parlement of Paris, but they refused, again citing the Estates General as the only body which could accept new taxes. Brienne exiled them to Troyes before working on a compromise, proposing that the Estates General would meet in 1797; he even began a consultation to work out how it should be formed and run. But for all the goodwill earned, more was lost as the king and his government began forcing laws through using the arbitrary practice of lit de justice. The king is even recorded as responding to complaints by saying its legal because I wish it (Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, 2002, p. 80), further fueling worries over the constitution. The growing financial crises reached its climax in 1788 as the disrupted state machinery, caught between changes of the system, couldnt bring in the required sums, a situation exacerbated as bad weather ruined the harvest. The treasury was empty and no-one was willing to accept more loans or changes. Brienne tried to create support by bringing the date of the Estates General forward to 1789, but it didnt work and the treasury had to suspend all payments. France was bankrupt. One of Briennes last actions before resigning was persuading King Louis XVI to recall Necker, whose return was greeted with jubilation by the general public. He recalled the Paris parlement and made it clear he was just tiding the nation over until the Estates General meet. Bottom Line The short version of this story is that financial troubles caused a populace who, awakened by the Enlightenment to demand more say in government, refused to solve those financial issues until they had a say. No one realized the extent of what would happen next.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Legal skills assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Legal skills assignment - Essay Example Under the Solicitors’ Code of Conduct 2007 Rule 1.05 it states 9. You must provide a good standard of client care and of work, including the exercise of competence, skill and diligence. Disciplinary action will not always follow where breaches of this duty are minor and isolated. At one point in the interview the solicitor is asked by the client to explain the time limits that the solicitor mentions. The solicitor in this case makes no effort whatsoever to explain the time limits and in fact seems to totally ignore the request for further information. As this was a specific request by the solicitor he should have explained the time limits straightaway or at least have told the client that he would cover this later. In explaining the time limits the solicitor should have explained that under the Limitation Act 1980 a claim has to be brought within 3 years of the date of the accident. The solicitor also spends time on telling the client about the number of accidents that occur as a result of people using mobile phones whilst driving. This is totally irrelevant in this case and would only be relevant if the solicitor were to be suggesting that the chances of success of the case were remote as very few cases in this area had succeeded. Instead of commenting on the number of accidents that occur in this way the solicitor should have encouraged the client by stating that this will add to the liability of the defendant as he was not fully in control of the vehicle at the time of the accident. The solicitor should have explained that this could be used against the defendant if they try to deny liability as they could use the fact to demonstrate that he was not fully concentrating on the road at the time. It is also a criminal offence to use a mobile phone whilst driving which could mean that the defendant would face criminal charges for being on the phone. This would a lso strengthen a case against the defendant for compensation. If the