Jess Posted October 18, 2006 Report Posted October 18, 2006 Okay...I've been invited to enter a theological essay writing competition, run by a top London theological college, on "How can God be known?" It's only got to be a max. of 1500 words...but, I'm scared! Any useful links would be much appreciated!
Skydreamer Posted October 19, 2006 Report Posted October 19, 2006 This sounds a bit like my philosophy course from last year - most of it was about arguments for the existence of God. I take it that you are focusing on the God of classical theism, as opposed to a panthesistic God? (That just opens up loads of additional points to mention!) Onotological Cosmological Teleological Moral Experience - I can't really find a detailed enough link for this one. However, these links go into a lot of detail - especially for a 1500 word essay - with such a small limit (sorry, but I'm one of those who spends hours cutting down essays so 1500 seems incredibly small to me) - don't be afraid to just use somewhere like Wikipedia (just don't tell them that!) or a revision site like this - I used this one a lot to revise for my AS. If I remember correctly, aren't you in your first year of a philosophy and ethics A level? In which case much of this should be very similar to your syllabus, so hopefully your textbook will be a good springboard for ideas. I find that Peter Vardy's "The Puzzle of God" is a clear and simple guide to much of my philosophy course (trust me, I sometimes find that philosophy can get far too heavy to spend ages reading around it, but I enjoy Vardy) , and it has chapters dedicated to all but the moral argument. Is the college that is running the competition Heythrop? In which case definitely mention Vardy as he is a professor there! Good luck!
Jess Posted October 19, 2006 Report Posted October 19, 2006 Wow, thanks for all the links, Skydreamer. Yeah, I am doing AS P&E at the moment, although I'm the only one, which is kinda why I feel obliged to do the essay...there's no one else, lol! I don't mind doing it really, it's just that 1500 words seems awfully small to me too...because the question is so ambiguous, there's so many directions in which you can take it...so I think I'm gonna end up writing loads and then cutting out irrevelances. My notes for AS seem to be incredibly waffly, and don't really bring me any closer to the answer, and the textbook...it's about 3 times my weight (and that's saying something!)...it's so intimidating! Although there is a lot of stuff of the theories for the existence of the universe, so maybe that could be helpful. As long as I don't have to mention utilitarianism, I'll be fine...we've just finished the topic and the whole thing just seemed to drag for ages! That book by Vardy sounds interesting, I might see if I can track it down on t'internet. And yes, the competition is run by Heythrop; are you entering/ed it? Yeah, Vardy is the head judge guy, according to the poster, so nothin' like a bit of the old ego massaging, lol. But anyway, thanks for all the useful links. In all honesty, I didn't expect a reply, I thought I'd be the only one crazy enough to be interested in something like this! I'll let you know how it goes and possibly post the finished article here. x
Skydreamer Posted October 19, 2006 Report Posted October 19, 2006 I hope that the links help you do well in the competition! I'm not entering, but when you said the competition was run by a top London theological college, it just had to be Heythrop (I'm doing A2 philosophy and ethics, and my teachers will not stop advertising the place!). I have a mate who just started at Heythrop last month and Vardy is one of her tutors - I'll have to see if she has any tips on how to impress him! Good luck with the competition! : ) P.S. I love utilitarianism - especially Peter Singer! (Bentham was OK but slightly nuts - did you get learn about what happened to his body after his death? Each to their own, I guess, but that's all I can think about when he's mentioned now!!) But no worries about it - I can't see any relevant link between utilitarianism and your essay : )
Jess Posted October 19, 2006 Report Posted October 19, 2006 I'm being "strongly advised" to go to some sort of theological college when I leave school, hence why I think that the teacher told me about the competition. Not sure what I think about that idea, but we'll see... Yeah, I am considering hunting down some of Vardy's work; a) for the course and b) to see if any of it can be inconspiculously slotted into my essay... Arghhh...utilitarianism...it sounds okay in theory - "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" etc, it's just when you try to put it to any practical use! Bentham was odd...but I don't know what happened to his bodt, care to share? And the other guy, can't remember his name and don't have my notes to hand, Mill or somebody? Gosh, they were weird guys! When we were studying utilitarianism in class, I found it impossible to take it seriously because I'm also taking English Lit. and we're reading Hard Times, by Dickens, and that is the biggest satire of utilitarianism going...I just think of some of the horrendously over-exaggerated characters in that book and I find it hard to give utilitarianism as an ethical theory any credibility whatsoever. So yeah, it's probably a good thing that there's no link between utilitarianism and my essay because then I'd probably end up wanting to go off on a tangent about H.T. (like I have done here)... Now I just have to get my zillion word essay down to 1500, whilst at the same time making it look like I have actually put effort into it...
Skydreamer Posted October 19, 2006 Report Posted October 19, 2006 I'm being "strongly advised" to go to some sort of theological college when I leave school, hence why I think that the teacher told me about the competition. Not sure what I think about that idea, but we'll see... Yeah, I am considering hunting down some of Vardy's work; a) for the course and b) to see if any of it can be inconspiculously slotted into my essay... Arghhh...utilitarianism...it sounds okay in theory - "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" etc, it's just when you try to put it to any practical use! Bentham was odd...but I don't know what happened to his bodt, care to share? And the other guy, can't remember his name and don't have my notes to hand, Mill or somebody? Gosh, they were weird guys! When we were studying utilitarianism in class, I found it impossible to take it seriously because I'm also taking English Lit. and we're reading Hard Times, by Dickens, and that is the biggest satire of utilitarianism going My teachers are all being heavily biased. Heythrop is closest and as they want everyone to study RE, that gets a lot of advertising. My philosophy teacher went to Cambridge so that's where he goes on about. My ethics teacher often reminds us in his humourous way that students who do Biblical Studies at Sheffield University will go straight to heaven. I'm hoping to study theology at St Andrews - I'm going there on Wednesday to check it out. Bentham founded University College London. When he died, he left instructions that his body was to be preserved and left at the university. It has since then been kept in a display cabinet, and has even been brought out for important meetings (where he is noted as present but not voting or something equally ridiculous). However, some students saw the body as a good target for pranks, so the body in display at UCL now does not have Bentham's real head on it - it is wax because the pranks left the real one in such a bad state! However, I think Bentham had some good ideas earlier on, so maybe it was just later in life that he went a bit doolally. (The other guy is John Stuart Mill - I don't quite find myself warming to him as much. Which would I rather be, Socrates dissatisfied or a pig satisfied? Well, ignorance is bliss! If I'm happy I don't care about the "worth" of that type of happiness in comparision to others. And who says pigs can't experience higher pleasures anyway?) I took English literature last year - but I have never read Hard Times - is it any good (apologies for starting another digression, but hey, I'm intrigued!)? Good luck with cutting down the essay - never has been my strength, editing - a second opinion (preferably someone who knows the subject) is normally the only way I keep the right stuff in.
Cal Posted October 20, 2006 Report Posted October 20, 2006 Strange request here: I'm going an assignment on a global issue, my topic is Terrorism. I am looking to make a video of "terrorism" footage from events like the 9/11 attacks, the London Bombing last year, Bali bombing and other acts of terrorism. Just wondering if anyone knew a good place to get these videos from? I have tried YouTube. The videos are on there but i'm not sure of how to save them onto my computer so I can then load them into Windows Movie Maker. I didnt know where else to go, so hopefully someone on here will be able to help.Any help is greatly apprecaiated. Thanks guys! Jess xx I found a 9/11 video on MySpace, I know you can't save it to your computer, but it is full of lots of interesting information that could come in useful. Click
Jess Posted October 20, 2006 Report Posted October 20, 2006 My teachers are all being heavily biased. Heythrop is closest and as they want everyone to study RE, that gets a lot of advertising. My philosophy teacher went to Cambridge so that's where he goes on about. My ethics teacher often reminds us in his humourous way that students who do Biblical Studies at Sheffield University will go straight to heaven. I'm hoping to study theology at St Andrews - I'm going there on Wednesday to check it out. Bentham founded University College London. When he died, he left instructions that his body was to be preserved and left at the university. It has since then been kept in a display cabinet, and has even been brought out for important meetings (where he is noted as present but not voting or something equally ridiculous). However, some students saw the body as a good target for pranks, so the body in display at UCL now does not have Bentham's real head on it - it is wax because the pranks left the real one in such a bad state! However, I think Bentham had some good ideas earlier on, so maybe it was just later in life that he went a bit doolally. (The other guy is John Stuart Mill - I don't quite find myself warming to him as much. Which would I rather be, Socrates dissatisfied or a pig satisfied? Well, ignorance is bliss! If I'm happy I don't care about the "worth" of that type of happiness in comparision to others. And who says pigs can't experience higher pleasures anyway?) I took English literature last year - but I have never read Hard Times - is it any good (apologies for starting another digression, but hey, I'm intrigued!)? Good luck with cutting down the essay - never has been my strength, editing - a second opinion (preferably someone who knows the subject) is normally the only way I keep the right stuff in. Lol! Interesting that you mention Sheffield's Biblical Studies...I was sitting in the common room today, trying not to do any work. One of my friends was reading the prospectus for Sheffield and she jokingly and sarcastically said that you can read Biblical Studies there. Me, being the religious nut that I am, took her seriously and she looked like I'd said that my dream is to colonise Mars or something... St. Andrew's has also been another University mentioned to me...wow, that's really cool that you wanna study theology, have you got any idea what you want to do with it afterwards? The whole thing about Bentham being kept in a display cabinet gives me the creeps! Will have to mention it to my P&E teacher and see what he says...that is a very weird request for a person to make, but I guess he wasn't your average kind of guy. Yeah, I never really got how you can quantify happiness either. I understand the theory, but I don't really care about distinctions, give me chocolate over the theatre any day! Hard Times is actually really good, in a weird kinda way. Okay, if you're not depressed before you go into Lit. lessons, then you are when you come out! Dickens just has this character, and every imaginable bad thing happens to him. But then again, there is a lot of humour in the book, and all the characters are highly overexaggerated and comical. Apparently, it's one of the less comical of Dickens' works, but mercifully for us, also one of the shortest.
Skydreamer Posted October 20, 2006 Report Posted October 20, 2006 St. Andrew's has also been another University mentioned to me...wow, that's really cool that you wanna study theology, have you got any idea what you want to do with it afterwards? Yeah, I never really got how you can quantify happiness either. I understand the theory, but I don't really care about distinctions, give me chocolate over the theatre any day! Hard Times is actually really good, in a weird kinda way. Okay, if you're not depressed before you go into Lit. lessons, then you are when you come out! Dickens just has this character, and every imaginable bad thing happens to him. But then again, there is a lot of humour in the book, and all the characters are highly overexaggerated and comical. Apparently, it's one of the less comical of Dickens' works, but mercifully for us, also one of the shortest. I'll have to pass on an information that I get about St Andrews whilst I'm there - I'm very impressed with all of the information over the net, but it can't substitute visiting the place itself! I'm actually hoping to do a joint degree - theological studies with medieval history - and I would like to eventually teach history and RE in a secondary school. And yep, couldn't agree with you more. I'd far rather sit in front of the TV with Home and Away or Friends and and a bar of (preferably fair trade) vegan chocolate than (for example) read Mill's work. I'll try and track down a copy of Hard Times, but I just received about 8 new books today, so it'll have to join the queue! On a note related to your essay, one of the books I got today was "Philosophy: Basic Readings" edited by Nigel Warburton. One of the essays is entitled "Proof of God" and is about 14 pages long and is written by Martin Gardner. It may be worth trying to track down a copy, but if you can't I'll try and let you know if there are any points that may be of interest (but I'm going away for a week tomorrow, so if tracking down your own copy would be quicker I'd reccommend that). Good luck again with the competition : )
Jess Posted October 21, 2006 Report Posted October 21, 2006 Thanks, info. would be much appreciated. I'm also going away over Half Term...so yeah, if there's any points of relevancy...I'm not in any great rush to get the essay finished...I've got enough other stuff to do! Anyways, a big thankyou and lots of hugs for all your help!
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