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Drew Rivera English 4 Ms. R. Crow December 11th, 2013 NSA spying, what is it and how can we stop it? The National Security Agency was created in 1952 through a top secret memorandum signed by President Truman. At the time of its creation, the NSA was secretive, with only a few members of Congress knowing about it. Existence of the agency had been a deep secret until it was unveiled in a Senate investigation called the â€Å"Church Committee† in 1975 (2nd Source Title: Timeline of NSA Domestic Spying). The Committee uncovered illegal domestic spying by the NSA, and recommended it make reforms, this was one of the earliest incidents / scandals for the NSA. Prior to that, in 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that warrants are required and that the NSA are to provide the names of all US citizens and residents it wished to monitor. After 9/11, President Bush ordered the NSA to eavesdrop without court approved warrants technically breaking breaking previously set â€Å"rules† on domestic spying. Leaked reports from whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, claims the NSA reviews millions of phone records collected by Verizon (source title: NSA said to be spying on millions of Verizon users.), does this sound legal to you? The NSA collects and keeps record of calls made in the U.S., this includes the phone number of the telephone that is receiving and making the call, and the duration of the call. This is known as â€Å"metadata† it doesn’t include a recording of the call. This information was discovered through a leaked secret court order, that states Verizon is to turn over all information meeting this criteria every day. Phone Companies including AT&T and Sprint, are also said to be giving up records to the NSA on a daily basis. All of... ...vering information about the programs. In that sense, the supposed â€Å"Congressional oversight† seems more like an illusion of accountability. The NSA claims its mission for domestic spying is â€Å"simple† that they are here to : collect, process, and store U.S. citizen data for the good of our nation. They NSA further elaborates that they cope with the overload of information we have in our country and use it to their strategic advantage. This in turn, helps them find new ways to detect, report, and respond to all domestic threats. â€Å"We work through you. For you. For our Nation.†(Source:http://nsa.gov1.info), this means they are trying to justify that spying on civilians is being done for the good of our nation. Though they claim this is for the sake of our nation, does this violate any previously set laws that are in the constitution or amendments in the Bill Of Rights?

Design Argument for the existence of God Essay

The Design Argument can be split into two sides: design qua purpose and design qua regularity. The key idea of design qua purpose comes from William Paley. He used analogy as the basis for his argument, noting how the complex design of a watch allows all the parts to work together perfectly to achieve its purpose. He then noted the complexity, order and purpose of the universe, stating that â€Å"every manifestation on design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature.† Therefore if a watch’s intricacy stands as evidence that it has been designed, by analogy the universe must also have a designer and, as the designer is required to be supremely powerful, the designer must be God. Aquinas also presented an argument to support design qua purpose. Similarly to Paley, he argued that all natural occurrences show evidence of design. He claimed that this suggested there is a being which directs all things, and as humans have knowledge this being must also be knowledgeable. Therefore there is an intelligent being that directs everything towards its purpose, and Aquinas stated that this being must be God. Unlike Paley, Aquinas explained that God is a designer at work who continues to direct us towards our purpose as well as regulating the universe (e.g. the planets and the seasons). He also attempted to explain how free-will plays a part in design, claiming that we are programmed to reproduce but free-will allows us to choose who we reproduce with. Through these points he also demonstrated a key aspect of the design qua regularity side of the Teleological Argument. Another aspect of the argument is the anthropic principle, which was first introduced by F.R. Tennant. The significant difference of this principle to Paley and Aquinas’ ideas is that it doesn’t reject the scientific principles for existence, as Tennant said that the conditions for the development of human life were intrinsic to the Big Bang. The strong principle says that the reason and purpose of the universe is to support human life, supported by the way the conditions on earth are perfect in order for us to survive.  For example, the atmosphere is 21% Oxygen which is near enough the exact amount that humans need. Consequently a greater being created the universe to support us, and the only being powerful enough to do so is God. On the other hand, the weak anthropic principle doesn’t accept that life was inevitable from the beginning and instead suggests that it just happened to have occurred. Richard Swinburne developed this by suggesting that the creation of the universe came down to probabilities rather than chance. He recognised that the universe could have easily been chaotic, but the fact that it isn’t suggests some element of design. Tennant described this as the world being â€Å"compatible with a single throw of a dice†, and said that â€Å"common sense is not foolish in suspecting the dice is loaded.† This explains how Swinburne and Tennant believed that it took an incredibly small singularity to create the cosmic explosion which created the universe, but the order and purpose is so beyond chance that there must have been a greater being behind it. This therefore shows how the anthropic principle is used to prove the existence of God. This principle has been supported by many other philosophers, including Fred Hoyle and Anthony Flew. Comment on the claim that this argument totally fails to prove the existence of God Charles Darwin used the idea of ‘Natural Selection’ to challenge the Design Argument. This is a theory that claims that the strongest and most adapted species survive and therefore species develop and evolve naturally through time. Darwin argued that the illusion of design is actually a result of natural and random process caused by Natural Selection, and not by God as the designer. Steve Jones described this process as â€Å"a series of successful mistakes†, which again doubts the involvement of God in the design of species. Nevertheless, Christians could object to this disproving that the Design Argument proves the existence of God as the anthropic principle suggests that Natural Selection and Evolution are caused by God, as they are too unlikely to have occurred by chance. As a result, one would argue that Darwin’s theory doesn’t hold up under its counter argument because Natural Selection can still occur with God being the designer of the universe. Freud also questions the Design Argument’s success at proving the existence of God in his book ‘The Future of an Illusion’. In it, he describes religious faith as an illusion based on wishful thinking, arguing that religion exists because people fear living in a chaotic and unordered world. Therefore we project order on to the universe out of fear and so our minds are predisposed to see order. Freud uses this idea to dispute that the order and regularity of the universe is a result of design, thus questioning the existence of God overall. One would say that Freud’s argument supports the claim that the Design Argument fails to prove God’s existence as it suggests that the universe is in fact not ordered perfectly as we perceive, and so God’s work as a designer is an illusion arisen from fear of chaos. Additionally, the Epicurean Hypothesis disputes that the designer of the universe could be the God of classic theism by exploring the idea of evil and suffering. Epicuris says that if God is willing to prevent evil but isn’t able to then he can’t be omnipotent, and if he’s able but not willing then he can’t be benevolent. From this argument, he concluded that either God isn’t the God of classic theism or God isn’t the designer of the universe at all. On the other hand, Christians could counter this by arguing that evil and suffering is a test from God as an opportunity to prove our faith to him. Therefore based on this, evil and suffering doesn’t disprove that God is the ultimate designer. However, the argument still stands as if God was omniscient he wouldn’t need to test people as he would know whether or not they were faithful. Also permitting evil and suffering would still make him malevolent. Consequently  one would say that the Epicurean Hypothesis still supports that the Design Argument fails to prove the existence of God. Overall, despite the Design Argument’s in depth ideas such as the anthropic principle and design qua purpose and regularity, there are stronger scholarly arguments to support the claim that the Design Argument fails to prove the existence of God. Although the use of Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection can be cancelled out by its counter, Freud’s idea of illusion both successfully argues that the apparent design is created out of fear of chaos and not the result of a supremely powerful source, and the Epicurean Hypothesis argues that the God of classic theism can’t exist under the premise of evil and suffering. Therefore these ideas effectively support that the Design Argument doesn’t prove that God exists.

The Scientific Theory Of Science And Technology - 1449 Words

Science and technology is important to society and is often used in our everyday lives. We often have no idea how science and technology really affect us. We work and live in a world driven by technology and science. Science is crucial because it has helped form the world that we live in today. Charles Robert Darwin was an English geologist and naturalist, best known for his significant addition to the science of evolution. He had a theory that all species have inherited traits over time from common ancestors, and in a partnership with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this pattern of evolution resulted from an action that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the†¦show more content†¦The purpose of the trip was to take a five-year survey trip around the world Commanded by Captain Robert FitzRoy. The voyage would prove the opportunity of a lifetime for the Charles Robert Darwin. The HMS Beagle set out on its voyage far and wide with Darwin on board on December 27, 1813. Over the course of the excursion, Darwin recovered an assortment of characteristic examples, including fossils, birds, and plants. Through extreme research, he had an exceptional opportunity to watch the standards of topography, zoology, and natural science nearly. South America, The Galapagos Archipelago, and The Pacific Island were of sure enthusiasm to Darwin. Charles Darwin started to review his discoveries in the Diary of Examines, distributed as a component of Chief FitzRoy s bigger report and later altered into the Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle, once Darwin came back to Britain in 1836. The voyage enormously affected Darwin s perspective of common history. He started to grow a significant hypothesis about the start of living creatures that was inverse to the famous perspective of different naturalists at once. Darwin s involvement with examples across the world brought up vital issues. Different researchers trusted that all species either appeared toward the beginning of the world, or were made after some time in natural history. In either case, the species were accepted to stay much the same all through time. Darwin, saw similitudes among speciesShow MoreRelatedImpact Of Technology On The Development Of Civilization1407 Words   |  6 PagesIn contemporary society, science has played a more pivotal role than technology in the development of civilization. The purpose of science is to develop a vast breadth and depth of data and knowledge to enable us to understand why things are the way they are (Oberdan 26). On the other hand, technology is used to improve real problems based on justified beliefs and organizational systems (Oberdan 28). 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