Free Essays on Creation

"The Creation" by James Weldon Johnson is poetry about God almighty created what we know as life. As, God stepped out onto space he said he was "lonely". Next, he said to himself that he would make him a world. So, god started putting the pieces together to make his perfect world. Secondly, God smiled then light appeared. Then, God reached out and grabbed the light and rolled it up in his hand until he made the sun. "After he sent the sun to the heavens, the light that was remaining he gathered into a ball, and threw it at the darkness and made night with moon and stars." Next, "God created many things such as lightning, thunder, rain, grass, flowers, rivers, sea, birds, beasts, forests, and woods." After all of Gods creation he was still lonely in his New World. So, God decided to create man. Then, he sat down and scooped up some clay and shaped it in his own image. Next, he blew his breath of life onto the clay and man became a living thing soul. We all know that the book of "Genesis" is the first sign of creation and it also describes the creation of the world like the poem by James Weldon Johnson. Basically, it's the same, but a little different. The only things that are different to me is that god was more vocal in the book of "Genesis". When God wanted something or he wanted something to happen he just spoke upon it. For example, when he said "let there be light", and there was light. And in the poem by James Weldon Johnson the lord seem to do everything by hand.... Free Essays on Creation Free Essays on Creation "The Creation" by James Weldon Johnson is poetry about God almighty created what we know as life. As, God stepped out onto space he said he was "lonely". Next, he said to himself that he would make him a world. So, god started putting the pieces together to make his perfect world. Secondly, God smiled then light appeared. Then, God reached out and grabbed the light and rolled it up in his hand until he made the sun. "After he sent the sun to the heavens, the light that was remaining he gathered into a ball, and threw it at the darkness and made night with moon and stars." Next, "God created many things such as lightning, thunder, rain, grass, flowers, rivers, sea, birds, beasts, forests, and woods." After all of Gods creation he was still lonely in his New World. So, God decided to create man. Then, he sat down and scooped up some clay and shaped it in his own image. Next, he blew his breath of life onto the clay and man became a living thing soul. We all know that the book of "Genesis" is the first sign of creation and it also describes the creation of the world like the poem by James Weldon Johnson. Basically, it's the same, but a little different. The only things that are different to me is that god was more vocal in the book of "Genesis". When God wanted something or he wanted something to happen he just spoke upon it. For example, when he said "let there be light", and there was light. And in the poem by James Weldon Johnson the lord seem to do everything by hand.... Free Essays on Creation Outline Title: Creation vs. Evolution or Scientific Creation Thesis: Creation vs. Evolution has been a hot topic with society for centuries. Just recently, in the mid-1980’s an new kid came on the block, Scientific Creation. Purpose: The following will show the main ideas of Creation, Evolution, and Scientific Creation. I will also show why I believe in Creation and what aspects of Evolution and Scientific Creation help me to confirm this belief. Creation vs. Evolution or Scientific Creation The cosmos, whether you believe in Creation, Evolution, or Scientific Creation is a very interesting subject. Creation, as documented in the Bible in Genesis 1:1 states that â€Å"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.† It shows that God created the universe and all living things out of love, in a particular order, and with a particular purpose. Evolution portrays the origin of life as starting out with the â€Å"big bang†. The collision of two atmospheres, b oth atmospheres having the ability to create life as we know it. Scientific Creation is not based on Genesis or any religious teaching. Scientific Creation is based on the scientific data, which supports Creation. According to Henry M. Morris, the difference between Scientific Creation and Biblical Creation is â€Å"the first is based solely on scientific evidence, from such sciences as genetics, geology, thermodynamics and paleontology; the second is based on Biblical teachings.† In examining the above beliefs, Creation, Evolution and Scientific Creation, I view Scientific Creation as an attempt to make a lateral connection between Evolution and Creation. The theory that all living creatures came out of the â€Å"big bang† (according to Evolution) is too far of a stretch to the imagination for me. If all animals, insects and human beings were created due this collision and through an evolutionary process, then one would think that we would all be related genetically. Where does o... Free Essays on Creation A Comparison of the Creation Stories of Hindu, Greek, and Norse Mythology There are many different creation stories from around the world. I’m going to describe three stories from different beliefs. The first is the story of the Hindu religion. Then I’ll tell you about the Greek myths. The Norse myths are also very interesting. They all have different creation stories, but share same elements. The Hindu religion is a very interesting one, and its creation story only makes it more so. According to the Rig-Veda, creation begins in a state of hollow darkness; nothingness does not even exist. There is only one, one who breathes without air, and lives without tangible nourishment. He is Brahman, â€Å"that one,† and he is the essence of all beings. Desire came to him to produce new creatures, and he wanted to make them out of his own body. He created the waters, put his seed in them, and the seed swelled into a golden egg from which he himself was born. The upper half of the seed became the heavens, and the lower half became the earth. That is how the Hindu beginning began. In Judaism, creation begins with God. He alone created the heaven and earth. The earth was like that of the Hindus, a dark, shapeless void. Then God created light, which he separated from the dark, and from these he created day and night. He then made a firmament that he named Heaven. He brought dry land, fruitful plants, and two great lights to rule over day and night. He then brought forth moving creatures of land and sea. Finally, he made man in his own image to rule over the beasts. That is how the Genesis tells of this beginning....

Five Theories on the Origins of Language

Five Theories on the Origins of Language What was the first language? How did language begin- where and when? Until recently, a sensible linguist would likely respond to such questions with a shrug and a sigh. As Bernard Campbell states flatly in Humankind Emerging (Allyn Bacon, 2005), We simply do not know, and never will, how or when language began. Its hard to imagine a cultural phenomenon thats more important than the development of language. And yet no human attribute offers less conclusive evidence regarding its origins. The mystery, says Christine Kenneally in her book The First Word, lies in the nature of the spoken word: For all its power to wound and seduce, speech is our most ephemeral creation; it is little more than air. It exits the body as a series of puffs and dissipates quickly into the atmosphere... There are no verbs preserved in amber, no ossified nouns, and no prehistorical shrieks forever spread-eagled in the lava that took them by surprise. The absence of such evidence certainly hasnt discouraged speculation about the origins of language. Over the centuries, many theories have been put forward- and just about all of them have been challenged, discounted, and often ridiculed. Each theory accounts for only a small part of what we know about language. Here, identified by their disparaging nicknames, are five of the oldest and most common theories of how language began. The Bow-Wow Theory According to this theory, language began when our ancestors started imitating the natural sounds around them. The first speech was onomatopoeic- marked by echoic words such as moo, meow, splash, cuckoo, and bang.   Whats wrong with this theory?Relatively few words are onomatopoeic, and these words vary from one language to another. For instance, a dogs bark is heard as au au in Brazil, ham ham in Albania, and wang, wang in China. In addition, many onomatopoeic words are of recent origin, and not all are derived from natural sounds. The Ding-Dong Theory This theory, favored by Plato and Pythagoras, maintains that speech arose in response to the essential qualities of objects in the environment. The original sounds people made were supposedly in harmony with the world around them. Whats wrong with this theory?Apart from some rare instances of sound symbolism, theres no persuasive evidence, in any language, of an innate connection between sound and meaning. The La-La Theory The Danish linguist Otto Jespersen suggested that language may have developed from sounds associated with love, play, and (especially) song. Whats wrong with this theory?As David Crystal notes in How Language Works (Penguin, 2005), this theory still fails to account for the gap between the emotional and the rational aspects of speech expression. The Pooh-Pooh Theory This theory holds that speech began with interjections- spontaneous cries of pain (Ouch!), surprise (Oh!), and other emotions (Yabba dabba do!). Whats wrong with this theory?No language contains very many interjections, and, Crystal points out, the clicks, intakes of breath, and other noises which are used in this way bear little relationship to the vowels and consonants found in phonology. The Yo-He-Ho Theory According to this theory, language evolved from the grunts, groans, and snorts evoked by heavy physical labor. Whats wrong with this theory?Though this notion may account for some of the rhythmic features of the language, it doesnt go very far in explaining where words come from. As Peter Farb says in Word Play: What Happens When People Talk (Vintage, 1993): All these speculations have serious flaws, and none can withstand the close scrutiny of present knowledge about the structure of language and about the evolution of our species. But does this mean that all questions about the origin of language are unanswerable? Not necessarily. Over the past 20 years, scholars from such diverse fields as genetics, anthropology, and cognitive science have been engaged, as Kenneally says, in a cross-discipline, multidimensional treasure hunt to find out how language began. It is, she says, the hardest problem in science today. In a future article, well consider more recent theories about the origins and development of language- what William James called the most imperfect and expensive means yet discovered for communicating a thought.