The Holy Spirit Association Essay Example for Free

The Holy Spirit Association Essay With the official name of The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, the Unification Church was founded by Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1954. By 1959, the church has already expanded to America where its international headquarter has been established. At present, the church claims that the number of Unificationists reach three million in more than a hundred countries. At the age of 16, Moon asserted that Jesus Christ appeared to him on Easter morning. Christ instructed him to finish the task Christ has started, that is, to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth. He urges all religions to unify their beliefs so as to attain Gods will. However, Moons character has been questioned as well as the practices of the Unification Church. Even before establishing the Unification Church, Moon has already been accused of immoral practices. He urged the female members of his organization to have sex with him so that they would be cleansed of the influence of Satan. He was arrested for this act but was released at the end of the Korean War. In the United States, he was largely criticized for his recruitment and leadership style, as well as his ways of raising fund. Furthermore, he was convicted of tax evasion and served a prison term. Because of the free labor of his followers, Moon has a built a multimillion-dollar empire, with a number of businesses such as manufacturing, banking, publishing, pharmaceutical companies, and others. He recruited U. S. military officers by offering them business deals and political donations. From his religious power, he believes that he would be able to establish a government that would rule the world. His most distinguishing characteristic is his authoritative leadership. Whatever Moon dictates is absolute and final. Even a seed of doubt to Moon means that a person allows oneself to be part of Satans work. He believed that Adam and Eve were supposed to have a brother–sister relationship until perfection is achieved. After that, the two would have to be married and bear a child, starting the kingdom of God. This promotes the belief that the fall was a sin sexual in nature. To rinse out this sin, God gave Christ the mission to marry and to have perfect children. Unfortunately, Christ was not able to complete this earthly mission because of his death. Thus, Moon proclaims that a â€Å"third Adam† is needed to complete both spiritual and physical salvation. This third Adam would complete what Christ has been sent for to do, that is, to produce sinless children. The Unification Church believes that Moon is the third Adam who would form a perfect family; thus, his children are all sinless. This perfection would extend to members of the church by complete obedience to him. Moreover, an individual would also be salvaged by paying indemnity through fasting, recruiting, fund-raising, etc. Furthermore, Moon belied the concept of trinity in the bible. Rather, he postulates that the first trinity is composed of the third Adam (Moon), his bride, and God. People are encouraged to form their own trinities through marriage and with God. He emphasized that it is through marriage that the kingdom of God would start. Therefore, salvation is only for married people. This would also explain the mass weddings conducted by Moon, in which every couple is charged a mass fee. As blessed by God, Moon and his wife propagate true love, true life, and true marriages; thus, they refer to themselves as the True Parents. The Second Coming, he insisted, is not the coming of Christ but of the third Adam. The purpose of third Adam in the grand plan of God is to establish the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven through perfect marriage and formation of sinless children.

Learning the Writing Business from Book Agents and Editors :: English Literature Essays

Learning the Writing Business from Book Agents and Editors So, you just wrote your first science fiction novel. Your friend read it and told you that you were the next Ray Bradbury or Gene Roddenberry. Your fertile mind fantasizes your name up there on a Borders’ wall poster right next to images of Isaac Azimov and Jules Verne. Before going off the deep end and equating yourself with Hemingway and Steinbeck, give your ego a stiff reality check. Few of us mortals are literary Mozarts that can plop down in front of a computer screen and author a perfect manuscript the first time around.. Let’s get one thing straight right now. You wrote a manuscript and not a book. After an author takes the time and care to read, edit and rewrite the manuscript at least five times, the work has finally evolved into a publishable book’ manuscript. Literary agents have represented my books. Truthfully, I never learned too much from literary agents except that they will show a strong interest in you and your work only if publishers and film producers do. If the power brokers in the literary world think your work is marketable, then you are a viable commodity. If you have no track record in the publishing industry, then forget all about your friend’s praise and about your inflated ego. You’re going to have to accept criticism from your agency’s editors, compromise ideas and plots in your artistic masterpiece, rewrite paragraphs, sentences and pages to conform to editorial evaluations, admit making errors, learn from these â€Å"mistakes† and avoid them when constructing future â€Å"manuscripts.† Although I never learned too much from my literary agents, I absorbed plenty from editors I had worked with. It took me three years to finally master what the editors considered the â€Å"mechanics of the writing craft.† I reluctantly learned that good writing involves much more than the demonstration of grammar, spelling and punctuation skills. I picked up a hundred or so suggestions from my â€Å"literary editors,† and I will share some of them now. To facilitate good transitions and chapter’ integrity, don’t begin sentences and/or paragraphs with pronouns (when writing in the third person). Stay away from â€Å"lazy sentence patterns† such as starting out with â€Å"There are† or â€Å"There is.† And above all else, if you plan to be original and creative, stay away from using stereotypical’ cliches and hackneyed idioms. A good sci-fi’ novel or any other genre’ novel should first be a â€Å"love story† at its core’ construction with the genre’ decoration adroitly wrapped around that core.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was a man-made disaster which had devastating effects on its surrounding environment, in particular the natural environment around the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig. Recovery efforts made by the local governments utilized Information Communications Technology (ICT) such as remote sensors and satellite imagery to track and monitor the magnitude of the oil spill. Further detail on how recovery efforts used ICT's to track and monitor the oil spill as well as its uses in the prevention of future oil spills, including the positives and negatives of the use of ICT will be discussed. Referring to sources such as the scholarly journal ‘Tracking Oil Slicks and Predicting their Trajectories Using Remote Sensors and Models', the magazine article ‘Satellite use Growing to Monitor Facilities and Map Spills' and the national commission report ‘Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling National Commission'. The focus reading ‘Organisations Aiming to Reduce Risk – Worth Broader Exposure' will be used as a comparison and reference to what other industries have done to prevent disasters in their industry from occurring again. Background. Recovery efforts during the Deep Water Oil Spill used Information Communication Technologies (ICT) such as remote sensor technology and satellite imagery technology. Such technology were used in order to monitor the magnitude of the oil spill giving recovery efforts visual data that they could work with as well as a method of being able to obtain the trajectories of the oil spill in order to prevent further spread of the oil in the water. Use of ICT's to assist in Recovery. The use of ICT's such as remote sensor technology and satellite imagery was effectively used by the petroleum industry in previous years prior to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill for exploration purposes. In the event of the oil spill recovery effort teams utilized this same remote sensor technology in order to determine how much oil was spilled, where it reached the shore, and which beaches might be hit next (Pope 2010). This technology allowed recovery teams to effectively survey the spread of oil a lot faster than if it were done through surveillance aircraft such as drones, satellite technology. In the event of the oil spill BP and the federal government utilized two types of satellites. SAR imagery satellites in order to cover large areas and determine the scope of the damage caused. Once the scope of the damage was determined, high-resolution satellites were used to make thorough assessments of the damage. Although satellite imagery we're predominantly used as methods of surveying the wreckage and spill, aircraft drones also played important roles in that they allowed recovery teams to monitor the wreckage from different angles and views. Use of ICT's in the prevention of disasters. Information Communications Technology has multiple uses in that it was able to explore and locate possible petroleum production locations through remote operated vehicles (ROV) attached with thermal imaging cameras and sensors, as well as survey the structural damage of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig through the use of satellite imagery and drone aircraft. It now has the task of surveying and monitoring oil rigs on a frequent weekly or even daily basis. The oil production industry using satellites similarly to how they were used in the in recovery efforts through, obtaining a wide view of the area through SAR satellite imagery and using high-resolution imagery in order to gain a detailed perspective of specific locations and aspects of oil rigs. The National Commission recommended improvements be made by the petroleum production industry as well as the national government in order to effectively plan for a large scale containment plan if another event like this we're to happen again, including coordinating with other government bodies and obtaining relevant information in regards to response measures. Measures taken into account include things like and sufficient amount of technical experts on the within the staff of the oil rigs in order to develop and approve response plans as well as providing mandatory funding to the petroleum production industry for research and development as well as incentives to the industry to perform research and development. Â   Similarly in the nuclear tragedy of Chernobyl the government funded the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (IPNO) programs to perform evaluations, training, assistance and peer reviews by experts. The uses of ICT such as computer programs and hardware are now used to analyse nuclear structures, making it easy to monitor and spot redundancies within the structure and prevent structural failure of the plants. Positives and Negatives of the uses of ICTs The use of ICT's during recovery efforts as well as use in the monitoring of oil rigging sites and prevention of structural failure. The use of ICT's over other methods such as aircraft surveillance has positive benefits which far out weight the negatives. Such satellite imagery can allow recovery teams to effectively and quickly survey the a large portion of the damage site through SAR satellites and gain detailed views of specific areas such as leaks, slicks and seeps through high-resolution satellites. With the use of satellites in combined with aircraft surveillance to gain views from different angles to view specific areas of the structure effectively allow recovery teams to survey and gather information in order to develop an effective containment and recovery plan. The use of ROVs also is a benefit as it allows recovery teams to survey the structure underwater and effectively gather information from places that would be too dangerous for humans to do to. Although ICT's do have their benefits, they also come with negatives as in that SAR satellites capture large views of the affected areas, this comes at a price of decreased resolution making it difficult to view smaller aspects of the image such as leaks in the oil pipe structure. This requires the use of high resolution imaging satellites which are rather costly and cannot be frequently called up due to its high cost. Conclusion The use of information communications technology in the petroleum production industry has had multiple uses before, during and after the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill. Before the disaster of the oil spill the industry used ICTs for exploration and location of possible drilling sites. With the use of satellite technology during the recovery efforts to survey the area and effectively develop a containment plan for preventing the oil from spreading and affecting the nearby beaches. Also in future prevention of possible oil spills through satellite monitoring of oil rigs and tankers. Along with the use of ICTs come the benefits which include allowing recovery teams to quickly and safely gather information which would have been difficult with old technology, but there were also costs in that it would cost large amounts of money in order to use high-end technology such as high-resolution satellites in order to gain clearer images of specific areas. Along with the uses of ICTs to help prevent future oil spills are the recommendations of the oil spill commission which recommended funding for research and development of oil spill prevention similarly to how the government funded the development of the INPO in the nuclear energy industry for training of nuclear engineers and evaluation of nuclear structures.

Business Accounting Free Essay Example, 3000 words

The payback period calculation looks at the shortest number of years to recover the cost of the project. Although the calculation is easy to understand and simple, it still has its limitations. It ignores the benefits that occur after the payback period and more importantly, the method ignores the time value of money. The Net Present Value is an indicator of how much value an investment or project adds to the company. The Net Present Value is a more reliable method of calculating the returns expected from investments as the method considers the time value of money. The Net Present Value compares the value of a dollar today to the value of that same dollar in the future, taking both inflation and returns into account. A positive Net Present Value generated from a prospective project is a good sign and should be accepted. On the contrary, a negative Net Present Value resulting from projects should be rejected because the cash flows will also be negative. The Internal Rate of Return i s the discount rate that delivers a Net Present Value of zero for a series of future cash flows. We will write a custom essay sample on Business Accounting or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now As with the Net Present Value, this technique uses the discounted cash flow approach and is as widely used as the Net Present Value method. The Internal Rate of Return represents the interest yield expected from an investment and is expressed as a percentage. Moreover, the Internal Rate of Return can be found without having to estimate the cost of capital. The use of Discounted Payback Period in investment analysis is more reliable than the use of Payback Period method. This is because the former considers the time value of money by discounting the estimated cash flow at the end of each year before determining the number of years that the initial cost of the project will be recovered. Like the Net Present Value, it considers the time value of money and as such, the outcome of using this method is more realistic and appropriate. On the other hand, the risk-adjusted discount factor produces the expected rate of return for the project, given its risk.