What is with the Obsession about Appearances?

The obsession today with physical appearance has gone too far. Society puts too much emphasis on weight, on fashion, on beauty. There is a problem with young people in western society because, although obesity is a common problem, it is more and more fashionable to be super-skinny. It seems to me that everyone has to look the same; clones of a high form of beauty. This ideally is tall, strong, angular men, and fragile, blonde girls. 

However, there are some people who want to be more like their ideal, using aesthetic surgery, botox and liposuction. Young girls who have large noses want reductions, since big noses are considered ugly. Unfortunately this has become very common. Moreover, bald men have worries about their appearance and spend a lot of money on expensive products to try to grow more hair. But in reality, the most dangerous problem is collagen and botox. Because its such a new process, we don't have any idea what it could do in the long run. Botox is a toxin, and insecure women who take it could die from a horrible disease later on. 

According to a study carried out in Madrid, only 15% of men show interest in women who have had aesthetic surgery, women without wrinkles or cellulite. Its true that to the majority of men, a natural appearance is best. There is a famous saying; boys will ask for a picture with no clothes, men will ask for a picture with no make up. However, girls continue to doll themselves up for hours before going out. They have fake nails, hair extensions, false lashes and orange skin... None of that is natural or even a little bit attractive. But these girls still seem to think they look beautiful to men in our society when they look like Barbie! 

I would say that there are some occasions when aesthetic surgery could help people: firstly, to improve the self-esteem of insecure or morbidly shy people; secondly, to fix the results of an accident or a burn; thirdly, and finally, for people who look like one thing, but feel like something else, for example a sex change. 

These advantages are the reasons for which aesthetic surgery is still legal. However, it does nothing to protect out young minds from the problems associated with physical appearance in our society today. It is important that we teach children the importance of feeling happy with the way they look and not change that to feel more like every one else. Instead it is better to be unique and individual. Therefore in my view, the obsession with physical appearance today is ridiculous, and leads to an introverted and timid mind. 

God is the Only Explanation for the Existence of Life.

Some would say that God is not the only explanation for life in the universe. They would say that there are alternative explanations such as Evolution, which can, according to Darwinians such as Richard Dawkins, explain the origin of life and obliterate the need for a God as an explanation. A designer as described in the Teleological Argument by William Paley is not necessary, and the 'designed' universe is actually proven to be an evolved one. As Dawkins said, "intelligent design explains precisely zero" of what we know about life. 

However, other people would disagree, asserting that God has to be the only and original explanation, for example Christian Creationists who reject evolution as an explanation for the existence of life entirely. Ultra-conservative Christians propose that the creation of the world was as exactly written in the Book of Genesis, and attempt to explain away evolutionary evidence; fossils are apparently the result of animals drowning in the year of Noah and the Flood. This is called Scientific creationism, formulated by Henry Morris, try to maintain events such as the Seven Days and the Flood in the bible to make evidence used by Evolution seem concurrent with Creationism. There is even a hypothesis that the multiplicity of languages in today's culture is due to the Tower of Babylon, rather than a cognitive development formed by the convergence of genetic interest between relatives. 

Others suggest that there is no possibility of other explanations for the existence of life than God as there has to be a 'prime mover', a start to the chain that allowed evolution to begin, which must be expressed as an external being or a God. Even Dawkins, when pushed to question infinite regress, suggested that an intelligent being from another world may have "seeded life" on Earth. Aquinas in his teleological argument asserted that "inorganic objects cannot direct themselves" and that the world works as if harmonised by an intellligent designer, though as a follower of Aristotle, he may have believed in a 'prime mover', and not in the traditional christian God who created the world in seven days, as was believed by the church in Aquinas's time, the 1200s.  

On the other hand, there are those who say that religion and science can actually work together, that both evolution and creationism may be compatible in some interpretations, although maybe not the Creator as in the traditional Judeo-Christian concept of Him. Accepting the theory of evolution foes not necessarily lead towards a rejection of God's involvement with the process. In Darwin's book, 'The Descent of Man', he even implied that nature is an intelligent force or perhaps a being which decides fate and orders the process of natural selection in his quote "rejecting that which is bad and preserving that which is good". This suggests that there is a plan to the universe which, according to Hans Kung, shows that the meaning of the universe can be discovered, as opposed to a universe which came about by accident. 

Finally some believe that science and evolution have not replaced evolution, but only the myth and analogies of the Holy Books such as the Torah and the Bible. Religions such as Christianity can be maintained without the ignorant and closed-minded view of Fundamentalists who refuse to listen to the logic of Evolution. Even the Catholic Church has now embraced evolution as an explanation for our development, while placing God at the heart of our origin by placing simplistic living organisms on the planet. 

In my opinion a God, an intelligent force, is the only possible explanation for the existence of life as the suggestion of infinite regress is an illogical thought to me. However not a God as described by the Judeo-Christian concept. I prefer to think of God in more deistic terms; a spark which gave life and burned out long ago. I could not say with any conviction that there is any other plausible explanation for life that a God in some form or other. 

By Definition, A Miracle can Never Happen.

According to Hume’s definition of miracles, a miracle can happen in theory, but not in practice. Whilst Hume defines a miracle as “a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the deity”, he asks us to address in our consideration of miracles whether it would be more reasonable to believe that the laws of nature had been violated or to discredit the testimony of the witness. Hume applies this to the bible accounts of miracles, arguing that it would be more reasonable to discredit the testimonies of the biblical authors on account of their being “barbarous and ignorant”, lacking education and having a desire to believe or an ulterior motive for belief. 

Thus, though he argues that on these grounds it is unlikely that the miracle happened, it being more likely that the biblical writers were misled, Hume does not argue that these miracles were impossible or could never happen. However, according to Hume, miracles are so unlikely, considering the statistical support for the laws of nature, that in practice, if he ever witnessed a miracle, he would distrust his senses over the laws of nature.

According to Wiles’ definition of a miracle as a very unlikely divine act which does not contravene the laws of nature, a miracle could happen, but wouldn’t happen because this would be a hindrance to religious belief. A miracle in the expected sense would never happen, according to Wiles, because the interventions of God, such as feeding the five thousand, would be seen as random and trivial, in comparison to letting thousands more die of starvation throughout history. Such a God, Wiles argues, would not be worthy of worship. Instead, Wiles demonstrates that the kind of miracle that could happen, that avoids implications for the Problem of Evil, adheres to the Manichaean Heresy in arguing that it is the creation of the world as a whole which is the miracle and that God does not, then, intervene in the creation.

Contrary to these views which are sceptical of the tradition of miracles, Swinburne, who defines a miracle as an unrepeatable and rare divine intervention to suspend the laws of nature, argues that God’s omnipotence allows his to suspend the natural laws. Furthermore, Swinburne demonstrates that these natural laws are merely statistical and not set laws in the strictest sense. Swinburne allows that miracles must be scarce because this would otherwise have implications for human free will, although he proposes in entirely in contrast to Hume’s ideas about rationality, his Principles of Credulity and Testimony. These Principles argue that it is reasonable to believe that the miracle happened, as long as there is no good reason to doubt one’s own senses or the testimony of the witness. Thus, by Swinburne’s definition, it would be reasonable to believe that miracles can happen.

Moreover, Aquinas provides a detailed specification of miracles into three types, which allow for miracles to be possible. All are identified as being the action of an omnipotent deity, the first being impossible for nature (for example God halting the sun in the sky for Joshua so that the Israelites can finish the battle), the second being natural but in an unexpected order (for example recovering from a terminal illness) and the third being possible in nature, but without natural elements (for example recovering from a cold quickly). Thus these miracles are by definition possible.

In conclusion, even by Hume’s most skeptical definition, miracles are still possible, at least in theory. Whilst Polkinghorne argues that we must consider whether it is theologically coherent for God to act differently, a miracle being out of the ordinary, several Philosophers, such as Tillich, Winch, Hick Holland and C. S. Lewis, argue similarly that miracles are subjective experiences. This means that the same event might be interpreted differently by people with different world views, such as an atheist and a theist. What makes a miracle a miracle, then, is not whether it is logically or empirically possible, but what religious significance is attached to it by the person who experiences it.