Christian copts Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Christian copts - Research Paper Example The history of Coptic Christianity is tragic, sad and filled with stories of misery. The Coptic language is no longer spoken outside church and the percentage of Copts in Egypt have declined to fewer than 10 percent of the population yet this sect has survived through the centuries spreading beyond the Egyptian borders to many countries around the world. According to Coptic belief the Christian sect began when the Apostle Mark traveled to Egypt. Mark would become the first Pope of Alexandria. The word â€Å"Copt† is derived from the â€Å"Aigyptos,† a Greek word meaning Egyptian. The Coptic Church believes Jesus is less than God because He was made by God while all other Christian denominations believe Jesus to be a spiritual being whose nature was the same therefore equal to God. This was a major divisive issue in 451 AD at the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) when the Copts separated from the other Christian sects but the disagreement has cooled over the many years since . Neither mainline nor do Coptic Christians believe this one point of contention to be of great importance anymore. Otherwise, most Coptic beliefs are essentially the same as other Christians Churches, the Bible being the guiding text. As in other Christian sects, Copts believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. Men actually wrote it but were guided by the Holy Spirit. Copts, as other Christian’s sects believe that Christ not only taught through words but also by His actions and the Bible is not the only source of knowledge. According to Coptic Pope H. H. Pope Shenouda II â€Å"the Holy Bible does not mention everything.† (BBC 2009). Traditions are particularly important to Copts because these have directed civilization from since the time of the first people, Adam and Eve, a period which, according to them, occurred many centuries prior to the writings of the Bible. Somewhat surprisingly, due to the Copts, Christian monasteries originated in Egypt. Termed â€Å"m onasticism,† the creation of monasteries is the most significant contribution to the Christian religion by the Copts. The original monastic community was unintentionally founded by Saint Anthony (died in 356 AD). He departed for Egypt intending to live a spiritual life alone but came across others who wanted to live close to what they believed to be a holy person. They formed a religious community, a novel concept at that time. Of course the community needed rules and who better than a Roman for the task? Saint Pachomius (died 346 AD), an Egyptian and former soldier in the Roman Army, established the first collection of rules for a religious community with a central highly spiritual leader, later to be termed ‘monastery.’ The list of rules combined a work regiment and spiritual dedication. As is the case for all other religions and Christian sects, there are many traditions and rituals unique to Coptic Christians. All Coptic churches face east as do the faithful w hen praying. Traditions and symbolism, such as facing east, is held sacred by Copts. â€Å"We see Christ as our east, in that the sun rises from the east. The sun is the source of our life and so Christ is our salvation, the source of our life in the spirit. Looking towards the east, we are facing the Garden of Eden.† The act is also Biblical in nature. According to ‘Acts,’ St. John of Zebedee â€Å"took a cross of wood and placed it up towards the east and kneeled

Response Paper 3 - Feminist (Human Resource Development) Essay

Response Paper 3 - Feminist (Human Resource Development) - Essay Example Initially the feminist wave was that women can also work the way men do and become economically as productive as men are. However, the thought has now taken a new direction. Hughes mentions that most late-twentieth-century feminist are (rightly) resistant to the simplistic arguments, say of men with objectivist, distanced, positivistic, scientific methods and women with subjectivist, connected, interpretive, non-scientific methods. Few feminists would endorse a wholesale science-bashing that smacks more of ideological excess than of a genuine quest for knowledge. Nor would feminists unanimously opt for the essentialism that identifies quantitative methodologies as male, qualitative ones as female; and positivism as male, ‘interpretationism’ as female (Code, 1995 cited in Hughes, 2000, p. 51). Hughes supports the view of the new breed of feminists who have come way ahead of crude assumptions related to two genders and believe in understanding the minute similarities and d ifferences among men and women. Though it has not got much attention of the HR departments as yet, this study can benefit HR the most as there the two genders are supposed to be treated as equal. Also since it is the responsibility of the HR department to train the human resources for the organisational need, a better understanding of the process of learning of the two can facilitate their training process to a great extent. Hughes rightly defines her purpose as to begin to delineate the ways in which the field of human resource development would be enriched through the incorporation of feminist perspectives (Hughes, 2000, p. 63) Even as the number of women in the managerial spheres of organisations has increased, the learning styles and working styles of men is still taken as a norm. Female managers are forced to confirm to men’s style of learning and working. Else they are assumed to be inefficient. Though the women’s way of working in cooperation with other colleagu es can be extremely beneficial for the organisation, till date the independent working approach of men is considered to be a norm. The reason behind such an approach is that the top level management in most of the organisations is still dominated by men. Giving data from three developed countries, Fiona M. Wilson quotes that U.K. has only 18% of women in managerial positions, Germany has 25% while U.S. has only 5% of the senior managerial positions filled by women (Wilson, 2003, p. 17) Since several years, the society has groomed men and women in a way that they use two different modes of reasoning. Hughes rightly differentiates the two. She says that more men used the mastering, impersonal and individual modes and more women used the receiving, interpersonal and interindividual patterns of reasoning (Hughes, 2000, p. 55). Based on an interview study, Hughes quotes that the gendering pattern of mastering, impersonal and individual patterns was stronger than the receiving, interperso nal and interindividual patterns (Severeins et al., 1998 cited in Hughes, 2000, p. 56) Another strong belief was that men are more target-oriented than women and women are better in doing repetitive work. However, these generalizations do not always hold true. Women also look for more satisfying and challenging jobs as shown in a study on job satisfaction and employee attrition. Many women, like men, express the need for personally satisfying