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December 30, 2011 - May 25, 2012
first is called ontological,
second kind of argument for God’s existence is the cosmological.
must be a first cause of everything that exists, a cause that is itself not caused.
third kind of argument is the argument from design.
Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, explains the many mysteries of Judaism.
God has two forms: the one in which God manifested himself in order to create the earth and another that is wholly unknowable.
most important Kabbalistic text is the Sefer ha-zohar, or simply Zohar.
work was “discovered”—more likely written—by Moses ben Shem Tov de Léon in Spain during the thirteenth century.
most Kabbalistic experts insist this version of Kabbalah, consisting of spiritual charms, stones, and necklaces, is a corruption of the tradition’s true practice.
Italian Renaissance—which began in the city of Florence in the late fourteenth century and peaked during the reign of a local ruler from the Medici family, Lorenzo the Magnificent—was a period of tremendous political, religious, and artistic change. The term renaissance comes from an Italian word for “rebirth,”
Renaissance marked a historical turning point, when the Middle Ages ended and the modern era began.
basic creed of the Renaissance was humanism, an intellectual movement that replaced blind obedience to religious teachings with a return to classical thinking.
Prior to the invention, books had to be hand-copied. Completing a single volume could take years or even decades.
preeminent work of Spanish literature and widely considered the first modern novel in any language.
Don Quixote continually misinterprets the world around him,
Don Quixote both parodies and pays homage to the chivalric
character of Don Quixote himself is a great achievement, a figure whom different eras and groups have variously interpreted as a buffoon, a tragic hero, and a courageous figure refusing to conform. His embodiment of so many qualities is precisely what has made Cervantes’s protagonist one of the most timeless characters in fiction.
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) is one of the best-known Renaissance artists from northern Europe.
Dürer was one of the first northern artists to travel to Italy in order to study art.
Dürer published a cycle of fifteen woodcuts illustrating the Apocalypse—the end of the world as described in the book of Revelation. Particularly famous is his portrayal of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Death, Famine, War, and Pestilence.
Soon after Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, Dürer became an ardent follower of the Reformation.
Known as the “Leonardo of the North,” Dürer dedicated his life to harmonizing the classical ideals of the Italian Renaissance with the naturalism of his native Germany.
Galileo Galilei (1565–1642), born outside of Pisa in Italy, has been called the father of modern physics, the father of modern of astronomy, and the father of modern science.
compound microscope, the discovery of moons around Jupiter, designs for the first pendulum clock, and the invention of a telescope that could see deeply into space.
Galileo’s greatest accomplishment was the stand he took against the Roman Catholic Church
considered an act of rebellion to teach that the sun was the center of the solar system, a theory that had originated with the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus
Galileo used the observations he made with his new telescope to defend Copernicus. During the Inquisition, the sixty-nine-year-old Galileo’s book was banned, and he was ordered to appear before the court in Rome.
He was found guilty of defying church doctrine and sentenced to life in prison.
he died eight years later in his home near Florence, under the watch ...
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In 1992, 359 years after Galileo’s trial, Pope John Paul II formed a commission that recognized Galileo’s bravery and form...
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father discouraged him from studying mathematics.
first person to report seeing mountains and valleys on the surface of the moon.
Both of Galileo’s daughters were born out of wedlock and became nuns.
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) was the best composer, besides Johann Sebastian Bach, of the late baroque.
Skepticism, more generally, is any set of philosophical arguments or claims intended to undermine our belief in some alleged body of knowledge.
René Descartes (1596–1650) wrote the most famous and influential presentation of skepticism in his Meditations on First Philosophy, in which he considers the possibility that a very powerful, but malevolent, demon has created him and is systematically deceiving him.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) regarded it as a great “scandal” that philosophy had not yet solved the problem of skepticism, Martin Heidegger (1899–1976) wrote that the great scandal was not that the problem was not solved but that philosophers thought that it stood in need of a solution.
The core beliefs of Hasidism are pantheism and devekut. Pantheism holds that God is present in all natural physical objects.
Devekut is a state of ecstatic communion with God, open to every Hasid.
the Besht emphasized that emotional communion with God and love of fellow Jews were more important than technical Torah scholarship. He placed a great stress on heartfelt prayer, as opposed to study.
With much of their population executed, and their homes and towns destroyed, Hasidic Jews mostly emigrated to either Israel or the United States.
Almost as soon as the Muslim caliphate conquered Spain in 718 AD, Christian Europe began plotting to win the peninsula back.
ultimately successful in 1492, when the last stronghold of Moorish control on the peninsula, the great fortress of Granada, fell to the forces of the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella.
Christian Europe was both fascinated and terrified by the Moors in their backyard.
Charlemagne, among other European rulers, sent his troops to fight the Moors.
The conquering Christians were not nearly as tolerant as the Moors. A few months after the fall of Granada, Jews were expelled from Spain. A few years later, the remaining Muslims on the peninsula were ordered to either convert or leave Iberia.
most famous warriors of the reconquista period was a Christian general named El Cid, who actually fought for both Christians and Muslims.
The Canterbury Tales
played a central role in establishing English as a literary language,
The Canterbury Tales is a set of twenty-four stories told by various pilgrims who are journeying in a group from the London area to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas à Becket.
