Evaluating Website's Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Evaluating Website's - Essay Example Even before this, though, they should realize that the information they are getting is only as good as the source providing it. By developing a strong sense of what comprises a credible website from those that are less credible; one can base important decisions such as which career path to follow on reasonably reliable information given through a strong website. There are a number of ways in which a website can establish its credulity, reassuring users that the information they provide is trustworthy. A three-year study conducted by Stanford University resulted in the development of 10 guidelines to use when evaluating websites (Fogg, 2002). The first guideline is to check to see if the information offered is backed up with third party sources and whether those sources are accessible. If they are, another guideline is to look at those sources to see if they, too, have some degree of credibility whether they are other websites or individual ‘experts’ in their fields. A website with ‘in-house’ experts should make this expertise known. If the website is offered by a reputable organization, with a real physical address and contact information, this also points to a more reliable source (Fogg, 2002). The organization should be easy to reach if the user has questions and the site should be easy to use rather than attempt ing to dazzle with confusing effects. The content of the site should be updated often, be relatively free of annoying promotional material and be free of spelling or other small errors. The Riley Guide meets much of these criteria. It establishes its credibility by claiming to have been in the business since 1994 and it provides information about the site author, Margaret Dikel. It also features a number of testimonials from businesses and competitors verifying its accuracy and usability. The site is comprised almost entirely of links that provide access to

Literature review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Literature review - Essay Example This is where ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) comes into the picture. ERP in the form of software applications will integrate all the departments and thereby will integrate the internal and the external management information across the organization. By integrating the information and then making it available to the needed departments, ERP will optimize the various organizational processes. With ERP producing optimal benefits, it is being implemented in organizations in various sectors. However, the implementation process will not be a smooth flowing affair, as various risk factors could impede it. When ERP is implemented, apt change management practice has to be initiated. However, various risk factors could arise during this change management process, thus turning out be a major impediment for ERP implementation. In addition, when the employees are trained and equipped to handle ERP, another set of risk factors will arise. Then, there could risk factors related to the software c ustomization according to the organizational processes. ... Singla and Goyal (2006) adds to this perspective by stating, how ERP can upgrade an organization’s ability to generate timely, relevant and accurate information needed for the various organizational processes throughout the enterprise and its supply chain. ERP made its appearance in the 1990’s, when Information Technology (IT) and its applications made its presence in various spheres of human life, particularly in business organizations. It was also during that period, many firms around the world started shifting their IT strategy from â€Å"developing information systems in-house to purchasing application software such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.† (Hong and Kim 2002). Sumner (2000) adds additional perspective by stating how organizations are initiating various projects by using ERP packages like SAP, Peoplesoft and Oracle, and how these projects often represent the single largest investment in an information systems (IS) project in the histori es of these companies. (Sumner 2000). Organizations are making such large investments in ERP because of the benefits that will be returned by it. Singla and Goyal (2006) lists out various benefits of ERP, which include shortening of the production cycles, accuracy accentuation regarding the demand for materials management, etc. While Singla and Goyal (2006) provided benefits of ERP’s implementation in the manufacturing side, Iskanius (2009) gives a list of benefits across various departments, which includes â€Å"cost reduction, productivity and quality improvement, customer service improvement, better resource management, improved decision-making and planning, and organizational empowerment†. Because

Understanding European history Essay Example for Free

Understanding European history Essay Although experiencing a period of expanding intellectual and geographical horizons, European history in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries witnessed, on the whole, a profoundly intolerant age. To clarify our opinion, we must first introduce European history under the literary history of this age. Here, we will display our understanding of European history in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the one by Brecht or the one by Montaigne as two famous authors of the Renaissance age. Herr Bertolt Brecht in relation to European drama and theatre Anyone who was anyone in Germany and France wrote historical dramas. It is therefore understandable that the poets of inner conflicts, the prophets of the Byronic hero, also emerged as writers of historical drama and often released the two themes in the same play. The most important condition a historical drama should fulfill when it was to be performed was that should represent history as an all-embracing system and as a force which helps to define identity. Unlike ONeil and Pirandello, however, Brecht does not want the spectator to identify or feel empathy with his heroes. In 1922, he noted in his diary: I hope in Baal and Jungle Ive avoided one common artistic bloomer that of trying to carry people away. Instinctively, Ive kept my distance and ensured that the realization of my†¦. effects remains within bounds. The spectators splendid isolations is left intact; it is not sua res quae agitur. Consequently, Brecht draws quite different conclusions from the concept of the impossibility of individuality in Baal than do ONeil or Pirandello in their work. Brecht opposes the idea of the ever-constant – tragic or polyvalent – absurd being (Sein) of man with the theorem of mans changeability. He designed the comedy Mann IST Mann (Man equals Man) as a kind of experimental apparatus which would demonstrate the basic pre-conditions of re-assembling one personality into another. Herr Bertolt Brecht maintains man equals man- a view that has been around since time began. But then Herr Brecht points out how far one can maneuver and manipulate that man. All of Brechts re-writs began from the insight gained from Baal, that man is nothing without his social and economic relations (One is none) and that it is only through relationships that he becomes something; these relationships prove to be not primarily human ones but rather relationships based on commodity exchange. Such relationships of ownership turn man into an object which can be used in a negative or positive way, according to the situation, and this can be demonstrated experimentally. Brecht developed the form of Lehrstuck in response to a very specific problem which repeatedly confronted his theater in the course of 1920s. It concerns, on the one hand, the new type, and, on the other, the middle-class audience response to it. Brecht presumes that there can be no individuality in the way conceived by the former bourgeoisie, and that no definitive statements can be made on new trans-individual man since it can only rise as the result of a lasting process of development. Brecht felt supported in this view by Marxism, which defines man as a changeable and world-changing being, whose consciousness is determined through his social being. The new man, who will be formed as a product of situation where there is no bourgeoisie, in a classless society, thus cannot be defined and fixed in advance. The dramatic poet in my view is merely someone who records history. He stands above history, however, in that he creates history for a second time and places us directly in the life of a certain time, instead of providing a dry account; he provides characters instead of characteristics, and figures instead of descriptions. It is his greatest ask to come as close as he can to history as it really happened. Brecht constructed as antithesis, from similar points of departure he arrives at completely opposite conclusion: †¢ The absolute self-realization of the vital individual, liberated from all moral scruples is impossible in bourgeois society, since this form of society forces everyone to fit in and its conventions stand in total opposition to the individuals claim to happiness and eradicate individuality. †¢ The individual who sets himself up to be absolute, who lives out his insatiable sexual lust, his incontinent consumption of food and drink, is a monstrous social being who either falls into the realms of the mythic or becomes part of the circle of nature- from the white mothers womb to the dark womb of the earth- and dissolves his own individuality. Brecht turns his conclusion into a positive one- something only Hugo von Hofmannsthal had recognized at that time. Michel de Montaignes essays in the Renaissance age Mantaigne essentially invented the literary form of essay, a short subjective treatment of a given topic, of which the book contains a large number. Essay is French for trial or attempt. Montaigne wrote in a kind of crafted rhetoric designed to intrigue and involve the reader, sometimes appearing to move in a stream-of-thought from topic to topic and at other times employing a structured style which gives more emphasis to the didactic nature of his work. His arguments are often supported with quotes from classical Greek and Roman texts. Montaignes stated goal in his book is to describe man, and especially himself, with utter frankness. As an essayist, his great project centered on the sustained delineation of only one character, which was Montaignes character. He finds the great variety and volatility of human nature to be its most basic features. A typical quote is I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself, He describes his own poor memory, his ability to solve problems and mediate conflicts without truly getting emotionally involved, his disgust for mans pursuit of lasting fame, and his attempts to detach himself from worldly things to prepare for death. Montaigne is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiography- and his massive volume essays (translated literally as Attempts) contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers the world over, from William Shakespeare to Rene Descartes, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Stephan Zweig. Montaigne freely borrowed of others, and he has found men willing to borrow of him as freely. We need not wonder at the reputation which he with seeming facility achieved. He was, without being aware of it, the leader of a new school in letters and morals. His book was different from all others which were at that date in the world. It diverted the ancient currents of thought into new channels. It told its readers, with unexampled frankness, what its writers opinion was about men and things, and threw what must have been a strange kind of new light on many matters but darkly understood. Above all, the essayist uncased himself, and made his intellectual and physical organism public property. He took the world into his confidence on all subjects. His essays were a sort of literary anatomy, where we get a diagnosis of the writers mind, made by himself at different levels and under a large variety of operating influences. It was reasonable enough that Montaigne should expect for his work a certain share of celebrity in Gascony, and even, as time went on, through ¬out France; but it is scarcely probable that he foresaw how his renown was to become world-wide; how he was to occupy an almost unique position as a man of letters and a moralist; how the Essays would be read, in all the principal languages of Europe, by millions of intelligent human beings, who never heard of Perigord or the League, and who are in doubt, if they are questioned, whether the author lived in the sixteenth or the eighteenth century. This is true fame. A man of genius belongs to no period and no country. He speaks the language of nature, which is always everywhere the same. Evaluating the difference between Brecht and Montaigne Thus, if the Stream of things is a mixture of dying and regeneration, the thought problems confronting us are dialectical, in the identity of opposites, of negative and positive; and also linguistic, in the logical validity of sentences and the mutual exclusion of their meanings; and also aesthetic, in so far as one aspect of the dead moons continued life is its perception as strange [fremd] by even one last living being, its estrangement of itself and of that being. Finally, causality intervenes, and intersects the vast sublunary landscape of all that is: raising its own linguistic and dialectical questions. Brecht was willing to force the issue even more pointedly, as in his suggestion that although the purely biological death of the individual IS uninteresting to society, dying ought none the less to be taught. It is probably less a Montaigne-like aspiration than the expression of themes surrounding Die Massnahme from this same period. A social Tao, on the other hand, is surely bound up with the issues of technology and modernity raised above, to which we will return in conclusion. Bibliography References used in the current essay: 1. History of European drama and theatre, Erika Fischer-Lichte, Jo Riley. Pages 232-238-315-317-318 2. The Complete Essays of Michel de Montaigne, Vol. 1 of 2. Michel de Montaigne. Pages 1-2 3. Brecht and method, Fredric Jameson. Page 171

The central limit theorem

The central limit theorem The Central Limit Theorem The central limit theorem is the second fundamental theorem in probability after the ‘law of large numbers. The‘law of large numbersis atheoremthat describes the result of performing the same experiment a large number of times. According to the law, theaverageof the results obtained after a large number of trials should be close to theexpected value, and will tend to become closer to this value as more trials are carried out. For example, a single roll of afair diceproduces one of the numbers {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} each with equalprobability. Therefore, the expected value (E(x)), of a single dice roll is (1+2+3+4+5+6) à · 6 = 3.5. If this dice is rolled a large number of times, the law of large numbers states average of the result of all these trials known as the sample mean , will be approximately equal to 3.5. = 1Nk=1Nxk≈Ex=3.5 If the number of trials was to further increase, the average would further approach the expected value. So in general, as N→∞, →Ex This is the main premise of the law of large numbers. The central limit theorem is similar to the law of large numbers in that it involves the behaviour of a distribution as N→∞. The central limit theorem states that given a distribution with a mean (ÃŽ ¼) and variance (ÏÆ' ²), the samplingdistribution of the mean approaches anormal distributionwith a mean (ÃŽ ¼) and a variance (ÏÆ' ²N) as N, thesample size,increases. In other words, the central limit theorem predicts that regardless of the distribution of the parent population: Themeanof the population of means isalwaysequal to the mean of the parent population from which the population samples were drawn. Thestandard deviationof the population of means is always equal to the standard deviation of the parent population divided by the square root of the sample size (N). Thedistribution of means will increasingly approximate anormal distributionas the size N of samples increases. →X~N(ÃŽ ¼, ÏÆ'2N) (This is the main consequence of the theorem.) The origin of this celebrated theorem is said to have come from Abraham de Moivre, a French born mathematician who used the normal distribution to approximate the distribution of the number of heads resulting from many tosses of a fair coin. This was documented in his book ‘The Doctrine of Chances published in 1733 which was essentially a handbook for gamblers. This finding was somewhat forgotten until the famous French mathematicianPierre-Simon Laplacerevived it in his monumental work‘Thà ©orie Analytique des Probabilità ©s, which was published in 1812. Laplace was able to expand on de Moivres findings by approximating the binomial distribution with the normal distribution. De Moivre Laplace But as with de Moivre, Laplaces finding received little attention in his own time. It was not until the nineteenth century was at an end that the importance of the central limit theorem was discerned, when, in 1901, Russian mathematicianAleksandr Lyapunovdefined it in general terms and proved precisely how it worked mathematically.A full proof of the central limit theorem will be given later in this document. One may be familiar with the normal distribution and the famous ‘bell shaped curve that is associated with it. This curve is often found when presenting data for something like the heights or weights of people in a large population. Where ÃŽ ¼ is the mean . When the central limit theorem is applied, the distribution will approach something similar to the graph above. However, the amazing implication The central limit theorem explains why many non-normal distributions tend towards the normal distribution as the sample size N increases. This includes uniform, triangular, inverse and even parabolic distributions. The following illustrations show how they tends towards a normal distribution:

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight :: Character Analysis, King Arthur

From all the reputable figures of the tale â€Å"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight†; the Gawain-poet considered chivalry and the knightly code thee most righteous way to classify a gentleman within the medieval time period. King Arthur, Sir Gawain, and the Green Knight basked in the veneration of their peers and kingdom. Throughout the story these characters was presented in the esteemed glory, however, through the duration of the novella; the storyteller shown that each noble persona contained flaws. By interpreting their strengths and faults, the audience will be exposed to how the storyteller perceived elements of the code and chivalry. Dependent on such character, the differentiation of the regulations and codes will symbolize their role in the tale, further more, will elucidate the hardships of enduring the character. From where â€Å"bold men were bred† (Anonymous, pg.26), the â€Å"most honour[able]† (Anonymous, pg.26) Arthur resided at the renowned Camelot. Arthur being most favorable made his citizens and knights obedient to him and his desires. Sitting in the estate throne concludes that he must: stay faithful to his religion, present nobility and courtesy. As well as, staying chase, when expected, and valiant for his kingdom. Defiantly â€Å"fearless† Arthur is swift to protect and defend his kingdom by taking upon the challenge given from the Green Knight. Consequently, this situation portraits to the reader that valor, honor, and piety are all inevitability affiliated with King Arthur, as it shall be for such leaders. So for him being in a position of wealth and authority, he presents himself as a jejune juvenile. With â€Å"moods of a boy† (Anonymous, pg. 26), â€Å"Arthur would not eat until . . . . he first [was] apprised of some strange story or stirring adventure, or some moving marvel that he might believe in of noble men, knighthood, or new adventures; or a challenger should come a champion seeking† (Anonymous, pg. 26). King Arthur acting like an immature child is the most vile characteristic for the fact that he is king and is expected of holding himself with class and dignity. Though his kingdom and himself is well known, his courtesy is not. Soon after the noble King went to defend his title and reputation, the â€Å"good† Gawain verified his loyalty, courtesy and courage through defending the weaker by taking upon the laborious quest of his lord. Telling the King to â€Å"save your blood in my body I boast no virtue† (Anonymous, pg, 37) brings the initial feel for Gawain.

The Holocaust :: essays research papers

"If we were not an eternal people before, we are an eternal people after the Holocaust, in both its very positive and very negative sense. We have not only survived, we have revived ourselves. In a very real way, we have won. We were victorious. But in a very real way, we have lost. We'll never recover what was lost. We can't assess what was lost. Who knows what beauty and grandeur six million could have contributed to the world? Who can measure it up? What standard do you use? How do you count it? How do you estimate it...? We lost. The world lost, whether they know it or admit it. It doesn't make any difference. And yet we won, we're going on." This quote is from the testimony of Fania Fenelon. The signs and symptoms that are among the Jews because of the Holocaust definitely characterize abnormality. These abnormalities include the physical effects, the spiritual effects, and the second generation. The physical effects were enormous among the Jews. The conditions of the camps defy description. The nutrition was worse than inadequate and the results being the well-known "musselmen": skeletons covered by skin. After the Jews in prison camps were freed, their diseases were treated as well as could be treated. Premature aging was one of the most prominent disabling effects of survivors. Digestive tract diseases were also very common because of the emotional disturbances and inadequate diet during their incarceration. The experience also placed them at risk of coronary diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, and arteriosclerosis. All of this was consistent with the premature aging and the atrophy of the heart muscle due to the extreme undernourishment during captivity. Spiritual concerns also followed the survivors of the Holocaust. The Jews had to face up to one of the most painful realities of all...What it means to be a Jew. They had to decide whether or not to remain a Jew. The Holocaust had threatened the Jewish people near extinction. A anger directed towards the Non-Jewish world was intense because they had been persecuted by Gentiles. The Holocaust had caused an apparently irreversible rupture in the Jewish-Christian relations. Jews felt and still feel enraged because their expectations of a decent world were shattered into pieces by the most, supposedly, civilized people in the world. "Where was God?" wrote Elie Wiesel, a question asked many times among the Jews. They felt

History and Development of the Charismatic/Pentecostal Movement Essay

Charismatic movement is a religious revival movement that developed during the late 1960’s among members of several Christian denominations, notably Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Methodists. Charismatic believe they can become infused with the Holy Spirit. When so infused, they believe, they may be granted such charisms (gifts) as the ability to speak in tongues, to make prophecies, and to heal by faith. Charismatics share many beliefs and practices with the Pentecostal churches but do not consider themselves to be Pentecostals (Duin, 2000). Moreover, Pentecostal churches base their faith and practice on certain religious experiences that are recorded in the New Testament. Pentecostal churches teach that every Christian should seek to be â€Å"filled with the Holy Spirit. † The proof of this occurrence comes when the person speaks in tongues. That is, the person will speak in a language he has never learned. The New Testament refers to the disciples speaking in tongues on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), and mentions speaking in tongues elsewhere (Blumhofer, 2004). Pentecost is an important springtime Jewish and Christian feast. Its name comes from the Greek word fifty because Pentecost occurred on the fiftieth day after the first day of Passover. As a Jewish thanksgiving feast for the harvest, it was called Feast of Firstfruits (Exodus 23:16) and Shabuot or the Feast of Weeks (Leviticus 23: 15-21): â€Å"From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up the day after the seventh Sabbath and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord. From wherever you live, bring two loaves made of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour, baked with yeast, as a wave offering of firstfruits to the lord. Present with this bread seven male lambs, each a year old and with out defect, one young bull and two rams†¦Ã¢â‚¬  From the least the 200’s, Christians celebrated Pentecost on the seventh Sunday after Easter as one of their greatest feasts. It commemorated the descent of the Holy Spirit (called Holy Ghost in older English) upon the apostles on this day (Acts 2: 1-4): â€Å"When the day of the Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled tem. † He had been promised by Jesus as â€Å"another Comforter† (John 14:16) and came to strengthen the apostles after their nine days of prayer following the ascension of Jesus into heaven. Then they showed themselves more courageous and zealous than they had been before. Pentecost was later called Whitsunday or White Sunday, because the newly baptized wore their white baptismal robes on that day, marking the end of the joyous Easter season (Pentecostalism. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2004). In masses of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, red vestments are worn on Pentecost to symbolize the tongues of fire representing the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:3). This paper studies the origin of Pentecostal/Charismatic movement and knows some denominations that practice the Pentecostal beliefs. II. Discussion Pentecostal churches that emphasize glossolalia (speaking in unknown tongues). The term â€Å"Pentecostal† refers to the day of Pentecost, soon after the death of Jesus, when the disciples spoke in unknown tongues. In present-day Pentecostal churches, during the highly emotional moments of the service, members make utterances that have not been identified with any known language (Wakefield, 1999). Pentecostals also believe that they can receive other supernatural gifts. For example, they believe they can be given the ability to prophesy, to heal, and to interpret what is said when someone speaks in an unknown tongue. The New Testament refers to these gifts in I Corinthians 12-14. Aside from these distinctive qualities, however, individual Pentecostal denominations do not usually resemble each other. There are more than three dozen Pentecostal groups in the United States of America alone. They differ radically in size as well as in their interpretations of matters of faith and practice. Some of the largest Pentecostal bodies are: Church of God in Christ, 3,700,000 members; Assemblies of God, 2,100,000; United Pentecostal Church International, 500,000; Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), 455,000; Church of God in Christ, International, 200,000; International Church of the Four-square Gospel, 180,000; Pentecostal Holiness Church, 110,000; and the Pentecostal Church of God, 90,000. Pentecostal churches trace their origins to revivals of tongue-speaking that occurred at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kans. , in 1901, and at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles in 1906. Similar revivals also took place in Great Britain and in Europe, Asia, and Latin America during the early 1900’s. Since the 1930’s, the Pentecostal denominations have grown rapidly. With a worldwide membership estimated at seven million, the Pentecostals are sometimes called Christianity’s â€Å"Third Force,† alongside the Roman Catholicism and traditional Protestantism (Ferm, 2001). Many Pentecostal churches are Methodist in origin. John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, believed on perfectionism. As Methodism later decreased its emphasis on perfectionism, many American Methodists broke away and formed their own churches. Stressing the perfectionist doctrine, these bodies are became known as Holiness churches. The Pentecostal churches are usually defined as those Holiness churches that consider speaking in tongues an important sign of having attained holiness. A. Assemblies of God Assemblies of God are Protestant Christian churches forming the largest of the Pentecostal denominations. The basic belief of this denomination is that conversion is a spiritual rebirth. Speaking in tongues is the first sign that that the Holy Spirit has been received by the reborn. Members believe in the infallibility of the Bible, the second coming of Christ to rule the world, eternal bliss for believers, and eternal punishment for the wicked. The denomination is composed of churches (assemblies) that are self-governing in local affairs. Each ordained minister and one lay delegate from each assembly is a member of the General Council, which is responsible for missions, publications, and other matters affecting the entire denomination (Assemblies of God. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2004). The church arose out of a rival movement about 1900. The General Council was organized in 1914. Membership is about 2,100,000 in the United States. The church has missions in a number of African and Latin American nations. International headquarters are in Springfield, Missouri. B. Practices and Beliefs †¢ Gift of Tongues Gift of tongues in Christianity is the ability to praise God in words that cannot be identified with any known language. It is also called glossolalia (Greek: tongue talking). Speaking in tongues occurs during moments of intense religious emotion. Many people believe that the speaker is possessed by the Holy Spirit. In Pentecostal churches, the gift of tongues is considered a sign of spiritual perfection. Early in the 1960’s, speaking in tongues spread through some congregations in other denominations, especially in the Episcopal, Roam Catholic, and Methodist churches (Glossolalia. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2004). According to the Bible (Acts 2:1-13), 50 days after the Resurrection of Jesus, on the Jewish Pentecost, the Holy Spirit entered the disciples of Jesus and caused them to speak strange words. Many foreign Jews who were present understood the words, even though they were not spoken in their language. Instances of the gift of tongues are recorded in later New Testament books. However, in all these cases the words were directed to God and were not understood by any human being (Pentecostal movement. Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge). †¢ Faith healing Faith healing is another practice of Pentecostal church. Faith healing is the curing of physical and mental ailments through religious faith of the sufferers. Medical science recognizes many kinds of physical disorders that are caused or made worse by the patient’s state of mind. These ailments can often be cured or relieved by mental therapy—by changing the patient’s outlook rather than by prescribing medicine. Faith in the curing power of religion or religious relics has often brought about this mental change. Some reported cases faith healing, however, cannot be explained medically (Foster, 2006). Faith healing has been recorded in many religions under various conditions. In the Old Testament, the Syrian general Naaman was cured of leprosy when, as instructed by the prophet Elisha, he washed himself seven times in the River Jordan (II Kings 5:10-14). Jesus performed many miracles of healing. After healing a leper, Jesus said to the man: â€Å"Arise, go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole† (Luke 17:19). The apostles performed acts of healing. They believed that â€Å"prayer of faith shall save the sick† (James 5:15). III. Conclusion The Pentecostal churches stress the doctrine of perfectionism, or holiness, which states that man has free choice, while still on earth, may become sinless through uniting with God. This doctrine rose in reaction to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, which states, in part, that man is sinful by nature and may be saved only through God’s choice. Other beliefs common to many Pentecostal churches are the fundamentalist ideas that the entire Bible is literally true and that Jesus will return physically to rule the earth; some of the Pentecostal churches also practice faith healing (Pentecostal churches.New Standard Encyclopedia). Reference 1. Blumhofer, Edith L. Thinking in the Spirit: Theologies of the Early Pentecostal Movement. The Christian Century. Volume: 121. Issue: 7. Page 43+. April 6, 2004. 2. Duin, Julia. Charismatic Movement Transcends Sects. The Washington Times. Page Number: 2. March 31, 2000. 3. Pentecostalism. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press, New York, 2004. 4. Wakefield, Dan. Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century. The Nation. Volume: 260. Issue: 3. Page Number: 98+. January 23, 1999. 5. Pentecostal churches. New Standard Encyclopedia. Vol. 13, Page 456-457. 6. Assemblies of God. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press. New York, 2004. 7. Glossolalia. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press. New York, 2004. 8. Foster, Mark. Sugar Grove Pentecostal Church Draws Members. Daily Herald. Page Number: 4, Dec. 18, 2006. 9. Ferm, Vergilius. An Encyclopedia of Religion. Philosophical Library. New York,