Friday, February 21, 2020

The Spiritual Heritage of the Knights Templar Essay

The Spiritual Heritage of the Knights Templar - Essay Example The spiritual realization that we keep in ourselves is often mediated through strong religious personalities likes Buddha, Jesus, Moses or Mohammad. The awareness that he have about these religious leaders shapes our cultural beliefs. The true spiritual heritage, though, is not contained only in the books, history, monuments of stone or culture, but also in the love and sympathy we share for each other. The Brotherhood of the Knights Templars was precisely a self-conscious group of people who attained spiritual immortality through their great human expressions and protections of the heritage. Their story is so powerful that transformed their order into admirable human temple. The order of the Knights Templar is surrounded by mysteries and legendary stories. The religious crusades in the Middle Ages caused turmoil among the successors to the throne in Europeans countries and created a battlefield of faith too. The order is synonymous with the crusades of the Middle Ages and the emerge nce of the Religious knights. What most people remember about the Knights Templar are not their achievements and accomplishments but their tragic decline on Friday the 13th, in October 1307. The Knights Templars were a military order which was established to defend Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem in 1118. Two decades after the victory of the First Crusade which took place between 1095 and 1099 a group of knights commanded by Hugues de Payens proposed the Patriarch of Jerusalem to serve as a military force (Dafoe 2009). The original group was said to consist of nine people who had to protect Christian pilgrims who were travelling to the Holy Land to visit the temples sacred to their faith. Between 1118 and 1120 King Baldwin II granted the military formation quarters in a wing of the Royal Palace on the Temple Mount (Dafoe 2009). This place was among the holy structures which were presented by the priests of Jerusalem as the Temple of Solomon. "The Poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ" became "The Knights as the Temple of Solomon" and subsequently known as the Knights Templars. Cistercian abbot was the first greatest contributor, who in 1127 issued rules and promoted the Templars. By rule, the Templars were not allowed to own properties personally, however this restriction did not apply to the Order as whole. So, those who were not able to participate in the order gifted land and other valuables as a sign of respect and honor to the group. Over the decades the Templars converted their humble start into the wealthiest of the Crusading Orders. Eventually, they gained the favour of the Church and the majority of the European monarchs (Dafoe 2009). Although the Templars were considered as the most powerful medieval military force the warrior-monks faced their tragic demise in 1307 when King Philip IV of France had the knights arrested and their assets seized. This controversial and unexpected destruction of the order ensured that the history of the Templars would be enveloped in mythical speculations. The legendary group was said to be arrested under the motiva tion of blasphemy, heresy, and sodomy (Dafoe 2009). Jacques de Molay - the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and 60 of his senior knights were captured in Paris. After recanting the confession he made while being tortured, Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake in 1314. Generally, historians agree that the primary motivation of King Philip was greed rather than the genuine belief that the Templars were corrupt. Recent rediscovered Vatican archives showed that the Templars were innocent of the charges they were accused (Dafoe 2009). Over the centuries, the mystique around

Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Digital System Applications Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Digital System Applications - Essay Example Though, they can also be mechanical, pneumatic or even magnetic. Digital computers along with calculators, digital video and audio equipment as well as the telephone system which is the globe’s leading digital system are a few examples of the most familiar digital systems around the globe1. There are however various benefits that are obtained from digital systems. They have been mentioned as follows: The digital systems are mostly very convenient to design. The main reason is that in digital system only switching circuits are used which use the array that is high or low in which they lie and it does not take into account the exact value of voltage or the current. Moreover, it is very easy to store information in a digital system. It is carried on by certain special devices or circuits which can grab digital information and retain it for as long as necessary. In addition, the mass storage of the techniques can store billions of bits of information in a relatively small physical space1. It is easy to maintain accuracy and precision throughout the system because once a signal has been digitized the information contained by it does not deteriorate as it progresses. The operations in a digital system can also be programmed. It is easy to design the digital system whose operations are managed by programs (a set of stored instructions). Digital systems are also less affected by noise. Spurious fluctuations in the noise are not as critical in a digital system as the exact volume of the voltage is not that important as long as the noise does not stop individuals from distinguishing a high from a low. More digital circuitry can be fabricated on an Integrated Circuit (IC) chip. Even though analog system has also been benefited from the massive development of IC technology, its relative complexity and also the usage of the devices cannot be economically integrated. This limitation has prevented the analog system from obtaining the same degree of integration as that of the digital system1. There are very few limitations which are inherent in the digital system. The two biggest among them are as follows: Firstly, most of the physical quantities are analog in nature and therefore these quantities are mostly the input and the output that have been monitored, operated on and controlled by a system like temperature, pressure, flow rate, liquidity level, and velocity among others. These quantities can be expressed in the digital way when there is a need to make it more precise and specific. However, a digital approximation is generally made in the analog quantity. Secondly, the other limitation is that the whole world is analog and as a true fact processing digitalized signals indeed takes a very long time1. In order to take advantages of the digital techniques when dealing with the analog inputs and outputs the four steps which must be followed are as follows: 1. The first step includes converting the physical variable to an electrical signal (analo g). 2. The second step is transforming the electrical (analog) signal into the digital signal. 3. The next step that follows is processing or operating on the digital information. 4. The last step is converting the digital outputs back to the real world analog form1 With