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Wesleyanism
Wesleyanism, or Wesleyan theology, is a movement of Protestant Christians who seek to follow the "methods" or theology of the eighteenth-century evangelical reformers John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley. More broadly, it refers to the theological system inferred from the various sermons, theological treatises, letters, journals, diaries, hymns, and other spiritual writings of the Wesleys and their contemporary coadjutors such as John William Fletcher. Wesleyanism, manifest today in Methodist and Holiness churches, is named for its founders, the Wesleys. In 1736, these two brothers traveled to the Georgia colony in America as missionaries for the Church of England; they left rather disheartened at what they saw. Both of them subsequently had "religious experiences," especially John in 1738, being greatly influenced by the Moravian Christians. They began to organize a renewal movement within the Church of England to focus on personal faith and holiness. John Wesley took Protestant churches to task over the nature of sanctification, the process by which a believer is conformed to the image of Christ, emphasizing New Testament teachings regarding the work of God and the believer in sanctification. The movement did well within the Church of England in Britain, but when the movement crossed the ocean into America, it took on a form of its own, finally being established as the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784. The Wesleyan churches are very similar to Anglicanism (in Church government and liturgical practices), yet have added a strong emphasis on personal faith and personal experience. At its heart, the theology of John Wesley stressed the life of Christian holiness: to love God with all one’s heart, mind, soul and strength and to love one’s neighbour as oneself. See also Ministry of Jesus. Wesley’s teaching also stressed experiential religion and moral responsibility.
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Topic Review
Collectivism
Collectivism is a cultural value that is characterized by emphasis on cohesiveness among individuals and prioritization of the group over self. Individuals or groups that subscribe to a collectivistic worldview tend to find common values and goals as particularly salient and demonstrate greater orientation toward in-group than toward out-group. The term “in-group” is thought to be more diffusely defined for collectivistic individuals to include societal units ranging from the nuclear family to a religious or racial/ethnic group. Meta-analytic findings support that collectivism shows a consistent association with discrete values, interpersonal patterns of interaction, cognition, perception and self-construal. Collectivism is often discussed alongside the cultural value of individualism, but these are two distinct concepts and are not considered to be opposites.
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Topic Review
AI Control Problem
In artificial intelligence (AI) and philosophy, the AI control problem is the issue of how to build AI systems such that they will aid their creators, and avoid inadvertently building systems that will harm their creators. One particular concern is that humanity will have to solve the control problem before a superintelligent AI system is created, as a poorly designed superintelligence might rationally decide to seize control over its environment and refuse to permit its creators to modify it after launch. In addition, some scholars argue that solutions to the control problem, alongside other advances in AI safety engineering, might also find applications in existing non-superintelligent AI. Major approaches to the control problem include alignment, which aims to align AI goal systems with human values, and capability control, which aims to reduce an AI system's capacity to harm humans or gain control. Capability control proposals are generally not considered reliable or sufficient to solve the control problem, but rather as potentially valuable supplements to alignment efforts.
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Topic Review
Dhammakaya Meditation
Dhammakaya meditation is a method of Buddhist meditation developed and taught by the Thai meditation teacher Luang Pu Sodh Candasaro (1885–1959).[note 1] In Thailand, it is known as vijjā dhammakāya, which translates as 'knowledge of the body of truth'. It is the meditation tradition that is at the center of the Dhammakaya Movement. The Dhammakaya meditation method has become very popular in Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia, and has been described as a revival of samatha (tranquility) meditation in Thailand. The method was discovered by Luang Pu Sodh in the 1910s. Followers of the Dhammakaya Movement believe the method was the same as the original method the Buddha used to attain enlightenment. According to Luang Pu Sodh, the Dhammakāya, the core concept of the tradition, can be found within every human being. The most important aspect of the meditation method is the focus on the center of the body. As of 2008, there was still scholarly debate as to the origins of Dhammakaya meditation. Scholars refer to the Yogavacara tradition as a possible source, or that the method might be new or partly new. Dhammakaya meditation is taught at several temples of the movement, and consists of a stage of samatha (tranquility) and vipassana (insight), following the structure of the Visuddhimagga, a standard fifth-century Theravāda guide about meditation. In the method, the stages are described in terms of inner bodies (Pali: kāya), but also in terms of meditative absorptions (Pali: jhānas). Dhammakaya meditation has been the subject of considerable discussion among Buddhists as to its authenticity and efficacy, and also has been the subject of several scientific studies.
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Topic Review
Landesrabbiner
Landesrabbiner (German: [ˈlandəs.ʁaˌbiːnɐ]; Hebrew: רב מדינה‎, romanized: Rav Medinah) are spiritual heads of the Jewish communities of a country, province, or district, particularly in Germany and Austria. The office is a result of the legal condition of the Jews in medieval times when the Jewish communities formed a unit for the purposes of taxation. As the community had to pay certain taxes to the government, the latter had to appoint some one who should be responsible to it for their prompt collection, and who consequently had to be invested with a certain authority. The office of Landesrabbiner had no ecclesiastical meaning until the 18th century, when the various governments began to consider it their duty to care for the spiritual welfare of the Jews. Such ecclesiastical authority, owing to the strictly congregational constitution of the communities, never took root among the Jews (see, however, on the chief rabbinate of Moravia after the death of Marcus Benedict, Moses Sofer, Responsa, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 13).
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Topic Review
Ottoman Decline Thesis
The Ottoman decline thesis or Ottoman decline paradigm (Turkish: Osmanlı Gerileme Tezi) is an obsolete historical narrative which once played a dominant role in the study of the history of the Ottoman Empire. According to the decline thesis, following a golden age associated with the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566), the empire gradually entered into a period of all-encompassing stagnation and decline from which it was never able to recover, lasting until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1923. This thesis was used throughout most of the twentieth century as the basis of both Western and Republican Turkish understanding of Ottoman history. However, by 1978, historians had begun to reexamine the fundamental assumptions of the decline thesis. After the publication of numerous new studies throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, and the reexamination of Ottoman history through the use of previously untapped sources and methodologies, academic historians of the Ottoman Empire achieved a consensus that the entire notion of Ottoman decline was a myth – that in fact, the Ottoman Empire did not stagnate or decline at all, but rather continued to be a vigorous and dynamic state long after the death of Suleiman the Magnificent. The decline thesis has been criticized as "teleological", "regressive", "Orientalist", "simplistic", and "one-dimensional", and described as "a concept which has no place in historical analysis". Scholars have thus "learned better than to discuss [it]." Despite this dramatic paradigm shift among professional historians, the decline thesis continues to maintain a strong presence in popular history, as well as academic history written by scholars who are not specialists on the Ottoman Empire. In some cases this is due to the continued reliance by non-specialists on outdated and debunked works, and in others to certain political interests benefiting from the continued perpetuation of the decline narrative.
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Topic Review
Co-Redemptrix
Co-Redemptrix is a title used by some Roman Catholics for the Blessed Virgin Mary, as well as a Catholic theological concept referring to Mary's role in the redemption of all peoples. It has always been controversial and has never formed part of the dogma of the Church. According to those who use the term, Co-Redemptrix refers to a subordinate but essential participation by the Blessed Virgin Mary in redemption, notably that she gave free consent to give life to the Redeemer, which meant sharing his life, suffering, and death, which were redemptive for the world. Related to this belief is the concept of Mary as Mediatrix, which is a separate concept but regularly included by Catholics who use the title Co-Redemptrix.
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Topic Review
Relations
Relations are ways in which things, the relata, stand to each other. Relations are in many ways similar to properties in that both characterize the things they apply to. Properties are sometimes treated as a special case of relations involving only one relatum. In philosophy (especially metaphysics), theories of relations are typically introduced to account for repetitions of how several things stand to each other.
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Topic Review
The Occult World
The Occult World is a book originally published in 1881 in London; it was compiled by a member of the Theosophical Society A. P. Sinnett. It was the first theosophical work by the author; according to Goodrick-Clarke, this book "gave sensational publicity to Blavatsky's phenomena" and the letters from the mahatmas, and drew the attention of the London Society for Psychical Research.
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Topic Review
Bahá'í Faith on Life after Death
The Bahá'í Faith affirms the prospect of life after death extensively while not defining everything about it. The soul on death is said to recognize the value of its deeds and begin a new phase of a conscious relationship with God though negative experiences are possible. Others have noted the religion's stances on the afterlife.
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