Countries with low birthrates Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Countries with low birthrates - Essay Example This report aims to highlight the changes in Italy and Germany’s population structure and the population policies I’d implement to achieve future sustainable growth levels. Italy’s population is expected to significantly decline from its current level of 61 million to around 55 million by 2050 (CIA, 2011). Italy’s current population growth rate stands at 0.42%. This will result in an aging population as life expectancy increases (currently 81 years) and birth rates fall (currently 9.18 births per 1000 of the population). Italy’s total fertility rate at 1.39 children per woman is also below the replacement level of 2.1. Only 13.8% of Italy’s population is under the age of 14, compared with 20.3% of its population who are over 65. Germany’s population has also started to decline by -0.208% from 82.5 million in 2004 to 81.47 million in 2011 (CIA, 2011). There are currently 8.3 births per 1,000 of the population and an average fertility ra te of 1.41 children. Germany also has a great population imbalance in which 13.3% of the population are under the age of 14, whilst 20.6% of the population is over 65.

Why must religion be based on faith rather than on knowledge Research Paper - 1

Why must religion be based on faith rather than on knowledge - Research Paper Example Are these thoughts about God born out of knowledge or out of strong faith? Philosophers contended that the infinity of God cannot be comprehended by the limited capacity of human beings to understand His greatness. Ancient and medieval philosophers have in fact attempted to empirically grasp God’s existence, albeit done purely through intellectual pursuits. Various theological positions were made and written. Augustine of Hippo, who hailed from North Africa and have converted from Manichaenism to Christianity, posited that thought credo ut intelligengiam or ‘I believe so that I may understand.† Such assert that human reason is essential only for those who possess faith and thus, human being’s rational capacity to reason is effective in obtaining general knowledge about the world and of God. He viewed that part of the innate nature of human being is to commit evil acts. This, for him, is integrated in the Divine plan which allowed persons to choose to do good or evil. The unbearable consequences of bad acts always made human beings choose do what is good. Advocate of naturalism perceived that God is everywhere. He is with nature and in the plurality of realities. They argued that God unify everything and can be known through the layers of emanation which flows with the Divine essence. Plato’s philosophy of idealism, on the other hand, made such epistemic principle that God is intangible, an impersonal entity encompassing the causes of all ideas. Plato professed that God is an abstract, timeless and unchanging reality. God is an absolute being and an eternal being (Plato, 2003). He professed that the perception of God separated the physical world from the intelligible realm (Plato, 2003). Thomas Aquinas (1993), also a medieval thinker, argued that theology is not an object of science and is only philosophically pursued by understanding the metaphysics of God’s existence. He however considered the divine thoughts are scribed in a sacred