Great! Another Sources from the Past... Jesus' teachings vs others' views

Jesus' teachings are similar to all the others' morals and teachings.

• Jesus vs Hindu: Hindu basically rewarded to the people who followed religious morals and people who lived religiously. Jesus' moral also states that a person can be rewarded to heaven by living religiously. 
• Jesus vs Zoroastrianism: Both ask for honesty in life! The difference is monotheistic vs polytheistic
• Jesus vs Confucianism: Confucianism is all about being perfect and respecting others; Jesus is not about being perfect but the moral is similar of treating others with respect.
• Jesus vs Daoism: Both of them are same as Confucianism - Daoism is about being one with nature, which I don't think Jesus preached but they both also believed in being nice with others.
• Jesus vs Buddhism: Help the Poor! Jesus' teachings attracted the lower caste just like in Buddhism. 
• Jesus vs Socrates: Same as Confucianism again - being honest, being good to others, neighbors, etc! 

Overall, the teachings and morals of Jesus are almost same as others which we have learned so far. They all are mostly about being honest, respecting others, not much religious except Hindu.

Hmm.. So Why Do Empires Form?

The Empires form because of the ruler's desire. Especially when it comes to the conqueror, he always wants to have a bigger kingdom for economic opportunities, for more land, for spreading out his culture, more population - more people to follow his order. Empires require a strong leader otherwise it ends up dividing among themselves. All empires start off with a small kingdoms and then a strong leader just jumps in and thinks 'Oh hey, may be I should conquer a little bit' and guess what, slowly the kingdom's size doubles... triples and turns into an empire.

During the classical era, there were many empires being formed due to small kingdoms/dynasties and people wanted more power. One of the example is the Qin Dynasty; during the Period of the Warren States, the state of Qin dominated its neighbors and imposed centralized imperial rule throughout China. Meanwhile, on the other side - southern Asia, India's kingdom had already started to form. The kingdom of Magadha was located in the central portion of the Ganges plain. It remained as a kingdom for few years until Chandragupta Maurya came in, and began by seizing control of small, remote regions of Magadha and worked his way towards central India. He eventually ends up forming this small kingdom of Magadha into the Mauryan Empire. In Europe, Julius Caesar basically led to an end of the Roman Republic and the foundation of the Roman Empire started by Augustus.

¿Not sure how you turned into an Empire?

# 1. The Roman Twelve Tables:
The Roman Twelve Tables basically states that whatever crime you committ, you get equally punished for it; they had specific rules just like the other empires did.

#2. The Murder of Tiberius Gracchus:
Tiberius was trying to explain to people about their rights of defending their own lands. (71) People didn't understand him and he was murdered by the Roman Senate - Senators.

#3. Roman Empire Maps:
In 146 B.C., Roman Republic was spread throughout the Southern Europe and within few years, the size almost trippled which was in 117 CE.

#4.
Caesar conquered the land, but his own people killed him. The killing of Caesar led to Augustus rulling. Due to the rulling of Augustus, the Roman Republic turned into a monarchy possessing a great power.

WiKi Vs TeXt

I personally prefer the textbooks over Wikipedia. There are few reasons:
1. Only few people have written the textbook, in contrast, on Wikipedia, anyone could edit anything.
2. I know the person who has written the textbook, I know the editor of the text book; meanwhile, on Wikipedia, I don't know who wrote it - which makes it unreliable.
3. Since anyone could edit the information posted on Wikipedia, the research is not provided properly. The textbook is more organized and has factual information due to the information of the author, and editors, etc.

Overall, Wikipedia is a good source, but the information is not reliable, due to everyone's access to editing the page. I agree that Wikipedia's got great pictures on some research, and it does a great job with certain topics, but I wouldn't prefer using Wikipedia to learn something in class. I prefer the textbook, because it's neatly organized, very well descriptive and filled with important facts - which in Wikipedia, there is just way too much information which is sometimes useless/unnecessary for teaching or for knowing.

Bhagavad Gita, Zoroastrianism, and Confucianism - Sources from the PaSt!!

Bhagavad Gita teaches the humans how to live; it explains the people about their duties towards their families, the caste duties, etc. just like in Confucianism. In Confucianism, there are five relationships which included father to son, husband to wife, elder brother to younger brother, ruler to minister, and friend to friend. Also, the Confucian values emphasized personal qualities. Bhagavad Gita also talks about good and evil sides of the world, which is related to the beliefs of Zoroastrianism. Bhagavad Gita talks about Karma, which is if you do good deeds, you will end up in heaven and you will have a better life, etc - just like in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrians' beliefs were '"good words, good thoughts, good deeds'" (175).

Another thing about Bhagavad Gita is, it talks about everyone having their own routes - due to people's different thinking and no body is on the same road as you are. In contrast, Zoroastrianism and Confucianism do not share this idea; they both believe that people are on the same road, people think alike, etc.

¡Blog Corrections!

I think the blogs' questions should have requirements for the length of the answer, the quality, as well as, grammar. Of course, the length of the blog matters, because some people write the answer within three sentences, while, others do it in paragraph. I don't think it's fair to others who are writing paragraph(s), because they are trying to prove the point and people who just write three to four sentences, which doesn't even make sense sometimes. Also, grammar is important, but not everyone is perfect at grammar; one of the common mistakes are typos, which could be solved by having an auto-correct on, or if you are not sure of a word, just look it up on google; it would take you less than a minute!

On the scale of three, I would give between 1 or 2 to overall results/blog posts I've checked. The reason for it is some people are not spending enough time and others are to post the blog. I don't think student should get a zero for doing the blog, as long as they talk about the topic of the question rather than writing some random post down. Yes, that student would get a zero if they talk about something completely off of the question which was asked. I don't think students should access other students' posts, because everyone thinks differently and they could disagree with the comment; on the otherside, with the teacher, he knows better ane you can't argue much.

Confucius on Leadership...

Confucius answered in The Analects - Book XII. 14, "Over daily routine do not show weariness, and when there is action to be taken, give of your best" when Tzu-chang asked about the government. Recently, the US's president, Barack Obama, had proposed the healthcare reform bill, which was nearly impossible to get passed by the Congress. When he became the president in 2008, he first proposed his plan of the Healthcare system in July, 2009. The Senate didn't pass the healthcare bill until March, 2010. Overall, the President gave his best to pass the bill, which was a success after a year. According to Confucius, the daily routines don't determine whether you are not a good politician, but when the action needs to be taken in certain situations, and it becomes successful proves that you are a good politician and worthy of governing.