Menzie's Argument

Do you buy Menzie's argument that Zheng He's fleet made it to America before Columbus? Evaluate the evidence he used and explain why or why not.

I do not completely buy Menzie’s argument that Zheng He’s fleet made it to America before Columbus. It is an interesting idea but the use of evidence by Menzie does not prove his argument as well as it should. The narrator states his idea as a “theory that defines academic opinion,” already losing its credibility. Menzie states that an Italian merchant, Niccolo deConti, had sailed with Zheng He to America and that his accounts were used to make a map of the western world. It is unknown whether Niccolo deConti had anything to do with the map, but it is known that a merchant provided some information for the map. Menzie connects the two, though there is not proof to add credibility. Menzie also states that the Chinese ship, junks, would have been ideal for the journey across the Atlantic and would have been able to withstand the conditions, much better than the Columbus’ ships. The difference between the junk’s ability, what it could have done and what they actually did, and it is unknown is it unknown whether or not they actually reached America. A somewhat substantial evidence would be that the Native American DNA is closer to the Chinese than to the Europeans or African DNA. Although, it needs to be further explored in order to find out if it proves anything.

Aztec Podcast

The Three Things I Had No Idea About
1. They were considered as barbarians, different from all the other civilizations in the Mesoamerica area.
2. The language of the Aztecs did not originate from where they had lived which suggests that the Aztecs had originated from somewhere else.
3. The Aztecs were considered 'Stone Age' with neolithic obsidian tools, no wheel, etc. but they were sophisticated and advanced in arts etc.

The Two Things I Found Interesting
1. They had a theory that the Aztecs were Egyptians that had moved because of the Aztec pyramids were similar to the Egyptians. They thought that the Egyptians sailed across the Atlantic and created this empire.
2. The Aztecs were pretty big. They had a largest and the most ruthless empire in the pre-Hispanic empire.

The One Question I Have For The Aztecs
1. About human sacrifices, how many humans did you sacrifice for the sake of the ritual?

St. Thomas Aquinas & His Proof

What are five examples of proof that Aquinas gives to prove the existence of god?

The first example that St. Thomas Aquinas gave is the idea of motion and change. Change occurs, according to him, when an external factor causes the change. There must be a thing that sets the change in motion as everything has a potential for change. Aquinas uses firewood as an example, the firewood has potential to be hot but that change cannot occur until something that exist lights the wood on fire. Once it has changed, the process cannot keep continuing. This thing cannot be the mover and the moved, similar to something hot cannot get hotter, but had the potential to be cold. He says that in the grand scheme of things, there must have been a first mover, which according to him is God.

The second example is chain of cause. Basically, a proof is tied with the first one, that every single cause and effect must start somewhere which is like dominoes. One cause leads to another to then another one. Not having the first cause prevents the last cause from occurring or the whole chain. The first cause, he claims, is God.

The third example of proof is that everything has a cause for existing or does not. Although, there is one thing that exists without a cause of anything. It must exist in nature of its own, independent which in other words is God.

The fourth proof that Aquinas said is that everything has certain attributes, such as good and evil etc. These degree of attributes can increase or decrease, hence they are some kinder than others. He provides an example about heat and that it continues until it reaches it’s great extent which similar to the degree of things that are found in the world which also increase towards the highest or greatest point. God, as Aquinas points out, is the cause of all existence and perfection.

The last proof is the claim of that natural beings function to a plan. These beings follow the plans of higher being than them, similar to an arrow by an archer. According to Aquinas, there must be one thing that is smarter than others and is capable of guiding itself and everything below it to which he says that that is God.