Journal 5

The key idea of this section.
This section is about Challenges to faith/Faith. What in your life cause you to struggle with faith? Are Atheism, Agnosticism and Apathy chalenges to Faith for you? Would you rather just say there is no God or that we cannot know if there is a God or just say "I don't care". Or perhaps it is Scientism. Why believe in God when use can use science. What about Dehumanization? Do you focus alot on society for your faith needs? These are all different challenges to faith/Faith that we must be aware of.


Three Important ideas from this section that I most want to remember.
1. Aaron Feuerstein and his demonstration of faith. His factory was destroyed but instead of selling what he had left of Malden Mills, the smart financial desicion, he continued to pay his workers full salaries. He could have stopped working and been a very rich man until he died. But he knew that was just it, it would be until he died, and why would he need all that money if he were to not use it in a more useful way. Because of his selfless generousity, he was able to give all of his workers financial stability. His cmpany lost lots of money qand went into debt, but he knew he did the right thing.

"I have a responsibility to the worker, both blue-collar and white-collar. I have an equal responsibility to the community. It would have been unconscionable to put 3000 people on the streets and deliver a deathblow to the cities of Lawrence and Methuen. Maybe on paper our company is worthless to Wall Street, but I can tell you it's worth more."




2. I want to remember about the God question and the answer of Apathy. There are four answers to the God question. Theism, Atheism, and Agnosticism are all honorable responses, but then there is Apathy. Apathy is not an honorable response because it is basically saying, "I do not care." It is chosing to not make a choice. It is lazy and really only avoids the question of God.


3. I want to remember the "Merchants of Cool" video. This is very important because its true. When we watched the movie, sometimes we laughed. We laughed because we knew they were right. Sometimes the laughter meant we thought they were wrong. Like Dawson's creek; no one watches that show anymore. People nowadays might think it lame, but that even more emphasizes how the movie was correct. The culture is changing, what once was cool is no longer. These "Merchant of Cool" are feeding of us then selling us things so that we in turn feed off them.





How do I feel about different challenges to faith/Faith?
I feel the the biggest challenge to Faith for me is Atheism. There is so much stress that comes along with being a teenager and goin to SLUH. Where am I going to college? Why should I try doing all this homework? I might as well give up. Sometimes it seems as God is here to help. If not, I might as well give up on him as well. This are reoccuring questions for me, which challenge me to have Faith.