I really loved a theme that kept coming up in the different pieces that Heschel never accommodated. He said that he is surprised to see the sunshine every morning and one of his students said that he loved trees everytime he saw them. He never got use to violence and war and that is why he was so against the Vietnam war. I think most people in our culture accommodate themselves to violence and war because it is on the news everyday and in the papers. Our media shows us violence so much that many people are no longer affected when they hear about war and violence. I love that Heschel neve accommodated himself to this. We need to spend more time realizing the beauty that is all around us by looking at things like we are seeing them for the first time and not accommodating ourselves to them. Looking at trees and the sunshine as precious and amazing everytime we see them. The world is beautiful, but a lot of people miss that because, unlike Heschel, they have accommodated themselves to it.
I also loved that Heschel emphasises that God hates to see suffereing. We should try to change the suffereing and hate to see it too. It is another thing that we should not accommodate to. Heschel also said that the opposite of good is not evil but indifference.

I liked the King readings. They showed how nonviolence really can win. I really like that he gave the three different types of love in the Greek language. More people need to understand these and more people need to love with agape love. Agape love "is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. And when you come to love on this level you begin to love men not because they are likeable, not because they do things that attract us, but because God loves then and here we love the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does." If everyone loved like agape love that would be great. Love we be more than just romantic and love between personal friendship. Eveyone could love each other.
I also like that he says, "I think every person who believes in nonviolent resistance believes somehow that the universe in some form is on the side of justice." If we faught for justice like God wants us too many more people could realize that the universe is on the side of justice because with God there is no need for violence to get to a good end.
I think that many people are too well adjusted to in life. Many people are adjusted to violence injustice, etc. We need to keep being maladjusted to injustice to change it. King said, "God grant that we will be so maladjusted that we will be able to go out and change our world and our civilization."
King wanted people to realize that nonviolent resistance is not a method of cowardice and that it does resist. It does not seek to humiliate or defeat the opponent but to win his friendship and understanding. If more people wanted this end instead of defeat of the opposing side the end result of resistance would be better and there would be more and more nonviolent resistance.
I think that many people need to realize what King says, "The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community." If violence is used there usually is bitterness, there is not reconciliation with violence as there is with nonviolence. This was one of my favorite points that he made.

I had never heard the arguments for or against pacifism or just-war before reading this assignment. I will have to read more about the just-war argument before I decide what I believe because it is not an easy decision. It is debated and debated everywhere and sadly in a fallen world war will be present. In deciding what to believe a person also needs to look really hard at the Old and New Testament. God uses war, it seems, in the Old Testament to bring justice and to punish. Jesus directs Christians towards non-violence and God in the Old Testament does not want His people to go to war but to just trust in Him. I believe if everyone believed in God this would be an easy decision, because a nation that trusts God would never need violence such as shown in the prophets, God will provide. If everyone believed in God there would be no war and I think that this is the best argument for pacifism.

At the very beginning of the speech Strobel says, "The ramifications of poverty touch all aspects of our lives together. We cannot afford to ignore or gloss over these ramifications. Instead, we must raise them and face them honestly." I think people ignore what he says here, that poverty touches all aspects of our lives together. Some people just do little to help and don't think that poverty can touch them or affects them. Strobel is saying that it does touch all aspects of our lives together. People want to help the poor while distancing themselves from them at the same time. I love the quote Strobel liked from Dorothy Day, "She noted that the poor and the homeless had been studied and researched to death, but that all they needed was love." People need to help the poor more out of love than because of the bad statistics. More and more people should love the poor and helped them out of love. Reading this quote, Dorothy Day, and much of the other readings have given me an actual love for the poor that I didn't have before.

Final Project

For the final project I am thinking about looking at how movies portray justice. I could put together a powerpoint on the movies and their views of justice. The only problem with this is that there a lot of movies out there! However, I could just look at movies that have been at the top of the box office charts. I think it would be intertesting to see how popular movies show the viewer what justice is.

There were many quotes from the reading in Isaiah that I liked. From the very beginning of Assyria Shall Fall by a Sword Not of Man, I liked the lines that said, “Assyria with all her might and triumph was but a tool in the hands of God for carrying out His work against sinful nations.” Assyria thought that all of their winning over the lands around them was of their own doing and of their own swords, but it was really God who was involved. It is also said later that it is not a sword of man that will devour Assyria. The Lord will cause Assyria to have to pay attention to Him by devouring Assyria Himself, and not by the sword. I also like the quote that “Assyria’s power was a phantom, ‘but the Lord of hosts, Him you shall regard as holy; let Him be your fear, let him be your dread!”’ It shows God’s power over anything that the Assyrians might have seen as the greatest. God can overcome the phantom power of Assyria because He is holy and He is who needs to be feared. Sennacherib mocked God to try to get Judah to submit to defeat. However, God showed His might by sending a disastrous pestilence throughout the Assyrian camp. The Assyrians highly doubted the might of God. Today we I feel we just see God as the merciful God. We sometimes fail to realize or to mention the might and power that God has.
I also like the verse on page 99.
“You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay;
That the thing made should say of its maker:
“He did not make me”;
Or that the thing formed say of him who formed it:
“He has no understanding”?
This verse from Isaiah 29:16 reminds us that God is the Creator. We cannot mold Him to be what we want Him to be. We cannot say that I don’t like this certain part about God, so I will just not believe it. We cannot mold God to fit us.
We also see from this reading that God’s anger does not last forever. He IS a merciful God. Isaiah 30:18 says, “For the Lord is a God of justice, Blessed are all those who wait for Him.” It also says in the reading that “God is more than Lord and Owner; He is Father.” God loves us even when we do wrong and His anger will not last forever.

I like reading Ecclesiastes. It is not an exciting book of the Bible and it basically says that everything in the world is meaningless. However, that is something that I think about sometimes. Without God, most things would be meaningless. We could have all the fun in the world and enjoy our work, but why would it matter if there was no God?

I also like reading Esther. It is a great story about God and the way He helps his people. It is great to see that Esther, even though frightened, still goes into the king's ineer court. I also like what Mordecai says in Esther 4: 14, "Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?" Esther shows us how to trust God and how to help people even if it meant death.

In Genesis 1, we see God creating the world we know today. Genesis 1:1-16 is God creating the world through day four. He speaks each part of the world into exsistence. Genesis 37 is about Joseph. He goes out looking for his brother's who are with the sheep because his dad asked him to go. His brother's don't like Joseph because of dreams that he told eariler in the passage, but he still goes to look for them. I love the story Joseph and how he does great things even though his brothers just intedend to bring harm on him. It shows that God has plans through bad situations, like Joseph later tells his brothers. In Genesis 37:12-17 we just see Joseph out looking for his brothers.