Journal 1: Introduction/Prelection

1) One paragraph summary of the key idea summarizing the topic of the week.

This week we focused on the introduction to faith and how it revolves around our lives. We started off the lesson by the discussing the quote "The unexamined life if not worth living" from Aristotle. The we also talke about Aristotle's idea that we are all men in a boat and whether we have a rutter or we are rutterless. He means that a man with a rutter has control over his life and a man who is rutterless is thrown about throughout life. Next we discussed the difference between fact, belief, and opinion. I learned that things that I have perceived to be true are not. This includes that there are nine planets in our solar system. When I wrote my Holden Caulfield essay, it really helped me to finally think and not give an answer off the top of my head. This essay helped me to learn that there is not a simple answer for anything. We then pondered the question referring to Gates of Fire "Were the spartans noble or stupid". This made me really think, because in my opinion going into battle knowing that I will lose my life is a stupid thing to do. To the Spartans, however, they were willing to die for their friends and family just to keep the city alive. This also brought us the importance of polis, and that we need to be apart of something bigger than oursleves to be happy and live a balanced life. We then talked about Metanoia and it being important in our lives, because we are called to have a change of mind, heart, and soul and move towards grace and away form confusion. We focused a lot on Plato's Allegory of the Cave and how we strive to see reality away from the shadows of the world that we misinterpret as real. Examples of this are Deion Sanders and John Horman.

2) List and explain three of the most important ideas you want to remember from this week

a. One idea that I want to remember is a famous one of Aristotle. Aristotle says that there are two types of people, those who have a ship and have a rudder and those with a ship and are rudderless. When Aristotle says this he means that life is like an ocean and we are in a boat in the ocean, those with a rudder have control over their life and those who are ruddrless have no control over their life. In life we are both rudderless and have a rudder, because it all depends if we have control over the situation we are in or not.

b.Another important idea that I want to remember is one brought about by Bruxieus from Gates of Fire. He tells Xeo that to be happy he must be apart of something more important and bigger than himself. In this case his main emphasis is belonging to polis, or a city, because without a city then you have no one. He also talks about the Spartan army, because it is a team effort and it more important and larger than an individual. St. Ignatius brings this up when he calls us to be "Men For Others". Being a man for others means that we work with others and by that we are apart of a big group that is more important than our individual selves.

c. I also want to remember the ideas formed and brought about from Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". PLato presents men who are imprisoned in a dark cave underground and all they can see is the shadows formed in the fire behind them, because they are chained do they can't move a muscle. Then one man is set free into the light and he is very misguided and blinded at first, but then he finally is able to see the beauty of the outside world. When he arrives back in the cave, he is mistreated by the other men because he was so blinded by the light outside. What Plato is saying to us is that we are all imprisoned by shadows and do not know the truth and reality. He says that when he finally reach reality we will be very lost and blinded, but we will eventually see the wonder and beuaty of what is real.

3) One image of that reminds you of the topic

4) One good question you should keep with your to ponder.

"How hard is it to put faith in someone, if I can't always put faith in my parents, then how am I ever supposed to put faith in someone else?"

5) What should you try to do to make you a better person, a more faithful person, from this study.

To become a better person of faith, I must first lead a more examined life by thinking out my decisions before I make them and thinking through everything I do throughout the day.I should exaine the peoples I talk to and decide who I can can't trust, because that wil make a large difference in the way I feel and the way I interact. By becoming a more examined person then I will eventually become someone who has a rudder most of the time in life. I will change from being rudderless and confused to becoming a good person of faith and more thought provoked human being. From this I would experience a metanoia, which is something that I would like to experience to chencge my life.