Faith In The Plane Crash

As I was watching the Frontline Video, Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero, I was immediately faced with the question about evil. It is hard to imagine how someone could do something so horrific in the name of religion. So many lives were forever changed during the events that transpired on Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, 2001. As a believer of God, I could certainly identify with the feelings of the people who lost loved ones during the 9/11 tragedy.

In the documentary “Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero,” a number of people were interviewed about how their religious beliefs or non beliefs, were challenged since the events of September 11th. The interviews with priests, rabbis, family members of victims, survivors, lay people, atheists and agnostics, this documentary explores how Americans’ spiritual lives may have changed since the event. When a tragic event happens, people would either grow closer to god or outgrow god. To those people who do not believe in a god, these actions will just prove their beliefs. In the beginning of the film, people immediately started to question God. Some of them started to question why would a god so mighty approve this kind of actions. Dr. Michael Brescia, who is a physician who saw pictures of people jumping off the building, "I wonder how many of them thought if there was a God. And if there was a God, why me? Why this? And where am I going to go?” This kind of questions always come up when something catastrophic happens. Others, however, did not ask any questions and just accepted what has happened. Kim Coleman, who lost her daughter said, “God knows something I don’t, God knows best and knows better than we do.” There were also a couple of people who were not so sure what to think of god anymore. Rev. Joseph Griesedieck, a priest who volunteered at Ground Zero said, “the face of God was a blank slate for me. God couldn't be counted on in the way that I thought God could be

Prayer is an essential to any kind of religious faith. Over the years and years of believing in a higher power,

As Hope and her family fought cancer, their faith in God kept them grounded. Stuart and Shelby, Hope’s parents, would often ask God for signs that he was watching over her. Some of God’s signs were miraculous to say the least. When Stuart was in the mountains, he saw a huge billboard that read, “Hope Thou in God.” Additionally, when Shelby went to pray in the chapel at the hospital a stained glass window titled “The Hope Window” featured a picture of a young girl on crutches with God’s hands placed on her shoulder as he was healing her. God was certainly watching out for the Stout family.

They do this by sharing traumatic times in their lives, and how their faith got them through difficult times. Mary Rowlandson greatly relied on her religion. In her work “A

Though they may have given up on faith at some point, these people were saved by their self realization of God’s love. Although the faith of these people waivered at times because of their struggles, God never gave up on them and they were able to make it out of their own personal troubles. The faith that God had in these two groups is what got the gang members off of the streets and the crash survivors out of their certain deaths. Father Gregory Boyle S.J. has given a second to gang members. He takes troubled men and women in the slums of Los Angeles and gives them a shot at redemption.

The middle ground the castaways established with the natives also had a profound spiritual impact. Cabeza de Vaca’s accounts show the exploration through an increasingly spiritual lens. Considering the extreme conditions the explorers lived in, it is not surprising that they viewed their survival as a miracle of God. The natives’ regard for them as medicine men gave the men a renewed hope and sense of purpose amidst their difficult circumstances. Rather than viewing the natives with

The young men on the mountain never left God out of an important decision regarding the good of the group. From a young age, the men had learned the Catholic faith. Their families raised them to be Catholic, and they all attended Catholic school. At home, their faith was very important to them, and it became even more essential to them on the mountain. They could not make an important decision without first deciding if it coincided with their beliefs. The most prevalent example of this is when they were deciding if they should eat the dead. Roberto Canessa made the argument that it was their moral obligation to stay alive. Their life was a gift from God,

In Hochstetler’s article he discusses reason people choose to pray. Athletes pray for various reasons and they do not all pray in the same way. Prayer is a mysterious thing and difficult for some to understand. This leads to tensions with prayer in sports. These tensions lead people to question if prayer by athletes is genuine. Hochstetler concludes that an athlete’s relationship with God must mature in order for the athlete to genuinely know how to pray and what pray for. This article relates to my research topic with the way it explains the relationship between sports and prayer. It explores the reasons behind prayer and helps people understand the importance prayer can have in an athlete’s

In the city that never sleeps, silence fell upon the people. A memorial covered with flowers was transfigured from the steeple. Standing still, staring in complete disbelief, Our hearts were torn with instant grief.

The first trait that the Chilean miners exemplified was the religious trait of the Grad at Grad. The miners begin to pray by themselves and later pray as a group down in the San José mine. Tobar says, "The prayer becomes a daily ritual. They gather each day just before they eat, at around noon, for a brief sermon from Henríquez...The prayers and the meals are the one time each day all thirty-three of them unite" (95). The miners, all of different religious beliefs, prayed together every day because they believed that the only way they could stay sane. The Chilean miners did not pray to get rescued, however, they prayed for everyone at Camp Esperanaza and those supporting them above the mine. On the other hand, those at Camp Esperanaza were praying for all the miners trapped in the San José mine. Throughout the miners' whole experience of

The missionary’s continuations of preaching the word of the Lord, allowed them to build trust with the indigenous people. Across the works the protagonist moral seemed to be challenged or discovered. With this exposure they realize that in order to defend in what they believe to be is just, they must take action. In addition these works demonstrate that freedom is not a given but something for which one must strive.

The power of prayer is heavily emphasized in this film. The movie shows life without prayer and when you fight by yourself. “Fighting” by yourself is tough because we aren’t strong enough to win

When I stepped into the large neatly organized white polished plane, I never though something would go wrong. I woke up and found myself on an extremely hot bright sunny desert island filled with shiny soft bright green palm trees containing rough bright yellow hard felt juicy apples. The simple strong plane I was in earlier shattered into little pieces of broken glass and metal when crashing onto the wet slimy coffee colored sand and burning with red orange colored flames. After my realization to this heart throbbing incident I began to run pressing my eight inch footsteps into the wet squishy slimy light brown sand looking in every direction with my wide open eyes filled with confusion in search of other survivors. After finding four

Robert’s friends call him so he picks up the phone they said “do you want to go with us” Robert is not sure if he wants to go so they ask him to go over and over until he went. Roberts friends picked him up in a RV to go to a place that is a day or two away. When they get there he is shocked to see that they were going on a plane ride they knew how to ride planes but Robert was afraid of high places and plane crashes. Robert tried to leave but his friends told him you need to get over your fears and ride the plane he was so scared that he was about to call the cops but his friends talked him out of it so instead he was going to face his fear and ride on the plane.