To God or not to God... That is the question

Some of you may remember Grant’s little announcement on Sunday about the United Church’s counter to the Atheist ad campaign. The Freethought Association of Canada has issued ads that state: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” The United Church’s counter to that ad just turns the first statement around: “There's probably a God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

I was reading through The Star and found an article relating to this debate. After sharing the two points of view, the author shares her opinion of this issue. What she takes exception to is the part where it says that we should all “stop worrying and enjoy life.” She makes a good point in that, as Christians, we can’t stop worrying about things like poverty or the environment; however, I believe that she has misunderstood the intended meaning of the United Church’s counter-campaign.

I believe that the United Church’s stance is as follows (but would welcome other opinions):

1) Why should we worry that there is a God? God’s existence is not a scary thing! God represents things like love, compassion, forgiveness, salvation, and hope for the future. Different people may view God in different ways, but he need not be viewed as (and to keep with the uncertain nature of these two statements, probably isn’t) the brutal smiter of sinners!

2) We should stop worrying about trivial things. We should stop worrying that we could be doing things better when we are already doing our best. We should do our best to be good stewards to one another and to our environment, however since God gives us hope we can have faith to believe that we are capable of protecting our environment and helping our brothers and sisters around the world.

More information can be found at The Wondercafe. Actually, you can go there to vote for what you believe to be the more correct phrase.... On Sunday Grant said, "Right now the athiests are winning!!" However, we're now up by 4%! Go United Church!!

Youth Room Progress!

So, we're done painting!! Hooray!





Next step will be to get a door attached and stuff moved into the room.





Here are some of the pictures that we have taken throughout the process:

More coming very shortly......

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Today, in our continued discussion on poverty, I mentioned Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs. This theory was proposed by American Psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943. The premise of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is this: In order for higher order needs to be met, lower level needs must first be met.

In summary, these needs are as follows:

Basic Needs- Also known as physiological needs which include: food, water, breathing, and sleep.

Safety Needs- Includes security of body, employment, health, freedom from persecution, etc.

Social Needs- Also referred to as Love/Belonging, refers to our need for human contact in friendships, romantic relationships, community groups, etc.

Self-esteem Needs- These are our need for confidence and achievement, respect and to respect others.

Achievement Needs- Commonly known as the need for Self-actualization. These are our needs for morality, creativity, spontaneity, lack of prejudice, and acceptance of facts.

So what does this mean for issues of poverty?

Well, by this theory, people living in poverty have a prioritized set of needs. First, they will seek to satisfy their need for food, water, and shelter. Shelter also meets safety needs as well, for example, having shelter is a good way to protect yourself from animals, insects, or people who may cause you harm.

However, it is unlikely that in an impoverished country all safety needs would be met. Freedom from persecution and maintaining good health (nutrition, contagious disease, vector bourne diseases like malaria), for example may be needs that people may not be able to satisfy.

This means that, in theory, higher order needs, such as social, self-esteem and self-actualization needs will not be met if people living in poverty cannot feel safe and healthy, not to mention satistfying lower level needs.

It is interesting to observe much of the aid that organizations will give to impoverished communities. They seem in line with Maslow's theory. They first provide food, clean drinking water, shelter, healthcare, and security. After that, they begin to develop infrastructure, community groups, schools, and ways for people to improve their way of life.

This idea is only a theory, and should not be taken as an exact representation of how we view and categorize our various needs, but it is interesting to think about poverty in this context.

Welcome!

Welcome to the newly created St. Paul's United Church Youth Group blog! The purpose of this blog is to allow Youth members at St. Paul's to keep up-to-date with what we are talking about at our meetings and to inform them of upcoming events. This blog also serves the purpose of informing members of the global village what we are all about at St. Paul's in terms of our Life and Work and Youth Programming.

The St. Paul's Youth Group is an enthusiastic group of high school students in the Brampton area. We meet every two weeks on Sunday after the service, in addition to several events and fundraisers that we will plan throughout the year. Check the Upcoming Events section on the right for more information on our upcoming events.

This blog will be updated with event information, details from our meetings/events, and our thoughts about some of the issues in the world around us and in our own community.