Section 3 Questions Of Mice and Men and Radical

Who is your favorite character in this book? Explain your selection in detail.
My favorite character in the book is Slim because he always knows what to do and he is reasonable. Whenever something goes wrong Slim knows what to do and he takes charge and he always has the level head. When Candy has to shoot his dog Slim is the voice of comfort to him and he gets the other men to fall in line. The author writes, "Candy looked a long time at Slim to try and find some reversal." This shows that he is grounded and people look up to him. Then after Candy shoots the dog the author says, "'Carlson' Yeah?' 'You know what to do' 'what ya mean Slim?' 'take a shovel' said Slim shortly." This shows that he knows how to direct people and he always does the right thing. He is a solid character and people look up to him. In the end of the book when Lennie accidentally kills Curley's wife, he's the one that comes up with explanation of what happened. "Slim went on, 'maybe like that time in Weed you was tellin' about.'" He knows how to keep a cool head and he always knows what to do.

Platt talks about intellectual universalism and practical universalism. Briefly describe what those are. Do you fall into either category? Explain.
Intellectual and practical universalism are both ideas on how salvation is achieved. Intellectual universalism is the belief that any religion will save you in the end so Christ and God are not necessary for salvation. They believe that there are multiple routes to heaven, and therefore they don't feel a need to spread the gospel. Practical universalism is the idea that Christ is necessary for salvation but they do not spread this message and pretend that others do not need to hear the gospel. What I believe Platt to be saying is that if you are not spreading the gospel you are tending towards universalism. And universalism does not mean that u have to have universalistic beliefs, it can also mean that you act like you believe in universalism (meaning you don't share the gospel with people). I think I would tend towards practical universalism because I do believe that Christ is necessary for salvation, so my silence is not from believing I don't need to share, it's for other personal reasons. I think that practical universalism is not the best term because universalism by definition refers to the intellectual idea that religion is relative and you don't necessarily need Christ. So even if you do act like a universalist because they don't spread the gospel, it gives the connotation that you don't believe Christ is necessary for salvation, which I do, so in his terms I would be a practical universalist, but to me it seems like a false dichotomy.