Eric Lampe

Junior Faith

Thursday September 7, 2006

The first chapter of our Junior Faith Course, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” is a perfect introductory chapter to the course of faith because faith has so many underlying things that influence who, what, and to what degree you place your faith. Everyone has a bias that we probably don’t even know about. The second of the Five Foundational Lessons says that we unavoidably see everything through “colored lenses”. This means that just being raised the way we did unintentionally makes us bias to everything that we encounter in some way throughout our life. We are told to “seek the truth” but can the truth really be obtained? What is the truth? After reading The Blind Men and the Elephant we can come to better understand the answer to these questions. In this reading we see that even people who see the “same thing” actually see different things because they can only see one side. We usually make decisions with only seeing one or maybe two sides of the situation. It is impossible for us to know all the sides of something, the truth, but we can work to know more and therefore make more informed decisions. In life we should seek the truth. However we can not expect to know the whole truth but along the way we will learn about ourselves.

The Blind Men and the Elephant I think this is very important for me to take away from this chapter because it’s something that will help me throughout my entire life. We make decisions all day every day and it is essential in becoming a better person to analyze the decisions we make and not just how it will affect us but look at all the sides we can before making the decision.

Five Foundational Lessons The Five Foundational Lessons is an important thing to remember because it makes us aware of things that we probably don’t think of but in reality have a huge affect on the way we act and therefore shape our lives. Realizing that we have this underlying bias that everyone has is important because it in turn will affect even the way we view the different sides of a situation. So even if I am think intelligently, and reasoning about the choices I make, if I don’t realize that I have a bias, then I can’t grow to better understand and seek the truth.

“Seek beauty, seek the truth” I think this is the best and most useful thing that I will take with me from this chapter. This quote along with the value of truth that I have taken away has become very useful already. Since hearing that quote I have frequently thought to myself, just seek the truth. It’s such a simple phrase but yet it means so much. Here a priest is not asking you to follow the Catechism of the Catholic Church but he says to “seek the truth”. We really can’t ever fully obtain the truth but it is the journey along the way that will lead us to become better at making decisions, and to become and overall a more faithful person.

Rubik's Cube

QUESTION Is it really worth it in life to take the time and really examine my life?

I actually do not know the answer to this question because to me it does seem a little pointless to examine my life when I don’t really have a problem with the decisions I’m making at this stage in my life. Yes, I may still be in the dark but my life is going well in the dark. However on the other side I do realize now that maybe there is something important that I am missing. I hope to learn this answer over time and if I do answer yes, then I hope to work hard at achieving that goal.

Faithful Person

From this study becoming a man of faith will be achieved by taking things one step at a time. We cannot jump into things and start placing faith in everyone and everything. We have to first examine ourselves and who we are before we can properly determine who and what is important to put faith in. It is crucial to realize that just by our human condition we are subject to being bias and not analyzing every side of situation and therefore not trying our best to get at the truth.