Journal 2: Challenges to Faith

Journal 2 1. One key idea from this section is the idea of the power of dehumanization. The power of dehumanization in this case refers to the increasing power possessions and monetary wealth have over us. People today are completely unaware of how much their values, ethics, desires, and beliefs are influenced by marketing and the media. The media is a formation system that manipulates us into having certain values, attitudes, and behavioral patterns. In a sense, it seems that culture itself has become "our social, physchological and corporate sustenance of our self-understanding, our purpose, our meanings..." What this really means is that culture controls our lives. Its values shape us into whatever the cool or hip thing is. We let culture define our lives instead of our lives defining culture. Too often this is a damaging reality. Much of society today falls victim to culture's ethic system of consumerism. Marketing and products have become a huge factor in our lives. Products are made into values, such as Merit cigarettes and Joy perfume. Our lives are centered on products and consumption. People who are wealthy and own a certain product are presented as the picture of happiness. The media machine affects us much more than we care to imagine. And, it seems to me, that this force is very dehumanizing. We sacrifice our individuality and values to those of the media and popular culture.

2. The first thing I want to remember from this section is the Catholic view of Science. The Catholic Church is open to science. They believe theology and science go hand in hand and can work together. Contrary to popular belief, Scripture should not be taken literally such that it would contradict scientific fact. There were many famous scientists who were also theologians such as St. Augustine of Hippo. Although some people think differently, the Church accepts science and is open to its truths and discoveries.

The second thing I want to remember is the limitations of the Scientific Method. The first limitation is that "science presupposes uniformity of nature". While we can have consistent results from experiments, etc., we don't know that nature is constant in these results. This makes results from experiments only generalizations as to the circumstances of nature so far. The second limitation is that "science emphasizes empirical knowledge". Science can only investigate the effects of God in our world, not actually God himself. The third limitation is that "scientific method does not give us certitude". The fact that it is possible for multiple hypotheses to convery accurate information displays the unreliability of science.

3. I think this image is very topical for this chapter because is displays the pressure culture and the media puts on society to consume and buy products.

4. I feel this section is very relevant to my life. The section stresses the importance of understanding the effects that the media, marketing, consumerism, etc., can have on our lives without even realizing it. It is very important to take a step back and determine what we really need in life and what the commercial industry just wants us to buy. I think that it is very important to be knowledgeable and prudent when it comes to this topic.

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