Joe Beaty

December 6, 2006

Jr. Faith ’06 Challenges Journal

 

 
           This theology section deals with the challenges to faith. The first challenge of faith is an attack from atheism. Nietzsche is an atheist who does not believe in any god, nor that people come from a higher being. He believes that humans are naturally evil inside and that they fight for their belongings and positions in life. Nietzsche supposes that the masses are weak and their savior is an Übermensch, or superman, who is an exceptional human being with the power to lead the people to prosperity. He also discusses the difference between sheep and hawks. Hawks are people who are willing to risk themselves and take chances in life to better them. Sheep are cowardly and hoard their belongings, making no progress. My favorite Nietzsche quote is “That which does not kill you only makes you stronger.” Hobbes is another atheist, but a practical atheist, one who is Christian but does not practice his faith. As a materialist, he also thinks that there is no soul or higher beings of this world, and that everything is made of matter. Hobbes also preached fate over free will. Fate is the notion that whatever is going to happen, will happen, and it happened that way because it was meant to.

            Another challenge to faith is scientism. This is the belief that God does not exist because the elements of the world can be proven through the scientific method. There is a history of science and faith and their relationships. Like childhood, 500B.C. to 1500A.D. was a time of unreflective unity where philosophy, religion, and science were all bunched together into one study of life. Our teenage years coincide with the Renaissance and Enlightenment ages as the time period was an era of reflective disunity. The third age, which is considered the 1900s to now, is like adulthood where we have a reflective unity with our parents and our church. There are four essential flaws to this belief in scientism. Science presupposes a uniformity of nature- all things can be explained with the same rules. It emphasizes empirical knowledge, unable to prove souls. The scientific method does not give us certainty, for many theories can be disproved by other observations. Finally science does not deal with the why, but only with the how.

            The last main challenge to faith is the power of dehumanization. This is the media’s way of breaking down the human image to make their goods seem like they fulfill the needs in our lives. They sell more products this way.

            My favorite activity this section was watching “The Merchants of Cool” frontline showed how big companies like Viacom and AOL Time Warner control the media and try to define what is popular. They control a vicious cycle that allows them to find the unique kids, exploit their individuality by mass producing their image to other teens. They then pretend to give kids the choice of their own style while only providing very little selections. They combine subtle advertisements in their programs and have convinced a generation of teen girls that their images get them everywhere in life. Teens take what they see on TV and use it in real life situations, this then goes back to the media as what is cool. After awhile a fad dies and advertisement agencies thrive on a new thing to popularize and make another 150 million dollars from it.

            Aaron Fenerstein was one of the greatest men of faith for what he did for his employees. After his fleece textile mill burnt down he did not chose to move his company to another country to make more profits. Instead he used his insurance money to rebuild the factory and pay his workers’ salaries until the plant was fixed. He went bankrupt during this time and the company had to go public to survive. Fenerstein gave up his money and power to live a humble life with his wife just so he could help finance the families of his workers when they were out of jobs.

I’m not sure if we covered all the things in the readings book, but the presentations at the beginning to the section helped in understanding what the different challenges could be. We discussed challenges to reason that we learned in a previous section. Our challenges to faith were a bit opinionated including our fear, doubt, and level of optimism, but I agree our environment and society greatly affect our lives. The challenges presented against religious Faith seemed to be spot on. A presentation of our journey to God was met by obstacles of science, reason, rebellion, laziness, and again our fears. The ways to live a good life were just a repeat from what Aristotle said. We should have needs such as shelter, food, and love, as well as a determination to accomplish our goals, examine ourselves and God, and develop strong relationships with friends and family. Challenges to a good life include temptation, such as peer pressure, our honesty, with ourselves and others, and whether we take the easy route or not.