My Challenges to Faith: A Personal Reflection

In my life as a teenager I have come across many challenges to my faith and Faith. One major challenge to my Faith is Atheism. First of all Atheism completely contradicts everything that I have been taught as a Catholic. Atheists believe that there is no God and that we are all alone in this world. They only believe in objective values and say that God can't be real, because he is shrouded in mystery and there is no indisputible evidence that God exists. We have to rely on our Faith in God to believe in him. I don't like to hear these types of things, because it really makes me challenge my faith. I begin to think things like "What if ther is no God, then why am I hear?" and "After I die, will I go anywhere?". This is very disturbing to me that I am thinking this way, but what if the Atheist way is right way and I am wrong in my beliefs. Although I don't believe this I know that it is better for me to live a life of theism and believe in God and have beliefs centered around him rather than be a lost soul that has no beliefs. I know that even if the Athiest way is correct, then I would have lived a better life because I actually had something to live by and my beliefs were optimistic. These questions haunt me because they are the core teachings of my Catholic faith. If I am questioning those central beliefs, then am I a good Catholic. It is things like this that cause me to question my faith that I considering challenges to my faith.

Another major challende to my faith is the media. The media controls the world today, because it shows us how to act, how to live, and basically how ot live my life as a teenager. Everyday I am bombarded with comercial after comercial and advertisment after advertisement. The media is getting into my head and telling me what to buy and how to look. It uses other teenagers like me to sell and market goods. They exploit us in a way that it gives us no faith anymore ourselves, and that we must rely on the media to tell us how to make our decisions. It really takes the away the faith i have in myself and my independence, because it is telling me if I don't dress or act this way then I won't be accepted by others and the rest of society. It also is a challenge to my Faith, because it tells me that material goods are all that matter and nothing else is important. With all this emphasis on materialism I find myself becoming a homoeconomicus rather than a homosapien. I find that I am only working and going to school for the money, so I can buy more stuff that the media throws at me. This is not the kind of person that I am called to be by God, because God has nothing to do with the material goods that I am hypnotized into desiring.

Another major challenge to my Faith and faith is peer pressure and any other influence by my friends and other peers. This includes pressure from other people to appear cool. Being cool means doing things like drugs and alcohol at parties. These things are so popular among teenagers and they are both things that bring us away from God. These cool things also involve sexual actions that go against my bringing up as a Catholic and living a chaste life. Since this is a major belief and a moral to live by in the Catholic view it is very tough to go against it, but the desire is so strong it is hard to stay away from. This is a huge example of a challenge to Faith. Peer pressure is also a bad thing, because it takes away the faith I have in my own decisions and tells me that I have to be just like the rest of the crowd to be accepted. Another example of a challenge to Faith from peer pressure is the subject of religion. It is not the coolest thing to make known to people the fact that you are a relgious person. Since the world is so concentrated on being cool and having the right material goods, having a strong Faith and letting it be known is just not always accepted. I strive to become a better Christian, but I find that I usely do this while alone and not around others. This is a major challenge to my Faith, because if I can't let my Faith be known around others then how can I call myself a Catholic much less a good Catholic.

I recognize all of these pressures and challenges to Faith and faith in society today and I realize that one day I will overcome them. This will be they day when I am no longer a teenager, but someone who is mature enough to block out the distractions of todays society and no longer be afraid to express my Faith in God. I also believe that when that day occurs I will no longer be questioning or challenging my Faith, because i will have already made the right decisions about what I believe in.