Journal on Challenges to Faith

Journal on Challenges to Faith

Summary of Challenges to Faith

In today's world, challenges to Faith include atheism, science, and consumerism. Some people struggle with their response to atheism, others do not see how they can love science and still be Catholic, and still others struggle to live by Catholic values in a world ruled by consumerism. In reality though, all of these problems can be confronted and dealt with. The best way to come up with a response to atheism is to educate yourself. You just have to come to a deeper understanding of your own faith and a deeper understanding of what atheists are saying. With more knowledge, you can come to an answer pretty easily, even if it means that you agree with the atheists about some things. Education and logic can also overcome any problems that you see between faith and science. You just have to understand that science, like most things, is not absolute truth and that science can never disprove God's existence or any other key Catholic teachings. Consumerism can also be dealt with on a local level. You just have to take a step back and realize how much advertisements and television shows can influence us and then ask yourself if that is how you honestly want to be influenced.

Two Important Ideas

Friedrich Nietzshe - Nietzsche believed that Christianity was a dying belief in the 19th Century and instead embraced Nihilism. Being a Nihilist, he did not believe reason capable of discovering truth and he also did not believe that people are convinced by reason anyway. Instead he appealed to emotions to convince people that God did not exist. Two of his ideas are relative morality and the Will to Power.

Relative Value and Morality

He believed in Relative Value or the belief that some people or things are more important than others depending on situation. Along with this belief comes his belief in Relative Morality or the belief that what is true or moral today or in today;s world can quickly change and may not be true or moral the next day or the next generation.

The Will to Power

Another Nietzsche belief was the belief in the Will to Power or the belief that all humans desire power and desire to have as much power as possible. The Will to Power is usually pretty weak in most people since they are lazy but a few people have power and these people are called Supermen.

I think that, while most of Nietzsche's ideals would make for a horrible, ugly world, there is a certain appeal to his beliefs that cannot be ignored. He understands human nature and plays off of it in order to convince you that he is right. It may begin with you believing in the Will to Power and then branching out and saying "If he was right about that, then maybe he is right about some other things," because if the majority of people are as weak as Nietzsche says they are then they would definetly put blind faith into his beliefs on the basis of agreement with a few of them.

Important Image to Remember

Since I play a lot of video games and my favorite game is Tales of Symphonia , when I think of Challenges to faith and Friedrich Nietzsche, the game's main antagonist, Mithos Yggdrasill, comes to mind. Just like Nietzsche he uses emotions instead of reason since he believes people are not move by reason. He also believes that the majority of humans are weak and that they need someone to tell them what to do and that he is just the person to do it. Mithos also believes in relative morality and relative value. He thinks that discrimination is the greatest evil and will do anything to get rid of it, even if it means killing everyone so they can become angels.

Important Questions to Ponder

In this chapter about challenges to faith, no section affected me as much as the section on Nietzsche. Since his speeches play to our emotions it can be hard not to get drawn into them. It doesn't help that he is a great writer and a poet. His view of the masses and supermen also seems to be correct to me. At least it is historically.

My First Question:

Is it possible that Nietzsche is right about the world being controlled by only a few key figures while the rest of us just sit back and do nothing or, even worse, complain?

I think that the answer is probably yes. Our own mayor steals from the pension system of city employees like fire fighters and police officers and his excuse is that they shouldn't have such a big pension to begin with, which is definetly an example of relative morality since he is basically saying that its ok to steal as long as its from someone or something that, in his mind, does not need the money. This is just one example of a politician stealing money, there are many more. These are the people that we give political power to and they have strong will to power. They associate money with power and they take it. Right now I am even complaining about how politicians steal money, but yet I am doing nothing to stop them. I think Nietzsche was right about the Will to Power if he was right about anything.

My Second Question:

If Nietzsche was right about the Will to Power do you think he was right about other things or at least made valid points?

I really do not agree with Nietzsche on any other point. I think that the world is run by relative morality, partly because those with power seem to believe in it, but I do not believe that is right. I believe that just because I believe someone is right about some things it does not mean they are automatically right about other things and in the same way just because I believe someone is wrong about some things it does not mean they are wrong about other things. This is definetly true when talking about Nietzsche. I also do not believe his points are that valid, just that they are easy to believe.