Journal on "Challenges to Faith"


From Foundationsforfreedom.net

Key Idea
The key idea we learned in this section is that atheism, science, and the power of dehumanization challenge our Faith in God and our faith in others. We learned about the beliefs of Friedrich Nietzsche who stressed that man an uncontrollable will to power, that is that every human being has a natural desire to have some amount of control and strength of mind and body. In the mass of people, however, their will to power is week and they follow a "Ubermensch" or Superman who tries to create the world in his own image. Nietzsche taught also that morality is relative and not objective. Everything is right in and of its own way and cannot be deemed wrong so long as it follows the natural will to power in all humans. However, Nietzsche believed that Christians and Jews were weak because they accepted a slave morality that encouraged servitude to others which Nietzche thought denied the natural will to power in all humans and therefore was just a lie that Christians and Jews told to better cope with their own weak will to power. We also learned about the beliefs of Thomas Hobbes who said that everything is only material and that there is no spirituality or morality or a Heaven. The only life there is is the physical one that we live on Earth. Everything happens because fate has total control of the events of the world. Hobbes believed that man determines his own value based on the life he lives and that human beings are not priceless. To Hobbes everything had a determinable worth. Another thing we learned of that was a detriment to our faith/Faith was science. Many people have now accepted in their own minds that science is the only source of truth and that it is the only thing that can provide truthful facts instead of hope and wishful thinking. This belief system has caused many people to believe that the Church makes everything it teaches up and they do it only out of the hope that we can achieve a better life thats not there. The final challenge to faith is the power of dehumanization. Because we become so connected and committed to things rather than faith. In Kavanaugh's Idols of the Marketplace he quotes a man who says that "(his daughter) said that the only thing that she really wanted for Christmas was a pair of Sasson jeans." And imediately following he quotes Pope John Paul II as saying "(humans) cannot become slaves of things, slaves of economic systems, slaves of production, slaves of our own products. A civilization purely materialistic in outline condems the human person to such slavery." Yet despite these warnings we have become slaves to products and economic systems. We have become all of these things and because of this we are no longer can be identified as free humanity. We no longer value dignity or compassion or world peace, instead, we value the make-up we wear in the mirror or the beer we drink. In a sense we can no longer be identified as humans because we have become products ourselves.

Three Important Ideas
#1)Touching on what I just finished in the first paragraph, humanity has in a sense become products itself. As Father Kavanaugh pointed out in the video we watched in class, "we discover our meaning by relating to things instead of people, our entire identity then becomes wrapped up in the things we relate to. Products become our primary means of self-expression and self acceptance." Because we relate our identity with the products we buy we are esentially buying our "selves," our identity, when we go to the malls to shop. We have turned our lives into products that can be sold at our local Wal-Mart or Target and we can no longer be identified as an individual person.

#2)Coming from my first important idea, we also cannot make strong relationships with others and therefore can't put our faith in others. We worry too much about that pain and suffering that might come from someone leaving us or the tough life that might come from someone depending on us. We instead form our relationships with the things we buy instead. We buy perfumes called "Faithful" because we think they are just what their name says we buy a pair of pants because their advertiser says they wont walk out on us. Because we cannot form strong relationships with others, we are no longer living the good life that Aristotle described because we are missing the "goods of the soul" like friendship. In this way I believe that many of us are living a deprived life. This may explain why depression is so common in teens becuase we don't have the "goods of the soul" that Aristotle described because, as we saw from the Merchants of Cool video we watched in class, advertisers focus so much of their resources on teens and we buy into their ideas because we are bombarded with their messages because we watch so much television. And because we buy into it we arent living a truly good and healthy life and our minds collapse becuase we cant take the pressure and stress that comes with it.

#3)The final important theme I believe should be remembered from this section is that we should care about the right thing to do because its not always the best decision for ourselves. Often we are self-centered, thats commonly what advertisers and our society tell us to be. Its about us and who we are, what we can become. Thats what advertisers tell us and then they offer us their product that we can buy. And if we do in fact buy it because of this advertisement we have become self-centered and no longer have much faith in anyone around us and instead have faith in products. However, if we make the decision to do the difficult thing that isnt the easiest or the best for us then we have placed our faith in someone or something else. If we make difficult decisions that dont only benefit us then we can be sure that we have placed our faith in others.

Reflection
I think that the greatest challenge to my own faith/Faith in the here and now is peer pressure. It seems to me that I am constantly being told to do the "cool" thing. However, the "cool" thing to do is never the right thing to do. I am pressured into doing the wrong thing that is often "I-centered." Because of the self-centered interest of this decision. I begin to develop an identity where community and others dont matter in my life. Instead it is myself and what I want that I value. This is a severe challenge to my faith/Faith becuase if I become self-centered then I can no longer place my faith in God or others and I can no longer develop the healthy relationships that I should.

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