Pat Boyle

Junior Faith 06

Challenges to Faith: Journal

 

            In this section of the course, we learned about the different challenges to faith that we as Catholics face.  The three main challenges that we covered dealt with atheism, science, and dehumanization.  There were multiple perspectives in the category of atheism, and many of the arguments from atheists were very reasonable.  Also, we talked about how science can interfere greatly with faith, and how the Church reacts to science.  For dehumanization, we got to see some visual examples, and Fr. Kavanaugh made it very clear that the advertising world dehumanizes in order to sell products.

            The first thing that I would like to remember from this section is the fact that atheism doesn’t necessarily mean rejecting faith altogether.  Previously, I thought that all atheists hated the idea of God, and rejected all kinds of religious faith.  In the case of Nietzsche, this is true.  However, we got to see the perspective of Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher, who is known as a practical atheist, which means that he does not practice religion, but at the same time he does not find it foolish.

            I would also like to keep in mind the Church’s position on science.  While I still think that science holds the answers to most things in life, I was surprised to see that the Church actually puts up a pretty good argument to science.  The Church not only recognizes that science is factual, but on some levels, the Church can learn from science.  It goes both ways, however, and the Church also states that not all of science can be taken as fact, since it answers the question of “how?” and not the “why?”

            Finally, I would like to remember the ideas presented in Fr. Kavanaugh’s video.  Fr. Kavanaugh put up a very strong argument of how advertising dehumanizes, and he also backed this argument with hard evidence from the marketing world.  I always knew this subconsciously, but Kavanaugh made me realize that the advertising of products really does make promises of happiness and power that those products just cannot keep.  This is definitely a problem in our society today.

            Overall, if I had to choose one thing that is a challenge to my faith, it wouldn’t be any of these things that we covered in class.  Basically, the biggest challenge to faith that I have is just not caring enough to practice my faith.  I don’t feel like my faith is wrong in any way, but for me it is just easier to not go to church, or not pray.  I guess the challenge to faith that effects me the most is laziness.