Faith and rationality

Soon into The Java Spirit: Religious Diversity of Indonesia, we hear two contrasting quotes regarding beliefs. The first, spoken by a man who appears to be a restaurant worker, says, “My understanding is spiritual: all that is true is from God.” The second is said through smiling teeth and chuckles as a laborer says, “The Divine comes second, after money, money, money.” These quotes epitomize not just the contrasting religions, but also the contrasted opinions towards religion. The Java…

I was exposed to religion ever since I was born. I was raised in Lima, Peru, which is a very religious country, even though some of its traditions may not be very familiar to everyone. If you were to compare it to something, you could say that the type of traditions I was exposed to were like the traditions Americans had in the 1900's. I remember having to dedicate entire days to God, sometimes even longer periods, without any distractions. Religion was an extremely important aspect of life in…

goes into great depth of the ideas behind Christianity. He doesn’t just state the details and places where the faith has shown up and grown in his life. Lewis goes deep into the concepts that form his beloved faith. In his book Mere Christianity, he spends a lot of the the beginning of the book talking about human nature. He uses this subject to start at the basics of the Christian faith so he can go into greater detail later. He talks about the natural belief of what is right and what is wrong.…

We as Christians are called to walk by faith. Faith meaning complete trust or confidence in someone; to abandon our will for the Fathers. Yet how many Christians truly have faith in God? Nehemiah had complete faith in God. The Nehemiah's story is astounding, but not a very well known one. Coming from a high position in the king’s palace he placed himself lowly to help the Israelite rebuild there once beautiful wall. Nehemiah not only rebuilt the wall but also the Israelite themselves. It’s very…

drawing are very similar to the images in the first; however there are some slight but key differences. The first difference is the symbol that is resting in the religion container. The symbol is the crescent moon and star which represents the Islamic faith, differing from the cross which represented Christianity. The second difference is the container size, on the first drawing the containers were fairly similar in size, but religion was larger. In this drawing however, the government container…

In today’s society, people associate religion with believing in a “higher power”. Even though most people live their life based on believing in a certain thing or living a certain way, I myself have never really committed to a religious affiliation. Even so, I have always admired the devotion some people put into their religion. Upon researching local religious congregations, the one that came to my attention was St. Thomas Moore. St. Thomas is a local catholic church in Tallahassee, Florida. I…

I believe in my life right now that I am in the stage of Personal Faith. The reason I believe I am in this stage is because I’ve had times where I doubt my faith and question certain beliefs. I believe I am in the Personal Stage of faith is because I no longer follow a crowd, I am comfortable in my own skin, my own beliefs, and actions. I have removed myself from the influence of others and groups. In my Personal Faith stage I also have become independent and take responsibility of my personal…

Make a wish; cover it with unwavering faith, and it shall come to fruition is a viable point made in the movie “The Wishing Tree”. In Mark 9:23 King James Version, “Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” Hence, this life is full of noteworthy accomplishments of people that worked hard and had faith until their wishes come true. In the wonderful thought provoking movie, the professor stated that everyone needs to believe in something magical…

baptized, and I’m not going to lie about the fact that I firmly believe that looking up to a higher power that would protect me in everyday struggles helped me a great deal in a couple of instances. However, starting a couple of years ago my blind faith began to quickly fade away as I looked into the core of all religions, coming to the point where now I’m completely done with believing anything without solid evidence behind it. Now it’s becoming more and more clear that religion is much like an…

Essential Questions: How does having a belief (in something or someone) help us to conquer fear and keep hope alive? Having belief helps us to never give up and look on the bright side of things. Without having a belief in something then we don’t stand for anything and it helps to build character. For example, if someone believes in a religion it helps them to build and strengthen their morals by putting it to practice everyday. By putting these morals to practice, life could be happier and…