Essay on Exploring the Relationship Between Faith and Belief

It is known to all that organized religion has noticeably shaped every aspect of human identity for numerous years. In fact in today’s society, freedom of religion is declared as a fundamental right which allows individuals to practice without interference. However, despite its growing popularity, many scholars believe that the line between healthy and unhealthy religion has increasingly blurred. For instance, James W. Jones in his text, Terror and Transformation: The Ambiguity of Religion in Psychoanalytic Perspective” describes healthy religion as one that allows the individual to grow and mature (Jones 2002). On the other hand, Jones explains unhealthy religion as one that allows the devotee to be in a state of submission. This debate is especially relevant for the film “Jesus Camp”, where unhealthy religion can be easily observed. With that in mind, this paper aims examine the film Jesus Camp using Jones’s ideas on religious idealization. First, following an overview of Jones’s ideas from his text, the film Jesus Camp will be used as an illustration of an unhealthy religion. Ultimately after analyzing the film, it will be argued that the religious idealization depicted in this movie as unhealthy rather than mature.

IVP Books, publisher of Andy Crouch’s Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling, calls the literature a “rallying cry for a new generation of culturally creative Christians.” Named one of the best religion books of 2008 by Publisher’s Weekly, Crouch begins his preface stating that he “wrote Culture Making on a hunch that the language of “engaging the culture,” let alone the “culture wars,” fell far short of what we were really meant to do and be as Christians in the world. I also sensed that most churches were neglecting the centrality of culture to the biblical story and the gospel itself,” (p. 5). While the book is intended for a Christian audience, Crouch

Fowler saw faith as greater than religious faith and viewed it as a “universal aspect of human existence” (Hutchison, 2015). The ultimate environment is an important element of Fowler’s theory. He saw faith as not only an internal image but also how one relates to that image. Faith is not an unchangeable image or idea, but a way of being. The six stages of

Scholars and ministers alike realize that religion in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has taken on a far different socio-cultural format than ever in the past. The power of technology, modernity, and enhanced communication makes it much easier to reach out to other countries, other faiths, and other cultural paradigms. Technology, even social networks, have brought the religious experience to many that would not normally have had the opportunity to share (e.g. television evangelism, the radio, podcasts, etc.). Nevertheless, despite technology, there remains the core belief of Christianity that of oneness with God and using God's plan to form a productive Christian life. One challenge for many Christians, however, is in the secular and scientific age, how can one reconcile faith to science or the changes in the world over the last several decades?

This will be based on the chapter 4 Religion as "Truth-Claims", posted on Blackboard. First of all, Dianne L. Oliver makes a preface about her writings saying that religions claim to get the truth, and followers of diverse religions say that their truth is the only one true, and cannot be compare with any other. Also, she remarks that many of those religion followers use violence to uphold their own version of truth. Moreover, she let us know that she is going to consider the "True-Claims" of different religions, and show how those claims can influence the practices, behaviors, and ideas of religion followers. Next to the introduction, she considers that religion is very essential for understanding the fundamental questions in our daily lives.

While watching “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, many theories mentioned in Malory Nye’s novel “Religion: The Basics” were subtly included. The overall message of this film as well as particular scene will be analyzed to identify some of the theories, which would relate with this film. Characters from the movie went through a rite of passage, a theory said by Arnold Van Gennep, the reductionist theory, the cognitive and effective belief by Gombrich, and the Habitus theory by Pierre Bourdieu, were some of the theories identified in the film. When looking at these particular events in the film, this film essentially underlies how religion can be in non-religious things, which would include movies.

In Kingdom Triangle, J.P. Moreland’s goal is to galvanize and to rouse Christians forward to take a lead against the cultural crisis of our age. In Western society, Postmodernism and Scientific Naturalism have taken root in almost every aspect of our culture. The mass embrace of these worldviews have lead many to a sensate view of reality. One of Moreland’s central points in Kingdom Triangle is that western Christians need to band together to regain intellectual ground, as in today’s society Jesus has lost intellectual authority both inside and outside of the Church. In short, Christians must learn to think.

It is important to understand this because it will better help us understand how our beliefs came to be, why they did, and what problems they encountered and how they dealt with them to better help us deal with our problems. My goal in this paper is to better help understand what religion consisted of during this time plus how and

1. For the first part of the paper, I interviewed one of my best friends from back home. I grew up with him throughout school and continue to be very close to him. My interviewee’s name is Nathaniel, he is 21, and studies philosophy. Nathaniel and I have been close for a long time but never fully discussed our religious beliefs openly. I was very excited to interview him for this paper.

In this paper I will discuss the significance of Paul Tillich’s theology within our current pluralistic society. I hope to accomplish this by specifically addressing how certain concepts within his Theology, when embraced or applied, can begin to relieve western Christianity’s concern for remaining “relevant”. I will also present some of Tillich’s theological ideas concerning his Christology, characteristics of a symbol, and concept of God as a symbol.

The Matrix (1999, Lana and Lilly Wachowski) is an action filled, futuristic view of what the world would be like if artificial intelligence were to take over. The movie covers many of the issues associated with the human experience, such as gender equality, figuring out what is real versus what is an illusion created by society, and finding and then defining one’s faith. Much like every person in the world today the characters in The Matrix struggle with finding their faith, whether it be faith in themselves, a god, or an oracle. With an array of religious references within the film to Buddhism and Christianity, there is no wonder as to why religion and the various roles it plays in the plot is one of the most highly debated subjects of the film. Gregory Bassham’s article “The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of Pluralism” is an analysis of the film through the lens of theological meanings and pluralism. This paper will explore Bassham’s use of secondary evidence and transitions to make his claims of religious meaning and hidden pluralistic views in The Matrix believable and easy to follow, and how the effectiveness of his argument is weakened by its poor structure.

D. A. Carson is research professor and teaches New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and has written nearly fifty books on an extensive range of topics. His Christ and Culture Revisited is a revisit of H. Richard Niebuhr 's five models for seeing the relationship between Christ and culture. The book is also a revisit of the broader question of Christ and culture in general, and how it has dramatically changed from Niebuhr 's day.

Pope John Paul II once said, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth – in a word, to know himself – so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” (Fallible Blogma) Based on this significant and powerful quote, one can infer that faith and reason are directly associated and related. It can also be implied that the combination of faith and reason allows one to seek information and knowledge about truth and God; based on various class discussions and past academic teachings, it is understood that both faith and reason are the instruments that diverse parties

Faith and reason were two modes of belief that dominated the history of Western Civilization. Both faith and reason were popularized as tools to understand the universe in Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian eras. By conflicting with each other, these two modes of belief sparked a lot of controversy. Reason or rationality is belief based on concrete evidence and logic. The development of one’s reason relies heavily on observation and questioning. Greco-Roman philosophers believed in the power of the human mind to understand the world. So in order to find ultimate truth, Greco-Roman philosophers dedicated their lives to perfecting their reasoning skills and encouraged those around them to do the same. Contradictory to reason, faith is the

We need look no further than the final seasons of the majority of one’s favorite television shows to realize the simple fact, what is newer is not necessarily better, in fact it is often far worse or more complicated. It is a common bias of modernity to assume superiority over any ways of thinking that ruled past cultures; however, particularly for a religiously-based course, that kind of thinking is highly problematic. For the purposes of this essay I will attempt to traverse the narrow line of objectivity and compare and contrast two worlds. These two worlds are the Old and New, and are heavily subjective and conventional in nature, but nevertheless this inquiry will continue as planned. The rise of soteriology and a new kind of guilt,