This is a satirical discussion about proving how God must exist. This video basically takes every "challenge to faith" and disproves it by saying that God must be real because the Bible says He is real and that the Bible is true because God helped write it.
The Atheist Delusion
1. One paragraph summary of a key idea from this section.
At the very beginning of this secion entitled "Challenges to Faith," we learned about the four basic terms that can be used to describe someone's opinion of a supernatural being. Theists believe that God does indeed exist, whether that God be Allah, Buddha, Yahweh or any other God. Atheists believe that no God exists. This term is used in two main ways: a positive atheist, who makes an active, conscious decision that God does not exist, or practical atheists, who claim to be believers of a certain religion but, because they harbor no certain beliefs and put little effort into practicing their faith, might as well be called atheists. Agnostics believe that it is impossible to answer with any certain whether or not God exists. Those who are termed "indifferent" believe that they ruly do not care whether or not God exists and views the whole subject as irrelevant and unimportant.
2. Two things that I view as the most important ideas of this section.
One thing that I view as important from this section is the idea of unreflective unity, reflective disunity, and reflective unity. These are erms that help to summarize the situations of some theological view points but are mos examplified in the developmentt of a child. From age 1-14, a child is in a state of unreflective unity. They believe and obey their parents because they have no reason not to. They do not question or doubt their parents because they see their parents as flawless rulers. This view point can be an aspect in some theists that do not truly explore their faith.
From age 15-21, a teenager may begin to protest their parents. This is a state of reflective disunity because the teen sees the flaws and imperfections of parents and start to question their right of control. This is a necessary trait for positive atheists.
From age 22 until death, the individual enters a state of reflective unity. They indenify that everyone has flaws and embrace the wisdom that parents can give and the order that represent.
Another thing I see as an important idea from this section is the heart of Ignatius Loyola's "First Principle and Foundation," that everything we do should help us get closer to God. The idea of Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam ("To The Greater Glory Of God") states this idea. Everything that we decide to do should help us find God and everything that we do that does not needs to be abandoned.
3. One image that reminds me of the topic.
I chose this cartoon because I do believe in a God, not necessarily the God I have learned about with so much dedication for the past 16 years, but most certainly a God. I think it would be interesting to hear what God would think about His creatures thinking He does not exist. He gave us freewill and reason so that we could live fully and without freewill and reason we would not be able to try to appriciate and understand God's will. These two blessings are also the biggest weapons against loving God.
4. Short reflection on the greatest challenges to faith/Faiht in our life here and now.
Challenges to faith:
human fault: knowing that humans lie and cheat and steal makes it hard to really put belief and trust into another person.
prejudice: sometimes I am inclined to not trust someone or not believe what they say just because of the way they look or what I hear about them without getting to know them or what they really stand for.
Challenges to Faith:
science: when I hear about some new scientific breakthrough or some newly discovered object that is contrary to the Scriptures, I have trouble believing what I have been taught about religion. For example, the theory of evolution.
evil: just like the problem of evil states, the existence of evil makes me wonder how an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God could exist. Seeing the poor on the streets or the suffering of a nation under the cruel hand of a dictator makes me ask "Where is God?"
agnosticism: the fact that we may never be able to be certain while on this Earth if God exists or not makes me feel hopeless and makes Faith seem like an unneeded commodity because if I have no Faith i would have just as much certainty about God's existence as the pope would.
