Relationship with a Father

God, in the Christian faith is often referred to as the “heavenly father”, and people of the Christian faith in America often speak of their relationship with God. Because of this the understanding of God is to some extent determined by the fictive kin relationship that they establish. In the case of the this particular relationship God does not actually supplant the father, but instead becomes more important. As with any relationship there are things that rare understood as a duty and as a privileged. The duty of a person of the Christian faith is to pray to god and devote themselves to Christian teachings, and the benefit that they receive in return is the love of god in life and admittance to life after they die. This relationship provides an important aspect of the cultural relevancy with I the Christian faith. The understanding of God as a benevolent and forgiving father, but also very demanding and restrictive creates a cultural framework for. In the words of the student I interviewed, “God is like our father when you want a hug you can get a hug, but with god you have to be patient an it’s not on your terms.” This context is important because allows and understandable contextual reference to be applied to the idea of god. With out the context of God as a demanding father it would be much harder to understand the exact relevance of God, or the relationship that many Christians have with God.

You need to jump in

I interviewed a student and Wheaton about her religious faith. The student that I interviewed is a practicing Lutheran and was raised in a Lutheran household. Currently she is attending church once a week, and previously she attended church four times a week. Aside from attending church on a regular basis this student also prays on every day when she is not in church. When I asked her to describe her relationship with god she told me, “its not like any other relationship. God is like our father when you want a hug you can get a hug, but with god you have to be patient an its not on your terms, some times it doesn’t seem like he is real then there are sings and you just know that he is”. I asked what kinds of signs she meant and she used as an example if she was working hard for a grade, or was trying o be friends with some on and it wasn’t working, but then it managed to work out more beautifully than she ever imagined.
I the student if she hade ever done anything that went against her religious teachings, and she immediately answered that she had. What she told me was that she had been drinking and done something bad while she was drinking. She told me that afterwards she apologized to God and took it as a sign form God that she should not participate in those activities.
The most important thing that I learned from this interview was something that I did not even ask. What she told me was, “As some one who is not Christian you can’t really understand this you can’t just dip your toe in the water, you have to jump in.” This statement demonstrates how important cultural relevance is. It also shows that the logic of the Christian faith is based around the existence of God. I asked her if she had ever questioned her fait and was told that she had, but that she has always concluded to that God was real an that Go had always existed. In order to understand the logic of people of faith is imperative to accept the existence of God as the founding for cultural relevancy.

René Descartes and the Existence of God

The prevalent scientific understand of the world does not rely on he existence of a God, and because God’s existence is no long a predetermined understanding the conclusion of the scientific world is that God does not exist. However, the principal of god is not necessarily based in science, and in order to understand the culture of people who believe in God, it is necessary to understand the arguments that accept or perpetuate the existence of God. René Descartes a philosopher who lived from 1596 to 1650 established new guidelines for philosophical thinking. The main teaching of Descartes was to rely less on the senses for perception. With the removal of the senses from the understanding of philosophy Descartes was able to produce a method of philosophical thinking that began only with the concert understanding of his own existence. Beyond this Descartes was able to deduce that he could think. This model allowed Descartes to remove all doubtable philosophies from his own thinking. Regardless of Descartes new construct for philosophy he was able to use accept the existence of god.
In order to prove the existence of God Descartes began with the theory of cause and effect. The effect in this instance is the existence of god. With out a cause the belief in God there would be with out reason, hence the reason to believe in God must be the existence of God. The other proof that God exists comes from the perception of an idea as the total of its parts. God, in the case of Descartes, refers to a Christian god, or the idea of god, is a perfect being. Descartes considered existence to be inherent trait of perfection. Therefore because God was thought of, and all that Descartes could initially accept the existence of was himself and his ability to think, God must exist, and because the thought God was created with the acceptance of the perfection of God the thought of God proves the existence of God and the thought of God as perfect includes the implication in perfects of existence that god must exist.
It is possible to argue to the contrary of Descartes, but what is more important is that Descartes creates a clear logic in his understanding and acceptance of god. In a sense Descartes provides the argument of the logic inherent in the culture of faith, or the cultural relevance of God with in the culture of Faithful people.

Works Cited:

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. "Descrates: An Overview." Descrates: An Overview [The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy ]. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 24 Oct. 2008 .

Religulous

Religulous, Directed by Larry Charles written by and starring staring Bill Maher, is a comedy that is intended to display what the movie perceives as the big questions of religion.  Which also results in Bill Maher insulting the majority of the people in the world.  The Movie focuses on Christianity and Islam with a few divergences to various inquiries about other religions.  The major questions that the movie asks of Christianity are: why, if so many things stated in the bible are so unreasonable and there is so little evidence that there is a presence of God, do people believe in Christianity? Why is it so important to the church that homosexuality is considered a sin, especially given that it is only mentioned in the Old Testament and that Christ preached about acceptance? Why do so many Christians go to such length to deny the theory of evolution?  And why is a combination of religion and government so common?

            The film demonstrates that the culture of faith is often a sub-culture of the over all culture, as is the case I the United States, and because of this the logic of the culture is much more commonly called into question.  While the movie has many political implications, what the film mainly does is to question the logic of the culture of faith.  One of the movies presumptions is that the existence of God is illogical, however the basis of basis of logic within the culture of faith founded upon the existence of God.  The simple answer to all of the questions asked by the film is that people of faith believe, the logic of the culture of faith is bases around the understanding of the existence God.  

Works Cited:

Religulous. Dir. Larry Charles. Perf. Bill Maher. Film. 2008.

"Reliulous (Trailor)." Youtube - Reliulous (Trailor). 3 July 2008. Youtube. 24 Oct. 2008 .

Why Faith?

For the majority of human history each society has accepted a particular faith and made it an interregnal, if not defining, aspect of their culture.  As an agnostic I am an exception to this historical normalcy.  Because of my lack of faith, I interpret the teachings of religion as nothing more than the foundation for a homogeneous moral code. In my ethnography I will attempt to explore the culture of people who do not see religion simply as a set of social values, but as the word of God, or their gods depending upon the faith, and devote them selves entirely to those teachings and the God of religion every day. 

            The culture of devout faith consist of dozens of sub cultures of religions and sects within those religions, yet are similar in some ways because of their devout faith.  Each religion has its own particularities, but what I intend to study is not the religions themselves, but devotion to God as manifested in different religious acts. I intend to investigate this culture by doing contextual research on the particular religions, interviewing practitioners, and possibly being a participant observer at religious ceremonies. 

            Through this cultural study I intend on gaining a full understanding of why people devote them selves so fully to a religion, and once they, become devout practitioners, how the display their devotion and use it to inform their daily perspective. I hope that this process will also enlighten my skeptical perceptions of religion and gain the cultural perspective of devoutly religious peoples to inform my own perspective on American culture and my own life.