A Religious Tradition

1
A Religious Tradition

• I pledge allegiance to the flag of the USA, and
  to the republic for which it stands, one nation
  under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
  for all.

2
religious America

• DEMOGRAPHICS
• Christians (76)
• non-religious (13)
• Jewish (1.3)
• Islam (1)

• ATTITUDES (2003 poll)
• 92 believe in God
• 65 claim membership
• 57-65 say religion is very important in their
  lives

3
Culture of Disbelief

• denial of God (classical atheism)
• indignance toward God
• experience of evil
• religion as dangerous
• where is the real problem?

• God as inaccessible to reason
• growth of science
• design argument
• God as irrelevant
• disbelief education
• independence (sci, eco)
• question of morality

4
Leszek Kolakowski

• God can of course be shoved aside as morally
  dangerous, denied as inaccessible to reason,
  damned as the enemy of humanity, and
  excommunicated as the source of enslavement. But
  if the Absolute were truly forgotten, it would be
  necessary to replace it with some finite
  substitute. But, of course, the Absolute can
  never be forgotten. The unforgettableness of God
  makes him present, even in rejection.

5
Who/What has a claim on you?

• substitute gods
• materialism
• hedonism
• nihilism

• Christian God
• covenant (OT)
• creed (NT)

6
John Paul II

• Motivated by their human dignity, all human
  beings, inasmuch as they are individuals endowed
  with reason and free will, and thus invested with
  personal responsibility, are bound by both their
  nature and by moral duty to search for the truth,
  above all religious truth. And once they come to
  know it they are bound to adhere to it and to
  arrange their entire lives according to the
  demands of such truth.

7
Gaudium et Spes 22

• The truth is that only in the mystery of the
  incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on
  light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of
  Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord.
  Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the
  mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals
  man to man himself and makes his supreme calling
  clear.