Faith Reason Imagination free essay sample

Faith, in the religious sense, is the belief based upon our spiritual connections with God. Faith aids, stabilizes and nourishes us spiritually allowing our knowledge of his words to grow. Since there are so many different religious faiths, one must indulge in the one that is closer to home. Christianity is the religion that is dominant in the United States. It is faith and belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God, The Father, and that He was send to earth to save the souls of sinners. REASON Reason, is the logic upon which decisions can be made with mutual benefit or at least mutual understanding between two or more parties. Reason is what is used to neutralize volatile situations. Reason is also accepting of rational thought. If something is considered absent of reason, then one is expected to be skeptical about it’s worth. If one is convinced that something is reasonable, then it is much easier to consider it a rational proposition. IMAGINATION One of the greatest gifts we have is the ability to imagine what could be. People have always had the ability to understand the basic things around them. People have always adapted to the situations that we have found ourselves in. There have always been ways to learn to cope with changes in life. It is the ability to imagine what could be that drives people progress. It is the ability to think of things in the abstract sense that has driven people to move ahead and create new things, methods and processes. Imagination is the sense that if I can dream it and if I can conceive it, then I can do it. It is in this thought that the limits on possibilities have been removed. Having faith is the firm belief that we serve God and follow the teachings of Jesus, our souls will exist forever in a place that theologians call heaven. Well, it is my firm belief that the teachings of The Holy Bible, the book of Christianity, are truly a divinely inspired text. The teachings of the Holy Bible are a guide for steadfast living and serving others. Now, there are things in the Bible that should not be taken literally. And there are things in the Bible that I believe were significant for the times when it was written but have to be interpreted with different meanings now. However, the basic tenets are the same and the concrete, foundational principles of the religion have not changed. If one believes that the Creator is God The Father, then one has and ease about living that gives him the confidence to do what’s right on the earth, knowing that there is a reward in the end. That is the faith that I have. It is the faith that I was raised with. It is the faith that I live by day to day. The most important aspect of Christianity is that we should live as peaceful human beings. It is the belief that revenge is for God. It is the belief that Jesus was sent to give us life lessons that would endure throughout time. People do take things from the Bible literally, but there are some serious conflicting issues with the Bible. For instance, while I believe it is true that it is better to †turn the other cheek†, we must not forget that there are several instances in the Bible where justice had to be meted out in order to maintain order. I believe that there are things that have been misinterpreted in the Bible and that good people believing people have taken things out of context. One of these is the death penalty. First, you have the commandment that says â€Å"Thou Shall Not Kill†. However, some strong supporters of the Bible believe in the death penalty. I believe that â€Å"Thou Shall Not Kill† means thou shall not kill period. And when the argument comes up, I try to explain that killing is killing and none of it is what God wants. That even though there are individuals who commit terrible crimes against humanity, killing them should not be in the arsenal of those who mete out justice. Imprisonment should be used for those individuals who have been convicted of serious crimes. And as is the case, this type of justice is never handed out fairly. In our society, the rich have a great advantage over the poor in how they are treated by the justice systems. There have been many men executed for crimes they were not guilty of. There is no recourse when this happens. There is no way to make the right with that man, or his family. His life is gone forever and all the apologies in the world can’t bring him back to a normal lifestyle. I try to explain that even Jesus Himself was given the death penalty wrongly. Nothing that anyone could do would undo that injustice He received. This is just one example of why the death penalty, though it was been carried out in the Bible, isn’t worth it. I agree with what Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once said, †An eye for an eye just leaves everybody blind†. There are some things in the Bible that are timeless. Some of those things include, love your neighbor as you love yourself, do not desire your neighbor’s goods, honor thy mother and father and above all else, thou shall have no other gods before Me. If one keeps this commandment, I think that he has shown a common sense that will be appreciated in the end by The Great Judge of all mankind. In my personal experience, I’ve found that a true belief in my faith has brought me from serious life issues. My steadfast belief is that what I pray for, as long as it in within reason, I will receive. It’s happened in my life over and over again. I have learned through trials that when you pray for something and it doesn’t come to pass, you are not to be deterred in your belief. If you are, then you were never really as seriously committed to your belief. I have found that ii is quite effective to pray and say â€Å"if it be your will†, please let it be. We cannot determine what God wants to happen, we can only pray that we desire coincides with God’s plan. In keeping the faith, we can go ahead and accept the outcome of situations that we are not in control of. We must keep on believing in spite of whatever answers we receive. We must keep on worshiping God and we must not be deterred because that specific prayer we prayed didn’t come to the conclusion we desired. Often times, down the road, we find that the best results were not to have our prayers answered in the manner we desired. We find that the person we prayed would be with us has turned out to be someone that we should never have been with in the first place. We find out that the job we prayed for end up being cancelled. One of the most difficult parts of having faith is when we pray for healing for ourselves or a loved one. It is great to pray that God heals the sick but what I believe is that all suffering is redemptive. That there is a reason God allows people to have difficult experiences. I believe that the suffering on this earth has its reward in heaven. This in no way means that we shouldn’t pray and ask God to intervene in difficult situations because we should. We should endeavor, however, to maintain the level of faith we have when we don’t receive the blessing we ask for as we do when we do receive them. So, my faith means that I maintain a steadfast belief in God, in Christianity, in Jesus Christ. This is a never wavering faith. This is a never questioned belief. It is my faith, my life and the way I am raising my child. There are some things about religion that many people consider not to be within reason. The miracles in the Bible are examples of super natural occurrences that many reasonable people consider preposterous. Giving sight to the blind, raising the dead, healing the lame, these are miracles that some people may question. However, one who has faith can accept these things as not only rational but also proof Jesus Christ truly a holy man who possessed the power of God Himself. Scholars throughout history have prophesized the coming of Jesus, studied him during his lifetime, and taught of his exploits after he was gone from Earth. For those skeptics who can’t imagine how anyone could believe the teachings of the Bible, one need only ask, if there is no divine intervention, then what was it that made our world? How did man just come to be? How did we become the dominant creature on this Earth? Why do we have such communication capabilities that no other creature exhibits? The answers are not easily found. The rationale behind a divine being controlling our actions and aspirations could be seen as a logical fall back to compensate for the lack of real answers. For thousands of years men have believed in gods. There seems to have always been some form of faith at work within civilized society, as well as those people who are considered uncivilized. There has been gods worshipped in Mayan temples, jungle woods, and even many of the pagan tribes. The one thing that all of these societies have in common is a faith. Now, whether that faith is within our realm of reason is for us as individuals to decide. I contend that there is a divine spirit which can be called upon for support when needed and there are times when the intervention of these deities could actually be felt by the worshipper. I believe that no other God exist other than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and that God has given grace to those ignorant tribes who have yet to be enlightened. I also believe there is more than one way to worship and I do believe that it is quite reasonable to believe in an all controlling God who sees all, plans all, yet still allows man to have free will. It takes people vision to find solution to every problem. There are things that have been left to imagination. One of them would be to imagine how heaven would be. There have been many descriptions of what that place we call heaven would be like. Only our imagination determines just how beautiful a place that would be. All people imagine things. We all have at one time or another wondered what it would be like to travel to distant lands, to live in other times, to walk in another person’s shoes. Imagination has had profound effect of religious beliefs. Now, Faith is a great tool for human comfort. Reason is a fantastic tool for living peacefully among your fellow man. Imagination helps to improve man’s life. Faith, Reason, Imagination can be considered entities unto themselves. They can also work in harmony to advance civilization. The belief that there is a divine God who makes us reasonable and allows us to soar to greater heights, make us creatures who are far more advanced in our technical ability than all other creatures on earth. Fish can swim, so they are masters in the water. Birds may fly, which make them envied creatures in the skies. Lions can walk the earth, climb trees and handle combat with just about any other creatures on land. However, people have learned to swim, man has learned to travel in the skies, and man has learned to take control of most of the areas of the Earth. It has been people’s imagination that has helped bring them to the level of superiority above all creatures on the land, sea and in the air. It has been people faith that has brought us to the point where we can believe that if we do right we will be rewarded in heaven. It has been people’s reasonability that has kept us from going too far ahead in pursuing our ideas. These things together have moved us far beyond any other creature and far beyond our abilities in the days of the earliest known existence of mankind.