Nicole Bornales

REFLECTION PAPER (For Videos of Bishop Barron and Nick Vujicic) Yes, I like the video of Bishop Barron on Why do we believe in God. After I’ve been introduced to the video of Bishop Barron on why we believe in God, I learned that what is being offered by Religion is not only often subject to the careful and thorough examination of reason and logic. And through that I was able to see that religion itself has its basis in belief, the same as how one individual believes in God. It was fascinating how Bishop Barron was able to hold a role of being an ordained minister who holds the fullness of the sacrament of holy orders and be responsible for teaching doctrine, governing Catholics in his jurisdiction, sanctifying the world and representing the Church at the same time in that one sitting. I believe that the recorded video of him being streamed in the youtube industry is a means of helping others in discovering more on Truth and the good things and other superb explanations that lie with it. Bishop Barron was able to take the place of guiding me not to criticize the beliefs I have particularly my beliefs on God and it is to my surprise on how he was able to relate the use of scientific basis or science with it without messing up what I hold on about my God. And that is the reason why I liked the video of Bishop Barron highlighting the concept of Why do we believe in God. If I were to describe how Bishop Barron was able to combine the two opposing fields of life (science and religion), it would be the five-lettered latin word “Magis'', meaning excellence or excellent. His voice, combined together with his thoughts and very organized and simple to digest explanations gives me a feeling of calmness, which i believe gave me an opportunity to dive deeper into the context of what he is telling about. Given that science focuses on testable claims and hypotheses, whereas religion focuses on individual beliefs, it is not surprising in life how these two collide with each other. Before, I am aware that the relationship between science and religion has typically been characterized as one of conflict, especially on the issue of origins, creationism vs. evolution. The talk of Bishop Barron has benefited me in a way that it opens me to the idea of such historical reality wherein science and religion have more often been complementary, than enemy to each other. I discovered that the combination of the two different fields becomes a philosophical examination of themes such as truth, beliefs and desire,and concepts involved in my religious tradition such as my concept of own God, as well as the deeper philosophical understanding and reflection on matters of its relationship with each other. I got to create a broad perspective of what counts as true/truth on reasons why I believe in God that can serve as the foundation for my whole spiritual life. The talk of Bishop Barron only proves that it is an intelligent idea to appreciate, know and embrace both philosophy and science at the same level. Through the learnings I had, I can say that Philosophy of religion and science as fields is very broad and complex since there are so many interests that are present in both scientific, religious and philosophical wherein diving with the same energy and respect to both raise many of the same fascinating questions and possibilities about the nature of reality, the magic of reasons, the truths on life, and so on. The second video was the video of Nick Vujicic, the man with no arms and legs. Yes, I was inspired by him. I believe that the video is a true manifestation of how God uses the disabled to model his love. The video shows Nick Vujicic as a person who has an exciting experience of adventure to tell others and has a vision that can change people’s lives and serve power larger than himself. According to what I gained from the video, when Nick was a child he felt worthless and different in a negative way. After growing up, he found his purpose and realized his special skills. From that moment I realized that he has a mental and physical strength greater and stronger than mine. It is because I perceive myself as an individual who is weak and fragile in terms of physical and emotional state. Not unlike Nick, he is an individual that is full of hope and faith. It is in my observation and perception that his strength is no other like. I have seen no one and knew no one whose disposition in life is as steady as him. Him talking about defying all odds enlightened and empowered me as a person. As I observe him in the video hobble on the platform set up on stage, I take a good hard look at myself. And come up with reasons why I am inspired by what he stands for and believes in. As I watched him open his mouth, and utter words, I observed that he displays a strong emotion and quality of wholeheartedness. The way he turned the lines “You’ll never make it,” or “You are destined for a life of loneliness because no one will ever love you” into “You are beautiful just the way you are” wonders me as a person. Nick was able to tell his story of how he focused his energy on believing in his own worth and self-love. He throws statements like “When you go ups and downs, you gotta go one step at a time and take courage up with every step, and add with trust”. This gave me an idea that although not stated by Nick, he implied that by allowing vulnerability to touch us in life and yet cultivate it to resilience will help us in attaining our own authentic self. And by that i discovered that being honest with how i feel, about my fears, about what i need and then asking for what others need, instead of being driven by fear, weakness, and vulnerability will result in nourishment of the self. He was able to justify himself by not allowing his disability to define him. Instead, he makes choices that stem from knowing what is important to him such as his family, self-compassion, and love. Through his story, I learned that faith is not believing in my own unshakeable belief but rather believing an unshakable God when everything in me trembles and quakes. I believe the story of Nick Vujicic gave rise and highlights to the Importance of seeking God’s plan in one's life. (For Images of God) My personal image of God right now is loving and merciful. I strongly believe and stand for that God is Love because it is out of love he created the world and human beings. As a christian I was taught that God, in his love, seeks what is best for us even at great personal cost to Himself which is true when he sacrificed his own son to save us from our sins. He is patient with us. He actively looks out for our well-being, and He wants us to reflect His sacrificial love toward one another in how we think of each other and treat each other. And I believe that these are evident when we practice sacrificial, unconditional love toward others, we display that God lives within us and furthermore we are finding true life and the power to love through Him. I now understand that the love of God is displayed every time we speak the truth to each other, meet each others' needs, and carve out time for one another. Also, I believe that one of his attributes is mercy. He has regularly shown me that, by nature, I am not as merciful as I should be, but I'm grateful that He is teaching me more about mercy by surrounding me with merciful people who show me what it's supposed to look like. God is the perfection of mercy. And it is evident in the way how mercy involves granting pardon or showing compassion to an offending party. I know that when God shows me mercy, He chooses not to punish me in the manner in which I truly deserve. I think the factors that contributed to my image of God as loving and merciful are the episodes in my life that contributed to how and where I am now. These include all the ups and downs I experienced and continue to experience in life, together with all the people surrounding me who serve as points of reference and inspiration to fight and continue. They have shown me love and mercy in times when I needed it the most, and that helped me to realize that the presence of God that is loving and merciful is indeed in my life. I learned that whenever I am faced with troubles and it seems that God isn't around, it doesn’t mean he is not around but rather it is the time that he either carries me, embraces me or in front of me to protect me from all the evilness that surrounds me. In twenty-one years of existing, experiencing a roller-coaster ride-like-life for having a broken family, I can say that life can be very manipulative especially in times when no one can answer and explain everything that is happening around me, particularly to me. And I believe that it is only through my God that is loving and merciful I coped up with. Him being loving and merciful, I was granted by him the things I needed to get back right again such as chances and opportunities, courage and knowledge and all the other beautiful things, which helps me as of today to succeed in attaining an examined life. (For God as a creator) I believe that God created everything. My reason for believing is that we, human beings, are left in the fact that the universe had a beginning and it was not a natural cause. It is in my belief that a perfect universe can only be made by someone who is capable of attributing energy and power, as well as ability that is stronger and greater than it, as to describe something supernatural. Meaning there was a supernatural creator that caused the universe and the best possible thing one can imagine. The concept of supernatural equates to having an attribute of being “super” and “superb”, this could mean that the creator of the universe possesses perfection and superiority compared to all his other creations. If we are to examine the involvement of the evidence of motion, it implies that every moving thing needs a mover. If we were to look at the notion of efficient cause, we can tell that there must be a cause for such effects of things that we are seeing and experiencing in the world. If we analyze that the existence of all things does not owe its existence to itself, that there exist gradations in things wherein the existence of such gradations, it will imply that there is an existence of an Absolute Being as a fixed starting point and lastly, when we look at the behavior of things in the world, we can observe how grandeur it is. With those existing reasonings, one can tell that there exists a first mover, first efficient cause, first necessary being, absolute being and lastly a grand designer. And I believe that all of that pertains to one possible being which is God. God is the only possible being who can be labeled as the unmoved mover, the first cause as the beginning of everything happening, the absolute being as starting point of absolute existence, the grand designer who is the director of all actions and processes and lastly, the necessary being to account for all existence. By believing that God is a creator and he created everything, I meant to say that this includes all the things and all other possible things that one can imagine and or possibly could exist beyond imaginations. Being a creation of God, it is my belief that my intelligence, talent and skills came from God and were not of my own making that I just developed. It is because I came from nothing and I have no other source to get talents and knowledge for my own to develop aside from my God who created me. That is why it is justifiable to say that what is within me is his gift to me. The fact that I choose to do good with it such as to maximize and develop it to its maximum and or greater potential to use for a greater good can be perceived as my gift to him as for being grateful.