One of the most difficult issues, with which I have to personally deal as a teacher, is the student who enters my Grade 9 Religion class at the age of fourteen already an avowed atheist. While I have come to expect this from some entering Grade 12 Philosophy, such an attitude in one so young is disconcerting. Usually these students are the youngest (or only) in the family and they have absorbed the ideals and arguments of their ideological parents or university educated elder siblings. They are also more likely to have read or been exposed to writers such as Dawkins, Harris, Chomsky, Sartre, Nietzsche, Marx and others. They also become more entrenched in their ideology as time goes on. Experience has taught me that prayer and patience are the only way we can respond to this entrenchment. We have to pray that God’s Grace can penetrate the hardness of heart and that when the time is ready what we have patiently conveyed academically will take root and grow. It has also made me abundantly aware of how vitally important it is for parents and teachers to express a lively, joyful and well-informed faith to their children and students. True Joy moves the heart to embrace the Person of Jesus. A well-informed Faith protects teenagers from the lies and errors of this age, and allows them to give answer to those peers who need to be evangelized. In light of this need we shall turn our attention to the question of God’s existence. We will approach this from two perspectives: the philosophical and the scientific.
Science, Beauty, Teenagers and the God Question — Integrated Catholic Life™
Science, Beauty, Teenagers and the God Question — Integrated Catholic Life™
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