Loss Of Religious Faith

Joseph Heller added a new definition to the dictionary because of his book Catch-22
So, just to throw it out there Catch-22 means "a frustrating situation in which one is trapped by contradictory regulations or conditions."
And wow, Catch-22 is a motif in Catch-22. Who'd have thought?

-Just as a side note item... It gets difficult to comment on blogs when no one has any done.

So basically loss of religious faith is when you have a strong believe in "God", for example, and gradually you stop your believes due to events taking place in your life. For the chaplain in Catch-22 he is, of course, a religious figure, and is available to soldiers fighting in war. However, as the war drags on he begins to lose his faith, and agreeably, I would too (if I had a faith that is...) because why would "God" allow all these tragedies to take place in a world that he supposedly controls and created.


As you can see, this photo is a picture of a chaplain preaching to soldiers at said time. This represents Catch-22 because throughout the novel the main character, Yossarian befriends the chaplain. In fact, in the very second paragraph Yossarian he "saw the chaplain and fell madly in love with him." (6) The chaplain is there for the soldiers fighting in the war, but towards the end of the novel we see him going against his Anabaptist religion. "The chaplain had sinned, and it was good." (363) Ironically, the chaplain is being charged for a crime. How many times do you see a chaplain being charged for crimes. (Okay... so don't answer that. If you catch my drift...) So the chaplain is being charged for a crime, the only problem is no one knows what it is, not even the officers charging him. However, they claim the chaplain "refused to cooperate with him in conducting prayer meetings in the briefing room before each mission." (384)


On a personal level, I also experienced a loss of religious faith. When I was around six years old, I remember going to church every Sunday with my madre. We moved, and that changed. I guess she just didn't find a new church to go to, because our old one was too far to drive on Sunday mornings. So I was a young kid and I was like "God is good, God is great" and believed what was taught to me in my Sunday school class. However, as I got older, say, around fifth grade, I started learning more and more about evolution, and questioned creationism. To me, evolution just made more sense. In my opinion, evolution just has facts, and is proven. Prove that God exists. Really. The Bible is not logical prove, because anyone could have written it. So there's my fifth grade reasoning. I am not going to go into detail now because that would take too long. In seventh grade I met a good friend of mine, Ariana. Now, she is extremely religious, and would always ask me to go to church with her, and attend youth group functions. I wasn't going to discourage her, so I went along, and she kind of convinced me to have some type of faith. In all seriousness, it was more for our friendship than anything. Today, however, religion doesn't play a part in this, so everything is dandy. We had quite a few arguments over my lack of faith. The turning point in my loss of religious faith was a year later, in eighth grade. Late one night, over winter break, I was informed that my dearest and most loved, almost brother of mine, Kyle, was in the hospital due to a heroin overdose. I really can say I loved him. He was gay so, we had nothing between us other than the closest friendship I'll probably ever have throughout my lifetime.(I had no part in his fall into drug abuse.. and I stopped talking to him for months, until I heard this news. I regret that deeply.) That night, I called Ariana and asked her if she would help me pray for him to make it through. He was around two years older than I was, him being 16 at the time, just weeks before his birthday... So Ariana and I prayed for him to come out of this alright. On January 7th, Kyle died, in his sleep, through the night. His birthday would have been two weeks away. If there is a God, in my opinion, he wouldn't allow someone to die before they get the chance to graduate from high school. He wouldn't allow the Holocaust to happen. He wouldn't allow "His" children to grow up abused and neglected.


In the beginning, there was only one view of how the world was created. Strangely enough, it's known as creationism. If that's all you know, you believe it. However, if you happen to be the odd one who begins to question why, then you stumble upon evolution, and begin using science to find the answer to your question. Charles Darwin, for example, was greatly shunned for his concepts of evolution. His fault was that he was questioning the work of "God." During Darwin's time that creationism was really the only answer, so by questioning how we as humans, or the entire universe, for that matter came into, is going against the work of God. This, of course, was in no way socially acceptable during Darwin's time. The Big Bang Theory is a loss of religious faith because by looking at the universe scientifically, it disproves that God ever existed. Gradually, evolution became more and more acceptable. In a way, almost an entire population lost their religious faith, and began looking at facts. Schools now are generally not allowed to teach creationism, when years ago this was the other way around. Now please, don't get me wrong by thinking I'm bashing your religion, if you have one. I'm not. I have nothing wrong with the believes of others, I'm just simply stating my views.


Denial can be viewed as a loss of religious faith. Due to the targeting of what others believe, their religion may cause them great suffering. Look at the Jewish faith during World War Two. A religion or belief is no reason to target a person, or have them punished, or brutally tortured. Because of their religion, many of the Jews being targeted in the Holocaust tried to deny their religion. Those that could get away with it, that is. However, this wasn't as common as you would think. It seems easy to deny your faith, if it means saving your life. In reality, the Jewish faith was strong enough for many people to continue believing; that this was planned and their God would help them through, perhaps? I won't ever know, I wasn't there, I don't have the faith to believe something so strongly. However, those denying religion to stay alive, in a sense, lost their religion entirely. By denying what they believed they could no longer take part in the same rituals or ceremonies the Jewish religion has. By denying your religion you can no longer hold on to what you have your faith in, and therefore lose what you religion you once might have had.


When forcing your religion onto someone that person might respond with the opposite of what you want. Typically, when an adult, peer, friend, or family member forces something onto you, don't you want to rebel against it? By forcing religion onto someone, you might in turn cause that person to lose their faith in what you're trying to preach. Religion is a tricky subject for most people. There is such a majority of believes in the world that there is no way possible for everyone to believe the same thing. By forcing one certain religious viewpoint you can make someone draw away from it instead.


Citations and such:
http://www.civilwaracademy.com/images/Civil-War-Chaplain.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y228/SgtSlurpy/grim_reaper.jpg

http://nessymon.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/bigbangtheory_s1_early.jpg

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/jcrew2/Denial.png

http://ncronline.org/files/imagecache/leadimage_thumb/womenordain.jpg