Religion and Morality

1. Can Religion and Morality be reconciled? If yes, how? If no, explain why.

Religion and Morality can either be inseparable or two separate things depending
on the situation. Reconciliation of morality and religion usually happens within churches
as it is taught that God’s commandments are meant to be morally right. God’s will be the
moral law and the moral law is the will of God, the essence of morality, according to the
believers. God judges whether an action is morally good or bad, in that way, I can say
that religion and morality act as one. However, there are situations wherein religious
commandments cause confusion as they are usually vague or unspecific. With that,
people are forced to disregard religion and use general rules in specific cases to avoid
misperception. But still, we can say that religion and morality can harmonize or be
reconciled.

2. Based on the movie/novel Silence, if you were one of the Missionaries, what are you
going to do in this situation;
Are you going to abandon your faith in order to save the remaining Japanese
Christians? or Are you going to keep your faith even if it means the execution of
remaining Japanese Christians? Explain, Justify.

James 4:7, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you”. If I were to choose between abandoning my faith to save the remaining
Japanese Christians and keeping my faith even if it means execution, I would choose to
keep my faith, why? Because to die with faith, means dying for God and when you
surrender everything to God, he will never let you down. Never will I ever wish for
someone to die especially if I know that I may be a part of the reasons why they did but I
do believe that dying because of faith is better than dying without it. Moreover, in John
5:28-29, “28 Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the
graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection
of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation”. I do believe in
resurrection so if I were to die, I would love to die as a believer so if the resurrection
happens, I would be with God, I will let the remaining Christians to surrender our lives
with God and avoid condemnation in our second life, which is the longer one. As a
Christian, this is what I want to believe but if I were to be put in that kind of situation
hearing noises of torture done to my co-people, I know that deciding would be hard but
still, I want to believe and surrender everything to God because God is Good. Psalm 34:8
"O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in
Him!"

3. What is your major take away of the Movie/Novel Silence? Expound.

There will be times where our faith is put to test. Times when we don’t know
what to believe anymore, times when we feel hopeless and unsure. Problems will come,
problems that seems impossible to go through and situations where we won’t know what
to do but we have to remember that Psalm 9:10 says that, “Those who know your
name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.”