WhatIsReligion

A group of friends discuss how religion affects their personal lives. Some feel that religion doesn't impact their daily lives much, but they appreciate the sense of community and shared values it provides. Others find that religion helps establish their morals, gives them peace, and regulates their emotions. Some prefer a spiritual approach rather than following a specific religion. They debate the concept of being chosen by God and the importance of personal relationship with God. Overall, they value spirituality and believe that living a good life is more important than religious affiliation. Hi, I'm Naomi Bonilla, and I've gathered some friends with me today to talk about how religion affects our personal lives. If you guys want to introduce yourselves. I'm Stephanie, I'm 20, and I believe, I guess closest to Christianity, I believe in the Lord. I'm Jonathan, I guess I'm just a spiritual person, not really any religion in particular. I'm 21. I'm Jared, I'm 22. I have a background, I'm Catholic, I grew up like that, and I feel like I'm agnostic right now. And as I introduced myself before, I'm Naomi, I am 20 years old, and I grew up in a Christian household, but I would consider myself agnostic at this point. Alright, so let's get into it. So my first prompt that I asked them to write about was how or if religion affects our daily lives. So I'll start. For me personally, I don't think religion really affects my life, other than the fact that my parents practice it, and so I'm surrounded by it. But in my day to day, I do not really reach out to a higher power, nor do I really consider a higher power. I have attached a lot of my beliefs, I guess, to Christianity, but not so much as where I follow it word for word, but a lot of the values I do keep with myself. Yeah, I don't know. It mainly has to do with just being kind to those you don't know, and not judging other people because we all have our own things that we go through. So who are we to go outside of ourselves and make ourselves big just to have a negative opinion on somebody who we don't know. How religion affects my daily life. I would say that it does affect my daily life. It really helps establish my morals and keeps me grounded to who I want to be, to the type of person I want to grow up to be or express. It affects how I view and treat others, how I view situations, how I handle situations, how I handle my day to day life. I think going off of that, it's kind of similar. It's just how people around me, like religion affects the people around me because a lot of people that I'm around believe in Christianity. It essentially lays out social cohesion, as in people sort of have similar morals because of the way they grew up. I get that treatment and I sort of have to give that treatment back because it's kind of socially acceptable in that way. I don't know. Religion doesn't really affect my daily life. I find myself being more of a spiritual person rather than religious. Besides my grandparents being very religious people, I end up believing in that. It's not really something I follow through with. Yeah, I kind of agree with that point. I also don't agree in the religion base. I feel like I just feel mine more spiritually, especially through my church. I know that we don't like to believe that we are a religion. We only like to call ourselves the believers of God and believers of the Lord because that's what we are. I guess my biggest thing as to why I consider Christianity a religion is because they follow a doctrine and even though there are a lot of different ways to interpret the Bible, the recovery version, the new American version, the King James version, all the different interpretations of the Bible, it's just I've had a lot of different opinions. I've heard a lot of things from everybody who have expressed their beliefs to me as I grew up and I felt like there was a lot of contradiction in their beliefs. The one thing that I guess always continued was to read the Bible. But in that, how it changed, I guess, was that reading the Bible became a chore. Not for me, but for everybody. It was more of like, this is something to read, to be able to connect with God, to speak with God, to connect to your spirit. And I guess that was something that I never felt was really like, I'm talking to God. I felt like it was more of like a personal interpretation, which had its benefits to me because I was able to look inwardly on how I treated people around me and how I even treated myself in my own opinions and beliefs. But, I don't know, I think that was one of the bigger things for me that's hard is like, the church. Just because we're all human beings and I don't really understand the goal and I guess I don't have the relationship with God that everybody else had around me, so it also kind of deterred my relationship also because I didn't think that I really wanted one. I think what deterred me from religion when we were growing up was, I think you mentioned this to me, is everybody else just seemed to connect easier to God than I was. And so it just kind of shut me down. It made me feel like there was no point in trying. You know, like if everybody else can do it and I can't, is there something He's trying to tell me? Right. Yeah, because that was like a big thing also, like going, like even like in the past year, going to those conferences where it's like they're talking about the end times, right? The Lord's coming back and everything and how not everyone is chosen. And that was another thing that was really hard for me to grasp was the fact that not everyone is chosen. How can someone who is above all not choose everybody who He has created? It just doesn't seem fair when not everybody has the same access to God as I did. So it's like if not everyone is chosen, I don't know if I want to be. Yeah, but at that same point, He gives us free will to choose Him as well. So we can't really expect Him to choose everybody when not everybody is choosing Him. And if you don't choose Him, how do you expect to get the reward that He's willing to give if you don't want it, if you're trying to do everything to get away from Him? I guess it's like that. I don't want it. I don't think I've ever, I think I've only ever asked for like protection. And I guess I've gotten it. And I don't know if I've ever really deserved it. And I think that was like, the hard part is like, oh, well, you don't deserve it, because you're a fallen man, because of Adam and Eve, you'll never fully deserve it. And it's like, why, why do I have to pay for something that I didn't choose? Oh, but now I get to choose. But it's different now, because I had a different life before God became real to me. And now I've, I don't know how to explain this. It's not so much that I'm upset with God. I'm not upset with God. I think, like I've said this before, probably multiple times, me and God are good, you know, I don't feel the need to reach out. He's like a long distance friend, you know, like, if anything, we'll always pick up where we were. Worst case, I just don't see the need to continually practice. And that's why I feel like it's a religion, not so much a relationship, because relationships can last with distance. It's just, why do I have to go out of my way to worship this person who doesn't really feel real to me? I know. Like, I love the church, I love the people there, but I just can't do what they do. It's not the same for me. Next prompt is, how or if, explain how or if religion is important to you, and if not, why? I think it's important in my day-to-day life, just because the people around me find closure in the way they live their lives. Personally, I have my own set of belief systems, I guess, or like, I don't really believe into anything set. But I see that people around me have questions and they find answers in their religions, right? So, in that way, I think it's important to me because it's nice that people around me don't feel lost. And even if I don't need that, it's great that they have that. Well, how my belief for God is important to me is because, generally, he helps me a lot in finding peace in things that I cannot control. I know there's a lot of uncertainty in this life, and there's many things that are out of my hands, and it helps me kind of take that guilt away of, if something goes wrong, it wasn't my fault. That he did it for a reason, it was him, everything was planned, and everything happens for a reason. And also, it's very important to me because it helps me regulate my feelings, my emotions, knowing what's right or wrong, knowing how I react to things, my morals, my future. I struggle with bipolar, and it's kind of hard to establish which emotions are real sometimes. And then being able to go with him to calm down and find peace and find that clarity is very important to me, and I feel like he genuinely helped me with that. And it's something that I really hold important to my life. I don't personally find religion important. It's more maybe like the aspects of religion that they talk about is important. I find more of the spiritual aspect to be important. From some experience that I have had recently, I learned that we just need to take care of ourselves spiritually. We don't have to necessarily believe in a religion, but as long as we're being spiritual, being clean, good, and we believe, as long as we're not our own gods, we'll be okay. So to me, it's not a matter of whether religion is important, but whether your spiritual being is important to you. As long as it's important to you, then you're going to be living at least a decent life. I feel like one thing that I really agree with is that God is in you, and how you live your life is how God expresses himself through you. I know there are horrible people on this planet, and they've made really bad decisions, right? So it's like really the question is, do they have God? I don't know. I think everybody has a little bit of God, and I feel like that God is just your conscience, really. What you think your morals are, what you know is right and wrong. I feel like off of that, it's whether or not you decide to grow on your little piece of God that determines whether or not you'll turn out to be a good person or a bad person. Right. But that was another thing that's hard for me about growing up Christian, is that they tell you, you can't just be a good person in order to reap the benefits of heaven. You need to give yourself to God, you need to be baptized, you need to die to yourself. Which I agree with, in the sense where we do need to die to ourselves. We can't just have our own beliefs and think that that's correct, just because that's all we've known our whole life. That is something that I feel like humans struggle with, when we have certain behaviors that we've known, and they've been comfortable to us, we kind of like to stay there, because it's easier than trying to grow out of it. I can argue that religion itself is that. A lot of people find comfortability in that, and a lot of people are not open-minded to explore other things. Right. That's why I don't like to think that one religion is correct, because there's fundamentally evil people in all of religion. There's a lot of arguments against Muslims, because Muhammad himself married young women, and younger than what we would consider a consenting age, and multiple women. But then you have to think of Mormons, they have multiple wives, and you have to think of certain other religions. I feel like we all kind of come from the same place, but we're all trying to prove each other wrong, and that creates a lot of division. Especially for that, I think that was more of the time kind of thing. Things that are acceptable definitely change. Now, people are like, if you're an adult, you can't date anyone under 18. That definitely wasn't the rule back then. As time changes, the rules change, and the interpretations of the Bible will change, because that's what they've been doing over time. It's things that are sort of, and it'll keep affecting. I think also going back to the same point, how it affects your daily life, is gender roles. It sort of establishes that. Right. And it's one of those things that, for some people, they find that it helps, but other people find that it really goes against how society should be. Right. I feel like it's very limiting for a person to be told that, because you were born of this sex, you are this gender, and so therefore, you must follow these rules. If you're a woman, you need to be softer, you need to be kinder, you need to be caring, right? And with that, it's like, you're not supposed to take on the heavy load, and it's like, what about the people who have to? Then are they not being a woman? It's like, I don't know, I just feel like there's a lot of contradiction, and I just feel like it's, like I said, limiting. It's not so much that, if you want to abide by these roles or whatever that we have established societally, you may. I feel like every human being should be able to do what makes them feel like themselves. And that's my biggest issue with a lot of religion, is that man and wife, right? There has to be a woman role, there has to be a male role, and I guess in everything there should be that balance, but I don't know if it's always deemed based on the sex you were born in, what role you fall into. Or even who you were attracted to, kind of thing. It plays a lot into that. I personally think it also affects, even the smaller things, like the way you dress. Women, for a while, they had to dress modestly, or what was considered modestly by men. Religion has portrayed a lot of the leading roles, I guess, as men, so this affects the way people see things. Adam, one of the things, he was created by God, and Eve was made from Adam. For him. For him. So that's one of those things that has affected society as we live today, and people consider, especially more in less socially open places, they think that women do have to be on the side of men, and not have the power as men do, kind of thing. I feel like it's really up to the person to figure out what they think is right or wrong, or even just who they want to be, and I just feel like the hard part about religion is that a lot of the time there's a quota, or it feels like a standard, I guess is a better word, that you have to meet in order to be considered a Christian or Catholic. Or whatever your denomination may be. I think it's better now, better than ever, that we have the ability to share these thoughts and even go against them, and having people who are acceptable, they accept what you believe in things. Okay, but I also think that religion affects your class, or it did over time. I think back then, especially people who had power, they used religion to hold power. Let's say, there's a thing called divine power, and also in dynasties, they believed that people who were richer were favored by God, so therefore they should have the power. Like kings, that's one of the things, a lot of the times they were considered, like the royal family was considered to be chosen by God, so that's why they had that holy backing. As we continue that, people wouldn't go against them because you're doing something that's ecological, and why would you want to go against your own religion? But didn't that cause the whole Martin Luther, I forget the number of things he called against the Roman Catholics, because they used their religion to suppress their people, or not suppress, but control them, because law, if you think of just law in itself, how many people follow the law? 100%, right? Not a lot of people, but if you are God-fearing, you are more inclined to follow your religion because you fear what God thinks of you, because not everybody can see that you break the law, not everybody can see that you disrespect the law, but God sees everything. So it creates this guilt in you to stay following this religion because you fear what happens next, and I think that's a whole thing. Is that what you feel? You feel that fear? Yeah, I feel not so much fear, but I feel like I've grown up with a lot of shame in who I am, and I don't want to blame God, maybe it's just my own mental illnesses that do this to me, but I always felt like I wasn't good enough, I wasn't meeting that standard, I wasn't the person that God wanted me to be, and that caused me to spiral down a lot of bad decision-making, which affected a lot of my relationships with even my family members, and even just with myself, like long-lasting things that have not entirely gone away, but I have been slowly healing from, but not necessarily through God, and that's, I guess, my biggest thing. Like what Johnny was saying, you know, taking care of your spirit is the most important thing out of everything. How you take care of your spirit is your decision, and what makes you happy is what you know, right? But it's like, for me, I think just even calling on God's name, like that is enough. I don't think I need to go out of my way to praise and sing and read, like those things aren't values to me, and that's the reason why I don't want to label myself a Christian. It's because I know that there are Christians out there who are for God, and I feel that I'm for myself, and that's something that's been really hard for me to do, because I felt that I was disrespecting somebody who deserved all of my respect. But in that, I was also disrespecting myself, because it never felt like I was doing it for me. I felt like I was doing it because of the judgments of the people around me. I didn't want to be different from them, but I always felt that I was. Yeah, when it came to growing up with religion and being involved in my daily life, it really did put a lot of pressure on me to have to be perfect. And in return, it ended up failing me quite a bit. I let down through a lot of issues. Yeah, I guess that's why I turned more into more of a spiritual person rather than a religious person. I feel like as long as I'm good in my spirit, I'm good with myself, then everything will be okay. There's no need to worry about what will happen or what's going to happen, because it'll turn out fine. Yeah, I don't know. I don't like that thing of religion. I've never actually thought about it. Because I don't know if you guys know from our church, yeah, there's Christian. And then we say Christian because people, when they ask, it's Egypt, but people don't understand. It's like a non-denomination. And if you read the Bible, actually read the Bible and see the points that God makes and the way that He talks to you, I guess in my belief, the way that I was taught is that we aren't perfect. We aren't. And there's nobody left to condemn us but Him. And He won't, because He literally died for us, in the cross for us, just so He could get rid of all our sins, because He knew we were going to sin. We were born into this world, like the way I was taught. We were born into this world with sin. That's already part of our blood. He knew that, and He knew all the sins that we were going to make. If He had condemned us for it, I don't think He would have died for it. I don't think if He knew everything and He wanted to condemn us for it, I don't think He would have gone through the process of coming down to earth, living life as a man, going through all the things that we went through, just to condemn us. He literally did it so He could save us through it. So that aspect of religion, all that negativity where you have to be perfect, you have to meet a standard, that's more of a social thing, I feel like, or a religious thing, I guess. I don't really see, I don't know, I can't differentiate the belief or the spirituality or the religion. I just don't see, I guess in the religion that I was taught, the beliefs that I was taught, that's not how it is, because He isn't supposed to be judging us. He's supposed to be redeeming us from our sins, because He knows we're sinful. And I guess that negative aspect of what He was saying from the beginning, I remember there were times where we weren't even allowed to read the Bible, only the priests were allowed to read the Bible, especially through Catholicism, and they were the ones that altered the Bible and changed it so their beliefs could be enforced through their church. So I guess there's also that thing there. I mean, that starts first because people couldn't read, right? But then people have that. They see that power and then take advantage of it. There were times when there were things like, oh, if you pay this money, you'll save yourself, right? People were taking advantage of all that power that Catholicism had in the past, especially since the law and the religion back then, they were interconnected. It was just how it worked back then. So it was that kind of thing where people in power took advantage of the religion aspect of things, and religion took advantage of the power that the government had. And I think now Catholicism argues that those were the times, and now it's different because religion is on by itself. If you're Catholic, you choose to be Catholic, you choose to donate. It's not government-sponsored. It's not the law as it was in the past. That's the difference. But I mean, a lot of the things that were set in motion back then still stand today. Just how people socially live their life. They can't do one thing because they're going to go to hell, or whatever. The fear aspect was established back in that day. I think it depends. It's one of those things where how life is going affects how you interpret religion. One of the biggest things that I saw in the past was the Nile. Egyptians, they saw it as being grateful to God and everything. They're gods, I mean, because food was easy to come by. But then you go back to Mesopotamia and stuff like that, the area is harsher to live in. People had trouble more to live by. And then they interpret it as God being back to them and condemning. It's just the regional aspect effect of the religion that you saw. I think this is also why being shameful, that was how I think Mesopotamians felt. Because they're like, we're doing something wrong, so we're getting all this bad stuff. But I feel like taking the word religion out of this, I feel like territories are just territories. People settle down in different places and that's how it is. I believe that it affects today because now we still see that aspect of things are going bad because of God. A lot of people use that to affect the agenda of how things should be going. I guess I don't really like religion. I always think it's weird because religion is what makes people, I guess, give them security. We have to be this way, we have to be perfect. And everybody else is doing it in the church. I don't think religion is important to me because to me it's more of a personal experience with the Lord, with God. It's a personal relationship like you said earlier. It's a relationship that we have to build, a relationship that we have to have. And I don't understand how anybody else's opinion at all matters. And if that's what religion is, then I don't agree in religion either and I don't hold it important to me. The only thing that I hold important to me, I guess, is my spirituality and my belief to God because I know that my relationship with Him is one-on-one. I don't think I want to hold anybody else's opinion if that's what religion is. I don't think I want to hold anybody else's opinion to what my relationship is with God. Yeah, I feel that. I think going back to the spirituality aspect, I agree with you 100% on that. The relationship, it should matter only to you, your relationship with God. I believe in God, right? A version of God, my God, is different from my Father's God. And I think that's the hard part for me because I think how my family is, they're very much involved in the church. Like my grandfather, my father, all of them, they're big parts and they want to be more and more involved in the church because this is who they are, yeah? For me, I don't really like being around people in general and I think what's hard about the church is that growing up, all I felt were eyes judging me. And so I made a point to try and not, like I'm not going to say I'm perfect and I never judge anybody else. I do. But I guess my point more is just that I can't judge other religions mainly because I don't even, I don't have one. Everybody has their own relationship with the universe, God, Allah even, right? Whatever name you give to this person, to this power above you, even if you think of them as a person, even if you think of them as just this entity. Like for me, I like to say the universe or God because He is everything, right? He can make everything. He has all of the tools within Himself, right? And that's why I think that we are all like, since we all have God in us, that makes us part of God. We all have the tools within us to figure things out, to get through the hard stuff that is in front of us. And it's a constant growth. It's a constant growth. As long as we choose to constantly grow our spirit, we should live the life that is most comfortable for us, even with the hard stuff that happens. Life isn't comfortable. Life will never be comfortable. How would you connect that to how it affects society today, though? How it affects society is, well, religion. Religion is what people think spirituality is, a lot of the time, to someone who is an atheist, to someone who never grew up in the church life. They see everything as religion. But it's really just the way you practice your daily life. But I feel like an atheist, they also have their sets of morals, you know? Right. I don't know. I feel like just religion itself causes just that big divide of everybody has their own opinions, everybody wants to do their own thing and be right, and that's cool. You do you. But why does there have to be such a divide? I think it definitely affects how things go. Because now, if you think of Israel and Palestine, Israel is interpreted as their holy land, and Palestine, the people who have been living there for a while, it's all questionable. Yeah, it's a lot of politics. Yeah, it's a lot of politics. But then a lot of people actually put religion into it, too, which is why it's such a divide. Like our parents. Yeah, but also that thing which is the Bible being used in many religions. Why is that such a divide? Because we're all reading the same book and we're all following the same advice. But the thing is, when it comes to religion, there's a lot of parts of literature that are taken out depending on the denomination that you are. There's different versions of the Bible out there. Some have more books, some have less books. The general 66 is what everybody knows, but there are some added ones to different religions. There's also some literal translations rather than metaphorical translations. So there's kind of a great divide in between. I mean, there's even a divide just in what in the Bible should be in the Bible. Because there are books that have been written by people who have first-hand accounts that aren't even in the Bible. So everything with religion is already up for debate as is in its own territory. So to just branch out of that, everything's going to end up being more of a divide as you keep going. We're talking about scrolls that were found in a cave. So it's hard to decipher what we should believe and what we shouldn't believe. Referencing to the Bible, one thing that I feel like I've related to the most is the story of Jacob. The second born of twins wasn't chosen to receive all the benefits of God or his father. God is kind of like, sorry, I misspoke. So basically, there's twins. I forget the brother's name, so I'm not super well-versed in the Bible. This is what I remember. Basically, he was second born, holding his brother's ankle. So almost racing to be first. Since he was not the first born, as you know, the first born son is the one who receives all of what the father has when he passes. And so things happen where his father loses his, I think it was Isaac. Basically, his whole life is just a dealing with. And that was something that always touched me, even in my lowest point of spirituality, where it's that our life, we are constantly being dealt with. We're constantly going through hard things to grow from them. But it's our choice to grow from them. But the hard part is, am I choosing God or am I choosing to be better? And is that choosing God? I just feel like there's so much more to it than just reading the Bible. Reading the Bible is essential to understanding the Bible. You can't just say you know everything about Christianity because of your opinion. You have to read the Bible in order to at least know what you don't believe about it. And I think for me, even when I did read the Bible a lot, it wasn't always for the spiritual aspect. It was to learn about God. I don't know everything, but this is my experience. Yeah, I don't know if you need to add something to that speech. Agreed. Do we want to do the final prompt of the outer thing that helps us think about our own belief? Yeah, so you want to read the prompt. Okay. The prompt was, write something small about another religion that you find interesting that affects your spirituality. Something that I find interesting, I mentioned this earlier about Catholicism and how I find it interesting that we find, well not the Catholic Bible, I know that we don't read the Catholic Bible, but there's verses in there and they're still the same things, just the way that they choose to follow it. And how it affects my spirituality, I'm going to say I grew up Catholic. I did grow up in that aspect. I had to go to the schools and I had to get baptized and all that stuff. And then that thing about confessing your sins, that you can only do it to a person in Catholicism, to one person. You have to go and you have to confess your sins to someone. I feel like that affected me spiritually because there's always that guilt of confessing your sins, confessing something that you did wrong and having to go to someone to do it. Made it ten times worse than having to, I don't know, someone genuinely listen to me. Like a person, someone that I don't know. And I guess that's what I appreciate about my beliefs is that we don't have to go to anybody to confess our sins, that we can just talk to God and do it ourselves. It's not like we have to face anybody else that has nothing to do with what we did. Right. I think one thing that I can relate about the spirituality of Christianity is the whole prayer, right, to meditation. And reading as a spiritual and physical labor could be defined as preaching your beliefs to other people. That could be considered a physical labor. But I'm relating this to, I guess, Buddhism. And I wrote down their three main beliefs or values. And I guess I'll read them. So the first one. And again, I got this off of the internet. So I don't want to offend anybody who is Buddhist. This is just my interpretation of what I've read. So everything in life is impermanent and always changing. Because nothing is permanent, a life based on possessing things or persons doesn't make you happy. And there's no external unchanging soul and self. It is just a collection of changing characteristics or attributes. So basically Buddhism is the belief that the human life is one of suffering. And that meditation, spiritual and physical labor, and good behavior are ways to achieve enlightenment and nirvana. And this is something that is very related to my personal belief and how I've grown in my spirituality. It has a lot to do with suffering. But it's what we do with how we suffer that makes us who we are. We could either fall into this victim mentality, how could this have happened to me? What did I do to deserve this? It's everyone else's fault that I'm this way. Or we could see it as, this happened to me, but I don't want to be why it happened to me. I want to be what makes me avoid this in the future. Like if you think of like, I don't want to put my parents on blast right now. But it's like a lot of what happened when I was younger affected my self image. And it affected how I wanted to make everyone happy and please them. But then I got to a point where I no longer felt that I was. So I went down a route of, how can I make myself happy? And being young, I didn't know any real way other than God and prayer and reading the Bible. Which is all things that I had done since my youth. Consistently or not, I had done it frequently for times, right? And I guess like, my point is just, my parents were the way they were. Agree with it or not, I love them. And I went through things that I feel like no child should really have to go through. And so I can either be upset about this and blame my parents for this emotion that I have. Or I can just see the issue that I don't agree with and try to practice something different with my own children. Right? I feel like I lost my point. But, I don't know. Like the value that there's no external unchanging soul or self is just, it's very true. Because it shouldn't be. You shouldn't never change. You shouldn't never grow. Especially if your life is difficult. I think that's the most beneficial way for you to grow. To avoid being what hurt you. That was my point. Thank you. So I also believe that like, I don't know, I think like, you know, other religions, right? Or, because like, you said the problem was other religions, right? Yes. So I guess I don't really consider myself like, like, Catholic, right? I just grew up like that. But my question on it was, I mean, like, I think it affects us, you know, in our daily lives. Just in the way technology moves. I think it really took, like brought us back. You know, I think, yeah. Because I believe that, you know, if you were, especially took us back in like, you know, aspects of biology. You know, people couldn't look at things because it was like sacrilegious. You know, you're questioning God in his ways. You know, like when Huck was discovering like cells, you know, when he like, he was looking at like sperm. Because he had to make an excuse that it just fell in there. Because if he didn't, he would have been like, he would have been taken off of the religion. Because it was, what was the, they excommunicate you, I think. I think that's a thing. I think that's a thing. So essentially what they did was that he essentially had to make that excuse to further science. You know, you look back at like the most famous example of that, you know, Galileo. You know, he couldn't like, he was like looked down upon because he thought like, you know, the sun was in the center, you know. And just things like that, you know, it brought like science back a lot. I think that's how it really does affect us, like now. I feel like one thing, like going off of that, what affects like current society about religion is like, like I said before, kind of how religion becomes a standard. I mean, we all pretty much said this. That because of the non-understanding of a spiritual belief, we call it religion. Because a lot of us don't truly understand our own spiritual beliefs, right. And so what divides us in that is that we go about our life either just being completely separate from our inner self, or we have this idea that what we're believing is all true. And so we neglect others different from us. And that's my biggest issue with religion, and especially the religion of Christianity in political senses, where they can use their political beliefs to control those who are different from them. And that's something that I can't follow. I mean, I'm sure it's other religions, right. It's just that this is the one that you're like. Well, and you have to think. Well, you have to think, yeah. Especially with like abortion bills and like stuff like that. Like if you engage in marriage, why do you even marry that? Or even if you think of interracial marriage, that had to become legal. Why? Why? I mean, like not everyone's going to believe in the same religion, so why enforce it in the law, you know? Right. Like in the First Amendment, we have freedom to religion, we have freedom to speech, we have freedom to press. We have these quote-unquote freedoms, but because of past legislation, now we have to go through all of these steps to just have our own basic human rights to express ourselves. To love who we want to love. That's our truth. Anything else? No, I mean, religion's a hard topic, especially in the age that we're in with technology. Right. It moves fast, so we just have to be careful with what we do and what we say, especially in terms of religion. Yeah, I think as like science, like, you know, advanced in industrialization, people were more open-minded to different things, and I think that's why, actually, social norms were able to be affected in the way that they are now. That's the only reason we're actually open to, like, you know, liking who we like, you know, dressing how we want. You know, that wasn't a thing, but because of religion, you know. I think many people, like, are more open-minded to different things, and I think that's why, actually, social norms were able to be affected in the way that they are now. I hold religion as, like, all means to everything, and I think that affected us, you know. It really affected the way society was just moving. Yeah. I have a question for everybody, and I think this will be kind of our final thing, unless anybody else wants to ask a question first. Why don't you go first? Okay. Who is God to you? Or, yeah, who is God to you? Because, right, we talked about how, like, spirituality is a personal relationship with ourselves, with God, with the universe, right? But who is God to you? Who is the universe to you? Who are you to you, based off of what you believe? Okay, so... I have a quick question. Well, I think of, you know, this is kind of weird, you know. I think, like, I saw this in the Mark and Oliver story, you know. It's like people, I know it's insane, but, you know, people were, like, scared of the afterlife, so religion came to be. People were scared for, like, bad people. They were scared of bad people, so they created hell, you know. I think... Can you repeat your question? Sorry. Who is God to you? Okay, so I think God to me is sort of, I don't know, he's not really there. Because a lot of people consider, like, God as a person, right? That's something very humanistic, you know. I think, very, like, egocentric, I think. You know, we think of God being like us, just because we think we're this great thing. And I think if there is a God, he's not even, like, you know, human. Because we think, oh, we're in the image of God, and God is in the image of us, or whatever. That kind of thing. Like, we're like him. I don't think God is, like, should be, like, put to those standards. If he does exist, right? But, to me, like, God is just what exists. I don't really, like, consider him to have, like, an agenda over things. So, like, from nature? Yeah, so, like, I think if we, like, die, if we die, there's, like, nothing. That's just how things are meant to be, kind of thing. I think God is just everything that exists. And, yes, that's the process of things. I really don't consider, like, you know, like, if Jesus happened, I think it's okay. Like, I think it's just, like, interpretation of things that occurred in the past. I don't really know if that's the way to go. But, I just think of God as everything that's happening. Like, you know, even, like, a lot of my, I go to a university that is backed up on religion, sort of. It's based on religion. And they, a lot of the people have a lot of, like, Jesus and stuff. But, like, one of the people who I agree with is, like, my math teacher. You know, he believes that, like, numbers and everything, it's, like, that's, like, God. They don't really think of God as a human, a human mystic person, you know. And I've had that belief. Everyone's, like, I'm, like, what is God, kind of thing. So, that's, like, I don't really, like, worry about anything. I just know that if things are meant to be, they're meant to be. I don't hold guilt or anything in that way. What do you guys feel? Whatever you were saying that you felt in the past. Well, yeah, kind of going off of that, I feel like God is, like, what he said, God is his own thing. God is God. Like, to me, he is God. God is God. He's his own thing. God is God. Like, I don't know. And also, like, in a way, like, he's my, he's my, what is it? My companion. He's my friend. Like, I talk to him. I feel like I genuinely have a personal connection with him. And to me, God is God. God is the creator of the universe. God is the creator of all things. Of everything, like you said. Everything that's been made, nature. That's what I think God is. God is the creator of us. God is my companion, my friend. Someone that I could go to. That's what God is to me. To me, I think God is just whoever you decide God is. He could be a friend. Who is he to you? To me, he's just the world around me. He's the world that I live in. God's the creator of everything. That implies that God would be everything. Right. I mean, it says in the Bible that we're made in the image of God. So then I would think that we're made of God. And God's made out of, God said that we're made out of the earth. So he's got to be made out of the earth. So to me, to me the world is God. We're living, we're living with God here in the world right now. Yeah. Yeah. But then there's the question of why isn't it all perfect if God is perceived as this perfect being. In my mind, I don't think he's perfect. I think, I think my opinion on that is that we, we're, we choose ourselves. We choose what perfection is. You know, perfection is so like not a thing in like nature. It's just a thing. Things just happen. You know, we want things to be perfect. But in the end of the day, they're just like, they're just things that happen. No matter how they affect us, we believe them to be imperfect. Yeah. You know, I think that's also like one of those like egocentric human like aspects that we have. That like we want like things just to be the way they suit us. That's why I really don't think that like God is like us, like in our lives. And I think, you know, he just is. You know, I don't think he's in our lives though. That's my, I think that's how I diverge from you guys. I think it's just like, I think, you know, me, I'm alone. Chemicals happening and things. Sure. And that's been called DNA, technically connected. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, but that's, it's like, yeah, I think it's just happening though, you know. Like the DNA has its own sort of like, like rule set that it's just been following you to produce it. You know, that's how we have to take it. You know, it's natural selection. I think it's just what happened. It just happened to happen, you know. Sure. Yeah, I think that's what she said. Why isn't everything perfect? If we, if you are going to choose like to believe in God, and I'm not going to say religion, whatever. Whichever religion you believe in, in mind, that we believe in God. Then that also means that we have to believe, to believe in demons. Because demons are real and demons are here on this earth. That's where he sent them. So if bad things happen, it isn't all because of God. It's because demons were fallen angels. Angels that God created that decided to betray God. It's not, it's like he, I guess in a way he created them, but not really. But if we are going to believe in a God, we have to believe in demons and in the evil that is in the world. And that doesn't mean that, that is part of God. Right. But also, I think going against that, Lucifer. I didn't read Revelation, so I don't know everything about it. But what I do know is that he wanted to be like God. Right? And that's what started it. Go ahead. He wanted to be like God in the sense of that egocentric feeling of he wanted control of the world. That's the way he wanted to be God. He wanted to have control over the world because he thought God had control of the world. God created it. The way he has control. There was an interpretation of that's just pure veneration. That's the reason why he did what he did. Because he venerated him the way he did. Whatever, he thought that's the way to life. He made him so beautiful. I think there's a lot of layers to that aspect, which I don't know if we really can do. Yeah, that's a different sort of question. But I guess God to me, he is a person. I think he is a father just as much as he is a mother, just as much as he is a child. He is in us. He is out of us. I can see God in my family. I can see God in all of you. Whether or not you believe in it at all, the spiritual aspect of it. I think it's a lot bigger than what we can comprehend being human. I've had a lot of experiences with my spirituality and a lot of different opinions of just myself. I think acceptance of self is a really big part of accepting the world around you and accepting the faults in humans. I think that in itself is a version of God. It's like God isn't just a person, he's also an idea. He is supposedly love, but I don't want to say that my God is the Christian God. I'll never say that. My God is my God alone, and I don't think anybody will ever see God the way I see God. All I can do is be open to seeing, to even just getting a point of view of how God is from other people. That's why I wanted you guys here today, because I wanted to see what God really meant to you and how he's influenced you. Or even how the universe has influenced you to your current belief system. Going back to the topic of how it affects your daily life or your personal life, most cultures have religion or religious practices or just their own specific values that make their culture different. I want my culture to be love, and if that means that I have God in me, then that means that I have God in me. But I don't want it to be limited by a person. I want it to be everlasting and ever flowing, but also when you think of how I grew up, that's how they see God. I don't know, it's a very difficult topic to talk about because it's so specific to the person. It's so broad and broad. Thank you guys for being here. Any last comments or questions? I don't know if we can take it now.