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Leonarda Gisone December 3, 2016 Inside My Thoughts What are your beliefs? Are you catholic? What church do you belong to? Do you believe in God? Being asked one of these many questions is truly the most frustrating thing ever to me. I believe religion is a social construct formulated by the earliest human societies to ever exist on Earth and continued and evolved as generations and generations of humans populated Earth daily. Ever since the emergence of human societies there has always existed some form of a belief system in which there was some sort of higher being or beings that had more power or control over life than we did. The world around these higher beings was just know as the living and the dead. I believe religion was created as a way to cope with and explain life, death, and the seemingly unexplainable phenomenon that have occurred through time that we can’t simply explain ourselves. At a young age my family enforced religion on my siblings and I due to us being sent to CCD, a religious education program of the Roman Catholic Church, normally designed for children, once a week. I personally always dreaded going to this CCD class because I thought that it was a giant waste of my time every week growing up. Having the Catholic faith being taught to me weekly and then later receiving communion and conformation, I basically had religion involuntary taught to me. I basically had no choice in the matter, being that I was so young. Due to the fact of religion being taught to me since the age of six years old, what I believe in is pretty clear because of how long I have been learning about the Catholic faith. Since my schooling of religion, in CCD, and then later going to a catholic high school, I recognized the meaning of God, but have not found a way to have a strong connection to it like others I know have. Being taught the same thing yearly about God and what he has done for us it became

basically a routine for me. Honestly, it didn’t interest me at all. Seeing people around me have such strong connections to God and the Catholic faith always puzzled me as I was growing up because I never felt that way before. No matter how hard I tried to have faith and understand I never sought interest in it. There are many dogmatic principles that are the basis for many Catholic Church teachings that I have been taught ever since I was little based upon all the schooling I went through. All of these teachings are derived from God, a being that has never even been proven to even exist to us. He has never been documented or seen in a real life perspective, only written down on paper and what is read about Him. People pray to God, they ask God for guidance, they give Him thanks, they talk to Him, yet he has never answered back; he has never responded. Therefore, how does anyone know he exists? How am I supposed to rely on Him for guidance and help? They simply don’t and I simply can’t do that. They basically hope He does hear us and acknowledge us, have faith in His existence so that they have someone to look to or someone to blame for their lives misfortunes. Personally, I’m more of a see it to believe it type of person. It’s very hard for me to have a strong belief and support on something that has never been proven to me. A major factor in my doubts on the concept of God is mainly because he has never been seen only heard about. The only information of Him that are relevant is the one that is written in the Bible and that isn’t a creditable source to me. The concept of God is basically that He is this higher being that exists, and He watches over us, guides us, protects us, and has a wonderful plan for us that we don’t know anything about. God has a plan for us yet he gives us free will, which in my opinion, seems to greatly contradict itself and makes absolutely no sense. He expects us to believe that he has something planned for us, but we get to choose what we do in life with no help from God at all. We are also

taught all throughout life that God loves everyone no matter what we do, that he is the only one that can judge others, and we are all made in his personal image. If we are taught these certain things, then I don’t understand how the Catholic Church can just simply reject the entire gay population for the sole propose that they are gay. I believe that they are born gay and it is not a choice of theirs, therefore they are made in God’s image, but solely because of their sexual preference they are rejected completely. The Catholic Church bashes the gay community and shows no support in it, but then they preach about God creating us in his image. A religion that supports that ideology is not one that I believe has any value or validation. Religion is used as an answer to rely on when there is no evidence or proof of something that is going to happen, for example the idea of death. Everyone knows that one day they are eventually going to die, but no one knows exactly when or what is going to happen to them when they do. There apparently exists a heaven, a hell, and a purgatory and when someone dies their soul goes to either of those places, but is that really the case? There’s absolutely no proof that either of these places exist yet people still believe that such places do. We have had the technology and resources to explore the bottom of the sea and even to travel to Mars, but have yet to explore so called “heaven” or “hell.” If these places really existed we would have been able to explore it with all this new technology that we have in our world today. I believe that people believe in such places because they find comfort in the idea that there is life after death. Everyone is scared of the idea of dying, and sometimes I am too, but people find comfort in knowing where they are going to go when they pass on. But how could you find a place comforting that you’ve never seen or heard creditable information about? It’s hard to accept death especially when someone you are very close to dies, so the idea that your loved one could never really be gone and could be watching over you helps ease the pain. That’s why people

always say that “they’re in a better place now” whenever a close loved one has passed away, but we don’t really know that. Death is a complicated concept, and the Catholic Church seems to have it all figured out with the idea and concept of heaven or hell. How does one know what they have done in order to make it to the great heaven, and how bad do you have to do in life in order to wind up in hell? The concept is mind boggling to me and ever since I was little it always confused me and till this day, it still does. Places like heaven and hell also provide a means of motivation for people to be a good person with good morals in order to get to heaven and avoid hell because in reality no one wants to wind up in hell. This is especially useful now in the modern world when trying to raise children. It’s hard to explain to a child the reason you have to be a good person and nice to people is just because you have to because that’s the way society is. It’s hard to explain to a child the reason for laws is to avoid total anarchy, but it’s very easy to tell a child some higher being called “God” watches you and if you’re a bad person you go to hell but if you’re a good person you go to heaven. The concept is easily grasped by a child and isn’t questioned much because they don’t know much about it. It’s comparable to the idea of Santa. Santa, is a legendary figure that is used to help children behave during the holiday season so “Santa” can bring them gifts under the tree for Christmas. If they’re good, Santa will bring them exactly what they asked for, but if they misbehave Santa will just leave them a pile of coal under the tree. Children believe this because that is what they are told by their parents. Closely similar to the idea of God. You believe what you’re told because at that young age you really don’t know any better. In the teachings of Paul’s Christology, he says that we are justified by grace through faith and not the good works that we perform. I simply just don’t believe in his teachings. Paul preaches in his letter to the Romans that we are saved by the righteousness of Christ. I believe

that there is simply not enough you could do in the world and in life that could make you perfect enough. Nothing I feel is worthy or good enough to go to the so called “heaven” and live a nice peaceful life after you die. I also don’t understand who is the one who testifies for your great faith you have. What determines one great faith over another one? Also, in the teachings of Augustine of Hippo, at first he didn’t want to become Christian because of the things and responsibilities that came with it. Specifically, he didn’t want to convert to Christianity because that would mean that he would have to become celibate and he did not want to do that. It took a single conversion experience for Augustine to become a Christian. His conversion experience was him sitting at a tree and as he sat there he heard a child's voice from a nearby house repeating the words, "pick up and read, pick up and read" and he listened to those voices started to read the Bible. After what he read in the Bible he decided that it was his time and he wanted to convert to Christianity. I like to look at my faith and beliefs as a waiting conversion experience that has yet to come. Maybe one day I’ll be sitting by a tree and want to convert to Christianity. As of right now though I don’t believe strongly enough in order to want to commit to a faith. Maybe one day, probably not anytime soon I’ll have this so called “conversion experience” to convert me over to Christianity and make me want to have a strong faith and belief in God. To sum up, I wouldn't go so far as to call myself an atheist or agnostic, because much of my beliefs have been shaped by religion and what I’ve been taught throughout my whole entire life. God cannot get involved with my everyday activities and things that go on in my life on in my life on a daily basis. I have survived eighteen years without the strong and powerful God and his teachings and I have been perfectly fine. But in the end, the only one that controls my life is me and my conscience not a greater being referred to as “God” in my life. I just question the

religious faith and what is taught because to me in my mind it doesn’t add up or make any sense. I have so many unanswered questions, which leads to my doubts on what it is and how it came about....