Personal Narrative: My Authentic Relationship With Religion

To say my faith life has been completely revamped in the last year would be an understatement. I had views and ideas about faith that seem somewhat vile to me know with the experiences I’ve had. From just lectures to the retreats my spiritual side has gone from that of a holiday catholic to a Campus Ministry Student. From little things to big ethic topics I’ve changed in a multitude of ways, my Spiritual Autobiography looks like looks like someone else wrote it compared to any year before it. I think faith is one of the most important aspects of our life and it took me until last year to realize it.

I am an atheist, but it wasn't always that way. My entire life there was a constant pressure on me to accept that there was a supreme being that created all. Even at a young age I couldn’t bring myself to fully believe this. I continued grasping for straws because, just like every other religious person, I was scared of the “consequences” that would come with not believing. My Non-Denominational Christian Church promoted telling this to everyone, even children.

NYPD Standard Operational Procedure when anyone is transferred: The next day they must report in civilian attire to Health Services Division to take a Drug Screening Test. I was fuming about this involuntary transfer to Internal Affairs in the elevator when it reached the eight floor. Not familiar with Health Services Division, preoccupied by still really being pissed off, I followed a small group into a meeting room with about twenty seats. As I sat down I suddenly noticed these guys didn’t really look like cops. When one of these weird individuals said to me “I ain’t crazy, no matter what they say, I wanna be a cop and I wanna a gun.” I was momentarily confused.

Religious/Spiritual Identity(R): On any given day my own religious/spiritual identity hovers somewhere between atheist and agnostic. However, I was baptized and raised Catholic for the first eight years of my life and I went to church and Sunday school weekly. I made my first confession and communion through this church. When I was a little bit older my Mom decided to start taking us to a Presbyterian church. We went to this church less frequently than we used to go to the Catholic one, but my sister and I still attended a children’s bible study on Wednesday nights and went to services on Sundays with our mom. In addition to these religions, I am also fairly aware of how the Southern Baptist churches operate. In other words, I am familiar with

One Sunday morning I got up and started getting ready for church. I went into my bathroom and started to take a shower into I realized that my water was curtail because I didn’t pay the water bill. So I went out to the whale and got some water to at least brush my teeth and wash my face. After I got done brushing my teeth and washing my face I went into the kitchen and ate a smattering plate of eggs. Then I went into my room picked out my outfit and headed on to church. When I got into the church the pastor asked everyone if the could support the church and I couldn’t inalienable anything. When church ended I, went to get something to eat at old south, while i was eating I saw two of sister that came in the restaurant and I only showed discriminate

October 22, 2017- I sent Faith a message on Facebook asking her if she had any free time within the next week to meet. I asked her if she had any questions, needed help with anything, wanted to talk, and asked her about the course. I didn’t hear anything back from her.

Currently on our Earth, there are 6.6 billion human beings living everyday, and out of the 6.6 billion, 33% of the whole population (2.2 billion) are Christians. Let me put it this way. In a room with 3 people, 1 person is Christian. Christianity is a religion that has been picking people back up when they are down, comforting people when they are in doubt, and performing miracles everyday.

“Are you convinced that allowing God to drive is best? If so, I challenge you to let God

Growing up, my parents never talked about God, or church, or Christianity. I did not know who God was, nor did I know anything about Christianity. I did know, that all of my friends believed in this so called ‘God” and would go to church every Sunday, and identified themselves as Christian. I did not know what any of this meant, but at first I acted like I did, so that I wouldn’t be seen as different.

Growing up with one Christian parent and one atheist parent confronted me early on with hard decisions surrounding faith. Faith, to me, became choosing between two parents more so than understanding my core beliefs and making the hard choices. I gave my life to Christ for the first time at a very young age in Sunday school; however, the pivotal point in my walk was during my freshman year. Up until that year, the only Christians I had direct contact with all simply went to church on Sundays and often were drunk or in another arguement as soon as Sunday night. The first time I saw someone act like a follower of Christ and not just proclaim to be was through my soccer coach. This coach never went around telling people that he was a believer,

I find religion redundant and superfluous. Inevitably, my parent's Mexican and catholic values have contaminated me. While attending church every Sunday is not on my to-do list, I do believe in miracles. I do not pursue a religion, but miracles are real. I know this because I am one. My predators are not bullies or drugs. Instead, my predator is hardship itself. I’ve shaken the hand of death and prejudice, but I yet haven't shaken the hand of my college professor.

I woke up in a complete daze, the smell of old pizza, liquor and flower fragrance from the random girl next to me filled the air. As I lifted my body from the sticky leather loveseat, the hammer pounding sensation within my head made it apparent that I made some other irresponsible choices, besides trying to squeeze my 6’1 frame onto a loveseat. As I tried to tune out sounds of hip hop party music playing, I thought to myself “a scene from hangover”? Maybe so, but it was my experience. Once I came up with a vague memory of what happened, I couldn’t wait to tell my friends about it. Those were the moments I lived for, those wild nights, the ones where the details were as questionable as my dedication to the Christian faith. Those days that

In my version, I would like to improve the religious structure by eliminating the hatred from nonbelievers to be free to continue worshipping who we want. Then if some individuals don’t feel like a certain religion is for them they are free to transfer without hatred. There wouldn’t be anyone criticizing others based on what they believe and worship. Instead of hatred, there would be harmony and understanding within each religion in existence. From this version, peace, charity ,and social justice would be strongly emphasized and supported to spread kindness within the world. People would not need to feel obligated to follow a religion they don’t want to follow due to family or peer pressure. Nonbelievers wouldn’t be criticized and instead will

My religious association as a catholic has given me that significant course that facilitates my steps. Raised in an African home, where my father had two life partners, and my mother being the second spouse, I encountered youth in a family where everyone respected and loved each other. With generosity and friendship, I and my siblings were raised to constantly offer a hand of assistance at whatever point we found anyone requiring help. Encountering adolescence in a little group, where everybody knew each other, we, for the most part, saw everybody in the group as companions. Notwithstanding the certainty it may sound hard to trust, the group always esteemed the closeness of each other's affection and time. With these memories still particular

My journey with God started in February of 1993, when I went to a ladies’ conference in Columbus, Texas. It was while the speaker was explaining that she knew there were some of us out in the audience, who felt guilty about something they had done in their past, and they did not feel that God could forgive them for it. But then she quoted from God’s word; “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, not principalities, no things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39 NASB) The speaker continued on to say that all we need to do is