Personal Narrative: My Core Beliefs

In middle school one of my teachers asked what religion we were apart of. Almost the whole class raised their hands the second she said Christianity. Only three of us were Roman Catholic, and we were all Mexican as well. I know this is silly, but time I felt different from my peers and all I wanted was to feel as if we were equal. I remember one day we went to church early in the morning on Ash Wednesday. I walked into school and quickly received dirty looks. People stopped me and asked if I knew I had dirt on my forehead. I rushed to the bathroom mortified. I was ashamed of my religion, but worst of all I was mad at my mom for letting me go to school with “dirt” on my face. I thought she did not understand how we were suppose to act outside of our

The environment you grow up in and people you find yourself surrounded by as your make your way through the maze of life has a profound impact on a person 's worldviews. I am no exception to this rule, and to illustrate this point I will detail how I was raised, what I believed, and how I came to start examining those beliefs a little closer. This critical examination of my own beliefs has led to change how I think about the world in an enormous way, and has had a massive impact on how I relate to and understand other people.

In addition, I also grew up with different types of Christians customs. I adopted and mixed both Christian and Seventh Day Adventist customs. For example, I grow up in SDA tradition belief that we should not eat pork and sea foods (shrimps, crabs, etc.). Sadly, my dad disagree with this idea and believe that there is nothing wrong in eating pork and sea foods. Almost every day, my parents would always get into an arguments because of their different beliefs. My dad wanted me and my siblings to follow him and become a Christian like him and so does my mom. She wanted us to follow her and become SDA believer. Living in a family that has different types of religions is really tiring and complicated. The tiredness and frustration that I experienced sometimes made me hope and wish that religions should not even exist at all. Then I came to a realization that it will never be that case, for sins has separated humans and God in the beginning. Growing up in this complicated spiritual beliefs, as a child make me decided to just consider myself as a normal

Most of my youth had been spent much like Carl Jung, as a loner of sorts from other students. I was a quiet kid and kept much to myself. As a youth, I did feel that God had a presence and importance in my life. I did not feel the larger connection to worship and deeper spirituality. In childhood, subconsciously I had begun mixing my actual perceived believes and actual Christianity to form my actual practiced religion. “Religious experience according to Fromm is an experience of unity with the All, grounded on our relatedness to the world” (Fuller A. , 2008). To explain, I would take whatever made sense, such as a God figure. I would also understand that everything had a spirit and that included inanimate objects. I did feel that people were capable of sinning and it was something that was not good. Our mother did her best as a single parent and frequently relied on our Grandparents for support. Due to spending so much time with our Grandparents our beliefs shifted to mirror Christianity.

I grew up in a Catholic family where I went to CCD weekly. I was taught that sex before marriage was a sin and that there was an appropriate way to dress to be respectable. I started to reject Catholicism before I even reached middle school. I couldn’t stand behind a religion that told me my best friend was a sinner for loving the same sex. I was forced to continue going to church and attending CCD until I absolutely refused in high school. Many religions in general had become a very illogical concept to me. The way people used these religious teachings to shame others and condemn their happiness was the opposite of what I thought love should be. To me nudity was fine and sex wasn’t something to be shameful. Instead of feeling ashamed at this point, I felt upset that people were judged by the skin they showed or the natural acts they partook in.

And that nobody has the right to tell me what to do. I might have had that mentality because growing up in my school, I was always told not to talk about my religion to anyone. I was also told that it is all out of respect and that I should not ask anyone which religion they practice. As a result, I grew up believing that it is a private matter and a sensitive subject to discuss or talk about. Even when my religion teacher used to ask me if I went to Sunday or Saturday mass, I would hesitate to answer because I used to believe that nobody should know whether I am a committed Catholic or

Since my junior year of high school, I realized that religious beliefs, values and morals my parents taught to me since I was able to process and understand what exactly was being said to me, were not the same beliefs that I had as an individual.

My family and I were never constantly or overly dedicated participants of religion, but every now and then my mother would take my brother and me to the catholic church on the reservation that we lived on. I was ten or eleven when my mom stopped bringing us, simply because of

Some place somewhere around five and after ten years, I could easily consider it with my gut, as well. Without justifying it to some God I dreaded may sneak, watching me. I no more feel the need to legitimize the disliked decision of being a nonbeliever to other individuals by giving them realities and rationale - I can simply act

Changing a belief isn’t wrong or shameful. People grow and change, new situations arise uncontrollably. There's a phrase that states, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” I couldn't change my father’s new way of life. The only thing I could change was my reaction to this newly found family. If I had a chance to change how I handled this situation, I wouldn't. I love my family, as dysfunctional as we may be. I couldn't be more proud to call them

we went to my in-laws and went to church. As we were sitting there I was looking

From the day you are born, your genetic heritage is shaped by your environment, and so, you build up your own image of the world. By the time you reach an age to look at things more critically, your beliefs have become so engraved that you no longer recognize them as beliefs. They are already your non-negotiable truths.

Being raised Presbyterian was more like a social gathering than a religious experience. Admittedly there were times when I truly believed in God, but for the most part it didn’t impact my life or how I lived it. I had made up my mind in my early teens of how life was. I looked at people around me and connected closely with those who believed homosexuality was fine and natural, abortion was a woman’s choice and that there was nothing wrong with doing anything you like as long as it does not impede upon another being’s rights. Many of the people who I met with opposing opinions were very wishy washy and were ineffective in defending their beliefs to me. This led me to believe that republicans were wrong, religion was something I didn’t need and God, if he existed, was only someone who created the universe, and not someone worthy of my attention. When I finally met someone who held these opposing beliefs, but was great at defending them, I became interested. How could someone as smart as this man I just met, believe such backwards things. I finally began to take their claims seriously and started questioning others, religious leaders and the internet. After learning these points of views, dissecting them and gaining respect for those who had these beliefs, I eventually came to find that I agreed with them. I think the biggest turning point was realizing that the people who came before me, have been questioning these same issues much longer than I have, so maybe I

My whole family is very religious. Growing up we put on our best clothes and went to church every Sunday and bible study on Wednesday's. It was a huge part of our daily lives, we said our prayers every night, morning, meal, good things, and bad, we prayed a lot. For most of my adolescences I believed or was forced to believe that being an Christian Evangelist was the only way of life and everybody else in the world was going to hell. Whenever anything good happen in my life God did it; bad it was Satan himself. Around the age of 16 I began to ask questions and wonder if God was real or not, of course my family did not want to hear it and often ignored me or would say you just have to believe and have faith. If I asked what if I don't believe, would I go to hell? my family would say of course you will go to hell so just believe so you don't have to find out. The moment that was a turning point in my life was when I was 17 I had a conversation with my minister uncle. I asked him why would God send me to hell for an eternity just for having doubts? and if god created everything including Satan then God himself is evil. Well that did not sit to well with my uncle and he accused me of being possessed by demons and that I had the devils tongue. My uncle practically held me hostage, called all of my family and another preacher and held an exorcism. They had crosses, holy water and Bibles

My entire life in Newton religion has always been right around the corner. That applies both literally and metaphorically. A couple friends and I once attempted to count every church in Newton and if I remember correct we lost track at around 40 or 50. This town is home to many faiths, all of which I have never been affiliated with. Religion was never something my family really talked much about but they always told me whatever I choose to believe in or not believe in was up to me. Between my mother, father, sister, and I we all have different beliefs. My mom is an atheist, which very much is a reflection of her character. If she doesn’t see something it’s not there. My dad believes there is a God who created all, but not the God we think of today. Instead he just believes something created us all and that whatever is was is not something we would ever know enough about to worship. My sister is a regular believer in God and to my knowledge always has been. To be honest I never gave religion a true hard thought until my senior year, before then I really had no interest in the subject and would often refer to myself as an “Apatheist”. I remember I use to say things like, ”Even if there was definitive proof of a God I still would not care.” I use to say things like that to try and sound different but at the end of the day I still truly felt that way.