Reflection About Religion

I grew up going to Church with family and friends until I was around the age of 8 when my parents just stopped going as much and eventually it came to a halt. I honestly don’t believe that I really knew anything about God besides that I believed in him because my parents did. As I grew older and got involved in heavy drinking to a point of no self-control and doing things I would regret when sober I began to hate myself with a deep passion. I didn’t know why I would do the things I did and continue to make the same mistakes even after I felt the gut wrenching feeling the following day. It was when I was older that I found out about a friend of the family molesting me as a child and everything just made more sense as to why I was so overly sexual and

Born and raised in Marion, Iowa and into an evangelical church, my parents “Baby Dedicated” my life to christ. At age 5 my family moved to New Covenant Bible Church. When I was young I didn't think much of church, it was just something you did and was merely going through the motions. But when I hit middle school my parents made me go to church every Wednesday and Sunday. Key phrase, made me. At this point in my life I didn't like church, at all. As I grew older, I wanted to be at church less and less. And I dreaded going every time Sunday morning rolled around. I had the mindset that the world had more to offer me than Christ did. And so I made excuses and put up fights and soon I rarely went to church. My family went but I stayed

As a child I was forced into a religion I knew absolutely nothing about. My mother woke me up early every Sunday and got me ready for mass. I hated it. I didn’t comprehend why I was being forced to attend and listen to some stranger talk for hours, about something I did not understand. This continued for a couple years until I was around 8 years old and my family became inactive. Although we became inactive, our faith still lingered and we continued to pray every night, and not leave our homes without a blessing. A couple years later I felt as if something was calling me to attend the church. I started

For as long as I can remember my parents would forcibly drag me to church service after church service and when that did not work I was thrown into a church school. I kept telling them I did not believe and I had questions, but they kept making me go and the more we fought the more I fell from any religion putting my anger and hate towards God and all that Christianity was made of.

During elementary school I decided I wanted to move in with my father who did attend church religiously every Sunday morning. Catholic mass was awful and difficult to understand. My father put my brothers and I through communion and made us participate in church bible study to further understand the religion. As I got older my views on Catholicism had gotten worse, I started hating going to church. When the nuns called my age group to have children’s church my father forced me to go, they took us to a room that had no windows and was always cold. The nuns made us read the old testament in the King James Bible version and I always had a hard time reading and understanding it because of the way it was written. This experience made me hate and

I was raised in the church. Every Sunday and bible study I was there faithfully. Every church event I was there, I spent a lot of my holidays at the church. When I was a little girl I thought it was only one religion and that was Christianity. I thought that it was one God every one worshiped I didn’t quite understand that it was different religions and people had different views. When I got older I started to realize people beliefs were way different than what I knew. So I questioned my family and then they explained it to me that there were many types of religions. No one around me never really voiced his or her opinion about religion until I got into high school. In English class I had a lot of friends that I knew and hung out with in this class, when we are hanging out in school religion isn’t something my friends and I just sit there and discuss. The topic in English happens to be religion. The teacher went around the room and asked everyone to tell what religion they are and explain. One of my close friends name Jhoni said she’s “atheist” she even went on to say “church is stupid and god didn’t make earth and it was already here” she even said “we evolved from monkeys” now from what I know an “atheist” doesn’t believe in God. I could not believe that she didn’t believe in God. Then all of the stuff she said after that really hurt me and I couldn’t believe I was friends with somebody whose thoughts were that deep about something I believed in and loved so much. As soon

Growing up in a mainly agnostic household, I always knew about the existence of a god, but was never taught to worship nor believe any type of religious sect. As I grew up, I learned more about religion in school and never really felt any emotional attachment to any of the religions that I came in contact with. At home, I found out that two of my brothers actually decided to choose a religious path, my eldest brother wanted to become a Roman Catholic Bishop and my third eldest brother a Santeria Babalawo, they tried to get my parents and me to become religious, but we maintained the same beliefs we already had. Stepping out of the comfort zone that I resided in, I decided to visit a Catholic Apostolic church in the heart of Hialeah called Rincón de San Lazaro for my religious site visit.

For a good part of my life I have seen religion as a duty which must be accomplished with dedication if not enjoyment. Since all people are sinners and sinners must seek salvation it did not occur to me that some people might not see the point in all this religion business. “Oh, I’m not religious,” some friends would say to me, as if it were genetically transmitted or perhaps an acquired taste. They would blithely go about their lives, unencumbered by guilt, enjoying their sins, and occasionally pausing to shake their heads at my dutifulness. “Why do you bother?” they would ask curiously.

What is religion? Their has been many differrent interpretations on defining the word religion, but it’s extremely complicated to since their are so many human belief structures that vary. As being a Muslim I believe that being religious is to follow the Holy Book which is the Qu’ran and to follow the five pillars of Islam which are declaration of faith, prayer, charity tax, fasting and pilgrimage. Religion is what has been the most influential in my life and it has shaped me into what I am today.

Religion is a very interesting topic which is the very reason that I decided to write about it. It is a theme that could be written about for days which makes it difficult to summarize into a short paper. To get a better understanding of what religion is, it is “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs” (Religion). In other words it is a believing that there is higher power or giving your devotion to a higher cause like nature. There were so many great writers that shared their beliefs and views of a higher power like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Paine, and Henry David Thoreau. These three writers revolutionized beliefs and thoughts about being minorities.

Baptized in the Lutheran Church as a baby, religion was always something I had known. Growing up, my family and I went to church weekly. From the time of being born, to my last year of elementary school, a semi-contemporary, Lutheran Church was my home. My first year of middle school, my family decided to switched to a more traditional church. Filled with the smell of senior citizens and old hymnals, church was no longer enjoyable. My Dad decided to not attend to church anymore (besides occasional holidays), as my siblings and I were older and he felt as if he did not need to pretend to advocate church anymore. On the other hand, my other three family members and I continued. Twelve-year-old Me believed in a God. Though felt like a chore going to church and forcefully reading my Bible. God was a one-day, Sunday morning routine on my behalf. The idea of God was something I had stored into a box and opened as needed. My prayer life consisted of my Confirmation class teacher praying and when I really wanted something. I know now that God does not work that way. My middle school years as a Christian was everything less than desired. Going to a Christian school, I did not mind God but I did not want to put in the effort of having a relationship with Him. Christianity was just a bunch of impossible rules to follow and I was just a rebellious pre-teen. Getting into bad habits of disobeying my parents, cursing, bullying, negativity and living selfish had caught up to me. It took

First off, even though we have not been in class for very long, I already feel as though my perspective on religion has changed tremendously and I am curious to see what my beliefs will be like at the end of the semester. Although I do believe in Christianity and in God and that he contributed into the creation of the world, I question what I would believe if I was taught differently growing up.

Education, Gender and familial values are all ideals that have developed who I have become as a person. Growing up in a Dominican household, I was raised in a setting that shaped who I am today. I was taught that education and family are the most important things in life. But I learned on my own that gender, that being born as a boy instead of a girl, also determined how a majority of life would differ from my female family members. My grandmother Luz Wilson, who was born in the Dominican Republic, lead a tough and exhausting life in order to become the grandmother of such a big family. However, her experiences and hardships, that add to her wisdom, guide us to becoming strong and resilient human beings. My older cousin Krystal Wilson, who was born here in the United States, is more of a sister to me and someone who I admire because of her transition to being the self-reliant woman that she is. Our experiences growing up, in comparison to our grandmother, are much different based on education and our environments. However, I also found many similarities in their lives, as well as mine. Based on an analysis of the interviews done on my grandmother, cousin and myself, this paper will demonstrate how each of us value religion as a connection to God, family as a unifying value, and as gender as a determining factor of life.

When thinking, about reflecting on a time when I question or challenged a belief or idea, all that comes to mind is religion. This is how I questioned, challenged and had my final decision on Christianity and its beliefs.

For my third theological reflection I was given the task to relate a recent event to something I read from one of the Gospels this semester. I am going to write about Matthew’s chapter on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount reading has to do with the Ten Commandments, and how Jesus’ disciples should follow these ways of living. I find that this section of the Gospel can be found throughout a volunteer service I recently preformed. I will be talking about the time I went to Second Harvest Food Bank Warehouse, how it is relatable to the Gospel of Matthew, and what I learned from this experience.