Why Do Babies Die?

Since birth, I was raised a very devout Christian: I spent the school week, eight hours a day, attending a private Christian school from Prekindergarten through the 8th grade; I attended church services all day Sunday, and every Wednesday evening; I had to be skipped into the next age range of Sunday school on two occasions because my knowledge and questions regarding the Bible had gotten too advanced for the rest of the class; by the age of 12, I began doing mini-Sunday sermons before my pastor did his; by 13, I was baptized and began speaking in tongues; throughout the course of public high school, I was a member, and then leader of the Christian Club; I was nicknamed “Preacher Boy” by my fellow church members, with aspirations to become a

My experience with Christianity began in the Roman Catholic Church of St. Helena’s in South Minneapolis. I grew up a die-hard; attending every week with my mother and sister. I never understood the concept of God, Jesus and the Holy

As a child, I grew up going to Catholic School, from Kindergarten, until eighth grade. My mother thought private school was best for my brother and I, as there’s a misconception that since you’re paying a tuition, the education is better. My mother was also Catholic at the time, so she was more comfortable with us growing up being taught religion, which should inevitably cause us to be Christians and believe in God. Years went by of me being educated on religion, and by the age of twelve, I felt guilty that I couldn’t process or accept the idea of there being a God. I came to this reality due to the fact that I didn’t feel the connection to God that our teachers taught us we should have; I didn’t feel loved by an alternate being, I felt alone, and I didn’t grasp how such a thing could be possible.

In the beginning I understood my Christin faith as an academic. I did as I was told, I read my bible, and I followed the Ten Commandments as any teenager does; when it suited me. I wasn’t a horrible teenager, I was raised in a small farm community that really didn’t understand someone with a vole at the end of their name, or someone who wanted to walk to the library and read rather than hang out on the steps of the malt shop/gas station. My formative years were the 1960’s. There was so much conflict and rebellion and hatred. By the time I graduated and was supposed to go out and make my way I was thoroughly confused with and rebellious. Problem was I wasn’t sure what I was rebelling against; the “rebel without a clue.” But, in the end I wound up being a successful trial attorney; I even ran for Congress! I became a Master of the Universe; I was a Goddess that walked on the earth. I believed that God already had enough on his plate, wars, famine, disease, atrocities; why should I plague Him further? After all, the Bible says: “God

According to the Oxford dictionary, "abortion is the expulsion of a fetus from the uterus by natural causes before it is able to survive independently." Abortion has perhaps been a highly politicized over the past several decades. The major political parties in the United States have adopted distinct positions on this issue. When the death a fetus occurs naturally, it is called a miscarriage. When the loss of a fetus is caused intentionally, it is regarded as a significant moral and societal issue that needs to be dealt with. An article on washingtonpost.com stated that, "studies show that there is an imbalance between the number of firearms-related deaths 30,000 a year and abortions performed each year in the United States more than 750,000 a year." This shows that more death occur from abortions that firearms. To better picture what an abortion is, the mental image of a baby covered in blood placed in a basin and chopped into about fifty pieces. This will help understand how cruel and wicked abortion is. I intend to argue that abortion is morally, logically, and religiously wrong. Unless murder becomes legal, abortion should remain illegal.

Walking into class for the first time, I did not know what to expect. I grew up going to church every Sunday and going to Sunday School after the church service, it was a Christian household. I know the stories, the important Bible versus and the songs. I would say that I know my faith, my faith was something that I knew and I wouldn 't question it. It was something I was confident with since its something I have known since birth. In this class we question faith, we question everything, even Jesus. I am learning that questions are the best way someone can learn. While reading Night, The Plague and The Gospel of Mark, I got to explore the meaning of the word God.

With the University of the Incarnate Word being a religious school with a strong religious background it was really no surprise to me that I would have to take two religious classes. Taking Religious Quest right after taking a Philosophy class has been quite mind altering to say the least. Thinking about all the different aspects of the universe, and trying to figure out the truth is something that I don’t think we as humanity will ever know the answer to. This is where religion fits in for me. It’s not our job to figure it all out, if we live by faith and treat others as we expect to be treated I believe it will all work its way out in the end. Like I mentioned in my autobiography in week one, I was raised Methodist. It was actually me that got my parents into religion at all. We used to go to church for the big events like Easter and Christmas. I ended up finding out when I was about seven years old that my mother felt badly for never getting me baptized as a child. When I overheard her talking about it one day I said to her “so why don’t we just do it know?” She started to tear up a little but said “okay.” Once I was baptized our family as a whole went to church almost every Sunday from that point on. There was a huge transformation in both my mother and father. It was amazing and I’ve never regretted it for a moment. This experience is very important to me, and really helped set the stage for what religion means to me.

However, knowledge has been an area of slow and intermittent growth. I learned the Lutheran Catechism as part of the process of publicly proclaiming my faith as a young man. During my college years, I struggled in trying to explain my faith when confronted with issues such as God directed violence. My non-Christian friends wanted to know how I could believe in a God who commands the slaughter of innocent women and children by the people of Israel. I had difficulty answering these questions because I had never been taught that my faith required me to develop answers to these questions. However, the disequilibrium produced by the questions of my friends became a catalyst for my learning. Cox (n.d.) stated in his Biblical Principles Related to Education #15 “Disequilibrium is a primary catalyst for learning (p. 1). Just as Job responded to the questions of his friends, I felt it necessary to answer the questions of my friends. Like Job (New International Version), I knew that my friends were wrong but I still saw the need to respond to their questions. Moreover, I was able to learn and grow in the process and developed a faith that was based on knowledge and not just blind acceptance of what I had been taught as a

When I was younger, I would go to church with my Grandma and attend Catholic religion classes to prepare for my first communion. At the time, I was happy to go; I looked forward to those days. Around the summer before fourth grade, I stopped attending religion classes since they were at a time which conflicted with my schedule. From then on, much to my grandparents dismay, I slowly stopped going to church. After a few years of not attending religion classes and church, I started to notice my own beliefs didn’t match those of the church. Being away from the church gave me time to explore ideas other than those of which I had been taught all of my life. In sixth grade, I remember being curious and wondering if my beliefs matched those of another religion. My interest was sparked by my love of history and culture. I discovered that Celtic Pagans have similar beliefs. Celtic Paganism, specifically, is a polytheistic religion from the Iron Age practiced by the ancient Celts. I learned about specifics of the

When I went into Grade 9 religion, I thought that it was going to be one of the most useless and boring courses that I took as religion is not significant in my life. About a quarter in to the semester, I was surprised when I realized that I actually enjoyed going to religion class every day. The heated discussions about controversial topics, the interesting lessons and the captivating movies were all responsible for the best hour and fifteen minutes of my weekdays. I was raised by parents who didn’t believe in any religion, but they never forced their belief on me. Until a year ago, I was completely uneducated about the Catholic faith. However, I learned a lot about Catholicism during religion class. That’s when I realized that just because

During this time, I continued to look for God within the Christian tradition and came across a very intelligent Christian professor. Because I thought the Church of God was missing intelligence I thought that I had found what I was looking for within this professor, finally somebody who could provide me the truth. Within my mindset I thought that I would find the perfect truth if I only kept searching and in this man, who always was very wise and seemed to understand the deeper things of life, I thought that I had found it, finally the gold I was digging for. This man’s view of God was so much deeper than that of the Church of God and relieved my pain of feeling that the Christian God was angry at me because I could not keep his commandments perfectly. God all of a sudden

Lylia Howard Huntly s. is the author that I have chosen to write about. This authors poem “Death of an Infant” is a part of her first set of writings that where published. This poem is a convenient piece to analyze, because the point of view that is being portrayed by the author can also relate to the readers.

The relentless urge to see the world as it truly is was always in me, but religion is a particularly effective antidote. It's especially effective on the young and the uneducated. Hence, during my journey to becoming less young and less uneducated I was forced by my inner urge for truth to spend many sleepless nights pondering Christianity, and I was forced by society to spend many hours listening to the same poorly thought out arguments for god/religion/Christianity. The only conclusion I could ultimately reach is that they're all untrue or non-existent. I can't be intellectually honest unless I declare that god doesn't exist. Unlike apatheists, that conclusion significantly shapes who I am.

At a very young age, I never understood the concept of religion. Every Sunday, I would go to a Polish mass, go through the motions of the church, and not understand any word that came out of the priest’s mouth. My family and I will go through the same cycle year after year, and after all this time I still don’t know anything- except a couple words in Polish. I would go to school and hear other students talk about their religion and hear how much they understood things, and see how much they believed in their own God. I would always get jealous, or somewhat annoyed because I didn’t have the same passion as other people did for their own religion. When I initially enrolled in this course, a feeling of nervousness and curiosity came over me. I wanted to learn how the inside-and-out of a religion similar to mine, but I also felt this was going to be a challenge; since I knew ‘nothing.’ Throughout this course, I learned the identity of God, the meaning of faith, and how other people viewed God.

When I was a young child, I “accpeted” God as my Savior after hearing about it at a camp. I went along with the Christian crowd, but never really had a faith of my own. Again at 11, I accepted God, with real faith of my own. Since then, I have been struggling to keep that faith, and been constantly burdened by the thought of not having a real faith. Very often do I wonder if my faith is real, or if I have just been faking it so long that I have been conditioned to think it is real. This summer, I had a “spiritual high.” I went to a Christian summer camp, and my view of God forever changed. Prior to this camp, I saw God as an unfair judge, looking to punish those who break His rules. After a message on Jesus questioning Peter’s love, I realized that God was a compassionate, caring God. With everything I had, I wanted to pursue God and have a deep relationship with Him. I promised myself that I would continue to press in to God, but as I got home and got back into the flow of normal life, I drifted away from God. Starting school has taken almost all of my focus away from God, and onto school and social life. On top of not finding time for my spiritual life, when I do have time, I do not know how to even have a