Jewish, Catholic, agnostic, Protestant, atheist … the list could stretch on for pages, but what centuries of controversy and countless ideological reformations boil down to is quite simple: faith. This ambiguous concept is a driving force behind world events, past and present, but what of today, in the life of an average 20-something college student? What is faith?
Raised in a devout Roman Catholic family myself, I was brought up on very specific beliefs, to say the least. As far as I’ve seen in my 19 years of life, there will always come a time when children question the basic tenets of their parents’ teaching. Whether or not each of us has followed those questions to find our own answers – only you can answer that.
Me? I am religious without believing in religion. To be plain, I’m still holding out for a higher force in the universe – a force that may or may not go by the name of God – but I’ve become disillusioned with the institution of religion. Before any readers take too much offense at this, let me clarify. I am not attempting to debase the religions that are deeply rooted in our individual histories and cultures. Rather, I am simply asking you to be curious.
Ours is a generation of exploration and growth. The rapidly developing world in which we live slows for no one and we have learned to adapt to the changes we encounter daily. This ability to evolve fosters the curiosity that seems innate to us as humans. The natural development of curiosity is to explore and discover alternatives. As we gain a broader perspective on the world, we often begin questioning once-accepted “truths.”
This is what happened to me. I experienced a crisis of faith. It seemed wrong to me that a faith should promote loving all members of a race, but restrict our own love to members of the opposite sex only, or that we are told by religious tenets to care for and aid the poor, but the Church itself taxes its followers in order to lavish its religious capital in gold.
I do not pretend to be a religious authority of any kind; I certainly wouldn’t say religion in itself is wrong. If anything, the model of goodwill, love, community and struggle to better oneself as a person is something from which we could all learn a thing or two. The institution of religion, however, has strayed far from those ideals.
The rigidity of many religions has prevented them from adapting. The world is a very different place from the distant times when these faiths were born, and yet very little has changed with the times.
Religious reformations, new faiths and even the rejection of a higher power are responses to the developing time. That is large scale, so what about you?
It is OK to be curious, to explore other options, to question. Do not follow blindly, but seek your own answers. Perhaps these answers will confirm what you already believe; perhaps they will lead you to a new realization. Either way, we cannot become so entrenched in the outdated traditions of religion that are detracting from the values upon which they were based.
Whatever we may or may not believe, following our own curiosity allows us to adapt. If we chain ourselves to blindly uncompromising tenets, we will be left behind in the past.