Fearful

An 18 year old female explains how she turns to religion when she is afraid.

I am born Roman Catholic but do not attend Church on a regular basis. I would say I believe in God, whether this is because I was raised to do so or out of fear, I cannot tell. That’s a little frightening so I live my day to day life, I’d say, without God, although when I am in a seriously frightening or complicated situation I automatically find myself praying to God… but again, it may be out of habit. Maybe this is because I find comfort in believing that some greater being will get me out of a tight situation that I have no power over. I’d probably say I live in the moment, I don’t like to think too much of the future or after death because I inevitably can’t know.

Is the association between fear and God a primarily Catholic, or generically Christian phenomenon? With so many biblical and traditional threats of eternal consequences, it’s understandable that one may have these feelings of latent fear. She believes because she’s afraid not to believe, as she only turns to God in times of fear. This does not seem like the most positive relationship with religion.

It’s Back!

Sorry for the long blog posting delay, but I am planning to continue Spiritual Youth to the best of my ability during the year.  Keep the responses and discussions rolling, don’t hesitate to spread the word and link your friends.

Best wishes to my readers, and continue to share your personal quests wherever you are, and wherever you are heading.

Wrestling with Faith

An 18 year old male questions his faith, and is reassured.

For most of my life, I have been a devout Catholic. I’ve been baptized, had my First Communion and Confirmation, going through all of the rights a Catholic would have gone through at this point. Over the past few years though, things have changed dramatically, and the spiritual side of me seems to fade away from time to time. I don’t attend Mass as often as I should, and haven’t been completely adhering to the Laws in the Bible. It is mostly because, over the years, the things I’ve seen and experienced have led me to greatly question my faith, namely the big one: how can God exist when there is so much suffering in the world? I couldn’t understand how God could allow people to suffer as much as they do, when they’ve done virtually nothing to deserve their pain.

I felt myself drifting away from religion altogether, which, strangely enough, didn’t bother me all the time. Every now and then, I would feel that I needed it to return, but it was usually just a passing thought. This predominantly happened around the summers of grades 10 and 11, when I was going through a particularly torturing (almost literally) time with some “friends” from elementary school. Anytime a person wants to hurt themselves, that is really the final way of showing that you question God’s existence.

Even after getting through these events, and moving on to better times, I still wondered how a God as good as He is proclaimed to be can allow things like this to happen to decent people. What I came to realize, though, is that the saying “it’s always darkest before dawn” can indeed be true. Those rough 2 years led me to find some great friends in grade 12, and since then, for the most part, things have been much better.

Things like this, or even smaller instances, such as two friends resolving a potentially “friendship-destroying” dispute (which has happened a couple of times now) have given me new eyes for religion. I am still not as devout as I once was, nor do I fully accept God’s existence, but instances in my life such as these have given me new hope that maybe God is really there, and that in the end, He will take care of everything. If anything, even if I don’t fully believe, I no longer doubt God’s existence, and am more open to Catholicism than I used to be.

Like previous responses, this contributor needed his own form of personal validation to be certain of his belief in God. When one is taught religion as a child, we are generally taught that God is great, almighty, and capable of doing anything. Eventually, as one gets older, they may discover that bad things occur. This may cause one to doubt and have a lapse in their faith. Like the story of Jacob who wrestles the angel and ultimately prevails, if one wrestles with religious doubt and uncertainty, and finds a reason to succeed, one’s faith will ultimately be stronger.

Maybe They Should Read The Whole Thing

A 17 year old male expresses his experience regarding homosexuality and the Bible.

Well, as you know, I am gay, and I came out to my parents a while ago and they did not take it well. They gave me many anti-gay speeches, but the one that will stick out in my mind is this one.

I came home one day, I was in town visiting or something, I get in the door, and my parents said they wanted to talk to me and I knew exactly what it had to do with, and I hate those conversations with my parents because my mom cries, and my dad just pisses me off and makes me hate him even more. Now, I must point out that my parents have not attended a church service for a long time, and did not raise me religiously. But when the conversation started, they pulled out the Bible, and they had pages marked with Lottery Tickets (that just shows how religious they are), and the proceeded to read my several anti-gay quotes from the Bible and told me that it was wrong.

That has obviously twisted my view on God and the Bible. I personally believe the Bible is all fiction, and it has been translated so many times that is has lost its original meaning. I do not understand how people can live by the Bible, especially since it is extremely out dated to today’s morals. I think religion just adds to the many tensions in the world because of religious wars and discrimination.

I mean no disrespect to the parents, but it seems as if they are utilizing the text of the scripture as a means to justify their opposition to homosexuality. Instead of talking as a family, his parents are using the Bible as a shield to avoid dealing with their son directly as a person. If they were a deeply religious family, then their use of the Bible might have some validity. But they are not a religious family. (Lottery tickets in the Bible? Blasphemy!) I feel that turning the Bible into a club to beat some sense into their son to be hypocritical and inappropriate. It is not the religious text per se, but taking the religious text to extremes that initiates conflict.