Personal Essay
What Does Religion Mean To Me?
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Personal Essay
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Kelton Campos
“Come with me to church at 6 o’clock?” Ever since my parents divorced, I have spent the weekdays at my mom’s house and the weekends at my dad’s. Around noon every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, my grandma, from my dad’s side of the family, asks me this question. I normally don’t know how to respond. She has always been a deeply religious person but, ever since her retirement, she has been able to fully dedicate herself to her faith and the church in which she chooses to display and share it. For some reason I dread the question, knowing that the response I give, no matter how I arrange or explain it, will do nothing but yield compassionate disappointment. As I give my response and subsequent decision, a variant of a simple “no,” I am questioning myself concerning why I deny the invitation in the first place. Still, it wasn’t always like this.
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Clattering chimes, natural music and toddlers weeping fill the ears of the plethora of religious followers as an inexplicable aura surrounds them. This is how I would partially describe the frequent visits that my family would make to our local Catholic church. Growing up in a deeply religious family in which my father and mother practiced the same faith, I was always heavily involved in our Catholic church; participating in charitable fundraising, taking weekly classes surrounding the faith, triweekly visits, etc. Although my parents are responsible for introducing me to the faith, I never felt forced to conform as I was sincere. I do not believe I fall into the stereotypical narrative of “parent pressure” on a child regarding religious belief. My family acted as a catalyst, turning me in a certain direction that inevitably resulted in me being able to build my own interpretations and ideals based on sincerity. Belief without sincerity is not belief, it is self-deception. It is not unreasonable to assume that one can believe something but not sincerely believe it due to external factors, both personal and possibly factual. Still, this “golden age” of personal faith was interrupted by the COVID-19.
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“This is a national emergency,” declared President Donald Trump on March 12, 2020 during my second to last day of Spring Break during my sophomore year of high school. Due to the long periods of despondency and solitude that the pandemic created, I found myself isolated with my own thoughts. My faith was at its zenith and I formulated conceptions of religion in general; it’s about faith, optimism, filling a void of purpose within one's life, sincerely believing in something, and attempting to become the best version of yourself. As Beth Azar explains in their article “A reason to believe,” one can deduce that “religion may fill the human need for finding meaning, sparing us from existential angst while also supporting social organization” (Azar). Religion serves to provide individuals with answers to the “unanswerable” questions of life, providing benefits such as bolstering social congregations. Additionally, even at the zenith of my faith, I began to slip away during such dreadful times. When you are at your highest there is, of course, nowhere to go but down, similar to a roller coaster as this is just how life is.
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“Maybe it's just the way things are.” These words, echoed by Mr. Zontine as he provided feedback on the list of subjects that could have been my thesis topic, provided closure but also partial suspense. During the summer of sophomore year, I began questioning my faith, not necessarily denying any of the beliefs I had been told or built upon myself but rather examining religion as a whole. I began exploring other ventures of belief, attempting to learn about the variety of religions that existed outside of my boundary of faith that I felt was never to be crossed.
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Through my journey, I came across, during the summer of my junior year, a book by Jim Holt called Why Does The World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story. With the promising title, it was within these pages that I was met with a question: Why is there something rather than nothing? My callow self grasped this question, bewildered by the sheer purity and starkness. What was presented before me, I understood, was the pan-ultimate question that surpassed all others in both complexity and importance. What mystified me was simply the “why” of the question. For all questions that require some speculation, there is a “how” and a “why.” For example, I understand that the stellar mass that we orbit, called the Sun, provides heat through hydrogen fusion. This portion answers the “how” of the sun’s ability to provide warmth. However, the “why” is still unanswered, left to be gripped by the rabbithole of speculation, usually some supernatural explanation (Holt).
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Although my religious upbringing provided that God had created the world out of nothing, including me, answering the question of Jim Holt’s book as quickly as it entered my mind, I reached beyond my faith for other possibilities. If I had used my faith to provide me an answer, I would have drawn upon the fact that the mystery of existence was, in fact, no mystery at all. I would reiterate that God is the answer to the question and the reason why God exists is due to the fact that he is a byproduct of himself; God’s existence is outlined by his essence and is self-caused. However, this still only answers half of the “why.” If God created himself and the world, why should he even do it in the first place? Why should he exist? Why would he create life as life is simply conscious suffering? These are questions that were presented before me and can only be answered by sheer theoreticals and most likely untrue speculations.
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The theoretical physicist, Steven Hawking, even dabbles into the question presented to me through Jim Holt’s book, saying “what is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?” and “why does the universe go through all the bother of existing” (Hawking 94)? These questions, which somewhat dive into existentialism and causation, have helped me in search for not only “truths” but also who I am. These questions made me take a step back in order to understand the reality of my situation and the world itself. We live in a world dominated by a highly-intelligent species who has managed to create a manufactured world and society in which the inhabitants don’t realize or acknowledge the full extent. I’m not trying to say that I am superior because I see behind some type of “fallacy” but I am simply trying to articulate the reality of our “human” world. Through my journey, I dabbled into scientific concepts, such as those concerning meta, theoretical and quantum physics. Still, however, at the end, I was met with the fact that I could not realistically find an answer. As Holt explains, “you might expect that science will someday explain not only how the world is, but why it is” (Holt 5). Furthermore, although one might hope for an eventual answer for both the “how” and “why” of the equation, it is most likely unachievable due to the philosophical nature of the “why” that science provides little to no say in.
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Through the closure of my search, a journey that led me down rabbit holes of curiosity, frustration, and unfulfillment, I was left with my thoughts and the speculations that were drawn from them. I understood that the answers to the “whys” of life could not possibly be attained and only yielded futile effort and exhaustion that would only serve to turn sanity into insanity. I realized that my efforts would not provide me any results, forcing me to abandon the matter and retreat back to long lost ideals. I was frustrated with my search for answers as I could not trust anything. I could not see myself believing in any sort of religion or concept of belief as I would ask myself a question of restlessness; why is this set of beliefs the “truth” and not something else? Even if the truth regarding existence and the universe was magically revealed to mankind, this question of restlessness could still be applied; why is this the “truth” and not something else?
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“It’s my everything. It is the reason why I live. God created me and my faith is everything.” These words, spoken by my grandmother from my mom’s side of the family, help to articulate my viewpoint of religion now as I seek to graduate. I understand that the search for an objective truth only leads to subjective assumptions and speculations. I understand that the search for meaning is futile and can only find its way to subjective thought. I understand that sincerity merges subjectivity and objectivity together, blurring the lines between truth and opinion. Faith is what matters as it is the only subject of importance when attempting to solve the mystery of everything. Faith helps provide closure and create a sense of belonging that my grandma has. Even through disasters and tragic events, such as the Vietnam War in which some of her friends were drafted and killed, she has been able to uphold a strong faith in her beliefs and a personal relationship with God. Mr. Zontine’s words of “maybe it's just the way things are” still echo, providing a simple answer that serves to provide closure and shut down any warranting of further examination or speculation. I have learned that religion means faith, fulfillment, optimism, closure, and sincerity. Although I thought I had long lost my relationship with God, I believe that I have begun a process of reconstruction. Kneeling before the altar on New Year’s Eve last year, the only time in which I answered “yes” to my grandma, I felt like a Trojan horse; a detractor or traitor worthy of no penance. However, although I still answer “no” to my grandma, I have begun to mold my own path back to familiar ideals through a relationship with God that has arisen through a recognition of unattainable, objective truth.
Bibliography
Azar, Beth. “A Reason to Believe.” Monitor on Psychology, American Psychological Association, Dec. 2010. Accessed 8 May. 2022.
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Holt, Jim. Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story. New York, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2013. Accessed 8 May. 2022.
Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time. New York, Bantam Books, 1998. Accessed 8 May. 2022.