Change of Mind: Religion

Growing up and now, I have a very religious mom. My mom grew up right across the street from a church. She went to grammar school there and went to Resurrection High School, which, at the time, was an all girls catholic high school. Because of this background my mom raised my brother and I in a catholic household. Every Sunday we wake up at 8:30 and go to 9:30 mass. My brother and I went to Religious Education every Tuesday night from 1st-8th grade. We got our first communion, reconciliation, and got confirmed in the church.

This background would probably make most people really appreciate religion. It would probably make religion a large part of their lives. This, however, was not the case for me. All of this going to church when I thought I could have been doing better things with my time, really made me not appreciate anything that had to do with religion. I figured that I could be catching up on my sleep in my bed at home instead of pretty much sleeping through church every Sunday morning.

When we started talking about religion in class, I was like oh great... it's another "Sunday morning." However, the more we got talking about it the more I thought about it. I realized how much there is to religion. I realized that there is a lot more to religion than the priest standing up at the altar telling us what we should believe and how we should think. It's a philosophical process that was created thousands of years ago.

I've decided that I shouldn't judge religion as harshly. A lot of people put in a lot of hard work to create these things. Even if I don't believe in the things they do or say, I should still give them a chance. As much as I don't enjoy going to church on Sunday mornings, I should give it a chance because I might be looking at it the wrong way. If I think more about what the priest is saying at church I can probably get a lot more out of the experience. All in all, our discussion in class about religion in Sophie's World made me re-evaluate my attitude towards religion and church on Sunday mornings.