CE staffers wrestle with question of God after interview with agnostics

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CE STAFFERS WRESTLE WITH QUESTION OF GOD AFTER INTERVIEW WITH AGNOSTICS

April 4, 1994

Of all the questions people wrestle with in their lives, few are more difficult to answer than religion.

Should you believe in God? How should you worship? When should you worship? Should you impose your views on others?

These are questions people have tried to answer for ages.

A few months ago, some Children's Express staffers interviewed believers of various faiths, as well as agnostics - people who aren't sure there's a God.

After every interview, CE reporters and editors debrief. In a debriefing, the reporters become the interviewees re-creating and analyzing every aspect of the interview.

The interview with agnostics led to a lengthy discussion about religion and was not included in the original story. The members' names have been changed because of this unusual format.

HENRY: There is not a way you can prove that there is or isn't a God. And so I don't think (people who believe in God) really have proof, that's just what they believe.

CHRIS: I don't go to church and I am a Christian. So I don't understand why people who don't go to church are labeled agnostic.

SUZANNE: I don't see how he can call himself a Christian because I go to church on Sunday and I go to Sunday School every Sunday and I call myself a Christian, but yet he doesn't go to church.

RACHAEL: Do you have to go to church to call yourself a Christian?

SUZANNE: I think you do. Because if you don't go to church, than, like really, what are you? It's like saying you don't have the time for an hour each Sunday to go (to church).

HENRY: It does not mean that (people) are atheists, agnostics or don't believe in God just because they don't go to church. A lot of people think that if you don't go to church, you have to be an atheist.

SUZANNE: If they don't believe in it, then why force them to go because they would not learn anything from it.

I think that everybody wants to be labeled as something. There are Baptists, Catholics, there's all kinds of them. If you are not any of those, like, what are you?

RACHAEL: Are you thinking you'll fit in better if you (have a label)? I don't think religion is a matter of fitting in.

SUZANNE: I think that church is good, so I just try to go as much as I can because I just want to try to get the most out of it, and try to make sense out of it.

I think that people think that agnostics should be kept out of things. But I think it is fine because they are not making any- body else do anything. They are just sitting back and watching. They are not doing anything wrong.

RACHAEL: I think it is just so negative that people don't want you to ever have those views. And I don't understand why it is so negative. I just think that (the term agnostic) is negative.

Being an agnostic or an atheist is a simple matter of believing or not believing. And God is the only difference of what you are believing or not believing.

Let's say that I do not believe in evil. I think that everybody in the world is good. And if I label myself as an evilist, people wouldn't look as weirdly at me as they would if I said I was an atheist.

I was talking to my grandparents ... because they are very religious. And I was asking them if God created Adam and Eve, who created God? Who was the supreme being? If not evolution, how did God get here?

And they couldn't handle that. They were just like "I don't know' and defended the Bible. They said "the Bible says something about it, but I am not sure what the Bible says about it."

Well then, if they're not sure what the Bible says about it, how can they be so religious?

SUZANNE: I just think that people who go to church, they really don't know the answer either. They just believe what the Bible says. And they just take God's word for it.

But atheists are just so confused and mixed up, they don't know what to do.

RACHAEL: It is something you can do research on to understand it ... but you wouldn't find answers.

HENRY: I think there are a lot of people who don't really believe in their religion, and they just go (to church) and pretend.

I am Catholic and go to a Catholic school. And I know people who don't really believe in what we're doing. But since they go to Catholic school, they have to go to Mass and things like that.

We have a religion class, and it has beliefs about Catholics that are kind of like forced on us. You have to know (our beliefs because) that's on our tests.

There are lots of things about our faith that we are supposed to believe in, but (we) don't really know the answers.

So if I am a Catholic, I believe that God is the Holy Spirit and all that, but I don't understand how it is ...

There are a few kids (in my school) who just don't really believe ... in what they are doing. But they don't really have a choice.

RACHAEL: You can go to temple, you can go every single week, and in that room you will find maybe 50 people.

Now on two big holidays, there are probably about 500 people.

I don't understand. There are only 50 people that come on a weekly basis, but then there are these two times a year that 500 people come.

And then all of a sudden, that makes them a good Jew? I don't believe that.

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