California Catholic Daily reporter, Mary Rose, visits a California college each week and asks students about God, good, and evil. Interview with Adrian, who is studying psychology and pre-calculus, outside the Math Building at Gavilan College in Gilroy, California on January 29, 2020.
Do you consider yourself religious?
Adrian: No. My family is heavily religious. My aunt is a Christian and my mom and her brother are Catholics, but I’m more of an open minded person. I let my view look more outwards. I don’t question their faith, but I have other ideas of what goes on. When I was little, I got baptized, I got the chain and everything, I got my little uniform. But then when I got older, I had a role model who was an older brother and he had an open mind and I just followed in his footsteps. He told me why we should question the faith in God. I didn’t believe him until I realized that sometimes having faith in something could be really good, but having faith in yourself is much better, being able to figure it out on your own.
Does it make you happier to rely on yourself than on God?
Adrian: I feel like I’m not really lied to. I feel like people who believe in God have a certain belief. They’re more close-minded. They say they love you and they say they believe in you and God will love you. But going into psychology, I already know that that’s just the moral code that they try to live by. It’s not really what they mean or how they feel. They say that the other religions are lies and that their religion is better and how God wants these people and how God doesn’t want certain people. I do not want that negativity or hate in life. They say it’s all about love, but you can see the hatred in their religion. So it’s more positive just being on my own.
Do you believe in any sort of higher power?
Adrian: I believe there’s something really powerful out there. I just don’t believe in religion, their type of God. There is something powerful, of course, I’m not a self-centered person, saying there’s nothing out there that’s powerful, no God. I think there’s a being out there that’s really powerful. We don’t know what a God is, we barely know how to do our taxes, how could we be at the level of learning what God is?
What do you think about abortion?
Adrian: You know, that’s a really hard topic, abortion. I did talk to my cousin about women having the right to kill their babies, not let it grow up to be a human. There’s many reasons why people have abortions. I’m with it, but I’m not with it towards the point where like, third trimester, the baby’s already being born. Like, why would you do that to a human being? More like the second, the first and all that. You don’t want it, you don’t want it. Because, I have a mom, right. She didn’t want to abort us, because she didn’t know anything about that. She comes from Mexico. My father raped her pretty much and she had me. She said that she loves us, but he’s our father. I look exactly like my father, that’s what everyone says, so that hurts me the most, because I look like the man who hurt her. If she would have had a better life without us, without me, than seeing the constant person who raped her, I would have been okay with that, honestly. I love myself and I love my mom. Just like to know all of that happened to her, it’s really sad. I think abortion is kind of like that. If you cannot take care of your care yourself, you cannot take care of a baby. You’ll most likely damage the baby mentally and physically. If you’re not ready, then I’m sorry, but you’re not ready. If you’re going to look out for the baby, just know what the environment would be for the baby. How would it grow up? How would it turn out? If a woman was rich, she had a lot of money, she had everything figured out, but she’s not ready to have a baby, you can’t really decide that for her, can you. It’s her body, we can’t be like hey, we have control over your body now. You’re born in this country, you have control over everything right now. Your body is off limits. You can not do anything that makes someone feel like they are property, they are owned by the government.
All our laws control what we can and can’t do – should we get rid of all our laws?
Adrian: If we never had abortions, how many babies would be orphans, how many people would be growing up without family, being in foster care? Taxes will go higher. Especially in California, you will be taxed a lot for those orphans. But you don’t know those kids. You make a choice. But you give up abortion, you give up a lot of stuff. You get taxes for foster homes, you get more taxes towards taking care of those kids until they’re grown up. And what’s that kid going to grow up to do. It’s either going to grow up to be amazing, or it’s going to grow up to be, well, it’s gonna be a sad person. Or if you were to have a person to have a good life, to have a good environment, they’ll grow up to be somewhat successful or something amazing.
If it’s just about expenses, would you support killing off prisoners as well as kids in foster care?
Adrian: If we were to ban abortion, I would say, let’s start taxing the churches now. Churches don’t get taxed at all. Since churches are the ones who are the majority of people who are voting against abortion, you should have churches started being taxed a lot more than other companies. Because churches make a lot of money. I’ve seen a lot of pictures where like, well, it is the internet, I can’t believe everything on the internet, but I see the churches where the churches look so amazing, look so rich, powerful, a lot of seats everywhere, but the homeless are still homeless.
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A parenthetical remark indication where the college is would help.
Thanks for your comment. Gavilan College is in Gilroy, California. The story has been updated.
Where in the world is Gavilan College? Never heard of it.
And now we see the challenge for the church, ours and others that profess a relationship with Christ. We are thought of as a hate group. It doesn’t matter, really, what we think, it is what those who don’t belong think. The church has lost the culture war, even among nice people, people of good will. We abhor abortion, we are a hate group. We abhor same-sex marriage, we are a hate group. We abhor the LGBT+ lifestyle, we are a hate group. I for one, don’t know how we overcome these accusations. I’m fairly confident that most Catholics don’t agree with the church on these issues. I live in a fairly large community of “active adults over 55.” Most people believe in a woman’s right to choose, many of the same -sex couples are leaders in the area, and in the city. No one questions the gay agenda. And yet, a very high percentage of the 600+ homes in the subdivision are ardent in their faith, go to church on Sunday, teach Bible classes, and lead their parish. The people just ignore the church teaching on these subjects and move on.
“Most people believe in a woman’s right to choose, many of the same -sex couples are leaders in the area, and in the city. No one questions the gay agenda. And yet, a very high percentage of the 600+ homes in the subdivision are ardent in their faith, go to church on Sunday, teach Bible classes, and lead their parish. The people just ignore the church teaching on these subjects and move on”
So what did Jesus say about this: Not every one that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Does the answer your question. And we haven’t lost the culture wars. All of these abominations were imposed on us (most people opposed these atrocities at the time) but people gave up (remember the seed story) and accepted these evils….
” I didn’t believe him until I realized that sometimes having faith in something could be really good, but having faith in yourself is much better, being able to figure it out on your own. …” I am reminded of Proverbs 16: 2– “All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, but the Lord weighs the motives.” The “it” that Adrian is able to figure out is not defined, and it may take a lifetime for him to determine all that is entailed in this “it.” That said, he is quick to identify differences of perspective as “hate,” and in this he is marching to the beat of the cancel culture. What an impoverished view. Let us pray he one day rises above this.
What a lot of these stories show is that these kids are perfectly content without the Church. The Church has, at the very least, a huge marketing problem. People are realizing they can live genuinely happy, productive, good lives without anything the Church teaches is necessary: prayer, Bible, sacraments, moral rules about sex, worship. Look at all the millions of people who don’t follow anything the Church teaches on those matters and are yet still happy and productive and good. Big problem for the church.
Corey, to a point what you say is true– many people do exhibit all what you say without God. But what we see on the outside is not necessarily what is true on the inside. And we don’t have the advantage of seeing the insides of persons over their entire lifetime. Moreover, neither you nor I can look at someone and know the nature of their faith without knowing them deeply. It is due to the Natural/Moral Law that humans innately understand the difference between good and evil, though this knowledge is marred by original sin. Nevertheless this knowledge does assist us in being happy and productive. All this is a grace given to us by God whether we recognize it or not. When grievous trials come, as they inevitably do, many people instinctively turn to prayer. Maybe that has happened with you– it certainly has with me. So be careful with such generalizations as we don’t have windows into other’s souls.
It’s a beautiful day on the sea, gracious winds filling my sails, my trim craft skimming over the waters…all is well, and ahead of my ship are the great ports of the world. There is a tiny cloud on the horizon
Well lucky you. Better not sail into California or New York or New Zealand or Hawaii. You’re likely to be quarantined for two weeks.
…..which will become a hurricane, rip the sails off your ship, and threaten to sink you. That’s when you will be suddenly aware of God