California Catholic Daily reporter, Mary Rose, visits a California college each week and asks students about God, good, and evil. Interview with Jorge, who is studying forensic psychology and kinesiology, outside the Student Services Building, and with Leslie and Jessica, who are studying psychology, outside the Science building at Hartnell College in Salinas, California on January 29, 2020.

Jorge

Do you consider yourself religious?

Jorge: I believe there’s a God, but not really to the point where I’m going to church every Sunday. I guess you can say I kind of lost connection with the religion. Over the years, I just stopped going to church and everything. You know how in the Catholic religion they have the Virgin Mary and Jesus? I still have strong beliefs about that, but I don’t really practice a religion. 

Do you believe in an afterlife?

Jorge: I don’t really have any beliefs on it, honestly. Hopefully there is.

How do you decide what’s right and wrong?

Jorge: I just go from what I was taught growing up, pretty much how my parents educated me. 

What do you think about abortion:

Jorge: I would still go with how my parents how my parents raised me. With abortion, I would look at the perspective – try to look at it from the mother’s – the perspective of the person who went through it. Let’s say she can’t afford to have a kid or something or she just doesn’t want to have a kid, I guess. If she wasn’t going to be able to maintain the kid, she’s just gonna have him suffer. And let’s say she could and she just doesn’t want to have a kid, because she just doesn’t want to but she has the money, let’s say the house, and everything. I don’t think that would be right.

If someone asked you who Jesus is, what would you say?

Jorge: Oh, I don’t know about that one. Honestly, that’s something I always ask myself, like who’s God? Who is Jesus? I like to believe that there’s someone, but I don’t know specifically.

What about the Virgin Mary?

Jorge: With the Virgin Mary, I would want to say the original they have in Mexico. I always carry this [brown scapular embroidered with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe] with me. So since I’ve been small I’ve always had a Virgin Mary with me. I don’t know why, but I just feel attached to it.

Leslie and Jessica

Do you consider yourself religious?

Leslie: Somewhat. I go to church every Sunday with my mom.

Jessica: Somewhat. I try to go sometimes, but I don’t go every week.

How do you decide what’s right and wrong?

Jessica: I think about both options and decide which one is best.

Leslie: Yeah, something like that.

Is abortion right or wrong?

Jessica: Well, I try to like put myself in that person’s place and see what I would do.

Leslie: Yeah, I think the same. It has to be on the person, not on somebody else to decide.

What about something like drunk-driving? Is that every person’s choice?

Leslie: No. You can hurt other people by doing that.

But somebody has to die in an abortion.

Leslie: That’s true. 

Jessica: I think it depends on the situation, too. What if it’s based on rape or something like that?

But an innocent person still has to die.

Jessica: Yeah.

If someone asked you who Jesus is, what would you say?

Leslie: I don’t know, the creator? I feel like everyone has a different mission and it depends on your religion and how you see it.

Jessica: I don’t like to influence people on what they should be or not. I think it’s up to them. They can Google it.

Do you believe in an afterlife?

Leslie: I do.

Jessica: Yeah.

Does everyone go to the same place?

Leslie: It depends.

Jessica: I don’t know, but I was studying with a different religion than mine and their religion says that you have to follow certain steps in order to go to heaven. And my religion says other things. So I think it depends on your religion. 

If someone asked you why you believe in God, what would you say?

Jessica: That’s the way I was raised and it’s hard to try to change that.

Leslie: That’s what I was raised with. 

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