Interview on March 7, 2022, at College of San Mateo with Andres, who is studying computer science, near the College Center and with Miguel, who is studying nutrition, near the Emerging Technologies Building.
ANDRES:
Do you consider yourself religious?
Andres: I used to, but no. My family and I grew up with Christianity and I don’t know what happened, but I just stopped going to church.
Do you believe in God or any sort of higher power?
Andres: At one point I did, but at this moment, no, I don’t.
Are you an atheist?
Andres: No. I don’t know where to put myself in terms of religions and believing in higher power. Right now, I’m just me.
Was your family any particular type of Christian?
Andres: I don’t remember the specifics about the branches of Christianity and whatnot, but people in Panama, that’s my hometown, most of them are very religious. I think the values of Christianity have made me a better person, but that’s what I would leave it at. I’m not a devout believer or anything of the sort.
How do you decide what’s a better person or a worse person?
Andres: I give respect to others. People give respect to me in return. I share with others, people share with me stuff in return. It’s like a give and take. If you give out kindness, you often receive kindness in return. That’s what I choose to believe.
Do you believe in an afterlife?
Andres: At one point, I thought maybe when I die, I will leave my body and I will wander around endlessly. And I thought, maybe I could see all sorts of stuff now that I don’t have a body, but it was just a fleeting idea. It’s nothing of the sort that I will give it any talk.
Do you believe in sin, that some acts are evil?
Andres: Well, people are evil sometimes, but also people are good. It depends on your point of view because me doing something might be considered good by somebody, but from somebody else’s perspective might be evil, that sort of thing.
Is there anything that’s evil no matter what people think about it?
Andres: I think taking a life is not a good thing, but I wouldn’t consider it evil because you might have your reasons, too, but I still think that’s wrong. I wouldn’t trample over somebody else’s happiness.
What if you saw a woman drowning a two-year-old and you didn’t know her reasons– ?
Andres: Would I stop her? Yeah, I would stop her. Maybe that’s just me, I have little brothers and sisters, but I wouldn’t want to see them drowned either. I don’t think anybody deserves to be drowned.
What about abortion, where you don’t know the woman’s reasons, either?
Andres: I wouldn’t know her reasons until we speak, but it’s not like I’m completely against it, but I’m also not in favor of it either.
What’s the difference between the two-year-old being drowned and the baby being killed before birth?
Andres: I don’t think there’s any difference.
Why would you stop one and not the other?
Andres: Depending on the situation. If the pregnancy was affecting the mother’s health and it would eventually kill her, I would say to prioritize the mother’s life. But if the mother is actually trying to drown her baby, that’s a different pattern.
What if the mother of the two-year-old is living in chaos, her life is falling apart, and having to care for the child is just too much? Do you think it would be okay for her to drown her child?
Andres: I wouldn’t know myself until I talked to her, but if I had a child and my life was falling apart, I would not consider drowning it for whatever reason. I don’t think that trampling over somebody’s happiness is a good thing, even though your environment might not be happy.
What do you think about making abortion illegal?
Andres: I think there are exceptions, but I don’t think those exceptions should be the norm. Maybe because I grew up as a Christian, I don’t have particularly strong feelings about being pro-abortion or whatever, but I’m not particularly in favor of either. But if it saves somebody’s life in the process, even though one is taken, then I don’t know. That’s very difficult to decide.
MIGUEL
Do you consider yourself religious?
Miguel: No. I just take time every morning and evening to pray, “Hey, thank you for giving me another day to live. Thank you for the challenges for today. I’ve learned a lot,” like that, and then I usually pray for my future. My auntie’s a nun and every time I ask her, “Can you pray for me because I’m having a hard time right now,” she does. My family’s a religious one, they go to church. Somehow I didn’t go to that because going to the church is not the real person. I think for me, my god, he will understand that my time for him is morning and night, he will consider that. Because other people go in to church and after that they’re like a s*** outside.
Do you have a moral code? Do you believe in good and evil?
Miguel: I believe in both of them, but I don’t see any problem with having good and evil, because I think your life will not be balanced when you’re doing only good. You need an evil side also, because your life will be imperfectly balanced when you’re doing good only.
Do you believe in an afterlife?
Miguel: Yeah, I believe the afterlife is when you’ve passed your mission here on earth and you’ve already done so much here and that’s when you go into your afterlife.
Do you believe some people go to a good place in the afterlife and some people go to a bad place?
Miguel: There’s no bad place. I think the bad place is already here. There’s a lot of challenges here and I think we are going to the same place.
Do you think murderers go to the same place as everyone else?
Miguel: Everything happens for a reason. Those murderers need help. Murderers are in need of psychological help and we need to help them. We don’t need to kill them.
So his religion is karma
Why are people still wearing masks? And outside? Alone? It’s a dead giveaway sign of neuroticism.
I believe we should tear down religion. My belief is NOT a religion it’s a relationship with the lord Jesus Christ.
If you have a right relationship with Jesus Christ, you are a member of His Church.
But the Democrats are trampling over Americans’ rights, and the Constitution, and the unjustified act of war by ordering the FBI to raid President Trump’s home is clear evidence that Democrats are tyrants.
An FBI “raid” is not an act of war, no matter one’s political views. How does the agency attain a search warrant? First, it has to believe that there is a very high probability that they will find something related to a crime. Second, they must convince a judge that there is a high probability of a crime being committed or might be committed that a search is warranted over a simple request for the information. The Justice Department knows that a lot of classified information was taken to the former President’s home when he left office, and they have collected a lot of it already.
We are a nation of laws, not of parties or anything else. The FBI followed the law. If the former President followed the law, then the “raid” will turn up nothing. This string is not about the raid, but we need to be clear when we use words like acts of war.
It’s an act of war when it’s political intimidation and payback.
So your information comes from where, DOJ? Would that be the same DOJ that lied to judges in their Russia investigation? Was there a similar raid of Hillary Clinton’s residence? She had an illicit server in her basement containing top secret documents. What about destroying evidence AFTER a subpoena was issued. BTW, no subpoena was issued here as would be the usual protocol. DOJ became the enforcement branch of the Democrats during the Obama administration when the illegal targeting of enemies by the IRS went on for years.
The FBI director who authorized the “raid” is a Republican and was a Trump appointee.
Trump likes to say that if they do it to “me” they can do it to “you”. Well that is right. If there is probable cause to believe that a crime was committed, the FBI and other authorities can go to a judge, present the evidence they think will be there and why, and obtain a search warrant. Exactly what was done to Trump. Anyone who watches police serials knows these things. It is hardly an act of war for police to lawfully combat crime.
YFC, is a mouthpiece of the ruling elite and has contempt for the working class. FBI is now a modern day STASI politicized to go after enemies of the ruling class. BTW YFC there are people still sitting jail from the January 6th nonsense that have NOT been charged with any crime. You and the rest of the Left fell for Russia collusion hoax so I fully expect you to fall for whatever the ruling class tells you through their lackeys in the media. Truth is now the opinion of the powerful.
Even Alan Dershowitz thought the raid was dumb
Nobody sits in jail who hasn’t been at least charged, if not convicted of a crime. Tell the truth.
You have already said on multiple occasions you want civil war. You want democracy replaced with an authoritarian state and are willing to destroy institutions like law enforcement in order to hold greater power in the hands of the dictator.
“They’re not after me. They’re after you. I’m just in the way.” DJ Trump.
Tearing down statues and digging up Confederates generals not enough anymore? Doesn’t give the same “high”. Blood next? Oh wait, Ashli Babbit unavailable for comment (killed by a FedOfficer) on J6. Fort Sumter? Harpers Ferry?
You decide.
Thank you for spelling it out for us.
If you are Catholic, then you are in mortal sin.
I don’t know if you are Catholic or even Christian, so I cannot say for sure.
I decided to add that to my title as one of the NO priest who frequent this site accused me here of this heresy because I won’t attend NO Mass and only attend my local SSPX chapel. I see many folks on this site now accusing those who prefer the TLM to the NO as Jansenist ie heretics. So, why not?
Because of the truly amazing obtuseness of the majority of the post-ers, I will say it was done in jest.
I’m not really a Jansenist. I’m more of a Sabellianist except it’s too long to add to my screen name.
sarc fwiw.
Why not? Because you don’t let others define you.
I had to look up Sabellianist. The De Fide Catholic Teaching is that there are 3 persons in one God. We must believe that.
I suppose you have heard that sarcasm is the language of the devil.
If you refuse to go to Catholic Mass, that is a way to end up in hell, if you are doing that with full knowledge and consent of the will.
Well, dirty little rat, all Americans, especially Presidents, ought to obey the vote of the electorate, not going to state officials telling them the number of votes they need to find. They ought to not steal the property of the United States, especially its Top Secrets, as they are not his personal belongings. The man is a disgrace to his office and his country. What all your other references have to do with anything, I have no idea. The FBI didn’t take down statues or were functionaries at Fort Sumter or Harpers Ferry – so you are just talking claptrap.
Who thinks you can attack the USA and not end up in a pile of dung? We learned this in the ’60s.
Bypassing federal records-keeping laws and accountability by having your own private email server that you use to conduct official government business is illegal. Yet Hillary gets away with it. Hunter Biden gets away with it. The FBI bigwigs falsifying evidence about Trump’s Russia collusion get away with it. Everyone on the left gets away with it, and then they muscle their political opponents using government power.
YFC you and the west coast elites time is up… civil war is coming and it will rip the country apart, and we will rebuild it on the broken corpses of the Left.
I got your six, bohemond. The Dems won’t know what hit them when it comes to brass tacks. When the rubber meets the road, the left will get run over. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, as they’ll find out soon enough. Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, especially not when the people they’re throwing stones at are armed with their 2nd Amendment goodies. Don’t tread on me.
Didn’t you try that already in January 6? Seditionist overthrow of the electorate. Hang the Vice President and murder the Speaker was the chant of the civil warriors. You don’t believe in democracy. You don’t believe in decency. You don’t believe in honesty.
YFC i dont believe oligarchy which is what we are currently ruled by, unelected bureaucrats, war mongering Neo-cons who gave helped give $40 Billion to a corrupt regime in Ukraine, which is now unaccounted for. You YFC support everything this corrupt regime does, its war on truth, the trans lies the corrupt woke ideology. Coming from a homosexual stating that someone else doesn’t believe in decency is beyond laughable. This corrupt regime has politicized the Justice Department and the FBI, which now become a Stasi like police force. Oh and latest assault on the citizenry is hiring of 87,000 IRS agents which will be used to after this regime political opponents and crush what’s left of the middle and working classes. To be honest I prefer a Catholic Confessional state ruled by the natural moral law, which I guess would leave you out its civil society
The FBI has a laptop filled with kiddie porn, evidence of illegal drug use, text messages claiming ‘pay for play’ access to the highest level of US government (FARA violations), and a man who also in text & email admits to illegal weapon possession.
According to the same FBI, that laptop may or may NOT exist, and may or may NOT be an item of interest.
I used to think you were obtuse. I changed my mind, like all progs you lack self awareness.
Sure helps when daddy is the pwesident, doesn’t it?
Dear Obtuse Jansenist, even if that is true, what has that got to do with Trump? You do realize that the FBI doesn’t investigate and prosecute one crime at a time, right?
At the end of his presidency, Barack Obama trucked 30 million pages of his administration’s records to Chicago…More than five years after Obama’s presidency ended, the National Archives webpage reveals that zero pages have been digitized & disclosed.
Trump is being targeted for political payback. That’s all this is. The left is despicable. That’s why I have no friends who are Democrats.
is anyone else tired of Your Faithless Catholic’s posts?
I take it you are another brainwashed Faux News watcher who believes any conspiracy theory that comes along, denies that even Republican officials and judges agree that Biden is the legit winner of 2020, and denies that the electorate should decide elections in the American democracy rather than mobs of violent insurrectionists who desecrate and defecate the capital.
San Mateo?
Isn’t that Spanish for “Saint Matthew?”
how can anyone learn anything
in such a “repressive” environment?
and a PUBLIC school to boot? Agh!