Interview on September 9, 2024, with Inderjot, who is studying business, outside the Science III building at California State University Bakersfield.
Do you consider yourself religious?
Inderjot: Yes. It’s devotion. I think it’s belief, it’s trust, and it’s spirituality. So if you believe in it, you believe in it. If you don’t, you don’t. And that’s what I think being religious is. I follow the Sikhism religion. It’s a monotheistic religion.
If someone asked you why you believe in God, what would you say?
Inderjot: I would say, “Why not?” We always turn to science, “Oh, this is scientific.” But the scientific theory, like the Big Bang theory, two things just collided and everything was made, just doesn’t make sense to me. There needs to be a higher form of power that has created everything the way it is. And when people ask for evidence, you can’t really give them evidence. But it’s like scientific theory. You can’t prove that evidence either. The Big Bang theory is just a theory. So what if God’s a theory as well, but you pick and choose what you want to.
In Sikhism, do you have a holy book?
Inderjot: Yes, the Guru Granth Sahib.
Does Sikhism teach a set of morals that you’re supposed to follow?
Inderjot: Yeah, it’s similar to other religions. There’s always a good and a bad. There’s always moral teachings. I think all religions follow the same guidelines, don’t kill, be a good person, kindness, love, all of that. So we also follow the same principles. The religious holy book is similar to other religions. It’s how you’re supposed to live your life, like inspiration, you turn to it, guidance, you turn to it, you want to be a better person, you turn to it.
What do you think about the morality of abortion?
Inderjot: Based on religion, it’s controversial because all these holy books are tailored to a specific time period. You’re not supposed to update them because it’s the holy scripture and you’re not supposed to touch it. No human is supposed to put their own doctrine into it. Based on my knowledge, it’s based on circumstances. If someone was raped or sexually assaulted, that’s obviously a different circumstance so abortion is okay. I would say it depends on your guidance. For me, I think abortion is okay because based on circumstances, like if you think that you can be a better Sikh or you could be a better Christian without having another human here, and focusing yourself in your devotion to God, I think it’s okay. But it’s always a personal choice. I think people have the right to make their decision. I can’t dictate what decision you make, but I think it’s okay.
Earlier you mentioned moral standards that most religions share, like don’t steal and don’t kill. Do you think that abortion kills a human being?
Inderjot: I would say no. You have to look at all different factors of it. We’re not just looking at killing a human being. We’re thinking about financial stability. We’re thinking about mental health. We’re talking about is the woman able to actually give birth? Is this human a minor? Is this human still 10, 12, 13, 14, whatever. Right? So you have to take all those things into consideration. Is it okay to put myself or my quality of life at risk in order to just give birth to another human being? But then it depends on what trimester you’re on and all that. Everyone’s entitled to have their own decisions, have power over your life to do whatever makes you happy or whatever makes your quality of life better.
If a biological male identifies as a woman, is that person truly a woman?
Inderjot: Again, personal preference. You do whatever you want, but me, no, I don’t. I try to stay out of it. I don’t know much about it. I think a man is a man or woman is a woman. That’s how we were created. That’s how we are. But if someone chooses to transform or choose a different gender or be called different pronouns, I am okay with it. It has nothing to do with me. If you want to make that choice and you want other people to accept your choice, that’s okay. You’re entitled to whatever you want. But for me, I just don’t really support it. I’m all for it. People do all types of things. It’s your choice, but it’s just not for me.
Do you believe in an afterlife?
Inderjot: Yeah, I guess so. There are different afterlifes. Similar to Christian belief, there’s hell and heaven, there’s different forms of hell or heaven. Based on your time here, similar to Muslims, there’s jihan. I think that’s what it’s called. They balance out your good karma with your bad karma, and depending on that, you go wherever. So in Sikhism, if your bad karma outweighs your good karma, you have to go through the whole cycle, all different forms of life. Different living organisms, they call it the chaurasi lakh joon. You have to go through all these lives being a snail, being a snake, and then you die, you go into the next form of life all up until you become human again. And then this is your chance to have your good karma outweigh your bad karma to go into a form of heaven. The goal is to come back, be reincarnated through all these different forms of life, back to human, to showcase why you should go into heaven.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQXKNCzmxhcwgKnKrPWcwzQFBzl?projector=1
Abortion is never okay. End Abortion Now! Adoption is the option.
siekh or whatever it’s called is a fake religion and this college student is another successfully brainwashed, indoctrinated product of the public school system.
You make a good point. It would be interesting to see if her beliefs on abortion etc. would change were she confined to a country dedicated to Sikhism and uncorrupted by Western decadence.
Some photo cropping on the left side would be advised. How did the person conducting the interview get through it while having to look at that offensiveness?
Catholics practice custody of the eyes. Doncha’ know.
I could not get past that name. Yikes.
I don’t believe in a fearsome God. God loves us all abundantly. We’ll all be together in the end, regardless.
Regardless of what?
“I don’t believe in a fearsome God.” You believe in the doctrine of Universalism, which says, as you do, that all people will enjoy heaven. You are in good company. The pope is a hopeful universalist, by which I mean he hopes hell is empty. He might be called a semi- tangential universalist, which means his thought approaches universalism closely but doesn’t necessarily get there, though, as before, he hopes universalism is true. I spoke to a young priest back around 1979 who was an avid universalist. And a popular criticism of historic Christianity is that a loving God would never consign someone to hell. That would make God’s justice less merciful than our own. I submit that your view of God is not the God of the Bible, nor your view of humanity the humanity of the Bible. If you think the Bible has something meaningful to say about God’s love and His judgment, I suggest a thorough reading of the New Testament.
Well, at least she didn’t say “irregardless.”
Murder is murder, no matter what century or what culture you are born into. The unborn child is sacred, from God. This immigrant Indian (?) college girl has not been taught her Indian Sikh religion at all. All she knows is the immature, immoral, Modernist, self-seeking, self-styled, “Me-Generation” Western liberal leftist indoctrination. “Do whatever you feel.” “Please yourself.” “Who cares about anyone– but Me-Me-Me?” No objective moral standards. No discipline, nor depth of learning to read and understand religious works. Though I have no idea what her religious holy book says, I bet it does not allow Godless, mindless, selfish promiscuity and abortion, “just because you want that.” Immature. Her Indian Sikh parents and grandparents would no doubt be horrified. I once, decades ago, attended a Baby Shower for a young, married Hindu Indian woman, who was pregnant with their first child. She was very smart, and was an immigrant, completing her education in a scientific field. Only women were present at the Baby Shower. This was in the era before the baby’s gender could be known. At the Baby Shower, the mother-to-be asked non-Indians to join in, participating in rituals to honor the soon-to-be born child. In one ritual, each woman at the Baby Shower whispered something positive and beautiful in the mother’s ears, to welcome and honor the new child. The whispered greetings were believed to reach the soul of the growing unborn baby. In another ritual, singing lovely little songs, welcoming the baby, was also believed to be a good influence, helpful to the baby. We (the non-Indians) were taught the words, phonetically, to the songs. It was a lovely Baby Shower– with lots of delicious food of their culture, too. Mother and child were honored!
The young Indian woman whose baby shower I attended, was a very smart, top-notch student finishing her education at UC Berkeley. She and her husband and whole family, were very nice, conservative, traditional Indian people.
So is slavery okay if it’s based on circumstances.
I do hope that shirtless person in the background was a male, but it looks too doughy to be a man. Do women walk around like that in California?
You are apt to see just about anything in California in certain areas. People with tattoos all over their arms, legs and even their faces, “bull” rings in their noses that tempt one to put a rope in them, big chunks of plastic circles in their stretched out deformed earlobes and much, much more. Got to admit, though, that I have been helped (given directions, etc.) by some very strange looking people who nontheless were very courteous and kind. God bless them. After a while one tends to just ignore most of it.
I have to admit that I did exaggerate somewhat on the “bull” rings. Most of the nose rings on the women are small and go through just one nostril, but I did see one man with a mid-sized ring through both his nostrils. That is what I call a “bull” ring. The piercings that seem as though they would seriously hurt are the ones on the skins of the face, which seems to be popular in some circles. Yikes! One church in California that is from the patriarchy of Jerusalem forbids their churchgoers to even have one ear piercing. That to me is going too far the other way. “Virtus est in medius” – ” Virtue is in the middle”.