Nicole Duran, Period 1, 12/13/21

Nicole Duran

Period 1.

12/13/21

Modern Mythology 2022

Literacy & Learning

Religion was always a big part of my life. I was born into a Catholic family and was raised with the expectation that I too would become a part of the Catholic faith. My first school was St. Rita's and even though I would change for elementary school, I was still expected to keep up with CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) classes. From Easter Sunday to my confirmation, in almost every way I am considered a member of the Catholic church.

As I got older I started to steer away from the beliefs that I was born and raised into. What was at first immediate acceptance turned into questioning, and when those questions failed to be answered it turned into confusion. Why should I follow someone or something that might not exist? Why should I believe in something that can’t be seen? Since then I’ve figured that I don’t necessarily believe in God, or at least not the Catholic interpretation of Him. While there is no definitive way to prove he does exist, there’s also no way to prove he doesn’t. 

Regardless of my own thoughts of the matter, however, there was one part of growing up Catholic that stuck with me until even now. From a young age, I was always fascinated with the stories of the bible. I would grow up with Veggie Tales and The Prince of Egypt, marveling at adventure after adventure and one fantastical tale after another. As I grew older and questioned more, I still held them close to me. Even when not directly referenced or even related, I’d be reminded of things I had seen in different stories. Because really, that’s what the bible is: an anthology of different stories. Getting to read and learn about the bible in class reminded me of the part that I always loved the most about this religion. Hearing about different stories spread throughout the bible, from Noah to The Good Samaritan, Revelations especially, it allowed me to look back at my past through a more analytical lens. It allowed me to deconstruct the stories like stories and not just (literal) gospel. 

Looking back on them also allowed me to learn about another religion that’s very closely tied with Catholicism: Judaism. The two religions start off with the very same roots, with Adam and Eve and their banishment from the garden of Eden. Christians in the past were apparently a smaller sect of Jewish people. Talks with my parents have never really answered this question. The most I would ever get was that the two used to be connected and then split apart, the reasoning vague at best and nonexistent most of the time. From my own research, the split seems to have come during the Jewish Diaspora, when the Jewish people were exiled from their homeland and had to move elsewhere. At this point in time, the Christians were a small group of people who followed Jesus and believed him to be the Messiah. Due to the changes in the Jewish faith that occurred during this time and the workings of a man named Paul of Tarsus, who declared to those who followed Jesus across the Mediterranean that they didn’t need to remain Jewish in order to follow Jesus. This also brought a lot of new people into the faith aside from making a permanent split.

If it had not been for this class, I highly doubt that I would have bothered to try and look into this myself. This class has allowed me to not just explore my own religion or to explore a religion other than my own, but to also realize the importance that might be held by this. We live in a world where no one person is the same, and where many people we meet will be different from us in some way that we may not fully understand. I think it’s our duty as people to show interest in these differences, not just so that we may be knowledgeable about others, but so that we may be able to accommodate others and help them feel more welcome in our presence.