While raised in Catholic schools through high school graduation, I am currently not very religious. Particularly as the religious right has continued to attempt to use Christianity to exclude and hurt others and create clear, although often skewed, lines of what is right and wrong in the United States, I have moved further from organized religion. I have been impressed with the new Pope in terms of the messages being sent to others, and celebrate some basic Catholic holidays, but tend to view the stories and tradition of Catholicism just as that: stories and traditions that have the ability to bring people together and can be used for foundational development of morals and ethics. Even in growing up through religious teachings, stories and traditions were seen as possible guides to life, but not the end-all-be-all, and often question the participation and teachings of such groups. One of the articles highlighted the belief in evolution as a strong sticking point; I think it has been clearly shown that evolution is what happened.
In that sense, while I have never identified as an atheist or an agnostic, I do think critically about religion and faith-based groups, do not think they are necessary or requirements to live a fulfilled life, and tend not to turn towards religion or faith in times of crisis or joy. My life decisions, for example, have not included religious undertones for me throughout my adult life: marriage was not in a Church (although a friend had to be “ordained” online by a faith based group in order to marry us in Las Vegas), I do not (and really never have) spent Sundays at Church, seldom go to Church, or have a faith-based community connection that is organized. Celebrated religious holidays often have a much more family/tradition overtone than a religious one. At the same time, if I were to have children, we have debated raising them through a religion as a foundation during the formative years. In that sense, I’m hopeful that I can help our conversations speak positively and not detrimentally about atheist and agnostic students, and acknowledge that my personal experiences may make me intrigued about the topic in general.
I have had limited experiences with agnostic/atheist students, but probably communicated with more students in the northeast that did not believe or participate in religion than I have in the south, and am excited about us learning more about agnostic/atheist students because I believe the nature of Southern culture limits and excludes them, and many others, more so than I have seen it do in the west and northeast. I am hoping we start to define some touch points and start pulling together more information in concrete ways as we continue, and am struggling with us defining so many pieces of the project after very limited research and knowledge already. Hopefully as we read and share more articles and do more hands on research, we can return to our stakeholders and our project responsibilities to ensure they align with what atheist/agnostic students will need, and not just our perceptions of what they may be.
