In Class Learning's Connected to my Personal Life

In class, we often debated nuanced questions with no true answer, like “Does stealing from a thief make you a better person, or are you both bad?” and “Is lying ever warranted?” Those debates never ended in a clear yes or no. We’d talk it through, and the answer always landed somewhere around “it depends on the situation.”

That way of thinking has shown up in my own life through religion. I was baptized Catholic and did all the communion and confirmation steps, but in college I found myself in a more Christian crowd, so I now sit somewhere in between. My faith is a big part of how I guide myself and my morals, but I don’t practice it blindly.

My boyfriend has been trying to grow stronger in his faith, and we recently had a conflict over it. He was reading the Bible in a very black-and-white way. At first it was little things, but eventually I couldn’t bite my tongue anymore. I told him that nothing is as black and white as it seems. The Bible says disobeying your parents is a sin, but what if you were born to genuinely bad people? He also said you have to accept God into your heart to go to heaven, so I asked about people born in remote or impoverished places with no chance to ever learn about Him. Are they going to hell? That left him stumped, and I almost felt bad, like I’d pulled the rug out from under him.

But it made him think harder about the yes-or-no thinking people in religion often fall into, and it helped him see that there are contradicting views. Since then, we’ve kept debating it, and I’ve loved it. I was glad I could challenge the way someone close to me thinks. This taught me to keep thinking beyond the obvious answer, so I can see the full picture and not just what the majority believes.