My parents never pushed me towards religion. They are atheists themselves, so my exposure to Christianity was limited to attending Friday night youth group sessions with my aunt at her local Evangelical Lutheran church. I remember attending a Halloween service when I was 11 or 12—on that particular evening, the pastor told us we would be protected from the demons of horror movies, as long as we were baptized and followed the teachings of the Lord. I, meeting neither of these requirements, was terrified on the drive home, even though my parents had told me not to believe the things that the church had taught us that night.
Despite the pastor’s warnings, my disbelief in a higher power only grew as I got older. More recently, however, I’ve noticed that atheism makes it difficult to answer the sorts of questions that one might find themselves asking when trying shrooms for the first time (I assume, that is…), like “Can one ever be genuinely altruistic?” and, “How does one go about making their life meaningful?” Unfortunately, atheists don’t often believe these questions have definite answers. I’m not all that satisfied with this conclusion.
This dissatisfaction has become harder and harder to ignore throughout my time at McGill, particularly in the past 12 months, presumably because of the increased independence I have as an “adult” who lives alone. In any case, it has forced me to reevaluate the views I’ve held so strongly for the past 20 years—crucially, this has meant addressing my convictions towards faith.
I think there are two things fundamentally wrong with the way I have been approaching conversations about religion. The first is that I have judged religion from a “right or wrong” perspective, getting hung up on the truth of different cosmologies and beliefs, rather than focusing on the impacts that faith has on believers and communities.
Najda Kassam, U3 Arts, who grew up Muslim but now feels more agnostic, continues to understand the comfort that faith gives people.
“Nobody wants to feel like they have to be the strongest human alive, they don’t want to deal with everything on their own, it is painful and sad,” Kassam said in an interview with The Tribune. “And I felt that way, [because] I was trying to deal with it all on my own. But when I think about it, I find it’s easier to cry in the arms of my friends, right? And that’s kind of what religion does for people.”
People have turned to religion in times of crisis for as long as it has existed. To dismiss this found comfort in the name of science or “rational” thinking is irresponsible and, frankly, rude. My preferred method of self-soothing involves several hours’ worth of Instagram reels, so to each their own.
At a societal level, religion has inspired artists and architects around the world for centuries. It has created spaces for communities of like-minded people to form. It brings peace and provides one with a general way of being. While it would be incorrect to say that organized religion has been harmless throughout human history, it is equally problematic to ignore the reasons people have turned to faith in the first place.
The artistic and ritualistic practices that emerged from religion create a myriad of beautiful things to engage with, regardless of whether you hold the corresponding faith.
Kat Mulligan, fourth-year French Studies student at Concordia University, is a regular church-goer, despite identifying as an atheist.
“I like hearing the organ music, the choir, and I like that it’s a sort of meditative space,” Mulligan said in an interview with The Tribune. “I think Catholicism does a good job with aesthetics, so especially as someone who doesn’t have the faith aspect to religion, I like the kind of show they make of their religious experience.”
These environments have built avenues to experience the beauty of religion while simultaneously being surrounded by people who show up for causes they care about. This in itself can have a restorative effect on your faith in humanity.
“I really like the aspect of ritual, and I think it’s nice when people go all in on something [....] In general, I like the idea that Catholicism wants you to hold yourself to a high standard morally,” Mulligan said.
My second error was to think that ‘religion’ and ‘atheism’ mean the same things to everyone who uses the terms. Throughout my interviews, it became clear that people do not necessarily stand by every aspect of a particular doctrine, and that part of coming of age is deciding for yourself what aspects of faith (or a lack thereof) are meaningful and valuable for you. Even I, a diehard atheist, find myself praying before writing an exam or waiting to hear back from an internship application. Seeing doctrines as monoliths ignores a lot of individual variation in belief and practice. The beauty of having a belief system partially lies in the way each person adapts it to their own life in practice.
“It doesn’t have to be one rule for everybody, and there are so many different parts of the interpretation that you can make as you go. That’s the point of any piece of literature you’ll ever read in your life,” Kassam said. “It’s all interpretive. No one’s going to read the same thing the same way.”
Perhaps, I thought, there was some interpretation of faith that could help my atheistic heart with its existential line of questioning.
Alongside each person’s unique interpretation of their beliefs and traditions, the students I spoke with all had their own approaches to the relationship between religion and morality. Jordan Ona, third-year English Literature student at Trent University, mentioned the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew as an important source of moral guidance. Its teachings encourage one to practice compassion, humility, and forgiveness.
“That is one thing I appreciate that religion stresses on, is that it really does strip away everything you think is important,” Ona said in an interview with The Tribune. “Like having good skin care, a good body, being smart and in school? No, it’s loving your neighbour, your mom and dad, brother, everyone you love, and just washing everyone’s tears away. That’s what’s important.”
In contrast, Kassam’s takeaway was less about specific instructions from a holy text, and more about the fact that, as humans living on the same planet, we are all innately connected. However, this feeling of connection, in her eyes, is not entirely removed from the idea of faith.
“I think God is this interconnectedness within us and these strings that attach us and the ties that we are, and so it would be sort of like severing that if I dishonoured it, or if I didn’t go about [life] in a way of acknowledging everything around me,” Kassam said.
This narrative ties into other faith-related aspects of Kassam’s life, namely the existence of the soul, and the value of curiosity and education.
“I kind of think that [education is] the way I carry through with my faith,” Kassam said. “So even though I don’t necessarily have to go to mosque or have to be in a certain place to pray, I find that being inquisitive and learning and finding things out and doing research gives me this sort of meditative, or religious sort of aspect to it.”
Zachary Liu, U3 Science, highlighted the overlap that atheists and theists may have in their belief systems despite taking different routes to reach the same conclusions.
“A lot of the values that I think of when I think of religion, I think I have not necessarily the same values but similar ones, except mine weren’t obtained through religion,” Liu said in an interview with The Tribune. “When I want to help someone or do something that I deem to be morally right, it doesn’t have anything to do with any external force. This is just me wanting to do it because I want someone else to be happier.”
While Liu currently identifies as an atheist, Liu’s father was Catholic, and his mother was Buddhist. Understanding religion was thus an important part of his upbringing, even if it did not ultimately inform his moral compass.
“For some parts of my family, it's a big part of what their community looks like,” Liu said. “And then so for me, it’s important, for example, if I want to understand my grandparents. I think it’s important to have that context of their social circle like in what their events are like.”
Sam Kunesch, U3 Science, echoed a similar idea to Liu, on the premise that while religion can help people find meaning and direction, it is not the only way to do so. As a biology student and a former Catholic, Kunesch looks to the biological principle of reciprocity for moral inspiration, which is reminiscent of the biblical teaching to “love thy neighbour.”
“Reciprocity is a strategy where an organism acts in a way that temporarily reduces its own fitness while increasing another organism’s fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will reciprocate the favour later,” Kunesch said in an interview with The Tribune. “So we have an evolutionary advantage to something that is also advised to us by the Bible [....] It’s the closest thing to what I consider a universal truth when the religious people and the scientists can agree on something.”
One of the final questions I asked each of my interviewees was whether they thought life is inherently meaningful. In retrospect, I sounded an awful lot like Jaden Smith talking about the political and economic state of the world, but it was one of the driving questions behind this project, so I asked it anyway.
It wasn’t until Ona asked me how I would answer it myself that I realized I hadn’t considered the question all that deeply. It took merely a few seconds of critical thinking to realize that, while life may not have some greater, philosophical meaning, the fact remains that I am alive now, surrounded by people whom I love. My care for others exists whether it is biologically, divinely, or philosophically motivated, and I would be doing a disservice to myself and the people around me by not embracing it.
Whether you find your meaning and morals by following the word of God, through the principle of reciprocity, or simply out of the goodness of your heart, it would seem that ultimately, we are all working towards one common goal: To help and to love one another. And really, what more can we do?
