My Survey Encounters with Three Persons on the Topic of Religion

The first person I was able to survey was a guy from Blackwell, Oklahoma, named Michael, Michael is a nineteen-year-old freshman at Northern Oklahoma College, who was shopping at Wal-Mart when my friend Jonathan and I met him, He is majoring in pre-engineering, and plans to continue engineering at Oklahoma State University after graduating at NOC. When I approached him, he seemed fairly talkative at first, but was hesitant to answer some of the questions I had for him. The first question was simply if he believed in God, to which he responded with a simple, l’Yes”.

Then I asked him why, and he thought about a second before answering, “I grew up in church, and that’s always what I have kind of believed in. I don‘t question it, it’s just something I was raised to believe in.” I continued and asked him if he believe if all religions were true, and his response was, “[ believe in God, and if other people want to believe whatever they believe it doesn‘t bother me,” | restated the question, emphasizing whether he believed if those other religions were “true”, and he said, “Probably not, but like people can believe what they want.

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Then I asked if he believed the Bible to be true, to which he said, “Yes.” Then I asked why he trusted the Bible, and he never really gave me a clear answer, but basically he said that he believes that God made the Bible and so he doesn’t think it is wrong.

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However, he also said that he thinks that since it was written by humans that it might also not be one hundred percent true. I then asked him whether or not he thinks he will go to heaven, and he quickly said, “Yes”, but he shrugged when he said it. I was not convinced that he knew anything for certain, but his response seemed like he was saying, ”Yeah, I think so, why wouldn’t I?” So then I asked him his reasoning why he thinks he will go to heaven, to which he said, “I think everyone probably will go to heaven as long as they aren’t a terrible person.

I think I’m a pretty good person, so I think I would probably go to heaven,” lthen asked him if he believed in Christianity, to which I could of guessing his response of, “Yeah, I’m a Christian.” I asked him what exactly his religious beliefs were, and he said, “I believe in Jesus, that he died to let us all to go to heaven, and like I go to church and stuff, and I believe all of that,” Then I asked him what led him to be a Christian, and once again he said, “I grew up in church, and so like it‘s just what I believe in‘ None of Michael’s answers seemed thought out very well, and it felt like most of his answers werejust an excuse to try to shorten or try to end the survey as quickly as possible, From what he said, it was pretty clear he had grown up a in a church, although [ have no idea what denomination Overall, he seemed fairly nice, but did not really know why or give reasons to what he believes‘ The second person I surveyed was a guy from Tonkawa, Oklahoma as well. His name was Logan, and is also a student at NOC, who working at Wal-Mart and was talking with Michael when I saw him, I had recognized Logan from one of the concurrent classes I took at NOC in high school, but he did not seem to remember who I was.

Logan is a twenty year old sophomore at NOC, who is majoring in something that has do to with business, Logan seemed a bit more open than Michael, who left as soon as I thanked him for answering my questions, but also seemed a bit more defensive in his responses at times, Through my interaction with Logan, it was clear to see that he fit the description of a skeptic The first question | asked was if he believed in God, to which he quickly responded, “I don’t believe that there is a god, no.” Then I asked him why he didn’t believe in God, and he responded, “I don’t believe that there is any evidence for a god, so I just believe in one.” Then I asked him how he believed the universe and life came to be, to which he said, “I believe the universe was formed by the Big Bang, and that like life and all that came from random atoms and stuff coming together, and that evolved into like humans and stuff,” I then asked him why he believes that, and his response was, “Because there is scientific evidence for it, and it doesn’t make any sense to think that a god created the universe.” However, the way he said these responses made me question whether or not he actually believed it himself. I would guess that this is just a response he had heard from someone else and was simply just repeating, but there is no way I could know that as a fact. He did not seem hesitant to answer though and seemed open to defend his belief more, but I went ahead and continued asking questions.

The next question I changed a little bit, and | asked him if he thought that any religions were true. His response was, “No. I don’t think that any of them are real. I think they are all just made up so that people feel better about themselves.” Then I asked him if he believed the Bible to be true, to which he said, “No, I don‘t, and I don’t see why anyone would base their life off a stupid book, it just seems stupid to me.” He added the last part without anyone asking, which makes me question why he felt so strongly against the Bible, It seemed so unprecedented that it kind of caught me off guard. 50, to his response, i asked him the reasons why he did not trust the Bible and why he felt thought it was a stupid book. He got some what defensive, probably because he did not have a good answer, and responded, “A book that tells you what to do and not to do is stupid, why would anyone want that?” I decided to move on because I did not want to get into an argument with him. Instead of asking him if he thinks he will go to heaven, I decided to ask him what he thinks happens when he dies. His response was interesting, “I just stop living, and that’s it.” So instead of asking him why he believes that, I decided to ask him what he thinks is the purpose of life, He stood there looking confused for a good thirty seconds before he answered and told me.

“I don’t know, I guess to have fun and just do whatevec” His response kind of stunned me, and I did not know exactly how to react in the situations I felt troubled for this guy, who was my age and who had no idea what real life was. I did not know whether to move on and ask him another question, or talk to him about the reality of heaven and hellt It seemed like he wanted to know what the answer to my question was, but I decided once again to just move on with the survey. It was just hard to ignore the fact that this guy had never really considered that the meaning of his life was. Then I went on to ask him if Christianity was true and if heaven and hell were real, would he believe in it, Once again. his response was kind of shocking, He simply said, “No.” I then briefly clarified exactly what all Christianity entailed to make sure he knew, and then asked again Once again he replied, “Nos” Then I asked why, why he was opposed to the idea of Christianity, and he said plainly, “I don’t want to give up my life for that, I‘m happy doing what I’m doing, why would I want to change that?”

Logan’s answers seemed more thought out than Michael’s, probably because Logan more engaged than him. Regardless, Logan’s responses were very skeptical of any sort of God and religion. It almost seemed that the reason he did not want to believe in a god was because that would mean he would have to change the way he was living his life He said he was happy living the life he was, and so, to him, to change that would potentially mean that his happiness would go away, Like Michael, Logan seemed like a nice guy, but really did not have good reasons and evidence to believe what he believes. The last person I was able to survey was a girl by the name of Payton, who I met in the downstairs of the Geiger Center at Oklahoma Baptist University Payton is a twenty year old sophomore nursing major at OBU. When I approached her about the survey, she welcomed me to take a seat with her at her table, She was very polite and open throughout the whole survey, and she gave pretty well thought out responses to the questions that I asked. The first question that I asked was the same as the other two surveys, which was simply do you believe in God. Her response was, “Yes”, and then she went on to explain why without me even asking.

I let her continue without asking the next question, which was why she believed in God. She continued, “And I believe that because I don’t think that there is any other explanation for how the world came to be, I don’t think everything could just come from nothing, that’sjust not possible. I believe what the Bible says about the creation and who the creator is” Since she answered my next question. Ijust moved on next and asked if she believed that all religions are true. Her response was plainly, “No“, and then she paused before I asked why She took her time and answered, “I only believe Christianity to be true. All other religions don’t seem to hold up to the test, but with Christianity there isn’t any inconsistency‘s and stuff like that to make me doubt it” Then I asked if she believed that she would go to heaven, to which she replied, “Yes.” I then asked why she believed that, and she responded, “Because I have placed my faith in Jesus Christ.” Base off that answer it is easy to tell she is a believer in Christ, which made my last two questions somewhat unnecessary, but I asked them anyways. I asked her if she believed the Bible to be true, and to no surprise she answered, ”Yes.” I then asked her why, and she gave me a pretty well thought out response.

She said, “Because it’s the word of God. and like it doesn’t have any errors in it since God basically wrote it Also, it’s like historically accurate and stuff like that, which just helps prove that it’s true. And like so many people have been changed by it that you can’t just say it’s just some made up book,” My last question was if Christianity was true, would you believe it, and obviously she would have said yes, sol decided to just ask her what led her to believe what she believes She responded, “Well, I grew up in church so there’s that. And like just my own experience with God through like reading my Bible and stuff has led me to believe what I believe” Payton was very open to talk about her beliefs and faith, at least far more open than Michael and Logan, She knew what she believed, and gave pretty good reasons for her beliefs She was very welcoming, and it was pretty obvious to tell that she loved Christ from just talking to her.