We talk to our friends about our poor grades, how much work our horrible professor assigned, and how stressed we are. We talk about our regrettable exploits or our failure in our romantic endeavors. Every week we confide in our friends about a vast array of various difficult issues we are faced with as college students. However, rare is the time when we are truly honest about our internal conflict with our spirituality.

It is said that our investment in a university education is for more than just a piece of paper signed by David Boren that certifies we have managed to adequately navigate our way through an academic field of study (that diploma fails to mention all the times I was so close to saying “forget this crap” and quitting). In college, we learn much more than just what our monotone professor tells us in a classroom or what we skim read in a textbook. We learn about the world around us, about how to be independent, about different ideas and about diverse groups of people. Most importantly, we begin to learn what kind of person we want to be in this life. College is also a time when we decide what we are going to believe in this life. We may have already had the framework laid out for us in our youth, but now we become independent and reach a maturity level to decide for ourselves.

The exposure to many different opinions, beliefs, and worldviews often sparks introspection into what we as individuals truly believe. We begin to question if what we have always been told is actually what we truly feel. There are no parents or family members here to tell you what to believe, what to think, or what to do. If you grew up in a conservative Baptist household and your friend tells you he doesn’t believe in God, there is no one else there to tell you if what he believes is wrong. So instead of having the affirmation from someone else, you are left to decide whether you actually believe the things you have been taught in church. On the other hand, you may have grown up in a nonreligious household, and your family never went to church. Then one day a friend asks you if you believe in God, and you are left to answer that question on your own.

Our spirituality is just one of the many aspects that make up who we are, but it is one that is often brushed under the rug in college. I know so many of my friends who are afraid of growing up. They do not want to get older. They do not what to be adults. I, on the other hand, look at growing into adulthood as a chance to be exactly who I want to be in the world and look forward to the future. Maybe the people who are scared to grow up feel this way because they do not truly know who they want to grow up to be. They have become accustomed to the beliefs they have always had. When college exposes us to ways of life that are different, it is inevitable that we question our own way of life.

As people, we go through a metamorphosis from adolescence to adulthood and college is our cocoon. For many people, the difficult part of college comes when they need that parental guidance when it is absent. From little things like being used to your mom waking you up or your dad killing a bug in the house to big things like how to schedule your time efficiently or how to behave on your own. In reality, that forced independence is an integral part of what this experience is all about: learning to think for yourself. This transcendence from who we were as teens into who we will be as adults calls us to filter through what we have been taught and decide what to keep and what to discard. This is an internal conflict that I believe all of us face as students but rarely are we candid about it.

For those of us who have been raised in a religious family, there is no doubt that at some point in college the beliefs that we espoused when we were younger will be challenged. For me personally, I was raised in a Catholic household. My mother was raised in an extremely Catholic house. You know, the kind with seven kids and unless you were dead, then by God you were going to church every Sunday. No homosexuality, no abortion, no premarital sex, no divorce, and Jesus is Lord just like the sky is blue and I am a skinny white man. There was no questioning it. Thankfully my mother was not quite as forceful and she struck the difficult balance between being adamant that we be raised in the church, but also learn to be faithful by choice. I was always strong in my Roman Catholic faith, saying my Hail Marys, going to confession, and so on. Then when I got older, I began to learn more about the world and difficult times happend. I began to question certain Christian teachings. I started to think: “I know gay people and I think they are wonderful, and I don't believe they are not going to Heaven. I know people who do not believe in God and I don't believe they are going to Hell."

Then I got to college and I was diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases and my mother passed away nine months after being diagnosed with cancer. All of the sudden I found myself thinking: “God… what the hell, man?” I found it difficult to really talk to my friends about the religious side of it all and how I struggled to reconcile that God lets suffering like that happen. I recently returned from a six-week stay at Mayo Clinic for my health issues and I have really made an effort to focus on the spiritual side of it all (The Dalai Lama himself, one of my favorite people on the Earth, was being seen at the same hospital while I was there, only adding to my thoughts on spirituality) I realize now that it is not just me who has encountered these struggles. As college students, we all have experiences that challenge our beliefs. What I have noticed though is that we are hesitant to confide in others about it. Probably because of fear of judgment or condemnation. Despite my questions, I am still a proud practicing Catholic, but I would be lying if I said I agree with everything the church teaches and lying is a sin.

There are many people here in the bible belt of Oklahoma who are strong in their faith. Especially their deeply held evangelical Christian beliefs. Evangelism is another thing we are sure to encounter here at the University of Oklahoma. Not necessarily the two guys in black suits asking you if you want to hear the about the good news, or the nut-job in front of Dale Hall yelling at you that you are going straight to hell in a handbasket, but often in the form of friends. There is going to be someone who is going to try to tell you about what they believe and why you should too. Many students despise this entrée of evangelism because it often comes with a side of judgment and anger for dessert. The intention of these evangelists is a good one, and to be rude to them is not the answer. It is actually important and beneficial to talk with people about beliefs. I enjoy talking to them about what they believe because instead of converting me, it actually makes me more confident in what I think. On the other hand, if you are devoutly religious there are going to be people who tell you that your beliefs are stupid. They will tell you that you should be able to party, you should be able to have sex, you should be able to curse and it not be a sin. The same rule applies. If you have really thought about what you believe as an individual then these people will not sway you. Often when we are swayed by people it is because what we thought we believed is actually just what someone else told us to think, whether that be our family or someone else. In college, we have to learn about ourselves and it is important to learn about others to really know yourself.

The struggle with religious beliefs and spirituality is something that we all face as young adults. Our family, friends, professors, and many more people around us are going to tell us what we should believe. In the end, the important thing is to know that questioning beliefs is part of learning how to think for yourself. Instead of looking at it as a bad thing, look at it as a way to really be self-assured and decide what YOU think not what THEY think. The reality of religion is, there is no way to know whether one is right or wrong. It is just as possible that Hitler could be reincarnated into a dung beetle that eats poop for nourishment as it is that there is a Heaven. That is why it is called faith. An important thing in college is that we acknowledge other people’s beliefs with acceptance, and in turn really focus on being independently confident in our own beliefs. The most important thing though is that we realize that everyone struggles with what they believe whether they are atheist, agnostic, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or Buddhist, and it helps to talk to one another about that internal spiritual struggle, regardless of what we believe.