A Interview Paper On Religious Beliefs

Interview Paper

When it comes to religious beliefs, people have opinions that can be very conservative, to people who have extremist opinions. It is nearly impossible to say whose opinions are correct, but one thing that can be found in their opinions is a middle ground. From religion to religion, people tend to have some degree of similarities in their beliefs or practices. I saw something parallel to this during my interviews. I interviewed four very different people, from different generations, and different religions, yet I found similarities within many of their answers.

To begin, I want to introduce the people I chose to interview. For the grandparent generation, I chose to speak with my grandmother. Her name is Marie and her age is about the mid-seventies. She was born and raised strict Roman Catholic. Next I interviewed a close friend of mine and the parent of my best friend, her name is Lynne. Lynne is in her late fifties/ earlier sixties, but she fits the parent category because she is like another mother to me. Lynne is a nondenominational Christian. The third person I spoke with was my best friend, and Lynne’s daughter, Allie. Allie is twenty eight years old so she is between categories, but even though Allie was raised in a Christian household she has chosen to be an atheist. She fits the category of a person from another religion. Lastly I interviewed my brother Frank, who is part of my generation because he is nineteen. He was also raised Roman Catholic, but has a very different outlook from my grandmother, due to being from a very opinionated and open-minded generation. Everyone was interviewed at separate times so no one’s opinions could influence another’s.

I opened up all my interviews with the same question t...

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...s in the name of religion.

I felt it was a good idea to ask my next question when I did because of the interest I got in Native Americans in a previous question. “Do you know anything about the religious beliefs of Native Americans?” For this question, I felt everyone had the same general idea about Native American beliefs. Many of them believed the Native Americans worshiped nature and had a deep respect for it. Lynne had said “I know they believed things had a spirit, everything is alive and that everything worships God. What I loved about them when I was younger was that if for example, if they were to hunt and kill something they would thank it for feeding them.” Very similarly Frank said, “They would thank nature, like if they had to kill an animal for food they would thank it for its services.” Marie had said “I think they believe in the sun and the seasons, I