Religion in MUWCI

Before Project Week we had Religious Discussion. It was about religion and spirituality in MUWCI. The talk was going and people were talking about why religion is not something we see in everyday life here. I found out that it wasn't because people weren't religious, but because it is something personal, something that you don't share with others. It made me think. Are we really brought together, as it says in the mission statement across religions. Obviously we are here, and people belong to different religions, but are we really challenged on this area if we don't share our religion with others and if different religions aren't questioned? You can very easily dismiss this question by saying religion isn't that important to the MUWCI student, who believes more in empirical evidence than the supernatural or whatever you can call without offending anyone.

That I am scared of offending someone is exactly the core of my argument. MUWCI students seem to have a tendency to not be too extreme. Or at least not extreme when it comes to sharing opinions that are not UWC. We need to question more, and not be afraid of stepping on each others toes.

This doesn't come from a point of view that wants to convert the believers into the true belief of science, but more from a view that I wont learn more. I want to learn about stuff that is foreign to me. And if I don't question, if just say, no religion is something private something that is rude to question I will not learn. I think this fear of offending someone or not being the ideal UWC student is something that is holding back on our learning, and perhaps even the creation of us as UWC and IB students.

Before coming here I was an idealist. I bended the world, in my mind into fitting my ideal. Back home I didn't experience anyone questioning my ideals, because I seemed to now what I was talking about. After coming here I found a lot of people who seemed to know what they were talking about. And also some that questioned me. That made me actually think about why I believed the way I did. Until then that I just believed the way I did because of my parents believed that way. Not that I want to portray UWC as being my revelation, but it did teach me something. I think many times, when we have a discussion in Global Affairs, we hold back from airing extreme opinions, because we are afraid of what people might say about us. We keep saying on campus that tolerance is so important, but why then this fear of what people will think.

Apart from the fact that I wont learn as mush if I don't question is also think that the absence of extreme totalitarian opinions will make me less tolerant. If I don't provoked by well founded opinions I wont create this understanding for different opinions. If we on a UWC just all try to be this ideal UWC students I think we will actually become less UWC, less tolerant and more arrogant.

Are we really being brought together across religions?