William and Steven speak openly about the faith they were raised in and how they have personally identified with it. Religion can provide inner strength, a sense of belonging and community, a purpose in life, and a path to transcendence.
Sections in this Episode:
| This Introduction | |
| Spirituality, Community & Study | |
| Is Hipocrisy a Religious Weakness, Or a Human One? | |
| What is a Church Beyond a Social Club? |
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Transcript (Introduction):
William: Welcome back, everyone. We are still Steven and William, and today we are talking about religion. We noticed in past episodes that mentions of God and faith have come up from time to time, just temporarily. But it's probably showed you that we have a Christian background, and we do consider religion a central part of our lives. I should be talking more in the first person rather than for both of us. But yeah, we'll be a bit more open about what we believe in this episode, how it has influenced our lives and our decision-making, and if there's time we'll get to religion in general and what we believe is its value in today's society, where we live anyway, and maybe in the West more broadly, and what it could mean for a person's personal identity in general.
Steven: Religion has a massive impact on how people define themselves. So I think it's a good subject for us to cover, again in general and our own sort of view points and experiences. So I guess we start off with that we're both raised in the Mormon or LDS Church. The abbreviations a.k.a. the church Jesus Christ of latter-day saints. Whether people sometimes call that Christian or not is up to them. But we see ourselves, the church sees itself, as a Christian religion because it believes in Jesus Christ. We're both raised from early age in that religion. I guess it's hard to know where to begin, I guess, when discussing how it affects your identity.
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