University

I have two degrees. While pursuing the first, I took so many religious studies courses as electives that I was able to finish a second degree in Religious Studies a year after finishing my first degree.

It started in first year, when I took World Religions as one of my electives. It sounded interesting so I signed up. The following two years saw me signing up for more courses, such as Death and Dying; Cults in North America; The Encounter of Science and Religion; etc. I didn't take the courses to try and find my faith, but at some point I think it sparked a desire to find something.

I remember in class one day we were discussing Islam. I can't remember what the topic was, but it had something to do with women in Islam, and how uninformed people outside of Islam seem to believe that the women are oppressed by the religion, whereas, in fact, women in Islam have more rights and freedoms than women in many other religions. It was a very eye-opening discussion for me, and I started to look into Islam. I'm not a feminist, but I believe men and women are equals. A religion that expressed that same belief piqued my curiosity.

At one point I briefly considered converting to Islam, but I don't know how serious I really was. I think it was just a desire to be part of something, not that I really believed in the tenants of the religion. I think I wanted to believe, but I encountered the same resistance from my brain that I had before: the questions of the origins of the universe, where we came from, why can't two men who love each other be together? The questions weren't aimed at Islam alone, but at all religions that stated as fact ideas that didn't mesh with my own scientific beliefs. Even though I believed in some aspects of Islam, like women's rights, in the end I turned away from the faith.

My religious quest in university didn't last very long at all. I still found the courses interesting and insightful, but they didn't really affect me or my way of thinking. I'm glad I took the courses, as I believe that learning is never a waste, but I wish I'd been able to take something more away from them.

I have my faith in science. Now what I want is faith in something bigger...

"Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church, but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe" Albert Einstein