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Sacred Space Going to church was a really odd experience for me. I had not gone to church in years, and there are a couple of good reasons for this. I did not go to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angeles to pray. Instead, I was basically acting like a tourist. Ever since they finished the project, I’ve been wondering what the complex looks like. I am actually proud that the city of Los Angeles decided to build a house of worship worthy of such a big city as Los Angeles. I knew before I went that it was going to be a huge complex. I knew that going to the cathedral would bring back memories of when I used to go church as a child. What’s really interesting is that I actually used to go to the church of St. Vibiana in downtown. The cathedral was built to replace the church of St. Vibiana after it was damaged beyond repair by the Northridge earthquake. Going to the cathedral was an experience to remember though. It brought to mind how religion has changed in the views of many people. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angeles is a great looking cathedral, but it wasn’t only built for religious purposes, it was also built to raise revenue for the Catholic church that is being sued by many people for sexual molestation charges against priests and bishops. When visiting the cathedral, one cannot stop and think about all the profit making things that are in the cathedral. It made me think that I don’t need to come to church to be a moral person. I stopped believing in organized religion no more than 3-4 years ago. There are actually two reasons for this; one is that I just got too lazy to go with my family to church, and the other is that I started taking a more scientific approach to life instead of a spiritual one. My family practices Catholicism and my parents tried to teach me to go to church and believe in God. All throughout my life I’ve basically done everything a Catholic boy is raised to do. I was baptized when I was a child, I went to church every Sunday, and I got my First Communion at the age of 12. The events that really started changing my opinion about life definitely had to do with school. When I started learning about the big bang theory and the evolution of man, I started to wonder about religion. I would think that the turning point in my life was in the 11th grade when I was taking a Biology class. I remember that we had a debate over what each person believed in, and for the first time, I considered myself to be a person that believes in evolution and I did not side with my classmates that believed in organized religion. I had thought about it before and I hadn’t gone to church in some time already, but I never really thought about it seriously. I stopped believing because there are many things about religion that cannot be proven. Since I have been a pretty dedicated student and have always been interested in the sciences, I need proof in order to believe in something.
Approximate Word count = 2171
Approximate Pages = 8.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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