‘Religare’

Religion is such a touchy subject, and honestly, I think that’s kind of ironic. The word itself comes from the Latin word “religare,” which means “to bind,” yet somehow, it is one of the biggest reasons people get torn apart.

And what makes it even more confusing to me is how something that is supposed to be about connection, meaning, and understanding can sometimes feel like it shuts down conversation completely the moment you try to engage with it too honestly. There are unspoken rules you are supposed to already know, and if you step outside of them, suddenly you are the problem.

I say this as someone who grew up in a mild Christian household. Nothing too strict, nothing too intense. And maybe that’s why I’ve always believed that religious beliefs should be open to interpretation.

What’s the point of faith if you’re just blindly accepting whatever is spoon-fed to you? If you never stop to think, to question, to make it yours? That’s not faith. You’re just following orders.

I do not even mean questioning disrespectfully, but in the way humans naturally do when they care about something deeply enough to want to understand it. But for some reason, religion often feels like one of the few spaces where asking “why” can immediately make people uncomfortable, even when the question is coming from curiosity, not disrespect.

I learned just how sensitive of a topic it is the hard way. One time, I brought it up at the dinner table with my family. I just asked a couple of questions about faith, about things I didn’t quite understand or fully agree with. And suddenly, it was just forks scraping plates and silence. I guess that’s my fault for thinking dinner was a safe space to talk about things like that.

The silence was not just normal silence either. It was that kind of silence that felt loud. The kind where you start replaying your own words in your head wondering if you said something wrong, even though you are not even sure what exactly went wrong in the first place. It makes you second-guess not just the moment, but whether you are even allowed to ask questions like that at all.

To be fair, my family does talk about heavy topics like politics a lot, at least among ourselves. But they usually avoid those conversations when we’re around our extended family because opinions clash and it becomes awkward. So I figured that if politics was too heavy for family gatherings, maybe religion was a little more neutral. But nope. They just kept chewing their food as if I hadn’t said anything. No one answered. Some probably thought I was being blasphemous. And at the next family gathering, I swear they were looking at me as if I’d lost it.

And that is the part that sticks with me the most. Not even the disagreement, but the avoidance. The way something can be so present in people’s lives, so central to identity and belief, and yet become completely unspoken the moment it is questioned out loud. It makes me wonder if we are actually encouraged to understand our beliefs, or just to inherit them quietly and not disturb them too much.

These things just make me wonder why it is called religion or “religare,” that is supposed to bind us together when it does the opposite?

I keep circling back to that contradiction. Because I do not think most people are trying to be closed-minded on purpose. I think a lot of it is fear, or habit, or simply not having been taught that questioning is allowed. But at the same time, it still creates this strange tension where something meant to unify ends up becoming something that separates people in subtle, quiet ways.

It’s honestly not healthy to latch onto something just because everyone else does. And I still stand by that.

To just take things at face value without ever wondering why you believe them. It takes actual thinking. Real, deep, sometimes uncomfortable thinking to figure out what you truly stand for.

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Marcus Aurelius once said, “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” And that’s exactly why blind belief is dangerous.

Religion, like anything else in life, is filtered through experience, culture, and personal perspective. If we don’t question it, we risk mistaking someone else’s opinion for undeniable truth.

But at the same time, I get it. Really. Everyone’s view on religion is shaped by different things. How they were raised, their family dynamics, the people they surround themselves with. And that’s not something you can change at the snap of your fingers. Some people find comfort in believing without questioning, and that’s their choice. Others wrestle with it their whole lives, and that’s valid, too.

I guess, in the end, faith is not about having all the answers, but about choosing what makes the most sense to you.

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Elise Fortuna, 17, is a campus journalist specializing in feature, editorial writing, and political commentary.