rowans regiment

The goal of the podcast is to understand and explain the Catholic religion. The interviewee, Toni, is a dedicated Catholic who finds her faith helpful in her everyday life. Christianity is one of the most practiced religions with 2.4 billion followers. Christian traditions like Christmas and Easter have become normalized in Western society. Baptism is an important ritual in Christianity. Jesus is seen as the founder of Christianity and the method of salvation is believed to be through him. The Bible is a central text in Christianity. Toni's dedication to her religion influences her daily life. She believes that violence is the absence of connection with God and hopes to have a strong faith when facing death. Christianity is often debated and discussed, and the number of Christians is predicted to decrease in the future. Toni believes that God is merciful and that being imperfect is accepted in Catholicism. Christianity is about caring for others, forgiveness, love, and growth. Toni has I don't know what that means to me and what it means to the person I interviewed. So the goal of my podcast is to help me better understand this religion and to help you better understand this religion as well. And I'll also be talking about my interviewee's personal relationship with religion and what that means to them. So yeah, the person I chose to interview is Catholic and some interesting things about Catholicism are that it really does help develop individuality in a person and helps you find who you are. And then it also can give you answers to unsolvable questions like where did we come from, why do we exist, where do we go after death, things like that. So I personally chose to interview my mother's best friend, Toni Pusateri, and here's just a little overview of who she is and what she does. So Toni grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was born on November 17, 1976, alongside an older brother and a younger sister. She attended Catholic school her whole life, Our Lady of Las Vegas, Bishop Gorman, and Oregon State University. She studied abroad in Ecuador for a Spanish study. She received a degree in nutrition pre-med. Toni went to medical school at the University of Reno, however, she was adamant about pursuing psychiatry and switched to mental health, where she studied to psychiatric residency in California. She then stayed in California for 10 years before moving back to her home state, Nevada. She is a psychologist working out of her home. She has four godchildren and many nieces and nephews whom she loves dearly. So as I interviewed Toni, I began to realize how truly dedicated she was to her religion and how much she uses it to help her through every single day that she lives. I think it's a very interesting way of living because it's not something I personally have ever experienced, but I just love listening to the different ways people live and how much religion influences their life and how happy it makes her. I think it's a very beautiful thing to listen to and I think it's a very beautiful thing to see. And I would definitely say Toni is the most dedicated Christian that I have ever known. So Christianity was formed around 2,000 years ago and it's obviously projected around Jesus Christ and how he died for his people on the cross. And Christianity is one of the world's most practiced religions with 2.4 billion followers today. In the Western world, I think that there are a lot of Christian traditions that we see every day, we just don't think much of because they've become something that are so normal in Canada and America. Like, for example, Christmas, which is supposed to be remembering Jesus' birthday, Easter, remembering when Jesus was resurrected, those things like that are very common traditions that Christian people take very seriously and they spend a lot of time praying around these times. But they've become such a westernized thing that people don't really see it as a religious thing, but they are very religious days or times. Another common tradition would be baptism, which usually happens when you're a baby, but it's still accepted for anyone of any age and you can do it at any time to be fully dedicated to your religion. Being baptized basically just means becoming pure and becoming one with your religion. And obviously, as I highlighted before, the founder of Christianity is Jesus Christ. Even though he himself was Jewish, he did end up creating the religion of Christianity. So in Christianity, the method of salvation is that people do believe that Jesus saved us from our sins by dying on the cross. Some also believe that Jesus will bring us salvation through the church, but others also believe that salvation just comes from just believing in Jesus and what he represents. And unlike some other religions in Christianity, there's only one God, but that one single God does represent three persons, the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. So while yes, Christians only do believe in one God, they do view one God as a split of three people and each representing different things and different meanings. Obviously, the Bible is one of the most talked about scriptures in America and Canada, so it's very well known in the Western world and I'm sure it's well known everywhere else as well. But it's a very common book that you can find almost anywhere and it has the teachings from even 2,000 years ago and it just is all the stories of Jesus and God and everything that Jesus did and everything that God did and everything that God wanted people to know. It's just a book about following the religion and teachings and lessons to learn. And as I mentioned before, I would say that Toni is one of the most dedicated Christians I've ever met and had the pleasure of knowing. So I would say that all of these five different parts of Christianity that I mentioned are also part of her day-to-day life. Things that she thinks about, things that she reflects about, things that she does, she reads scripture, she goes to church, she thinks about Jesus every day. These are just things that are part of her day-to-day life that she finds ways to incorporate every single day. There are a few things that Toni said that better help me understand how religion is implemented into her everyday life. Like for example, I wonder how she can relate everything to religion, but the more she speaks the more I understand. Like she said, God is love, so violence is the absence of connection with God. And when I heard her say that, it really did make me think how impactful that sentence is and what that genuinely means the more I think about it. And the more I thought about it, the more it started to make sense about how being absent from God is the result of violence in today's society. And I thought that was a very intelligent and smart way of thinking about something and it made me really impressed with Christians and the way that they think. I then also asked her if she was scared of death, and she said that, my hope is that when my day of death comes, my faith will be so strong that I won't have any fear. And again, that just like was such an inspiring thing to hear because her religion has taken her to a place of such comfortability that she's able to say that and truly mean it. And I think that is a very progressive thing and hard thing for many people to do. What makes Christianity so relevant today, I think is the fact that so many people disagree from both sides of the spectrum. I think Christians disagree with the way other people are living, and other people disagree with the way Christians are living, so it creates this conflict between people. And there's always a new debate or a new topic being discussed about Christianity, whether it's negative or positive, it's always being discussed and that's what makes it so popular and what makes it so engaging for people to talk about. But in my research, I did find that the number of Christians are shrinking and they are meant to be outnumbered by atheists in the year 2070, which I find to be very shocking because I just never imagined that people who believe in God would be outnumbered by the people who don't believe in God, if I just feel like you meet someone every single day who believes in God and who believes in something, at least some sort of religion. And as someone who is on social media every day, I've seen a lot of things about Christians online who say things that contradict what I think it means to be Christian. So when I spoke with Toni, I asked her, is it wrong to not be religious? And she said this, she said, can I choose to follow you even though this doesn't make sense to me? And I still struggle with that. But God is merciful, and this is also the beauty of Catholicism. He's not asking us to be perfect because it's impossible for us to be perfect. I could try 150% to do everything that I feel God is asking me to do, and I'm going to mess up every day. I just think that listening to a true and pure Christian shows how much social media distorts what it truly means to be a Christian, and how accepting and loving and caring the religion truly is for everyone. But it just gets displayed so incorrectly in the media that there's just such a big, big discussion about what it means to be Christian and what Christianity is even meant to represent. But at the end of the day, I think everyone's going to interpret the Bible teachings differently, and I think that that's just something everyone's going to have to come to terms with. But I think the bigger picture is that Christianity is about caring for your neighbor and not putting anyone down. It's always about forgiveness and love and kindness and learning and growing. There are many things that Christians believe that I don't agree with, like Toni, for example, does not believe that abortion should be legal, she thinks it's the murdering of a baby. I personally do not agree with that, but she herself said, to choose to do these things doesn't mean that you are less loved by God. So when I think of a person who I would look up to when thinking about Christianity, I would think of Toni, because she believes what she believes, but she doesn't put down other people because of that. She's very socially intelligent and emotionally intelligent so that she knows what she thinks is right, but she's not going to push that onto you. She knows that Christianity is about loving everyone, and she knows that God is loving and he is forgiving. She even said herself, I don't have children, and I don't think God loves me less because of that. And she said this because when I asked her about being gay, she said that the purpose of a man and a woman is to become one and have a baby. And she says that she thinks being Christian and following this teaching is about building a family and becoming closer with God by doing that. But she said, I don't have children, but she also is so intelligent that she knows that God loves her even though she doesn't have children. Because not everything is a clear and constructed teaching. It's supposed to be interpreted to the best of what you can do. So I'm going to try to do my best to try and conclude this podcast, and I'm going to try to do that by talking about my personal opinions about Christianity and how it connects to Tony and the religion in itself. So a question I find myself thinking about a lot is what leads to different interpretations of Christianity and the Bible. And I think that I finally concluded on the fact that it just comes down to a person's individuality, and I think it's hard to take an entire religion of belief and expect every person to just follow that without letting their emotions contradict how they really feel about something. I do personally think that if everyone who follows Christianity were to live in the way that it recommends, there would be no problems. But I think as humans, it's physically impossible to do that, because if I read something in the Bible that I don't agree with, I'm going to instantly find it hard to be able to agree with it. Because it's physically impossible to push myself to do something that goes against my morals and what I believe in. So when I relate that back to Christianity and how there are so many different forms of what it means to be Christian and what people promote in Christianity, I think it just boils down to who you are and how humans conceptually just are and what it means to be yourself in a religion that's meant to sort of generalize people into one group. I don't personally feel as though being Christian means you have to live a certain way, but if you are someone who strictly follows the Bible and its teachings and promotes it, you can't bend the rules to fit yourself. Because if you are putting your personal beliefs that abortion is wrong and that being gay is wrong, but then you yourself go out and lie and cheat and steal and drink, then you are not a true Christian. Because being Christian means that you are following the rules to the best of your ability and not putting down others. So if it means to you that being Christian is not being gay, is not having an abortion, then you yourself must sit upon yourself to follow the other rules. Because if you don't, then you are a bad example of what it means to be Christian. And you are putting a negative connotation on your religion and how other people will view it in its entirety. I think as the world gets more progressive each day, people find it hard to listen to Christians who personally implement their own beliefs into Christianity and say that that's what the Bible meant. But in reality, they're taking and picking out pieces that they believe and leaving out parts that they don't want to be associated with. So at the end of the day, the different ideas that people take from Christianity and the reason everyone has such varying ideas is because it all boils down to just being your own person and being somebody completely different from everyone else. I think religion is supposed to unify and support and make a group, but I think at the end of the day, you can't just all be one single person. You can't all just think one same thing. Everyone is different. So that means everyone will draw different conclusions, will have different perspectives, and will handle things differently. But I do think that the way Toni handles herself is a very graceful way of being Christian and being true to herself. I think she's one of the most influential people I know because the way that she can insert her own opinions into religion without taking it and pushing other people down is a very intelligent way that she puts herself out there. And I think it's something that you don't see a lot of people doing because it's hard as a human to physically separate how you feel from a religion. I think that it's hard to separate the two, and I don't think many people can do it. So when I do hear Toni talking about the mistakes she's made and the mistakes other people made, but she ends it by saying that she still loves you anyways, it shows me how deep she really is connected to her religion because she's going beyond her own feelings. She's going beyond everyone else's feelings, and she's going straight to the religion, and what it really means to be Christian, and what that means to her, and how she can best implement it. I think that the way she promotes her religion is a way that most people need to learn to follow, but I do genuinely think that it's going to be hard for people to separate emotions from religion, and we're all just going to have different interpretations of the Bible and different interpretations of Christianity. I don't think there's anything you can really do to help it, but I do think that you can look up to the people like Toni who know how to separate emotions, religion, and just be a respectful person. To better represent my point, I'll read out a few Bible verses and then talk about the connection between all of them. So the Bible says, The next one, The next one, And the last one, So, to me, all of these Bible verses can be interpreted as having one specific meaning, or you can look at it as a teaching of multiple different lessons, but some people choose to look at it in two different ways because you can look at it in two different ways, and just because of that simple reason, many people will draw so many different conclusions. This is why there are so many different adaptations for what one verse says. So many people interpret it in a different way, and that's what makes humans humans. Everything is dependent on perspective and knowledge and what you have experienced and what you know is to be true. I do think that because the Bible is more vague, it's hard to know what the true meaning is, and there it leads people to draw different conclusions and think of things differently. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.