Baha'i Library Online

COLLECTIONSTranscripts of videos and audio, Videos
TITLEWe Shouldn't Be Afraid to Talk about Religion
AUTHOR 1Madeleine Kapsalis
DATE_THIS2022-05-13
ABSTRACTExcerpt from a longer talk, describing a Christian's interfaith encounter with Bahá'ís and being invited to teach Sunday school at Wilmette.
NOTES Transcript prepared by Doug Couper from video online at youtube.com/watch?v=iqvAwt8gzM0.
TAGS- Interfaith dialogue; Alan Coupe; Illinois, USA; United States (documents); Wilmette, IL
 
CONTENT

1. Transcript (see video below)

We shouldn't be afraid to talk about religion
youtube.com/watch?v=iqvAwt8gzM0
uploaded by TEDx Talks
2022 May 13
starting at 4:18 minutes
Video description: Orthodox Christian student Madeleine Kapsalis founded an interfaith club at Lake Forest High School in Illinois, as well as a website for InterFaith Teens at https://www.ifteens.org where she receives presentations (from) across the country from teens thoroughly explaining their religions.
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(At 4:18 minutes): Something particularly special that came from my website (IFTeens.org) was my connection with people of the Baha'i Faith. Now I've never practised the Baha'i Faith before, but after I had received a video from one of their teens explaining his beliefs, they contacted me again and they asked me if I would like to help teach children Sunday classes at their temple, the Baha'i House of Worship in Wilmette, and so I took this opportunity - again never having practised this religion before but I was there helping to facilitate it where they were teaching children about Baha'i principles, and I developed such a great relationship with these children. They saw me as their friend - someone who wanted to help them learn more about their religion.

By reaching out to teens from my website, I've realized that they're genuinely excited to submit and share a part of themselves that they don't discuss. Here I was asking them to share something so valuable and personal to them and their excitement showed me their appreciation for my genuine curiosity. In my view, the knowledge of religion is essential to the human condition regardless of if an individual is practising or not. Elements of religion, faith, spirituality or the preference to not practise are essential to the human ethos and are central in shaping society, history and the subconscious and conscious decisions that we make and our leaders make as individuals.

I know it's hard to discuss religion because of how complex it is and it can be considered taboo among society, but it doesn't have to be that way. Comprehending such a profound concept just requires attentiveness and an open mind. Now are you going to learn everything about religion just based off of a conversation. No, but by putting yourself out there and having those conversations with people will definitely set you on the right track, and if we can all have this mentality then we are on our way to having a more loving and accepting society, and this will allow - this interfaith harmony will allow us to live together much better.

2. Video (starting at 4:17)

VIEWS102 views since 2024-06-02 (last edit 2024-06-21 05:07 UTC)
PERMISSIONfair use
LANG THISEnglish
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