Understanding Why: Sadgun, Alex and Chris explore how young people interact with different faiths and belief systems.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Where does faith and religion come from?
00:03Why do people believe in a higher power?
00:05And why do a lot of people have no religion?
00:08Spirituality, science, conflict, society and life after death.
00:13These are all things we'll be exploring in...
00:15Generation Y!
00:30Generation Y!
00:32Generation Y!
00:34Generation Y!
00:36Generation Y!
00:38Generation Y!
00:42Namaste, my name is Sadgunthi Chandrapatla.
00:44I'm 14 years old. I'm also a Hindu.
00:46Hinduism is a religion that teaches its followers the cultural way of life.
00:50And we also believe that there's only one God
00:52who appeared in different forms at different time periods.
00:56The temple is my worship place.
00:58So it's very close to my heart and my beliefs.
01:00And I come here every week and even on festivals like Diwali
01:04and on my birthday along with my family.
01:06I love maths, playing board games, solving puzzles
01:09and that's just a bit about me.
01:11Hi, I'm Alex. I'm 15 and I'm from Manchester.
01:14That's why I brought you to the Manchester Cathedral.
01:17I'm a Christian.
01:18However, there's some aspects of the religion I don't believe in.
01:21For example, the Book of Genesis.
01:23I love living in Manchester because of how many different religions there are here.
01:27And in my spare time, I love doing art, drama and I love history.
01:31And that's just a little bit about me.
01:33Sadgunthi and I went to meet Dr Chris Deasy from the University of Kent
01:37at the Savoy Cinema in Stockport
01:39to find out how much influence religion and philosophy has
01:43on what we interact with every day.
01:45It's lovely to see you guys because we are here in the cinema,
01:48my area of expertise.
01:50We're going to look at a few clips from some films
01:52that you might or might not have seen.
01:54I don't know if you've seen, for example, the Star Wars film The Last Jedi.
01:58No.
01:59Because there are lots of people who claim to be Jedis.
02:02So we're going to kind of see how a film can possibly
02:07sort of give birth to an entire religious tradition.
02:11This is all about Rey and Luke Skywalker finding the Force.
02:15I thought that they were talking about someone who controls
02:18like the energy in the world, nature, death, decay.
02:22It sounds a lot to me, like in my religion, how we portray God to be.
02:27I personally think that this had a Buddhism point of view.
02:31It talks about force and energy.
02:34It talks about how God is a force.
02:37After watching part of The Last Jedi,
02:39we watched a clip from Marvel's Black Panther, Wakanda Forever.
02:43Shuri takes the herb again and goes back to the Ancestor Realm
02:46but sees a different person.
02:48She sees Killmonger and they both have a discussion about their choices.
02:51Killmonger has died in the first movie
02:53and then he's now in the Ancestor Realm being on his own.
02:56So I think it links to Hinduism, Christianity,
02:58the fact that they believe in life and death.
03:00I think it links to the fact that they believe in life and death.
03:03The last clip was from Marvel's Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings.
03:07You are a product of all who came before you.
03:10So we just watched a clip from a movie about yin and yang, or good and bad.
03:15Like Ramayana and Mahabharata, the holy books of Hinduism,
03:18where Lord Rama faces lots of trouble and Rama has to find his own path,
03:22like face loads of challenges, like crossing the ocean.
03:25He has to find his own path.
03:27He has to find his own path.
03:30I thought there was so much in there as well
03:32about passing a story down to a different generation.
03:35These films were really good, I thought,
03:37at showing that magic and science and religion
03:41and personal sacrifice are all bound up.
03:44I think we can take a lot from those films in our own lives.
03:50What a great way to get things started.
03:52It was.
03:53I think we can forget that religion has always been about
03:56It was.
03:57I think we can forget that religion affects everyone's life,
04:00whether they're religious or not.
04:01That's true.
04:02And because of this, beliefs and attitudes change over time,
04:06alongside our society.
04:08Religion can be dated back thousands of years.
04:11Hinduism is said to be one of the oldest,
04:14and Judaism wasn't far behind.
04:16Although faiths rise and fall in popularity over time.
04:20Zoroastrianism, which is said to be the third oldest religion,
04:24only has about 200,000 followers worldwide,
04:27compared to Hinduism, which has around a billion members.
04:31Many more have remained popular too, despite being really old.
04:35Christianity and Islam are actually quite recent by comparison
04:39and are the two most popular religions in the UK.
04:42According to a big census, or survey, done every 10 years,
04:46less than half of the population in England and Wales
04:49describe themselves as Christian.
04:51This is the first time that's ever happened on record.
04:54While some religions are declining in numbers,
04:57there was an increase in the number of people identifying as Muslim.
05:01Hinduism, Sikhism and Paganism have risen.
05:04And the biggest increase was seen in Shamanism,
05:07increasing more than tenfold.
05:09Having no religion has risen a lot too,
05:11and now makes up 40% of people's beliefs.
05:14This is all happening for reasons like ageing,
05:16fertility,
05:17mortality
05:18and migration.
05:19And we can't forget how social media has had a big part
05:22to play in spreading awareness.
05:24And it brings many beliefs and communities together.
05:27A good example is witch talk. Have you heard of it?
05:30I have, and witches can be found in different religious
05:34and non-religious circles.
05:36It can also be linked to Paganism, which is on the rise.
05:39I met with Tara, who's Pagan, and her mum Maggie, who's a witch,
05:43to find out more about their beliefs.
05:45Pumpkins, potions, spells,
05:48all things we may associate with being a witch.
05:51But there's more to it.
05:53Wicca is a modern religion rooted in traditions older than Christianity
05:57and is very spiritual.
05:59It's a form of modern witchcraft that has close links to Paganism.
06:03I went to meet 12-year-old Tara,
06:05who has identified herself as a Pagan since she was seven.
06:09She shares similar beliefs with her mum Maggie, who's a witch.
06:12But what does practising witchcraft really mean?
06:15I'm a person who creates spells, believes in angels.
06:19So I take a little bit from Buddhism and a little bit of Hinduism
06:23and a little bit of Christianity
06:25and I blend it into my own form of spirituality
06:28and I class myself as witch.
06:30Your friends at school, for example,
06:32what do they think about your belief system?
06:34We had to sleep every other day and we did fortune-telling,
06:37reading the books, doing boons.
06:39When I came out of the broom closet, people were very open.
06:42They go, oh, my goodness, what is this?
06:44From my research, I noticed that there was a lot of people online,
06:48on YouTube, on Instagram, on WitchTalk,
06:52sharing their identity as witches.
06:55I think it's become more accepted now.
06:57My mum, very much Roman Catholic, nothing else,
07:01now accepts us for our spirituality, which is not the same as hers.
07:06In here, I've got most of my witchy books, what I use.
07:10Here is the Book of Shadows.
07:12Not every witch has the same book.
07:14It's not like the Bible.
07:16But you can write all your own spells in here.
07:18This is casting the circle.
07:20We'll go clockwise.
07:22You'll have north, what is earth?
07:24And you'll put something that symbolises earth.
07:27And you'll put east, something air.
07:29And you'll put fire.
07:31And then you'll put fire.
07:33Something air.
07:34And you'll put fire.
07:35And then west, water.
07:37When you go around, you'll say,
07:39hi, guardians of the north.
07:42I'm not going to say the rest because I don't want them to come right now.
07:45But when they come, and when you invite all of them in,
07:48and you'll sit down, say what you want to say,
07:51or you can light a candle.
07:53All you say is just thank you for visiting, blessed be.
07:56And then it's really empowering.
07:58After our chat at home,
08:00we went to a stonehenge at Brockhall's Nature Reserve,
08:03a place which encourages energy.
08:05Would this be the perfect environment for undertaking a magic spell?
08:10It would if there wasn't that many people around.
08:13We use nature a lot in our witchcraft by collecting acorns.
08:17What else have we collected?
08:19Sticks and other stuff just to help do the spells.
08:24Maggie had one last message for me.
08:27It's not an evil hag who's going to be in league with the devil.
08:32It's actually somebody who loves nature,
08:34somebody who loves people,
08:36and somebody who just wants to make the world better.
08:42It's interesting to see how different people find their faith.
08:45Yes, and I found in my research
08:47that faith has a lot to do with someone's background,
08:50education, and life experience.
08:53Your beliefs could be because of your family's influence,
08:56where you live, what you're exposed to,
08:58like friends and media, or even a major life event.
09:02I've grown up in a place where there's so many different beliefs.
09:05I couldn't count the number of religions at my school,
09:07so that's definitely influenced me.
09:09Well, I thought it would be nice to have an open conversation
09:12with people who have different beliefs from each other.
09:18As we've been discovering so far,
09:20religion can take many different forms.
09:23So I'm here at the East Manchester Academy
09:26to find out what some young people think
09:28about what religion means in their lives.
09:3014-year-old Winnie was born in Ghana and is Christian.
09:34Yazan moved to the UK from Syria seven years ago
09:37and is Muslim, and Daniel is Sikh.
09:39I asked them if their religion is a big part of their lives.
09:43I was born into Christianity,
09:45so naturally I just became a Christian
09:47because the teachings in the Bible kind of tells us how to live,
09:50how to get closer to God.
09:52If you're sad, angry or just too emotional,
09:55the Bible can help you.
09:57I was also born into Islam.
09:59However, I am Muslim by choice.
10:01It guides me in everything and every action that I do.
10:04We only have one God.
10:06We also have, you could say, 11 gurus.
10:08The last guru is not a person.
10:11It's our religious book that we read in our temples or gurdwaras.
10:17In my religion, we keep God made us this way for a reason.
10:21So we should respect it.
10:23This is called a gura.
10:25I would keep like a small knife on me or, you know, a giant blade.
10:29It's just for defence and for respect.
10:34There's a lot of things I'm commanded to do and that I must do.
10:38And there are some things that I do them by choice to get closer to God.
10:43You also should be fasting during the month of Ramadan.
10:48We abstain from drinking water or eating food from sunrise to sunset.
10:54Are there lots of misconceptions?
10:56Are you always finding that you're having to explain?
10:59Well, the reason why a lot of these misconceptions are caused
11:02is that because people don't really have contact
11:05with a lot of actual educated Muslims.
11:08Some people get misconceptions with the Old and the New Testament.
11:11They feel like because the New Testament is from Jesus,
11:14you don't need to learn about the Old Testament.
11:16You learn both, half-half, because in the Old Testament,
11:19it said that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
11:22But in the New Testament, it says that if somebody slaps you,
11:25turn the other cheek.
11:26I feel like a lot of the media tries to separate religions away from each other.
11:30They might try to create conflict between Islam and Christianity.
11:33They're so similar to the point where even back in Syria,
11:37when it is Ramadan and when all the Muslims fast,
11:40some Christians would fast just like us to show their support.
11:48I wished I'd had those kinds of chats when I was your age too.
11:51But we are going to carry on the conversation in our Generation Y group chat.
11:56Our first one will be right up next.
12:02Welcome back to Generation Y.
12:04In this episode's group chat, we went to the East Manchester Academy.
12:08Yes, I spoke to a humanist called Kate, Christian student Triumph,
12:12Maggie, who we've already met, and Mariam,
12:15who's a member of the Coptic Orthodox Church,
12:17an African and Middle Eastern denomination of Christianity.
12:21And you got us some great questions from the audience.
12:23I did.
12:24And then Sadgun spoke to four incredible students.
12:39As this is called Generation Y, my question for everyone on the panel is,
12:44why are we here?
12:46Pagans would say, whoever it's under the umbrella term of pagan,
12:50because there are many such as heathens, wiccans, witches, solitary, you know, druids.
12:56They would say to make the earth a better place.
13:00But I feel my purpose on earth is people come to your life for a reason.
13:04And often I've been there to give them a bit of love and light.
13:07As Christians, we believe that we're trying to get to eternal life
13:11and to be reunited with our God in heaven.
13:13I think that we're here because God has willed us to be,
13:16to look after the earth, make sure we're fruitful and multiply,
13:20so we can all worship him.
13:21And then in the end, obviously, life after death to have eternal life.
13:24And from a humanist perspective, Kate, why are we here?
13:27I believe we're here completely by chance.
13:30I think the earth and the universe came about because of the Big Bang Theory
13:34and evolution brought us from that to where we are now.
13:39I don't think there is a God.
13:42My name is Karid, I'm 13, and what made you choose your beliefs and why?
13:46Whether you would even call humanism a faith, I think, is an important question.
13:50It's a belief system.
13:51I discovered this whole group of other people called humanists
13:55that have been on the go since Aristotle that I knew nothing about.
13:58Nobody mentioned it when I was at school in RE.
14:02And so I didn't make a choice. I felt like I'd come home.
14:06Apart from it being introduced to me at a very young age by my parents,
14:10I feel like because I was shown, you know, how to get closer to God,
14:15how to, you know, practise a religion,
14:17I feel like I had built a connection with God.
14:19I was also born into a family of Christians who naturally baptised me as a baby.
14:24So you might have been baptised, but then you could live a whole life,
14:27a non-Christian life.
14:28So for me, I choose to go on as a Christian
14:31because those values really resonate with me,
14:33being kind, loving the earth and each other.
14:37My name is Jordan, I'm 13, and my question is,
14:40is it difficult to have parents of two different religions?
14:44My daughter was brought up by parents from two different faiths.
14:49So I was pagan, her dad is Church of England.
14:51We both agreed very early on that it's her choice, it's Tara's choice, not ours.
14:56She has explored Islam, Christianity, Hinduism.
15:01We've been to Amandir, we've been to Sikh Gurdwara, we have met witches.
15:05We've also looked at people who are atheists.
15:07She has chosen herself where she's at, and we're OK with that.
15:10If she changes her mind over the years, it's her choice.
15:14My name is Esther, my age is 12,
15:16and my question is, have you ever thought about changing your religion?
15:21No.
15:22Maggie?
15:23Yes, I was Roman Catholic, I'm now a witch.
15:25So I've already changed it.
15:27Absolutely not.
15:29If the day came when someone could give me evidence that a god existed,
15:33I would then change my faith.
15:36What happens when we disagree with each other?
15:41Because we've got so many different perspectives here,
15:43I think we probably agree on many things, maybe we disagree on others.
15:47But how does that play out, whether it's in terms of witchcraft or humanism
15:50or different varieties of Christianity?
15:52I think you're human, you're beautiful, that's who you are.
15:55I believe that when you die, you go to maybe the ether,
15:59you may not go to a heaven, for instance, but that doesn't mean that you're wrong.
16:02A lot of the biblical texts, or even the Quran,
16:05love is the centre of a lot of religions,
16:07and I think if we can agree on that commonality,
16:10then we can agree that violence, conflict and disagreements
16:13probably don't coincide with those beliefs.
16:15I think it's important that even though we do disagree on a lot of stuff,
16:19we have to know that we do agree on some,
16:22and that we should find a middle path to coexist and accept each other's beliefs.
16:28The challenges arise for me in that a lot of religions
16:32try to impose their ethical views on others.
16:36My name is Leah, I'm 13 years old, and my question is,
16:40do you believe there's different ways to pray to your god?
16:44The Bible tells us to come as we are,
16:46so whether you're on your bed, whether you're on the way to school,
16:49you can just pray.
16:51It's just a matter of connecting with God, speaking to him.
16:54For example, in Islam you'd have the five daily prayers.
16:57In my church, in the Coptic Orthodox Church, we also have five daily prayers.
17:00You can have an open dialogue, you can say what you'd like to God.
17:03It might be collectively in a group, which you'd know as the word coven,
17:08and it might be where you group and you dance and you sing with people to a goddess.
17:13But it's basically meditation, and it is reflection,
17:17and thinking of intention, what you want to happen.
17:20My name is Olivia, I'm 13 years old, and my question is,
17:24are there certain parts of religion which cross over?
17:26And if so, what does that mean for both religions?
17:28I think today, in the 21st century, there's something called the spiritual marketplace.
17:32So on social media, a lot of people are exploring their own sense of spirituality
17:38that's broader than the big six religions.
17:41I think a lot of young people are given the space to question what they were born with.
17:46But there are so many overlaps between religions.
17:48Obviously, triumphal saying, the Abrahamic religions are the obvious one.
17:52The Torah, the Koran, and the Bible are so similar.
17:55My name is Jessica, I'm 12 years old, and my question is,
17:59do you find it hard to follow all the rules of your religion?
18:02No, because there's two.
18:05Do whatever you want, just don't harm anyone.
18:08And what you give out comes back threefold.
18:10So, as a witch, if I give out positivity and kindness, I will get that back.
18:15Don't steal anything, don't lie to people, that makes sense.
18:18But sometimes we do still get that wrong, and that's fine.
18:21We believe in redemption and forgiveness.
18:23Some rules don't quite make sense to you,
18:25and I think you should go with what your gut says and what you feel to be true.
18:30So what does following a religion mean to you?
18:33I think, like, it's what I am, like, I actually am.
18:37It's to be with, like, a whole community and to be, like, quite loving and caring.
18:42And we should just be good citizens and try not to sin.
18:45Personally, me being a Hindu means that I respect everyone and then everyone's opinions.
18:50So even though we all have different beliefs, at the end of the day, we're human,
18:54so we must respect each other.
18:55If you think that you were not following a religion,
18:58do you think you would be a different person than you are now?
19:01Not really, because I was born into Christianity, so I don't really think.
19:05I think I would be a bit different,
19:07because obviously some religions have, like, different rules.
19:11No, I don't think so, because, like, David, I was born into Christianity,
19:15and as myself, without my religion, I do like being caring and respectful.
19:21I don't think I'd either change either.
19:24If I say the word which, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
19:29Erm, the word which, when it comes to my mind, is the opposite of my religion.
19:33When I hear the word which, I, not to stereotype,
19:37but I would think that it kind of links to sin and, like, these evil spells and witchcraft.
19:44I think of Satan and hell.
19:46I don't especially, me personally, think that it's, like, something that I'd ever follow,
19:52because it's just how I've been brought up.
19:55Based on the things I've read and based, like, the movies I've watched,
19:58which is always portrayed, like, as the bad side, and I do.
20:01So, after listening to today's panel discussions and watching today's video,
20:06has the word which and the opinion about it changed your mind?
20:10Yeah. It's not really what I think it is.
20:13I think, like, there's more to the word than the religion.
20:17No, my opinion on witchism hasn't changed.
20:21I don't think it will change.
20:23Yes, it has changed, because I used to see witches as quite evil,
20:28but then after seeing in the panel an actual witch's perspective,
20:33I actually saw that they actually want to be, like, respectful and caring to others,
20:38like, and be in a whole community.
20:41Mine has kind of changed, because some witches, like the lady who was here earlier,
20:45my perspective has changed for them, because they are, like, quite kind,
20:50unlike Christians and any other religion.
20:52So, but at the same time, it hasn't.
20:55So, why do you think it is important to respect and learn about different beliefs?
21:00It's just better for our IQ and so that we don't be, like, rude or discriminate anyone.
21:06If we didn't understand other beliefs, then we wouldn't be an actual community.
21:11It's just better to educate yourself about other things
21:14before you try and judge it and stuff like that.
21:16Social media is a big thing for us these days. Everyone's on phones.
21:20So, do you think religion is portrayed in a good or bad way in media?
21:24If I were to count the videos, it'd be, like, six videos about God coming
21:28and how we should get closer to God.
21:30So, I feel like, based on my religion, social media portrayed it in a good way.
21:34I think social media portrays everything in the way that they want to portray it.
21:40So, for example, you might think, like, about other religions,
21:44that this is a bad religion and that because of what you've seen on social media.
21:47So, I think that before you want to judge or say something about someone else's religion,
21:53you should dig deep into it, talk about it, learn about it.
21:57Because at the end of the day, if you judge it, then it's not going to bring you any, like...
22:02It's not going to bring you happiness and it's just going to cause other people, like, sadness and stuff.
22:07For example, you're a Hindu. If I wanted to become a Hindu,
22:11I would rather go to you than search up how to be a Hindu
22:14because there might be, like, hateful things there which might want you to, like, change your mind.
22:19So, how does religion influence or affect your day-to-day life?
22:24It affects my day-to-day life literally every single minute.
22:28When I wake up, I pray. When I'm about to eat, I pray.
22:32When I go to... I'm about to go to bed, I pray.
22:35When I'm speaking to other people, like David said,
22:38I try and limit myself from things that could be offensive.
22:42It makes me a better person following that religion
22:46because it's talking about us being together and not being, like, rude or offending other religions.
22:53I think that it definitely helps us day-to-day because without God, I wouldn't be here right now
22:58and God, like, helps us to be good with his good morals and teachings.
23:02Thank you so much, guys.
23:09That was an awesome chat.
23:10It was, and nice to hear people be so thoughtful and open about different beliefs.
23:15But that's all we have time for now, so join us again next time on...
23:19Generation Y!
23:40You