Hannah Harder is a senior at Jacksonville High School. Her belief concerns disbelief.
I believe in disbelief. It may sound like I’m avoiding the question or acting pretentious, but it’s true. As we are just getting out of the age in which we take everything our parents told us in childhood as law and moving into the stage where we are able to make our own decisions and think our own thoughts, we need to make a conscious effort to take a serious look at our beliefs and thoughts. This will help us decide whether they’re simply something we’ve been holding on to since birth or something we truly hold faith in. No one should hold their beliefs above introspection. I’ve already had this experience: it is enlightening to sit down with a pad of paper and make a list about your belief in God, your job plan, or your relationships, and decide whether you still believe what you say you believe. I wrote a list about my belief in God at about thirteen. I remember that I pulled out the first things I could find – a red colored pencil and an old notebook – and listed all of the reasons why I had such disbelief in God. Writing down these things – Why does suffering exist? Why, if God created everything, is there so much proof for scientific views? Why wouldn’t God show himself? – is an extraordinary feeling. You learn what you truly think, and it strengthens your beliefs (and disbelief). It’s not a crime to have healthy disbelief in something; people change.
Fittingly enough, I don’t believe in this paper. It was difficult to write – I find it difficult to define my beliefs, because, honestly, I don’t have very many. I think of core beliefs as grand things; especially God. Without that, I think my defining belief is disbelief.