Destiny Walker: In today’s culture religion is not at the foundation of many people’s lives anymore. According to Pew Research Statistics, the importance of religion has decreased 22% since the baby boomer generation. I sat down and had the privilege to talk to four students who attend SFSU, who all have different religious affiliations, to get their perspective on the world. My name is Destiny Walker, and you are listening to The Bleed. 

Destiny: Alyssa Weaver, a freshman at SF State, believes people are focusing less on it and, recently, the pandemic has played a role.

Alyssa Weaver: I think religion is declining because I feel like people are focusing less and less on it. People aren’t, at least in my opinion, people aren’t pursuing their religion as much as they used to. And especially like for the last few years, people have had less access to — some people have had less access to, like, churches or temples.

Destiny: Samantha Yan, a junior SF State, answers from experience, as she used to believe stereotypes specifically of those who were Christian, 

Samantha Yan: I think because the people — it’s based on this, because all the things in their mind, is like, fix it, like it can change. And so I think that’s why people [are] not welcoming to believe a new belief.

Destiny: Jerome Padilla, a senior at SF State, says from his perspective, people want to be unrestricted and religion is not heavily implemented in school anymore, as it used to be.

Jerome Padilla: I feel like religion is actually declining because school and education-wise no one really — no teacher or it’s not really implemented in our education system like in other countries. Like, where I’m from, I’m from the Philippines, and they actually teach religion there. Since it really depends on the place you’re in. Like in the US, religion is more taught where Christians are, like in the middle parts of the US. It’s because their family, like, implemented to them. But places here, like in California in general, you really just pick your religion and people think that religion is restricting in a way. Because they don’t want follow everything that’s like in the Ten Commandments. People just don’t want to, like, follow or like, go by certain laws that they can go and just break.

Destiny: Ruqaiyah Angeles is a senior at SF State. Like Alyssa, she believes it’s not at the center of people’s lives anymore, but also believes this generation has become distracted by today’s culture.

Ruqiyah Angeles: I just feel like a lot of people nowadays make a lot of excuses. You know, in America we’re very busy, we are taught, you know, the American dream. The work hard and get a job and then retire at this age or start your own startup or whatever. So this idea [that] you have to be busy all the time to make it in America kind of allows people to put religion on the backburner.

Destiny: My name is Destiny Walker, and you have been listening to The Bleed. The song you just listened to is “Need You,” by Toban.