Despite a citizen’s Constitutional   right to exercise religion freely, there is a disconnect among the secular and religious populations at PHS. Students of religious backgrounds are now choosing to depart from their traditions and are developing personal realizations of spirituality.

These realizations, ranging from strict faith to almost no faith and aided by many factors, still contain remnants of previous religious teachings. Student’s personal beliefs are sometimes hybrids of what they once knew in combination with education, creating a new type of religion.

There are some religions in which the spiritual element does not even touch upon the aspect of God. According to the Stanford encyclopedia of Philosophy, the belief of Atheism stems from the idea that God does not exist where agnosticism, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, is defined in one way as “a name for any theory which denies that it is possible for man to acquire knowledge of God”.

Senior Tim Campbell and his family practice Catholicism. He has completed the confirmation process and previously held the position of altar boy at his church. Campbell said in a way he was forced into [attending church] and assumed it was an ordinary occurrence.

“I never had much of an option to do anything else, so I just considered it to be a normal thing that everyone did,” Campbell said. “I remember that I was really surprised when I learned that some people didn’t go to church at all, and I was jealous because I didn’t want to either.”

Senior Allison Quantz, who practices Christianity at the Piedmont Community Church, considers herself religious but not in the traditional way everyone perceives.

“I go to church, I work and volunteer at the church, and my mom works at the church,” Quantz said. “I don’t say Grace before eating dinner, and I don’t have a perfect church attendance.”

Quantz said she chose her religion herself and enjoyed Sunday school so much that she decided to get her family involved.

“I chose to go through confirmation on my own. I’ve decided to go to youth group Sunday nights and I’m the one really choosing it for myself,” Quantz said.

Senior Jake Pacheco’s ideas were different from his parents’, “Faith was just something I accepted as a part of my parents’ lives. My ideologies differed in that they were always much more scientific; they were always intuitive to me,” Pacheco said.

Pacheco’s parents wanted to make sure their son completed his religious education but were supportive the whole time.

“My parents understood, from day 1 they only wanted me to take the class and get the education. I ended up deciding that it was not for me at this point in my life” Pacheco said.

Campbell said that the change started in middle school when his belief in God dissipated.

“It wasn’t an extreme turnaround; I just slowly decided that I don’t believe in God. I still have a lot of faith in ‘something’,” Campbell said.

Quantz said she thinks that people do not to embrace religion because it’s something they don’t believe in.

“Some views are so extreme that it is hard for someone to believe, or they have been told not to believe in certain things and it’s an issue with conflicting views,”Quantz said.

Campbell said his schooling was a factor in why he no longer had the faith he once did.

“My education caused me to see how I can’t ever believe in organized religion. This is because it’s too dogmatic and inflexible and I don’t like that about it.” Campbell said.

Pacheco said he had already started the confirmation process when he decided it wasn’t exactly for him and stopped being religious altogether.

“In hearing a classmate describe Heaven and their personal beliefs, I realized that I did not share almost all of these beliefs,” Pacheco said.  “I stopped classes because I was not ready to subscribe on one religion, especially not one with whom I did not share so many of those beliefs.”