First Impressions

What factors of your native culture have informed your religious world view? Explain the impact of these factors.

As a Korean born and raised mostly in the US and now in Korea, I am neither here nor there. I don't consider myself totally Americanized, but I am not fully Korean, either (in my habits anyways). Because of my background, I don't really have a "native culture," per se. I have my own habits and way of life, and I don't think I can really give a label to them. For this reason, I think my religious world view was formed more on my own musings than on my background. Of course, I could be totally wrong on this take, or I might not.

One of the main reasons I feel like my "culture" doesn't have anything to do with my religious views is because I come from an atheist family. Because my parents do not dictate a particular religious view in the house, other than the one where a person doesn't believe in any particular deity, I was, still am, and will always be, left to find a belief of my own.

When I was younger, I used to wonder about the meaning of life, literally. I would think to myself, 'Why am I trying so hard at life? Does it even matter? Even if I get into drugs and alcohol and quit school, I'm going to end up dying anyways. No matter how good or how bad I live my life, the end will be the same, so why am I trying so hard to be so...good?' I would talk to my parents about this, but, being atheists, they couldn't give me any straight answers. Then I'd wonder, 'What happens when we die? Are we reincarnated as different people or do we "go on?" Are we punished for the wrongs we committed and rewarded for the rights that we did? Or is this the only life we have and do we become nothing when we die?'

So I searched, and I didn't even think about what the implications of me being a Korean-American would have on my search for truth.

Eventually, the path towards truth led me to Christianity. And I know that sounds cliche, but it's true. The main reason I ended up here is because nothing else gave me purpose, and what's the point of living life without purpose? Absolutely nothing.

I don't know why, but even after thinking about my "native culture" and how it impacted my search, I still believe that it was not a huge factor at all in my decision to become a Christian. Or maybe it was, but I still haven't realized it yet. Maybe it's because both of the cultures that I was exposed to, American and Korean, were not extremely different form Christianity as the Sawis, which is why I don't see the impact it had. I'm still walking, and I know I'll learn more as I go.

But for now, I'm content with knowing that I have a reason to live: God.