When I came to Queen’s last year, I found it disturbing how infrequently students took the time to think about and acknowledge their spiritual lives.

In a culture saturated with technology, we’re accustomed to receiving quick solutions, responses and results. Spiritual questions don’t have simple answers, but it’s important to form an opinion about them.

Thinking about where you might go after you die isn’t an easy topic to digest, but it has an impact on the way you live your daily life.

Do you believe that you’re here on earth for a reason, or that it was merely a coincidence? Do you believe in a God who wants to have a personal relationship with you, or a God who turned his back on humanity after creating it?

Looking at the alarming state that the world is currently in, with growing inequalities, war, terrorism and spreading diseases, what do you believe about the nature of human beings? Are we inherently good or bad? Will fair judgment ever be able to make right all the wrongdoings?

Is there more to Jesus Christ than the sickly man on the cross we were exposed to as kids on Easter? What was his message and does it still apply to us today? Students need to be thinking about questions like these.

A lot of the time, people use tolerance as an excuse to not have an opinion. In Canada, we pat ourselves on the back for being accepting and tolerant of all belief systems, but saying you accept all religions isn’t a worldview.

Bringing up these topics may seem awkward and intimate. People shy away from these questions in fear of potential disagreement or fear of saying something wrong.

Many times people say that their goal in life is to achieve happiness, but happiness is fleeting and as much as we try to fight it, bad things happen that are out of our control. When tragic or stressful situations inevitably happen, our beliefs are put to the test.

Being in university is the best time to form and strengthen your opinions on these difficult topics. I’d like to see more Queen’s students taking initiative and having discussions about spiritual matters.

Michaella is the Journal’s Graphics Editor and Editorial Illustrator. She’s a second-year sociology major.