Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in May 2011 undergraduate student Conor Finnegan interviewed Melusa Mayuso, Lerato Tsotetsi, Nathi Gamede, Lungile Skhosana, and Mapaseka Msibi, high school students at St. Matthew’s Secondary School in Johannesburg, South Africa. In this interview, the students discuss their personal religious beliefs, their perceptions of religious and scientific beliefs in South Africa, and their experience at the Origins Center.
What are your personal religious beliefs?
Melusa Mayuso, Grade 12: For me, I really do not believe in religion because basically what we have in religion is only the Bible that was written by we-don’t-know-who. So that’s not enough hardcore evidence that religion really does exist. That’s why I’m more based on evolution because of hardcore evidence and I’ve seen it, I can see it—like, “You know what, that exists, that was a previous life before, and it does make sense.”
Were you religious before learning about evolution?
Mayuso: Not really—
Were you raised religious?
Mayuso: Yes, yes, I was raised religiously, but now I’m not a religious person.
Lerato Tsotetsi, Grade 12: Yeah, I come from a Catholic background—Catholic high school, Catholic primary school, go to Catholic church, so I basically have a religious background. I strongly believe in the Bible and religion and whatnot because of certain things that I see happening in life—like I’m kind of a person who believes in God wholeheartedly, and I’m not really ashamed of that and whatnot. But then we all know that this is a diverse world and whatnot, so I’m actually standing on the fence. It’s a tie between evolution and religion, but I’m a very religious person, so evolution comes second to me.
Nathi Gamede, Grade 12: I come from a religious family. When I was brought up, we used to go to church every Sunday, for Good Friday, and stuff. Then there was a time when, around grade seven, I didn’t go to church, and then evolution started coming up, and I had my own religion, okay? So I created my own God, and now I’m starting to merge the two—evolution and the God that I believe in, coming up to make one thing.
Lungile Skhosana, Grade 12: I was also raised Catholic. I believe in both evolution and creation; I think they correspond in different ways. The things they say in evolution correspond with the Bible tells me, and I sometimes believe that evolution is a starting point; it’s based on facts that we get from religion.
Mapaseka Msibi, Grade 12: I don’t believe in evolution, even though I’ve seen some of the stuff, like the fossils, but I don’t believe it. I’m more based on religion, but other concepts of religion I don’t understand, like the things they teach tend to make me question my belief, movies like The Da Vinci Code and all that. They make you think twice about whether is there something really about God and all that. I do believe in God, but the way that people perceive God, like we have to treat God as superior and all that—those are the kind of things that make me not to believe in religion as such, because I think God is supposed to be your friend, someone that you can talk to in any way you want to.
How do you think religion affects your life, especially in the classroom, with science for example? Do you see religion present, influencing the way you learn, or anything like that?
Tsotetsi: Well, obviously we’re in a Catholic school, so religion is a great part of our learning and whatnot because mostly each and every parent tries to install certain morals that we should follow, certain ethics. But then, in biology class I don’t see religion being present as such because biology is based on real life, science, and things that you can see, so all the other aspects of learning we do see religion present, but with the life sciences we don’t see it at all. I don’t see it.
Gamede: I would say it builds me. If you compare me, someone from this school, with someone from another school, we have morals and stuff, you know? It makes you a better person; you know how to respect people. When they say, “Be there at 10:00,” you’re going to be there at 10 [minutes] to 10:00 because you want to be early. It changes you. You’re not going to be the same person as someone from another school, yes.
Mayuso: Well, I would say that religion in this school is really enforced, but from my point of view, it’s up to you whether you take it or not. I say that respect, morals, like they said, are something that you learn at home. But basically on a religious side, it’s what I’m not taking in, because really, give me hardcore evidence. Let God himself come down and let him talk to me, and I’ll say, “You know what, yeah.”
Skhosana: Well, I’d also say that here at school, we learn religion, and it is something that is forced; we have to learn religion. But it’s not like you have a choice. And also, it’s not basically religion, like Bible and everything. They teach us about life and how to treat ourselves, so I think that it’s something that should be enforced so that we grow to be better persons.
Msibi: I think religion here at school, it depends on the subject that you learn. For instance, in physical science and biology, we don’t actually think about God as such because you’re learning about things which were created by humans, but the other concepts in biology where you think of God, like maybe the reproductive system, it’s still the same thing as the Bible; it’s just seeing how the fetus develops and all that. And then there are other periods, like [Life Orientation] here at school, where what they do is make you conscious that God is there in all you do. When you’re walking around, you see crosses and think, “Oh, Jesus is there,” and all this stuff.
What do you think is the relationship between religion and science?
Msibi: I think there is a relationship, but they contradict each other in some way most of the time. When you read in the Bible, it says God created you in his own image and all that, but then when you go to biology class, they tell you that you developed from your parents mating and all that. So I think religion and biology, they contradict, but here at school they try to explain… even though in biology class we do refer to the Bible, we also learn that God created after six days or something like that, and when we do the biology evolution, we learn that the earth formed 65 million years ago.
Tsotetsi: No, they sometimes do complement each other; they sometimes do contradict each other. For me, it’s more about the individual and where you stand and whatnot because for me, the religious teachings and whatnot, it’s the mystery part of it, but then the science, the biology and everything, it’s the factual part. So in a way, they have a way of complementing one another. Although science comes up with all these facts to try and push away the religious beliefs and whatnot, like I said, it all comes back to a person. It’s all about knowing where you stand and what you believe in, because we live in a world where there are a lot of different faiths, religions—it’s all about diversity, so it’s just all about a person and what they believe in, and the rest is just facts and studies.
Gamede: Well, I think they work hand in hand, you know, because the Bible tells you why you’re here; it doesn’t tell you how you came about. It doesn’t give you facts, like you came about, God made you—there are no facts in there. The science part tells you how you came about but doesn’t tell you why you’re here, but when you look at them together, I think it’s God and—I think there are two gods: science is a god and God is a god—I think it’s a war or something like that, yes.
Mayuso: I would say that the relationship is basically in dynamic proportion, as best as I can put it in physics because it doesn’t make sense—the Bible says six days and then when you talk about six billion years, so the statistics—I’m a guy who thinks with facts, so if you’re going to tell me some theories that are not facts, then no, I’m sorry, that just does not work.
In this country, though, a lot of people believe the story of creation actually happened. I’m not saying one way or another that it did, but 64 percent of Christian South Africans take the story of creation literally, exactly as it happened in the Bible, which is something science disagrees with. Why do you think that that many people in this country in particular have that belief?
Skhosana: Well, I think it’s the way that people were taught to think. You were taught to read the Bible and take it as it is. There was no science for blacks, so it’s the way that it was forced upon them.
Tsotetsi: Yeah, even the ancestral beliefs of our forefathers and whatnot, this is Africa, and we never grew up with science. Science is something that’s been recently introduced to us, so with science and everything, the society forces us to believe in religion, and without having facts you can’t really fight it or anything. So I just think that it’s basically about that we’ve been brought up to be. We’re just religious people, many different religions.
Gamede: Yeah, and I would say they don’t know anything about evolution. I would say maybe 50 percent of the 64 percent don’t know anything about evolution, have never heard anything about evolution. They just see and hear people talking about, “Hey, they discovered a new skull—Mrs. Ples,” and whatever, and they don’t know anything: “What’s Mrs. Ples? Where did it come about?”
Mayuso: Well, I would say, basically, it’s like they say, it’s how we grew up, it’s what was instilled in us. I’d say science tries to put it in a better explanation: there was a big bang, and then there came about bacteria, which did not depend on oxygen, and then you know the process. Science tries to put it in a much better way than the Bible, but people, because of how we were brought up, think of the way it was written down.
Gamede: It’s all about having an open mind and taking this and that and looking at effects.
Tsotetsi: Yeah, freedom of choice.
So do you think maybe things are changing—that was all the old generation, and now that you guys are learning science, things will change?
Gamede: Yeah, I would say things are changing because when you read books, like The Secret, and watch movies, like she said, like The Da Vinci Code, they make you think twice, “Okay, is this true? Why don’t I have facts?” Because the new generation, we want facts. If you say I bought a car, I want to see that car. If you tell me, “God is here,” I want to see God. But most of the time, it’ll contradict us because you’ll pray for something—“Okay, God, please give my mom a job”—and then maybe, two weeks after, your mom gets a part-time job, and you say, “Maybe there is a God.” But there are no facts that God is there.
Skhosana: I also think people are changing. As more people hear about science, the more the older people basically reject it and the younger generation is considering evolution. The younger generation is based on science and facts, and the older generation is the religion, so it’s changing.
Tsotetsi: I strongly agree with her. Slowly but surely, people are changing; we’re getting more and more into technology and science. It is actually concerning me, because I think that, like, when time goes by, we as black people are going to start forgetting about where we come from, our religion, and we’re going to start focusing more on the technological stuff, which is why I still believe that although there are still all these things, you just have to know where you come from to know where you’re going. So slowly but surely, people are starting to get into this whole technology and science, and they actually don’t realize the dangers of it as well because the more developed a country becomes, the more it produces more and more technology, and that is why we have such things as global warming and greenhouse effects and whatnot, so slowly but surely the world is deteriorating, but we have to look at that.
Do you think the country is also getting less religious then?
Gamede: I would say yes.
Tsotetsi: It is, it is.
Mayuso: At this point, I would say the new generation is stuck in between. Like Nathi said, maybe you would pray for your mom to get a job, when she gets a job, then you pray for something, and then you don’t get it, and then you’ll say, “You know what, I thought there was God, but now because I’m not getting what I need, God doesn’t exist,” so at this point in time, the new generation is changing, yes, but it’s still stuck in between. They don’t know which is true or which isn’t.
Gamede: And when books like The Secret talk about Isaac Newton, the laws of attraction, you think about, “Maybe because I wanted this to happen, that’s why it happened. I wanted my mom to get a job, and I thought about it hard and that’s why my mom got a job.” Yeah, maybe things like that.
To go back to that idea of biblical literalism, do you think people who take the Bible as strong fact and have that view of the world are at a disadvantage in trying to get a job or learn about science and things like that?
Tsotetsi: In a way, they are at a disadvantage because we come from different worlds, different families, different upbringings, so when you read something, I think with religion, people happen to misinterpret what they actually read, and with science, everything that is given to you, it’s a fact, so I think in a way, they are at a disadvantage. But then it also depends on how you look at it. Sometimes, I think we expect too much from God, and we expect all these things to come instantly that we forget about the beauty of Christianity because being Christian, it’s all about believing wholeheartedly, being patient, and it’s not all about tempering with God or testing him, so they are at a disadvantage.
Gamede: I would say that they are at a disadvantage because looking at the way the world is growing, if you go for an interview and then they ask you something about maybe science, maybe the stupidest thing about science, but then you don’t know the answer, and they think about, “Ah, this person is not open-minded.” You’ve got to have an open mind, take all the facts, and know where you stand. I stand with religion; you’ve got to stand with religion. I stand with science; you’ve got to stand with science. I stand with both; you’ve got to stand with both.
I also want to talk about the program you guys went to last year. Can you tell me a little about what it was like, what you liked about it, and what you thought it did really well?
Mayuso: Well, what I liked was learning about the other ways in which basically, let’s say, I would say, it’s an endangered place—the Khoi San people are very few in South Africa, and basically, they are facing extinction, so the way they live fascinates me. There’s a certain animal that they believe in…
The eland?
Yes, the eland. Before they kill it, there is a certain way that they kill it. Those guys, those are the ones who are still strongly rooted, who still have true beliefs. It’s like they haven’t lost their way because they’re not exposed to civilization like us, to sciences, to whatever. They still believe in what they believe in. That fascinates me.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but when you guys went, you also had a lecture by Dr. Merrill [van der Walt] and then you talked to a priest afterwards?
All: Yes
So if we could focus on that—what did you guys think of that?
Gamede: You know, the way they said important facts, that made me think, “Maybe these are all lies.” Like the six days and six billion years ago made me think twice. Maybe these are all lies, maybe they’re working together, maybe there are two gods—it gave me a different perspective, a view about the way I should think about things. I used to think, “Okay, I’m going with evolution, not religion,” but now I believe in them both.
Msibi: I think it was a good thing that they had someone talk about evolution and religion because in that way. It accommodated everyone truly because not everyone believes in evolution, so it would’ve been unfair if they only talked about evolution. And another thing, they went together—the lady who was presenting about evolution, and the religion—they both went out as if the guy was just talking about what the lady talked about, but just from a religion perspective.
Skhosana: I also learned a lot. It changed my view. I was a religion-based person, but when I came from [the Origins Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand], I learned that they come together, and you can have one understanding. You can still consider evolution with religion. It helped me have an open mind, both to evolution and religion.
Mayuso: Well, I will say it’s quite fascinating how they tried to mix the two. From my point of view, religion is science which has not been modified, so they just tried to show us that religion is science, but in an unmodified view to make people have a better understanding about what happened before the previous life. So religion, I would say, is just the basics of sciences; it’s not the complicated part.
Tsotetsi: Yeah, like I said, religion comes first to me, evolution after, so any fact that comes from the scientific part of it or anything, it’s okay, I’m not against it. But I just know that I’m for religion, so anything that comes scientifically, I won’t fight it or anything, but then I’m just a religious person, and that’s that. I’m open-minded, though, but I know where I stand.
What did you dislike about the program? What left you with questions? What didn’t you understand afterwards?
Msibi: I think they were telling us about how the Khoi San people—why were they telling us about those people? Because nowadays, you can’t find those people, so for me, it just felt irrelevant. It was just not for me; it was just off topic. They could’ve explained and gone deeply into religion and evolution. With the time they spent talking about those Khoi Khoi, they could’ve done that because almost everyone was complaining about why they were telling us about those people, because you can’t even find open areas where those people live.
Tsotetsi: A thing we should think about is the people who were presenting to us, they’re only human, so I felt like there were more questions I had to ask, but then I thought it would be rather unfair to them because they don’t have all the answers. Like the one question I would’ve liked to ask them is that, okay, they’ve given us the scientific concept of it and the religious concept of it, so they won’t really make the decision for us, but then the question that I would’ve loved to ask is where do we really come from? You know, because they gave us facts, they gave us religion, but then they didn’t make the choice for us. I know it kind of sounds irrelevant, but I would rather have them tell me which one of them to believe in, because really now, they made us all on the fence. They gave us science and religion, and so it’s up to a person what to believe in. I just felt it would have been more factual and they would have explained it then, but then they’re only human, like I said. They don’t know it all.
Gamede: It was great, the presentation, but next time, maybe not give us dinosaur books. I gave it to my little brother; we all did. Maybe a book, where they compare the two. They give you the 600 billion years and they give you the six days, and when you talk to other people, they’ll tell you, “Bring us facts,” and every day you’ll have nothing to show them. You look through the Bible for that six days and stuff. Maybe next time they should give us small pamphlets with all the comparison and the arguments and stuff.
All: Yes.
Mayuso: I like the presentation. There was nothing I would say was harmful for me, because it was just trying to show us the different aspects about the dinosaurs, what happened to them, and then what happened to the Khoi San people, how they live. They just wanted to show us the different things that we should learn about.
Msibi: Can I ask a question though? They say that we evolve from apes then there were Homo sapiens, you know, the whole process. Now, for people that actually believe in evolution and whatnot, does that mean that our grandchildren are still going to evolve further? Because when something evolves, it doesn’t have to stop, right, it has to be ongoing, so according to that understanding, do you think we’re still going to evolve further, or is this the end of evolution?
Well, I mean, what do you guys think?
Gamede: I think we’re still going to evolve because, looking at our parents, like my mom is tall, my dad is tall, but I’m short. I think maybe we’re going back to the shortness of apes. And most of my aunts that are smaller than my mom are short, and their children are tall, so I’m thinking that it’s an ongoing process of evolution.
Skhosana: I think there we are evolving because most of the time people grow faster, so I think not a hectic evolution or something like that, but there are small changes, which people aren’t aware of. But people are growing faster; technology makes us grow faster. I think the people who will come after us, the generation after us, will be smarter.
Mayuso: I’ll say that with the influence of technology, people are evolving, so evolution won’t stop. It’ll just keep continuing. There’ll be extinction; there’ll be mass extinction. The next one will be most likely be caused by global warming. Yes, in the next life they will have to adapt to that new world, so we’ll keep on evolving.
A lot of you talk about how you wish you had more information, especially coming from that presentation. Do you think it would be better to maybe have this discussion in the classroom? Where it’s something that your teacher is taught—how to talk about science and religion at the same time—do you think that would be a better idea?
All: Yes.
Gamede: I think maybe if both teachers—the religious teacher and the life science teacher—not one, because the biology teacher strongly believes in biology and can tell you one thing in 10 different ways and still mean the same thing. I think they should have both teachers.
Msibi: But I know we’re in a Catholic school and all that, but there are people who do not believe in those kinds of things, who believe in ancestors. I know when you come to school here, you know it’s a Catholic school, but there are other people, like me for instance, who believe in ancestors. But I’ve never seen anyone or any teacher talking about those kinds of things, so it’s kind of unfair because we are all Africans and that’s part of us. They shouldn’t make us believe in God, God, God, because it’s kind of European believing in God, and we believe in other things. It’s very African.
Mayuso: I would also say that it is becoming a problem because now we have religion, which came from Christians, and then we have technology, which is different. But we as Africans, it’s our surnames, it’s the clan name—what happened, who was the king, how it came about. So now we are disadvantaged because we are not really exposed to our own culture, like the Khoi San people are.
Skhosana: I think it would be helpful learning about it at school, because we had a section in biology about evolution and we talk about religion versus evolution, and we still have no answer. I think they are all human. Even if we have the religion teacher and the biology teacher together, they’ll still contradict each other; there’ll be no conclusions.
Gamede: It’s going to be a war.
Do you guys feel unsatisfied by what you’ve learned? Do you still feel like you have questions?
Skhosana: Yes.
Gamede: I still have many questions.
Mayuso: Well, I say we will never be satisfied, basically.
Tsotetsi: Yes, it’s a mystery.
Mayuso: It’s a mystery. It’s just something we have to live with, and we’ll come up with new facts or new ways to talk about it, but it won’t end.
Msibi: They should talk about ancestors. I know they tried to do that with the Khois and all that, but the ones that would be relevant. Talk about the Zulus and all that stuff. It’s, like, it’s outdated, people don’t care about that stuff, but when you’re talking about religion and evolution, I think there should be a third part, ancestors and all that, spiritual things.
If they made it part of the LO course to talk about religion and science—whatever religion means to you—do you think that would be a good idea?
Tsotetsi: It would.
Gamede: Yeah.
Skhosana: I don’t know because I think they should have religion separately and LO separately. We already learn about culture with our vernacular. If we have it with LO, it would ... complicate things, yeah.
Tsotetsi: So are you for or against evolution?
Me? Personally? I was taught in a Catholic school; I’ve been to Catholic school my whole life, including my university. I do believe in evolution, though, because I was taught that there never really was a divide, that it never really was science versus religion; it was always science and religion. So, God created science to teach man about the natural world and everything, and what I think is different, though, is that I was taught that the story of Adam and Eve is true in the sense that it teaches us something about what it means to be a human being and original sin and things like that. But I was never taught that it was true in the sense that it actually happened on this day and all that. But I never really thought about it that much because I was just kind of taught that the two could go hand in hand.
Tsotetsi: That’s how we have to look at it, or else you go crazy—
Gamede: Like, the Bible says that only 4,400 people go to heaven. I don’t understand that. Why don’t we all go to heaven?
Yeah, I mean, this is a little off topic, but when I was growing up, I was always taught that there are things in the Bible which are symbolic—that they teach us something bigger. So when you talk about Moses being in the desert for 40 days, it doesn’t mean he was actually there for 40 days exactly, but it just—to the people living at the time, if you said 40 days, they would know that you just meant a very long time. So there are certain things in the Bible that did happen, it is true, like actual historical fact, like the crucifixion. But there are other things then that you have to interpret and learn from. So that’s what I was taught. But to ask you guys a question: What do you think is the next step? Where are you guys going to go from here?
Msibi: I personally am going to do research about it, to get to know people, like other religions. They fascinate me, like Hindus and all that, because once you don’t believe in something, you tend to be against it. Like, we say the Hindus believe in their own gods; they pray to their idols. Even if I don’t believe in evolution, I shouldn’t be against evolution and all that. I can have my own opinions in mind, but I shouldn’t discriminate against those kinds of people. So I think as an African child, I should interact more with people who believe in those kinds of stuff, like the traditional beliefs. Yeah, because you tend to discriminate against them and whatnot, but they’re actually helping with coming up with cures for HIV. They should work together. Maybe there would be a solution to those kinds of problems.
Tsotetsi: It’s all about learning to accept one another and be able to respect the next religion and the next person’s beliefs, because I personally feel that no matter how much you try to research about it, to find out about it, you will never ever get the full effect, so we’re just going to have to live with what we have right now and make of it what you want to believe in. If you don’t believe in something, don’t discriminate against it, but then just respect the next person’s opinion and believe what you believe in. And with our culture and tradition fading away, we as black people are allowing that to happen. If we didn’t allow it to deteriorate and whatnot, it wouldn’t be happening, so it’s still up to a person to believe and to pass on your beliefs onto your children, your grandchildren, and whatnot. It’s all up to the individual.
Mayuso: Well, the next step is just trying to combine what they said. Most people are tired of hearing or saying, “Yes, it’s religion only,” or “Yes, it’s evolution only,” or “Yes, it’s our ancestors only.” People try to combine it together, that’s what people are trying to do now, and maybe they might find a better solution than what we have now.
Gamede: I would say it’s all about finding more information, like she said, learning about all the other cultures and picking the things that will build you a life and then use them to teach your children. If your children don’t feel the same way, they can do research about their own things and pick the things that they think will build them a life.
Skhosana: I think you should just take the best and give the rest.
Gamede: Like my mom, if I tell her about the law of attraction, she’ll tell me, “Aye, you got to do this.” If I think this about God, she’ll tell me, “No, no, God—if you don’t pray and stuff, God won’t do this and this and this.” We contradict—me and my mother fight a lot about religion, but she’s starting to understand evolution. When I come back and tell her, “Hey, look at the giraffe when it grew the neck taller?” She starts to understand it looks different.
Tsotetsi: Yeah, a different generation.
Well, that’s a really interesting point. It’s past our time, but one quick question: How many of your parents believe in evolution, and what do they think about evolution?
Mayuso: Well, personally, my grandmother says that evolution is Satanism, so at home, I just try to become a religious person. I truly know I’m not being religious, but I just try to become religious because mostly parents do not understand. They think that you are against them. Well, I’m not against it; it’s just that I’m not satisfied with the facts that they have. That’s it. But I won’t tell them to my mom or my grandma.
Tsotetsi: My mother’s young, and she’s open-minded. She’s a strong believer in God, she’s religious, but she’s open to the idea of evolution. So she’s religious, but she doesn’t discriminate against evolution.
Gamede: My mother used to be the type that was, “I know, it’s God only.” But maybe when I show her things like facts, like, “Look at this giraffe, and how it was this tall and now it’s that tall,” she’ll look at it in a different way, then ask me more questions: “Why does a dog have four legs?” and stuff.
Skhosana: My parents don’t discriminate against evolution, but they don’t understand it. They are religion-based. They don’t understand evolution, but they don’t discriminate.
Msibi: My mom and my grandmother, they just ignore it. Even if I tell them, it’s as if to them evolution does not [exist], because whatever those experiences they had, they did not have mine. Trying to think that there are other things present, they don’t understand; they just profess the old thing that they have because changing can be very difficult.