Test of faith

Jason Rebello, 25
Wrigleyville, Buddhist

What about your religion speaks to you more than other religions do?
Truly that all the wisdom, all the courage, all the power needed to change my life and change the fate of my immediate environment and the environments around that are within myself.

What do you think happens after you die?
The best analogy is a glass of water. That’s your life as you know it right now. A bathtub in front of you—or the ocean—is all life within the compass of the universe. You die, pour [the glass] back into the universe and then when you come back, take a cup and there you are. Reincarnation. It’s a long way of saying reincarnation.

How does your religion view nonbelievers?
We believe that everyone has a Buddha nature, which is this ultimate compassion and ultimate potential in their lives. It’s just a matter of awakening them to that.

Do you believe in evolution?
Yes…. Science is starting to catch up to Buddhism. Everything that science has discovered in the last 100 years has very easily merged and fused with our practice, with our religion.

Do you pray?
We chant…and then we have daily prayer. [We chant] for the wisdom, the courage and the determination to take the right action—to do the right thing.

Larry “the Jew” Epstein, 52
Lakeview, Jewish

You’re the owner of Eppy’s Deli (224 E Ontario St, 312-943-7797) and people connect you with your deli as a Jewish business. So how religious are you?
My family and I are not very religious; we’re reformed. We observe the High Holy Days. In other words, we don’t keep kosher.

Does religion play a big part in your life?
I would say no…. It’s interesting because in Judaism you have to pay the price on the holidays. When you go to church and you want to throw a dollar in the plate, that’s fine. In Judaism, you don’t have a choice. You have to be a member of the temple or congregation and then you have to buy tickets. It’s like going to a ball game or something. My rabbi—he probably gets $125,000 a year salary. He has a good-looking wife and a better-looking girlfriend. He doesn’t take a vow of poverty.

Is there a reason why you went the reformed route?
That’s how I was raised. But, conversely, my son is Irish-Catholic.

How did that happen?
His mother is Irish-Catholic, and, in the Jewish faith, since my wife at the time did not convert to Judaism, my son’s considered Catholic and he was raised Catholic.

Did you have any issues with that?
Uh, I was pretty fine with it. We celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah. So I got the best of both worlds.

Yasmin Nair, 40
Uptown, atheist

What was your religious upbringing?
I was raised [in Calcutta, India] as an atheist. I had atheist parents, but I was sent to Anglican schools. Everybody around me was a multitude of religions: Jains, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus.

Do you believe in God?
[After ten seconds] No.

Why the long pause?
I feel like a belief in God that I have is a vestigial need to hope for some kind of pattern. I think that’s what a belief in God is about. I actually think existence is much more chaotic.

Do you ever argue with religious friends?
I don’t ever bother arguing about faith. There’s so much else that’s wrong with the world—poverty, inequality, hunger, war, the AIDS crisis. To me, it doesn’t matter if there’s a God or not. We really have to figure out those things.

Awilda Rodriguez, 30
Rogers Park, former Catholic

Do you believe in God?
I think there is something bigger out there. I would not call it God.

How often do you go to religious services?
Never.

Did you go to religious services as a kid?
Yes, Catholic. The only reason that I went was because my grandmother was very Catholic.

What do you think happens after you die?
I believe that your physical body dies. But maybe there’s your soul going to something. I’m really open to whatever it is. After I die we’ll talk again and I’ll let you know what happens.

Do you pray?
No. But I do thank the universe more than anything [and] thank my family, and that would be my prayer—just thankful for being alive.

What do you not like about your religion?
The part that I don’t like [about Catholicism] is the exclusion of certain people as part of their religion…. Loving everybody as equals is not necessarily always the case. It depends on who they’re talking about.

Ruby Keutzer, 11
Old Irving Park, Christian

How often do you go to church?
We usually go every Sunday, but sometimes every other Sunday, because I travel for soccer.

What’s your least favorite part about the service?
When they read really long scriptures, because sometimes I don’t really get them. So I can’t be that interested in them.

What do you pray for?
I talk to Grandpa and my Pops, because they passed away. And then I talk to God, and I pray for everybody that needs help. And I pray for people in my family, like my aunt, who are having hard times.

What does God look like?
I always picture Him in a white gown with long hair, and He kind of looks like Jesus. And I picture Him just floating. He floats everywhere in heaven.

And what does heaven look like?
Just clouds, a bunch of clouds. Like, we have houses down here, but up above, they have a whole different world.

Would you ever marry someone who isn’t Christian?
If I really loved that person, then I would probably be able to adjust to it. But I would like to find someone in my own religion, just so we could connect more.