Pedro DelaCuadra
Instructor Ray Savoie
ENGL 101, M06
Narrative Interview
The sounds of ratta tat tat rose from the floor as Chauncey Bennett, or Chad as everyone calls him, taught my little brother a drum rudiment. He gives my little brother, Marcos, drum lessons every Thursday, so since he was at my house already, it would be a perfect time for an interview. As I sat at my computer, I heard, “Pedro, your interviewee is ready.” It was time. No turning back now. As Chad and I made our way down to the cold, damp basement of this place I call home, we heard a short exchange between my always critical father and my little brother. “So what did you do all day?” my dad asked Macros. “I don’t know.” Marcos replied. His usual answer. “Man, that kid is crazy.” Chad said to me as we made our way to the old, dusty, toy-room couch. “Who, Marcos?” “Yeah, he said I don’t know when asked what he did today. I mean he was in school for eight hours, how do you not know what you did all day?” This conversation between Chad and I seemed to lighten the whole mood around us. I was extremely nervous leading up to the interview, but when we had that short conversation about my little brother, it sort of broke my tension because it helped me relate to Chad. To start off the interview, I asked him what led him to first become an Atheist. He answered by saying it was because of the death of his grandmother. His grandmother had been very sick, and he prayed constantly, but two days later she died. Her death is what pushed him away from God, and later led to him choosing to be an Atheist. In the interview he explained that there is nothing wrong if people believe in God, but it’s when they use their God as justification for their actions, bad or good, that it starts to bother him. He states that starting with early world history, people have based their actions on their religion. Events such as the Crusades, terrorism, wars, and bombing of abortion clinics were all based on someone’s religion. The people tried to justify their actions, saying that since their religion sees something as wrong; it allows them to perform unthinkable atrocities. He also said that the lack of scientific proof in any religion was another aspect that bothered him. Most religions say that the world is little more than seven thousand years old, yet sciences proves that the world is at least four or five billion years old. He said, “Science proves that the world is way older than seven thousand years. Argon is formed when Potassium decays. Potassium has a half-life close to two billion years, so if the world was only seven thousand years old then Argon would not exist. Now the years I used for Potassium’s half-life aren’t exact, but I know it is close.” With this statement, he did not only state his problem with religion, but also provided scientific evidence to back up his belief. Next, I asked him about his person life as an Atheist. How hard it was to be an Atheist, his expressiveness about his beliefs, and if it affects his daily life. Addressing the question, “Is it hard being an Atheist,” he said that it depends on the situation. In Third World countries it is extremely hard, because they will kill you for being an Atheist. However, here in the U.S., it’s easy to be an Atheist, and believe whatever you want. To answer the question of whether he was open about being an Atheist or not he said, “At the beginning I was, because I was just a kid who didn’t believe in God and didn’t have a real reason based on fact. Now that I’m older and have done my research, I’m very open and expressive about what I think.” When his daily choices are concerned, Chad said that his beliefs don’t change them much at all. He said that his morals are not changed at all. I asked him what he based his moral values on, since most people base theirs on their religion and he doesn’t follow a specific religion, and he simply said, “Don’t be a dick.” It was probably the
