I was a doubter almost as soon as I became aware of what I believed. I became aware at maybe 13, 14 that I’d been drafted onto this team called Mormonism that was distinct from the Catholicism that was the norm where I grew up in Massachusetts. And I started to become aware of those differences, and instantly I was doubting them, at first privately and then, by the time I was in my late teens, quite vocally. But some of the people who were very close to me — my parents, certain friends in my congregation, or ward, as it’s called — their example meant a lot to me, and I thought, ‘What do they know that I don’t know?’ So the mission for me became a chance for me to make a large commitment, commensurate to the large amount of grace I felt I needed in order to believe what seemed, on the face of it, unbelievable things.

— Ryan McIlvain tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross how his mission to Brazil became a way of convincing himself of his own faith

Judith Shulevitz on how she reconciles her faith in science with her religious faith:

What we’re discovering is that we’re enormously malleable. We’re really responsive to our environment in a physical sense, but also in a psychological sense, in the sense that stress is one of the really big forces in epigenetic changes. So the malleability of the human body seems to me an argument for creating a better community, a better society, and that’s what I love about religion: is that it’s a place where you can turn for ideas about the good society. I recognize — as many people go around arguing — that religion can be used as a force for bad — but it can also be used as a source of ideas that drive us to the greater good. So I turn to science to tell us how to live and I turn to religion to tell us how to live and I follow neither of them slavishly.

I haven’t lost my faith but I’ve lost my religion. I still believe in something so deeply. … I’ve never really gotten past that quote from Anne Frank in her diary, where she says that people are really good at heart. But I feel like the Catholic Church – no – the Catholic hierarchy has been disinviting people like me and especially women like me for so many years that I finally took the hint.

— Anna Quindlen on religion and faith [full interview here]