Personalizing religion in Angels of Death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8wAn6YbMcE - 15:31

     One of the things that I like seeing in anime are references to religion.  These references usually aren't 

direct and it seems like it's a bad thing if it is since it doesn't happen a lot and tends to be avoided.  

Religion doesn't need to be part of anime, at least not directly, but it can be.  Angels of Death is an 

anime with direct religious references, which the video I use for this reflection mentions.  Specifically, I 

believe this anime focuses on personalizing religion, including how to do, as well not do, that.

     Personalizing religion is something that I attempt to do every day.  From my attempts, I have seen that 

the best way to personalize religion is to make what already exists relatable to you and to engage in 

practices in a way, or ways, that work for you.  For example, praying the Psalms from the Old Testament 

of the Bible is something that I do with my monastic community.  What makes the Psalms the same for 

everyone are the actual words of them (there are various translations though).  What makes them different 

is what they mean to you, as well as what you do, or use, to help you with this meaning, which is true for 

everything else in religion (and I don't just mean Catholicism/Christianity either, although this anime, and 

most actually from what I've seen, focuses on Catholicism/Christianity).  

    This personalization can go wrong when the personalization focuses only on you, which leads to 

unhealthy obsession that all of the characters in this anime have.  Focusing on other people is how 

personalizing religion should happen, not just focusing on yourself or other people for yourself.  For the 

most part, the characters in this anime focus on the latter when personalizing religion.

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