I Love a Crusade!

Isn't it interesting how some people can ruin things for everyone? Like poltics. People choosing to devote their lives to looking out for their fellow citizens seems pretty noble, and yet the terrible actions of a few makes everyone think of politicians as liars, fools, and weasels (which, granted, many are). Same thing with religion. Organizations devoted to helping others and answering people's deep, unanswered questions...also sounds pretty good. Of course then you have your religious terrorists, and your religious hate-mongers. In both of these cases, what should be valuable discussions about the best ways to make our world a better place to live in turn into hateful arguments and name-calling.

The difference being that Republicans and Democrats get along better with Independents than with each other sometimes. In religion, the person who believes your god is a fake and their god is real is more your friend than the person who sits the whole thing out. That's something I never quite understood. I mean, I understand that having a belief system and faith in a higher power connects people across religious lines, but it also puts you on opposing teams where you can't both ultimately be right about everything. Yet, it's Atheists and Agnostics who are viewed by both sides as misguided, immoral, and untrustworthy.

In a Newsweek poll, 92 percent of Americans said they believe in God, though you'd be hard-pressed to tell, giving how awful most people act throughout their days. 6 percent said they definitely didn't believe in a god, and 2 percent said they didn't know. Talk about minorities, that's a big one, and also seems to poke a hole in the idea that there's some huge liberal secular army coming to destroy Christmas and make your kids worship Kevin Federline instead of Jesus. Even more shocking is that only 37 percent of people said they'd be willing, not even likely but willing, to elect an Atheist as President. More people said they'd be willing to elect a homosexual President, meaning that there are people who actually believe someone who's life is considered sinful to them is better than someone who may lead a moral life but just doesn't believe in an all-powerful being that he can't see. And despite what some people would have you believe, the number of respondents who say they believe in God is going up, and the number of people willing to accept an Atheist is going down.

That reminds me of one of the most memorable moments I had just before my Catholic Confirmation. As anyone Catholic would tell you, and as anyone else could probably assume, confirmation is a big to-do as it represents a coming-of-age in the church. So, as one of the steps leading up to that big day, to make sure you know exactly what you're getting into and to make sure that you're worthy of it I suppose, at my church they had one of the higher-ups interview each person. Really, it was more of a discussion than an interview, though for some reason they required a Resume and a headshot (it helped that I could pray 75 wpm). Keep in mind, I was all of 14 around the time.

Anyway, towards the end of our discussion about morality and faith, he asked me something that surprised me, and I'm not easily surprised. He asked me if I thought someone could be a good person, but not a good Christian. My answer, which seemed very clear to me, was yes. A person could be kind, honest, hard-working, self-sacrificing, abstinant, moral, virtuous, and all the things that make you a good person and still not believe in Jesus Christ - essential to being a Christian by definition. Many of the things that make you a good Christian also make you a good person, but without that whole "God/Jesus/Bible" part of it, you would never be a good Christian, just a good person. He listened and then not angrily, just matter-of-factly, stated that he didn't believe that at all. He actually believed that it was impossible to be a good person if you weren't a Christian. You could be an alright person, I suppose, or an okay person, but not a good person. I was appalled. He might as well have just slapped me in the face with a Bible, because apparently I had been living in some delusion all those years going to Church when they preached openness and acceptance. Apparently it was "join us or live in depravity" with no middle ground.

There is a polarization going on in the world today, and it's only getting worse. Whether in discussion of politics, religion, economics, values, even science and history, people are being asked to take sides and turn on one another. Where's the middle ground with people who "don't know" or "aren't sure" or who want to come to a consensus? Instead of focusing on whether someone is Muslim or Christian, Republican or Democrat, Rock or Country, can't people focus on what it is that makes people good across these divisions? Because what happens when people focus on beating the other team rather than on improving themselves? They cheat, they lie, they compromise their integrity, and ultimately, the end up hurting themselves.