I read a great quote today

"What I noticed at grace-Calvary is the same thing I notice whenever people aim to solve their conflicts with one another by turning to the Bible: defending dried ink marks on the page becomes more vital than defending the neighbor. As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God. In the words of Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas, 'People of the Book risk putting the book above the people.'" --Barbara Brown Taylor, "Leaving church: A Memoir of Faith"

I've watched people from all walks of life get pretty nasty when they defend their core beliefs or at at least the foundation of the box they've built for themselves to live in and view the world from. Atheists, Christians, XBOX fans, Playstation fans, Mac fans, Windows fans, it goes on and on. Most people, myself included, have a great deal of certainty that what they see, feel, and believe are all true things. For years I was certain that conservative Evangelical Christianity was the truth, that my theology, which was shared by many, was correct. After all, the Holy Spirit guided us into our belief, just as he guided those who penned the Holy Word of God and ensured that those 66 books would be collected together as we know them today, and that the false texts would be cast out.

After I lost my faith: yes, I know, I was never a true Christian, I was a false convert, I was pretending to be a Christian, but really living a life of sin, I was pretending to be a Christian to subvert the true message of Christ, I was a Sunday only Christian, etc., etc. all things I've been accused of since losing my faith; the one thing that came out of it all is that certainty can vanish in an instant, well usually not an instant, but it can seem so when it comes. My deconversion was a long drawn out process which involved major prayer and study of the Bible, but when the final moment came it was almost like a switch had been flipped.

Anyway, now I try to respect everyone's viewpoints and sometimes things can sound pretty crazy, but I know what I used to believe, and I know I could be completely wrong about what I believe now too. Is conservative Evangelical Christianity correct? I don't know. Liberal Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam? I really have no idea, they certainly couldn't all be 100% literally correct simultaneously, but parts of all of them could be true. What I do know is that we are all human beings struggling through each day on this planet and we have more in common than not. As Sting said some 20 years ago "We share the same biology, regardless of ideology.", but we sure can forget that rather easily.

I've actually stopped reading a few of the atheist blogs I used to read because they are so anti-religion. Sure, we all know about poison aspects of religion, but for the most part the positive wins out. I see people living wonderful, productive, vibrant lives, that include a full faith life as well, and I see no reason that they should not. Just as I see non-believers also living wonderful, productive, vibrant lives as well.

If my certainty in any belief becomes more important than my fellow humans then I'm guessing I'm doing something wrong...but I'm not certain. ;-)

The post and the quote can be found here: Which Comes First: The Book or the People?