It is safe to say that I do not buy into the Christian faith. Growing up in the bible belt I saw to much prejudice coming from people who called themselves Christians.Of course, we've all heard these excuses many times over from folks who have decided to abandon the Christian faith. But when I read this, I saw for the first time how invalid this type of thinking truly is.
Think about it. We do not apply this test to any other decision we make in life! When have we ever heard someone say any of the following?
* I'd really like to have a meal at that restaurant, but too many hypocrites eat there.
* I'd love to drive that car, but last week I saw someone run a red light in one just like it!
* I would really like to believe Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation, but just this morning, a person who also believes it was very rude to me!
Deciding the truth or falsehood of a set of beliefs based on the misbehavior of a subset of its adherents seems foolhardy. For one thing, why would anyone want to cede this much control to other people, people he has already identified as ethically flawed? In the end, such a person, were he to be consistent, would end up believing nothing, because "prejudiced" people can be found among the adherents of every belief system.
In the final analysis, this charge against Christians may be nothing more than an excuse, invented after the fact by someone who is not willing to accept the rigors of Christian life, or who is unwilling to turn loose of some pet sin.
2 comments:
I read somewhere that the word "hypocrit" came from the word for "actor". The article where the above was posed, said that it was not a bad thing to "act" as if one was a Christian. We could do worse..
Grandmother
Yes, I would agree with that.
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