My friend Teri drives an ambulance for a hospital in Connecticut because she wants to help people and make the world a better place and help those who are suffering. If she believes in God at all, it's one of those pagan earth-goddess deals, and she'll tell you she's a Wiccan but I don't know how all that stuff works, though I am pretty sure she doesn't belong to any kind of organized group. I've never talked to her much about it. She doesn't try to convert anyone or even talk about it all that much, but her life is about serving others and doing what she can to touch people's lives. Like most people, Teri doesn't want anyone telling her what to believe. In a perfect world, her charity would make her more beautiful than a swimsuit model, and her acts of compassion would be valued like pieces of art. (credit where it's due: I'm paraphrasing Tonio K)

 

My friend Alan has a wife and kids and is prominent in his church and he thinks everyone should believe in Jesus. And to believe in Him, you have to intellectually accept a certain set of historical facts; i.e., that Jesus Christ died and rose again to forgive us our sins. Alan doesn't ever really go anywhere or do anything miraculous, but he's a good dad and a good husband and he's sincere in what he believes. If you ever needed help or advice, he'd meet with you at his home or talk to you on the phone about it, though he is very quick to warn you about hell and the consequences of sin, because it's always very easy to look at someone else's life and tell them where they're screwing it up. And I don't say that to belittle him: It's a fact, it is very easy to tell where someone else is screwing up their life, particularly when you've done the exact same things. Alan is not very subtle or gentle in the way he deals with people, but that's because he sees things in very rigid, black-and-white terms, and that it's his duty to loudly proclaim God's truth to all who will hear.

 

My friend Jeong is a Buddhist, and in his home country he's seen Christians burn down his temples more than once. Until recently, he's never met a Christian who didn't want to argue with him about going to hell. In Jeong's belief system, what happens in the next life is determined by the choices that we make in this one, so the only hell is one that we make for ourselves. Jeong is receptive to any discussion about spiritual things, though he's a bit skeptical about Christianity.

 

I wouldn't venture to guess whose life among them God is more pleased with, because who really knows the mind of God? I can say with certainty that both Teri and Jeong are seeking God in their own ways, and of course as a Christian I have to believe that their understanding is incomplete, but I suppose I would have to say that about everyone on earth. The thing is, mostly I get the impression that Alan believes he already knows God and doesn't have to worry about seeking Him anywhere else but in his home and church and office.

 

In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, this weird gay Vulcan dude steals the Enterprise to go find God at the center of the galaxy. It seems to me that his approach is very academic, and that his attempts are more to quantify and intellectualize God. I just don't believe you can understand God that way. Because when you start trying to understand the fundamental questions, you get into areas that can't be measured and understood that way.

 

What I mean is, you might ask, who created us? But if you could intellectually understand and accept that God created us, then you would ask why? And then you get into areas like love and mercy and justice, and those are hardly within the realm of science. To understand God, I think, you really have to experience Him. I suppose you could spend your life measuring, observing, and calculating God, but at best you'd wind up like Jane Goodall living among the gorillas, or even worse, someone who devotes their life to studying birds and thinking that means they can fly.

 

What bugs me is, there are people who will say that Alan has it right, that he has some idea of who he should be and is making every effort to be that person. Maybe they're right. But to me, who spent the first 39 years of his life trying to be the person that I thought God wanted me to be and was completely closed off to the possibility of being the person that He actually intended me to be, that doesn't cut it. It's not enough. It's limiting God.

 

When I read the gospel accounts of Jesus and His life, what strikes me most is His mercy to those that everyone else has cast aside, His refusal to pass judgement on those whom society has rejected. More than that, it's His rejection of those who studied the Law, the ones who believed that they already understood God and didn't need to make any efforts to grow in their understanding of Him, the religious leaders and scholars who studied Him and set themselves up as these great leaders.

 

 

Angry atheists claim that there is no God and that I may as well believe in fairy tales and invisible wizards. Angry Christians claim that they know God and His plan for us and if we don't all get in line, He'll cast us all into eternal torment.

And people like Teri and Jeong are just trying to understand Him, and seek Him in their hearts. I don't know why that's supposed to be a bad thing, or why, just because I might happen to believe that their understanding is incomplete, I'm supposed to condemn and dismiss them, or, worse, firebomb their temples and tear down what they already understand about Him.

I just have to believe that God is big enough for all of us, and that if we seek Him, we'll find Him, and that if we knock, the door will be opened. That God is big enough to reach them in His own ways without my having to shove a Bible down their throats, and that it's enough to encourage them to seek Him in their hearts, and with their lives and everything that they are.

 

 

And in conclusion, if you don't have anything nice to say, piss off.