Please remember that you are choosing to read my opinions.

Ok, so perhaps you don't agree with Christianity. Or perhaps you do and disagree with the bible.sometimes. Maybe you just feel that because we are America and we are number one, that the way our society works is Ok whether or not this ancient text said otherwise. Perhaps you don't think it ever said anything against the mindless pursuit of riches. Maybe you've come to the conclusion that the above statement is true and you are a complete atheist, or not of the Christian faith at all.

The point here is two-fold. One, it doesn't matter what your particular belief system is. There is disagreement regardless of it. You can be a Christian and disagree with the Bible. You can agree with it and act completely opposite. You can not believe in God and follow the bible better than many Christians, or you can not follow it. All Christians, atheists, Muslims, Jews, etc are different. Personally, I don't follow the "how to be a so-an-so Christian" guide line. With so much variation in the interpretation of the bible, I don't know who is right and wrong. I consider it a dangerous choice when you've decided that you are right and no one else could be regarding the bible. The second point is that people can agree regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof.

My general feeling is that Christians (and the opposition) focus on aspects of the bible that don't affect how people live. For instance, Genesis. Now, there is a lot of explaining about how life came about, but here is the kicker: whether or not that is exactly what happened... here we are. We are most definitely here regardless of a week of creation or a billion odd years of evolution.

Or how about this: Is it the father, the son, and the holy sprit in a dandy little trinity as proposed by a council of perplexed men in 325 AD., or is there a separate and distinct way of thinking about each part of the supposed trinity that makes the result significantly different? Within some theological discussions you can hear heated debates. Is the debate over whether or not someone deserves worship or not? Is it over the difference between monotheism, pantheism, and polytheism? In the end, though, the bible itself should tell you how to worship, so the dispute becomes rather trivial to me. It doesn't matter how you think about it as long as it doesn't affect how you follow the bible.

Yet we give differences of opinion their power to divide, not only within religion, but in everything. We give them substance and make them as solid as walls between ourselves and others. It starts on a large scale. I live on this continent, in this country, in this state, in this county, in this city, in this house. We've set ourselves up for division. We don't just have rivalry between countries, but also between states, counties, cities, and in our own neighborhood. Then we build up our belief boundaries. I am part of this faith, or I am strictly part of none. I follow these political lines, or I don't believe in any of it. I drive this type of car, listen to this music, this, that, and so on, so forth until each person can easily be pitted against the next.

These are not insurmountable differences, of course. There is probably some cosmic reason that we are all pitted against each other, but should there not be common needs, common goals, and things that we can all agree on in general? For example, there are certain things that every one absolutely needs. If everyone must have these things to survive securely then everyone should be entitled to them. Many of the worlds struggles come from the fear that we won't have what we need to survive. Some people would rather deny this to people because someone would stop doing his share knowing that he doesn't have to do anything to survive, but if people only worked for what was necessary, greed would be a thing of the past.

I found myself talking about abortion on mindsay recently (on Shauna's blog) There are few issues as clearly divided as abortion is, but it was brought up in such a way that I was trying to think of things that both sides could agree on. I didn't expect everyone to agree that abortion was morally wrong, but I think most people can agree that it should be avoided if possible. In the article she posted, the woman was speaking about the reasons that people have abortions. I posed the question, "What if the reasons didn't exist?" Meaning, what if it was possible to change the situation that is prompting the abortion? If an expectant mother couldn't afford to have a baby, what if this was given? If a mother needed time off to have the baby and resources to take care of it and was arranged, would that price be worth saving the kid?

Now that we are talking about giving up something to save the child and not just saying "abortion is bad," however, you'll find that people will back away from that possible solution. Even people who consider themselves good Christians believe so much in the Capitalist, Industrialized, dog-eat-dog system that they won't agree that what is needed to be done to save a life should be done. Truthfully, I don't want to have to give what I've earned to help others either, but then again, I don't want there to be a need to help others, and so long as people aren't willingly seeking the end of these problems, then perhaps the solution is to give up some of what we have, so that others can have also.

You may wonder, now that I'm about to bring the bible up, why I keep doing so. Is it because I think that because it is in the book that everyone should believe it? Not really, but unless you have been living under a rock there is a large percentage of people that claim the Christian faith. It just so happens that the bible is full of socially relevant comments and, to know what is in the bible is to understand the believe structure of a large number of people. Yet, it is odd to me that so much of it is actively ignored, though. I think there must be some conspiracy to pass over that which would be inconvenient to the individual. Much, I think, is trying to translate entire situations of the bible differently and seeking a message that is less strenuous on the believer, for what reasons I'm not sure. I guess to make it more fun. What about all those passages that people don't seem to take seriously?

Here is an interesting exercise for you. There are many passages about "profit" in the bible, nearly twenty, and in every instance it is referring to profit negatively. You can take whatever message you want from it. No one is expecting you to change because of what you read in the bible. You act a certain way regardless of what the book says, so you already have your reasons for not doing so. Be you not Christian, then you can look and see for yourself if there are differences between what we claim to believe and what we actually say and do. You'll find that none of us our immune from that.

(Isa.33:15, 56:11, 57:17)
(Ezek. 22:13, 22:27, 33:31)
(Ps. 10:3, 119:36)
(Prov. 1:19, 15:27, 28:16)
(Exod. 18:21)
(1 Sam. 8:3)
(Jer. 6:10, 13)
(Hab. 2:9)

If you are without bible, you can go you to http://www.biblegateway.com/ and look them up.

Regardless of what the bible says, what you do think about profiting while others do not? What about profiting off of people's suffering? How do we come to believe that the way that things are is the right way? Is it just because the belief is pounded into us daily from the moment we hit school, or is it fundamentally true that our way is right?

There are all kinds of questions to be asked, and many different answers to be had, but in the end the most important question of all is, where can we all relate? What is the common factor that we should all have an interest in? You'll find that, regardless of these boundries that we put around ourselves we often agree on issues, just not the way to arrive at the solution. Regardless of the bounries we place up, regardless of our location, our political affiliation, religious beliefs, there are things we have in common, and that is the most important. Someone is no doubt profitting from these divisions, but it isn't mankind. Let us, for the small and weak, unforunite and helpless, learn to transcend our differences.

What do you think?