Rooting for One's Religion

When someone is in the midst of a particular religion as one its followers, he (or she) is surrounded by fellow adherents who abide by a doctrine specific to that religion. The same people tend to associate with each other and repeat the same points of doctrine. When stepping outside of this “feedback loop” and conversing with outsiders, such a follower may encounter incomprehension or even opposition in reaction to statements he is making that, to him, are self-evident. He may also react in this same way to what others are saying. If you’re one of these people, you may find what I have to say to be like this.

There is a tendency nowadays for people who follow a particular religion to behave as if they are following their favorite sports team. Their team is the banner of the religion they follow. And the opposing team is the rest of the world, which must be conquered/converted. Encounters with people on the outside who don’t line up with the home religion’s doctrine (and most of them don’t, regardless of which religion we are talking about) are the “games”. And there are certain litmus test issues, such as evolution vs. creationism or Israel/Palestine, that are used to determined which side people are on. People who see the world this way see every meeting, every transaction, and every news story as a contest between the “good guys” on the home team and the “bad guys” (the infidels/ outsiders/ nonbelievers). Because of this, conflict is seen as inherent in human relationships, because even within a particular religious group, co-believers are continuously evaluating, confronting, and correcting each other according to the words they speak and their actions.

You can insert vastly different religions into the assertions I have made above and it still rings true. This is easier to see when examining a religion whose doctrine diverges greatly from your own, and even more so if you can point to violence in the news that involves its followers. But I hold that, if different religions can be inserted into the “formula” without changing its truth value, then the philosophy of viewing everything in the world as a contest between the true believers and the outsiders is meaningless. I submit that, if this is all there is to one’s religion, then it is pointless, since most religions deem themselves as unique and exclusive. Which should direct the believer to consider the truly important aspects of his own religion, which is the relationship between him and his God, and how he should behave toward the world in a manner that reflects this special relationship instead of acting like all of the other “rah-rah, hooray for our side, down with the other side” people. And with love and compassion taking the place of taking sides.

When considering religion, one naturally thinks about the nature of God, or the Lord. If one assumes that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then it is, in my opinion, preposterous that any believer can even pretend to have any idea as to what God’s work is in every situation. There are rules for people to live by, of course, and a believer will want to abide by them. But to accept God for what He is demands the realization that there is much mystery in the world, and only God has a handle on it all. We cannot sit on the sidelines and wave our figurative flags around, hooraying the good people and booing the bad people, for the very reason that we just might be mistaken in our judgments, not to mention that we may be overlooking areas in our own lives that need attention. For the often-stated statement, “The Lord works in mysterious ways” is something all believers need to incorporate within themselves, if for no other reason than as an expression of their humbling themselves before their God.