Religion Makes Some Go Blind

Ever know a person who would openly discuss things with you, regardless of the topic, but if and when you got to the topic of religion, that all changed?

I know some people like this and just heard a story from a friend of mine last night that illustrates it. She, we'll call her Lucy, was raised Catholic and he, Adam, is Jewish. All throughout the relationship, Adam said he had to marry a Jewish woman. Lucy, because she cared about him so much, showed an interest and was willing to convert. All throughout the relationship, Adam made it known that he was the ever omniscient one when it came to the topic of religion. He read in one book that a person felt Catholics believed that Jesus was God, so he told Lucy about this and Lucy came back with, "No, we believe he's the son of God." Adam argued and said, "You should do some reading and studying on your own religion before you come talk to me about it." There it was, a conversation closer, because he didn't know how to respond. So, throughout the nine months they were together, he questioned the Christian faith. Lucy was open to the questioning and attempted to answer whatever questions Adam had. But, in recent days, Lucy questioned Judaism and in turn, Adam called her an "anti-Semite"! He believed that by solely questioning the religion, you were being disrespectful towards it.

I kind of laughed when I heard this, because Mr. Adam writes a column in a school paper and consistently questions the U.S. Government and their decision-making. I joked with Lucy about this and said, "Oh, so since he questions the government, that means he's being disrespectful and is Anti-American, right?" Same kind of logic, different topics, and completely different results.

It sounds to me like Mr. Adam just wanted a yes man, or woman in this case. He just wanted someone to nod and smile as he ranted about all other religions, and yet, couldn't take any questioning about his own.

But, what is the harm in questioning? Doesn't one need to question in order to learn and come to a concise conclusion about something? Without questioning, we'd all be a bunch of brainwashed robots, unable to think for ourselves. Just press a button and off we go to obey the every command with no second thoughts.

I like to go by the transitive inference philosophy when it comes to religion. Organized religion was created by man. Man is imperfect. Therefore, organized religion is imperfect. If A = B and B = C, then A = C. So, since human beings are not perfect and we can question them constantly, what's the harm in questioning religion? Who knows, if we question enough to our liking and we still believe what we thought we believed in the first place, our faith should be much greater than it was initially, when it was blind.