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It's easy in THIS crowd, and perhaps most other groups of people with
mostly above-average education & income, living within a couple hundred
miles of an ocean in this country, to regard my earlier statements as
sarcasm.  I think perhaps that a lot of us are just a little too hasty
in dismissing of people with a deep Christian faith that isn't just
intellectual philosophy but really guides real-world actions. And,
worse, much too hasty in dismissing guidance that comes expressed in
terms of such faith - irrespective of the guidance itself.

If you haven't met any, please take my word that there ARE some very
substantial numbers of people with such faith - beliefs that would
resonate very harmoniously with what I wrote earlier. And further -
please take my word that goodly numbers of these people would seem
"perfectly normal" to you - they have all their teeth, clothes just like
you and me, have triple-digit IQs and incomes well over the half-century
mark and houses without wheels and aren't married to their cousins. Such
people are  a strong majority in "flyover country".

Among those are not only True Believers, determined to follow The Word
in the strong terms I expressed it, but also the Casual Churchcgoers.
Those are all going to be at some service today and on Christmas, and
perhaps none else this year. But the *vast* majority are probably the
Mostly Christians, who do believe and go to church pretty regularly -
people who are dialed back about one notch from my earlier rhetoric.

They believe sincerely in a structured philosophy of what is right and
wrong, MOST of which is very practical and humanist. They further
believe that everyone does things that are Wrong - since humans are all
fallible - but that these sinners are nonetheless to be shown compassion
and mercy and forgiveness, and given another chance to mend their ways.
That people should be kind to one another and help out their less
fortunate neighbors. That grief and disaster can be borne more easily
with hope and fellowship. Is this such a strange and terrible philosophy
to be dismissed?

Who are we to say they're wrong?  Rhetorical questions: What do YOU
believe about right and wrong? WHY DO YOU BELIEVE THAT? What are the
principles underlying your beliefs? How can you be so sure - and if
you're NOT sure, how can you rely on those beliefs to guide your life's
most important decisions?

If it makes you more comfortable to call it "natural law" or "humanist
pragmatism" than "God", that is of course up to you. Many of us are
children of the 60s and 70s America, very resistant to argument that is
founded in "Appeal to Authority", so it's quite understandable. But let
try and be self-analytical enough, on this Easter Sunday, to contemplate
how little our core beliefs really differ from the Mostly Christians.

Or the Mostly Jews, or the Mostly Muslims, et al. I think a majority of
us find it politically correct to advance the position that we shouldn't
condemn or disrespect the entire Islamic faith for the words and actions
of a wild-eyed radical terrorist faction - even a substantial faction.
Let's take that to heart and have a little respect for the Christian
faith, too.

--
Carl Paukstis