This week’s question falsely assumes there’s only two answers to the question, basically saying that if you don’t go around making your identity all about Jesus, well then, you’re living a life of sin.

The first problem that I see with that is Jesus’ own words, right from the bible.

“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. – Matthew 6:6

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” – Matthew 6:1

In my lifelong experience, I’ve found people who profess their Christianity the loudest are those most likely to be the adulterers, the pedophiles, and the corrupt. In the case of Trump, it’s all three, and yet somehow, people have been convinced that he has been sent by god.

Over three hundred million Americans and the best person god could appoint as our president was a guy who cheated on all three of his wives, been accused of raping 13 and 17 year olds, and stole state secrets after leading a an attempted coup?

So as Trump has abundantly demonstrated, it’s quite possible to identify with Christ an still be a sinner. (At least I know it’s pronounced First Corinthians.)

But is the opposite true as well? To not be Christian but be moral?

A number of statistics show that atheists are more moral than religious people.

For example, atheists are under represented in prison populations by a significant amount. Whereas atheists make up at least 15% of America’s population, they only account for .2% of the prison population.¹

How about divorce rates? Well Catholics, who are supposedly forbidden to divorce, (the entire reason there are now Catholics and Protestants) have a divorce rate of 19%.

For Protestants, the divorce rate is 51%. Of the various sects that make up Protestants, evangelicals have the worst divorce rate.

Atheists meanwhile have a divorce rate of just 2%, beating out the Catholics who are forbidden to divorce by a very substantial margin.²

I’m sure that I define sin a lot differently than the poster of this sign. For example, I don’t think it matters a bit what sex or gender two people are if they love each other. Bodies are just really complicated chemical reactions, and I don’t expect everyone to think that one side needs a penis and the other side needs a vagina for it to be called love.

If god is really against that type of sin, then he should do a better job with putting brains and bodies together when he creates us. If you believe that we are created by god, in his image, then it does seem like there are a lot of quality control issues on the factory line, both for animals and humans.

Me, I like that we’re all different, and I live my life using the Golden Rule as my guide. That’s all the religion I need.

There’s one other thing that I’ve noticed time and time again about men who loudly profess their Christianity and especially those who are obsessed with the “sin” of homosexuality. It seems like they spend a lot of time rummaging around in their closets.³

References:

1. http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Percentage_of_atheists
2. https://divorce.lovetoknow.com/Divorce_Statistics_by_Religion
3. https://www.advocate.com/politicians/2018/5/24/18-homophobic-leaders-who-turned-out-be-gay-or-bi