The Importance of Honesty

Growing up in my church, I was always taught to believe that we,as a church, were right. Our beliefs about God, about mankind, and about ourselves were all right. (As I write this, I realize that it is not just the Church who teaches this, but most everyone grows up believing and being taught that they are right concerning the biggest questions in life. Atheists raise atheists, Christians raise Christians, etc.) Never once did anyone advise me that something in our belief system could be wrong. Of course not. What they have come to believe are their answers to the most important questions humans answer. What kind of parent would tell their child to walk away from eternal life with God? However, in this line of thinking, there is a dilemma. I discussed it briefly in "Why us?" If everyone in the world believes what they are taught to believe, most of the world will spend eternity apart from God(assuming Christianity as I was taught is correct). Of course, it is possible that God presents each person with his or her own opportunity to become a Christian during their stay on earth, and the billions of people in other religions or non-religion merely shun God's extended hand. I struggle to believe that. Perhaps it is merely my human intellect trying to comprehend system of justice too complex for my reasoning. But in that case, is it my duty to shun that which i believe to be more likely in the name of "faith"? I struggle to find the correct place for the puzzle piece labeled "faith" in the jigsaw of life. C.S. Lewis said that he would never ask someone to believe in Christianity against his/her better judgement. So, if I am to make my best judgement, it is my responsibility to make an unbiased decision, even if it leaves me somewhere other than that of Christian belief. Thus, in this case, I am not being honest if i say I believe the salvation works the way my church teaches it. Ok. After the long detour around what I originally began to discuss, I will return to the importance of honesty. As I said, I do not believe that salvation works the way I was taught growing up. This of course raises the question, "well, how do you think it works?" My answer to the very valid question, is a resounding, I DONT KNOW. Is it possible that I am wrong? Yep, absolutely. Does that scare me to death? Absolutely. So, why don't I just accept what very smart men have said within Christianity? Because I cant. If I cannot search honestly and find God, how can I expect others to carry this burden? If people outside Christianity are to be expected to find God, then God must be reachable through ways other than assuming Christianity to be true. Namely, honesty and sincerity. It seems fairly obivous that those who truly believe they are right are not afraid of research and dialogue. They welcome it, and rightly so. If truth is the biggest goal, and that goal is achieved, but you end up somewhere you never dreamed you would, havent you still succeeded in being true to the very fabric of our reality? If God does not reside at that place of truth, I cannot believe in God. Of course, as in navigation, if you are untrue to the desired course by a fraction of a degree, you will wind up hopelessly lost. And so, we must be ruthlessly honest, and accept nothing but the most pure truth. Our very being hangs in the balance.

Sorry for the rambling...my head is cloudy.