Having No Faith

by Gray Graham

​You may heard that the number of people that identify as Christian has been steadily been declining in the United States. I would go a step further and say that most Americans probably don't have a religion or it is not a major factor in their lives. This is a major concern for many but it really isn’t something that should alarm or surprise anyone. 

It really should come as no surprise that many people are freely admitting that they don't live to serve the God of Abraham. It is no longer a social taboo to say you don't believe in God. Your job doesn't care and your boyfriend probably won't care either. In most of the country your life won't be affected because you don't regularly attend church. Those days are probably long gone never to return. 

I am sure many liberal leaning people don't want to be associated with Christianity which they feel has been used to attack their lives. Many people feel they have been attacked by Christians all their lives so they don't believe anyone that worships a god can be a good person. It doesn't help we currently have many self identifying Christians spewing and spreading hate across the country in many cases in the most hypocritical ways possible.

Let's put aside that people are leaving their religion to something else that is trending which is that people are sad, lonely, and depressed. So we have people that say that they no longer believe in God and people also saying that they have an emptiness inside that nothing in life is fulfilling.

Now of course I don't know why a person is sad. There are a multitude of reasons someone can be sad. That will vary from person to person. It seems like a lot of people lack direction in their lives and can't seem to find their way. Many people seem to be following trends or just simply existing with no real purpose. We live in a time when many people basically do whatever they want and no one is going to tell them anything different. They have little to no regard for the well-being or safety of others. Religion kind of puts a damper on that. 

I often speak on morals when I talk about purpose and direction in life. Lately I get a response that says what do morals have to do with anything I choose to do in my life. At some point many people decided their morals were somehow separate from their everyday lives. What I mean is that people decided that they could say they hold certain beliefs without ever showing that they held certain beliefs.

Once upon a time religion gave people their morals. It defined what was right or wrong in the world. It's why the major religions all basically have the same morals. It's why humans have been able to live together. The problem is that some people claim a religion that they don't actually follow. That's how we have slavery, bigotry, and war all in the name of faiths the perpetrators of these heinous acts don't follow. It takes too much effort and energy to differentiate between hypocrites and people of faith so many don't even try. 

Just because you don’t claim a faith does not mean you are all of a sudden a great person that is morally superior to others. If you don’t show love, respect, and compassion to others you are no better than the hypocrites religious people who you have a problem.

So it doesn't matter if polls show that less people believe in God today than 50 years ago. Many people didn't believe in God or a religion 50 years ago either. If they did the world would have been a better place where most people had shelter, food, care, security, and love. 

Most people only believe in God when they want something that they can't have or can’t figure out how to obtain. Until then a lot of people have decided to put God on hold. People that believe will always believe and that will never change. Serving God is not a popularity contest and it doesn't need the validation of other people. You should never believe in God because you feel like it is popular. 

 Be confident in your faith and you will always be fine.