Tempting Other's Faith

Lately I've been craving books about my own faith. I grew up Roman Catholic and for the most part didn't question it. I went to church every Sunday, I listed to the readings, mostly not understanding what was being said but still taking it in. As I grew older I became more interested in my faith. When I started going to college I found that my knowledge of my own religion was an advantage, rather than a disadvantage, as I feared it would be, especially considering the time we were living in. Catholics were being frowned upon. I was being asked, jokingly, if my priest ever took advantage of anyone. I felt utterly insulted by every Catholic joke. I loved my faith, I had loved my childhood priest, a man who was loving, could always make me laugh and who had tragically died when I was 13. However when I was in the classroom, I found that knowing the intimate details of each story in the Bible was a good thing. I was the student in Art History who knew what each painting in the 14th and 15th centuries meant simply because I had grown up listening to the stories and somehow taking them all in. In my women's studies class I knew why Catholicism held women n their place, I knew which stories the Catholics destroyed women in the most, and more so I knew every prominent female character in the New Testiment. When I began living with a Jewish girl, however, my interest in my religion changed slightly. I began looking at Jesus and the people around Him differently. He wasn't just Jesus Christ to me anymore. He was Jesus, a man who grew up in a Jewish house hold and had Shabbat dinner on Friday nights. He observed the Sabbath on Saturdays. He celebrated Hannukah with his mother, father and cousin John. As an older man Jesus knew and touched the lives of many people. But he was also simply a man. I also came to realize that the Bible didn't just appear one day, that it indeed was put together by a man, centuries later. And there very much could have been things that had been left out. When the idea of hidden Gospels came about, I wanted to read them. I wanted to know what else could have happened in the time of this great man. I especially wanted to read a Gospel that could have been written my Mary Magdalene. She was an amazing woman who was the first to see Jesus after his death, I can only imagine what else this woman saw, what other wonderful things she did during her life. I want to desperately know all about them. I was browsing Barnes and Noble one day for the Gnostic Bibles when I instead came across a book entitled "God is NOT Great". Intrigued, I clicked on it to see whether or not it was a novel. Instead this was a non-fiction book. It was a book written by a man to tell the faith believing world why they were wrong, and why God did not exist. This shocked me. Yes, there have been many times, both in my personal life and in the course of world events that I have often wondered why God didn't step in and make things easier, stop things from happening or create a perfect solution. When I was little I once asked my mom, if God created humans, why did He create the bad ones as well? Given that I was barely out of the first grade, my mom had to fight for an answer that would be easy enough for a 6 year old to understand. Wondefully enough, it still fits today. God creates all human beings in the same mold. Whether they are black, white, tan or bright green. Whether they speak English, Spanish, German, Italian or French. Each and every person is created from the same mold. It is their actions on Earth that makes them good or bad. God does not step in for the difference that He made in creating man from himself is that he gave man free will. Without it, man is simply another God and there is no point to being here. When I see books like "God is NOT Great" on the shelves, it makes me sad. I am a firm believer in having one's own opinion, but I also believe greatly on never forcing your opinion on others. My roommate sophomore year was Jewish. She loved being Jewish. She went home every weekend for Shabbat dinner, she observed Yom Kippur and the other High Holy Days. And I would never in a million years have tried to convert her to Catholicism. On many occasions we had conversations on the differences between our religions, often joking around by calling each other solely "Jew" or "Catholic". But in the end of those discussions we stayed who we were, a Jewish girl from Beverly Hills and a Catholic girl from New Hampshire. I love my religion. I know that it has many faults, as do all the other religions out there. But it is still my religion. I can always count on it being there when I am going through a tough time. When I need someone to talk to, God is always there, simply listening. When I need a quiet place to think and pray, the Catholic Church is not only quiet but beautiful and serene. Inside those walls I can find a guardian angel, a therapist, a friend and faith. My faith, like many others, has at times faultered. When I have gone through tough times and often feel like God is not there on my side. But in the end He has always been there for me. No matter how hard things got, in the end He was there. And for many others He will always be there. No matter what name He is called, in no matter what language, in no matter what country, by no matter what person. Faith is simply faith. And no one should ever try and steal that from you.