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You May Not Need Church To Be A Good Person

 But the worst people think they are the best people. Dunning-Kruger works for ethics, too. I still say that making your own meaning is exhausting. That’s why all those existentialists killed themselves. It seems to me that we discover meaning in a similar way that we discover how the water cycle works, or why our sky is often blue during the day.

Follow the science! Can I throw the punch and say that right now, the people who say this the loudest don’t actually do it?

We know those people who are a “good person” because they tell us all the time. Let’s stop joking, and make the point: Most people would canonize themselves saints. Most people are quicker to see faults in others than in themselves, myself included.

I can sympathize with the idea that a church is supposed to be more like a hospital than a country club. Jesus said the sick need a doctor more than the healthy do. That’s common sense.

I just find it odd and sad that the heuristic for good and bad for so many people is who somebody voted for. Isn’t that weird? I have been happy 3 times whilst voting, and once I regretted it. Nope. 4 times. Once was a midterm. I was happy to vote in midterms. I know I am nuts. But hopefully the good kind. To be fair, the happy midterm was my first time voting. It felt like most people feel when they can drive. This is my life now, and no one else’s. Loved ones can help, but no one’s coming to rescue you, or to erase your mistakes. Funny that it meant so much, but it did. 

I would love to be cynical about participating in civic life, but I can’t. I just don’t know how. There are plenty of people who are goofy, infuriating, and downright evil. But I still can’t just think about me. There’s the great Us. I can’t solve every problem, or even waste a ton of time and energy being sad about the bad things in the world I can’t fix. But what little good I can do, I do.

Assuming we’re not just making it up re: Jesus Christ, Heaven is the great Us, too. The great God and all the blessed. Except for the ability and need to suffer, better known as “patience.” No waiting in line unless we want to, I’d imagine.

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