If there is something I owe to going to university, besides a degree that enables me to teach in a classroom, it is the ability to critique, to not take what I'm told at face value. While I think I have always been a fairly critical person, university has caused me to shake up my worldview and question things I had always considered to be right and normal. Phrases like "dominant discourses" and "privilege in your pockets" have invaded what used to be a soft, comfortable section of my cerebrum and has created a type of hardened web, catching and interrogating everything attempting to sweep through unnoticed.

I was listening to a sermon lately when the notion that "God doesn't like skepticism" got mangled on its attempt through the web. While I fully understand that faith is a central theme in Christianity, and that skepticism as a synonym for doubt may be a valid conclusion in some circumstances, skepticism defined as questioning is something that, if it is not allowed to stand alongside faith, is a scary notion indeed; but unfortunately it isn't one foreign to Christianity or the way that people view Christians.

I grew up in quite a normal home environment and learned about hard work, Christian values, and a mistrust of anything outside of those two sectors, much like most of the people in my circle. While I grew up with a very conservative ideology, where strange and different ideas simply skipped off the exterior when under threat and known and trusted ideas were granted entry without question, my ideology has since changed.  And while this guard or web causes me to be slower to acceptance, critical, questioning, and skeptical of new ideas and especially old ideas, I don't want to wish it away to be replaced with blind admission or closed-mindedness. While I have faith in things that cannot be proven: God and miracles, for example, I am very much the type of person who needs a justifiable response as to why I behave and think the way that I do, and have (what I believe to be) justifiable arguments behind why I believe in things that I can't necessarily view under a microscope. To answer "because," to the reason why a creationist disputes evolution invites only ridicule to a religion that is already scrutinized for being filled with (in North America) hypocritical, dominant, head-strong, rich and light-skinned smiling people who break every "law" they instruct others to keep and have done perhaps more damage in trying to pass down a culture of man rather than a culture of faith with harmful assimilation techniques that have led to stories of all kinds of abuse and loss.

Christianity in its pure, untainted form, is such a beautiful thing: love, community, hope, purpose, common goals of making the world a better place, serving attitudes, giving and not living in excess, and yes, even judgement and accountability, punishment and reward. It's family; it's equality; it's supportive; it's encouraging. It's giving people something to live for besides money and fame. It's beauty and acceptance and forgiveness.

We're not asked to stand still with our eyes closed and ears plugged, making a loud noise, to block out the ideas that cause us to question what is right and normal in our inner circles, whether that be a blind and unquestioning faith that cannot withstand criticism or an atheist point of view that cannot consider anything smaller (or bigger) than an atom without whatever scientific proof is stating at the time. Though there is a popular notion flying around that truth is different for everyone, I don't buy it. If you've never questioned evolution before, you're an idiot, and if you haven't questioned creation before, you're an idiot. Humans weren't created or evolved to be blind followers of whatever popular opinions surround them at the time, be it from church, the government, university, family, the media, or otherwise. To be a wishy-washy fluid type of non-truth seeker is ridiculous; but whatever it is you base your faith on in this life I certainly hope that at least you've taken the time to attempt to justify it by slowly digesting whatever "truths" are being spouted at you regarding your salvation, money, leisure-time, body-image, or spending habits as opposed to joining the agnostic, can't-place-their-foot-on-anything, nothing-is-right-or-wrong, hippy-dippy-baloney types that are out there.