Sometimes I think to myself, ‘If everyone in the world were like me, then there would be world peace.’ Now, this is most definitely not true, because if the entire population thought like me, there would be no uniqueness of individual people, which is an important thing to have in society. So what would create world peace? Is it beliefs? This is a very hard question to answer, because I have never experienced it. But just because it is difficult shouldn’t mean I will stop trying. So I will try.

So what is world peace? It isn’t every man agreeing with each other; that’s just not healthy. Neither is it a world with only one branch of religion; as far as I can see, all of the religions of the world have some flaws. I suppose world peace might be achieved if nobody deliberately tried to hurt another person. So many in the church seem to think that it all depends on Christians agreeing with one another. The trouble with that, is that the type of Christians who think that also want the whole world to believe their specific group of theologies. And the problem with that is another group of Christians that believe a slightly different thing cannot tolerate the first group. It’s a really mucked up jumbled mess.

Obviously agreeing on everything is impossible, so the only way we can work together with our difference of beliefs is to accept that we have different beliefs. This sounds like an obvious statement, but for some reason a lot of us have ignored it over the years. Yes it is important to stand up for what you believe in. Yes, it is important not to just go by what the person next to you is doing. And yes, it is very important to discuss and even argue our different opinions. But it’s more important what we do than what we believe.

I can’t say that all beliefs are equally right because some beliefs seem to me to be quite clearly wrong. This is what led me to the conclusion that whether someone’s beliefs are wrong or not, it shouldn’t matter as long as what they do isn’t wrong. What we believe obviously matters to us. It matters to our personal lives and shapes who we are. But what we do matters to the people around us; it affects the lives of those around us and shapes the world. Even whether we believe in God at all doesn’t matter if we do nothing about it. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t believe in God or the divinity of Christ. But I am saying that what we do about it is more important than what we believe. If we believe that God is the creator and ruler of the universe, that belief means nothing unless we do what He says. We can believe that God judges every one of our sins but unless we repent from them that belief really means nothing. Belief is irrelevant without action.

So what is the right and wrong thing to do? As far as I can see, the Bible is the best guidebook to follow. All of the laws and commandments in the Bible that were written to be eternal statutes make up a good system to run the earth by.

Ab imo pectore, Oves Tondente.

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