Thank you. I disagree that "doing something bad" doesn't make you a real Christian. I use the term for myself, not because of any religious ceremony or affiliation, but because of my faith in Christ. In general, I dislike the concept of religion and ceremony. In general, however, the "church" (the popular church) is mostly built upon religious ceremony and a sort of wishy-washy feel-good experience. The other end is built of negative extremists who try to use their faith as a weapon to attack unbelievers and try to shame them into changing their ways.
As a human, I fall, stumble, and sin. So do many others. I'm not saying that "true believers" don't have problems like addictions, divorce, etc, etc, because they definitely do. It's not because of a lack of faith; it's the human condition. I'm just saying that people who live by faith are more likely to try intervention and counciling to help get through their issues than people who see their "religion" as a place to go on Sunday and a God to pray to when shit hits the fan.
A big part of it is our American concept of marriage, too. Too many people in the states think that "love" is just an emotion, and don't realize the effort you have to put in to actively love someone. It takes quite a bit to love someone despite their shortcomings, and to support them (financially, emotionally, physically, etc, etc) through the best and worst of their lives. Once that giddy, fresh glow of a relationship wears off, a lot of people don't realize continued feelings of true love depend more on how you treat your partner and how you regard your partner than how they treat you. The church (as a broad body, not the Roman Catholic church) generally uses counciling like I'm going through to teach couples to love each other by action, and not by emotion, and to weed out those who honestly aren't emotionally ready for the amount of devotion to a partner that it takes for a successful marriage.
That having been said, I will make an effort to never again start such a conversation.
Nova, I'm fairly sure I don't hate you, so I don't see why I would still hate you next summer. You annoy me less than most people I know in real life, so you're cool by my book.
