Your hair was long when we first met

First semester I was Introduced to Biblical Studies in my first and likely only religion class. At this point it holds two distinctions in my mind, as the class I seem to reference most frequently in conversation, yet is also the class I can never seem to remember when asked what I've taken so far. About the only especially memorable part of the class was that my professor called us "gang" like we were all Peanuts characters.

I remember at one point, before we re-crucified Jesus in about every way imaginable, we learned about a theory generally regarding people and their faith. The guy who created the theory divided faith into three (because no theory is a good theory unless it's in triad) consecutive stages: first, childlike faith, where you believe blindly and without question, followed by a period of doubt and questioning, during which some people abandon faith, while those who don't progress to the last stage, which was called something like "conscious denial" and involves choosing to stick to your beliefs despite acknowledgments of doubt, outside arguments, and unanswered questions.

I feel like at this point in our culture, throwing your hands up in the air and then into a soapy sink to wash them of Doctrine is the most praised and accepted tactic. And there're a lot of arguments that really do make a good case for why it seems ridiculous and ignorant to subscribe to any one idea when, really, can you prove that constantly taking the bigger slice of pizza from my sister is going to doom me to come back as a llama in my next life? Why should I put my whole faith, trust, and reputation on just one set of ideas when there are so many that, if you listen long enough, appear equally valid?

Interestingly, this logic easily translates into a lot of other concepts that we're passionate about (arguable, opinion-based, controversial issues mostly), but the closed-minded stigma somehow gets lost in translation. When we're talking about, say, capital punishment, it's perfectly acceptable to be unwaveringly loyal to one side, and while some people may argue with you from the opposing team, no one's going to call you uncool or crazy for being devoted to a single opinion when there's Other Opinions out there. It looks like we're societally in Stage Three Faith when it comes to everything subjective, except faith itself.

We just need to work on recognizing in religion what we already know in other areas. As intelligent as it is to argue and doubt, it's both intelligent with an added bonus of passion and determination to do so while your foot is planted in a religious conviction. Doesn't our culture value multi-tasking?

Yes, I know, the problem isn't people who pick a faith and continue to question and argue, the problem is people who pick a faith and then use it as an excuse to shove marshmallows in their ears and never think about anything ever again. And to that I say, um, go see an ENT.