Heroes & Villians
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: Lil' King Kong - Simple Kid
Topic: What I Believe

Fantasy stories and old-timey superheroes and a lot of bad science fiction all have one thing in common, and that is the Hero and Villain conflict, man versus man, good versus bad. Someone is right and someone is wrong. And while the characters in these stories may choose their own roles, or even struggle with them, too often it seems like a hero is just a hero because heroism is inherent in his character or his genetics. Superman is Superman and he represents good and justice and there is just never much possibility that he would ever be anything else other than the hero of the universe. Darth Vader is bad and evil and until the last few seconds of the final movie there isn't even any indication that he ever even considered playing any other role.

I don't think real life is that way and I think we do ourselves, and our children, a disservice when we present things in these terms. No one does good just because they have good in them, or does wrong because they're evil.

It's why I liked that last Fantastic Four movie, the one with the Silver Surfer. Dude goes around blowing up planets, and when he's confronted by the Invisible Girl he's like "I don't have a choice" and she's all, "Dude, you always have a choice." It's also why I liked Spider-Man 3, how Peter Parker struggled against his own evil nature, and Harry Osbourne and the Sandman both redeemed themselves.

A lot of folks preach about the evils of Moral Relativism, and how confusing it can be and how it goes against the traditional notions of right and wrong. It's what's led to the decline of our society, the rise in divorce rates, teenage pregnancies, violent crimes, and Rosie O'Donnell's talk show.

Let's say divorce is wrong and bad, and according to Mal 2:16, God hates it. You don't need the Bible to tell you that. It tears lives apart, it scars children, it's just painful and horrible. But is it better to stay in an abusive situation and expose yourself and your kids to that level of destruction? I don't think so. But then, every situation is different and unique, and every person has to make their own decisions and then live with those decisions. There's no right and wrong to it, most times there's just bad and worse. You just have to do the best you can and make your own choices.

Christians talk about assurance, about knowing that you're ok and that God is smiling at you, and you just have to decide one time to devote yourself to God, and that's it. You're saved. Like Heaven is a cool club and you got the stamp on your hand to get past the velvet rope. And what I'm talking about might seem to fly in the face of that: That you still have to decide every day, every hour, what you're going to do and how you're going to live.

But that's exactly what I'm talking about. There's no us and them. There's no believers and unbelievers. We're all in this together, we're all just as lost, and we're all faced with the same decisions every day. If you can truly say that there is some Universal Good, some Truth that overrides all other Truths, then the way we live our lives either bring us closer to that Truth or not. And on the one hand, that might make it seem much tougher without that glorious Assurance that we're "right with God" no matter what we do, but on the other hand it also means that there's hope. It means the only damnation, the only Hell, is the Hell that we choose for ourselves. The only true sin is in our refusal to see the Universal Truth that is God.