Does being religious really make a difference in how we behave?  A fascinating survey that appears in the current edition of Christianity Today, the flagship publication of the evangelical Christian world, puts this question in an intriguing light.  Conducted by the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, the survey asks self-identified "evangelical and born-again churchgoers" about what sorts of things they might do for hard, cold cash.  One that caught my eye was that 40% of those surveyed indicated that they would, for money, throw a rotten tomato at a politician.  Another was that 33% indicated that they would, for money, "flip off" their boss or teacher.  Two others were that 24% indicated that they would, for money, cheat at poker, and 12% indicated that they would, for money, kick a dog "hard" in the head.
     So, the unbeliever might now ask, what difference does religion really make?
     Much depends, I think, on the reasons people come to believe.  If we believe in say, Jesus, out of fear; if we believe in him on the basis of what we should or should not do; or if we believe in him because we think we will be a "better" person; we will likely be disappointed.  Conversion or not, we will still have the same personal baggage, and conversion or not, we will still have to live our lives.  Granted, we can overcome what is in us, and granted, we can carve out a new life path, but we will never be anything more than a sinful--yet marvelous and valuable--human being who has been created in the image of God.
     And that's the point.  As people who have not made themselves, as people who are frightfully contingent, as people who do not know what will happen in the next moment, we ought to recognize that we are very limited beings.  We believe in Jesus not necessarily because he will make us better people but because he and his life's work best explain, ameliorate, and resolve why we are here, why we are the way we are, and why we are going where we are going, in this life and beyond.  We should not believe, however, because we hope that we will be perfect people.
     Those who believe in Jesus ought to be the most abjectly humble people on the planet.