Human Behavior versus Faith in God

 20Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. 
1 John 4:20-21 

Human behavior was a recurring theme in my struggle with faith. It's wasn't just that Christians hurt or disappointed me; it was that I often found non-Christians morally impressive by comparison. While many of my Christian friends claim that this shouldn't cast doubt on Christianity, I've never been convinced.

A Common Internet Meme on the Subject

 One of the main reasons for this comes from Christian scripture.  Paul claims that the fruits of the Spirit are moral in nature.  Jesus claims that "you will know them by their fruits," and "they will know you are my disciples by the love you have for one another."  Christianity claims that it's adherents will be more moral than non-Christians through their faith and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Reason supports this too.  Christianity is an ethical religion, one that claims to help make you a more moral person.  Therefore, if Christians do not tend to be more moral than their non-Christian counterparts, the religion is suspect.  How can a religion's claims about God or the afterlife be trusted if the present appear to be false?

My point is not necessarily that Christians are less moral than non-Christians.  How would one even quantify the variables necessary to prove such a statement?  What does one mean by Christian?  Should we take our meaning from the Gospel of John or from the Gospel of Luke?  Should we defer to Walter Rauschenbusch or Billy Graham?  The Latter Day Saints or the Greek Orthodox?  Is Christianity about following Jesus, or is it a set of beliefs?  If you identify as Christian, you'll have to determine these things for yourself.

Billy Graham: American Evangelist

My point is this.  Your behavior testifies about the value of your way of life, whatever that way of life is.  It doesn't matter if you're Christian, Muslim, Jew, or Pastafarian.  If the way of life you claim isn't producing the results it claims to, then your philosophy will be scrutinized.  Of course, others will do some of that scrutinizing.  But we should be doing this ourselves.  We should be testing our ways of life to ensure that we are either getting what we want from them, or becoming who we want to be.  We should be asking the following questions.

• Does my philosophy of life give me the things it promises? 
• On average, do I have these things/attributes more than people who follow a different way of life?  
• If not, why not?
  
  This reflection is based on my series How I Became a Humanist Part 3
  
  
  (All Christian Scriptures taken from the NIV)