Religion vs. Faith

Today I watched the movie, "Keeping the Faith" which stars Ben Stiller. It is all about a very interesting love triangle... Ben plays a rabbi and his best friend happens to be a Catholic priest. The men seem to be very happy with their path that they have chosen until their old friend from middle school, Anna, shows back up into their lives... There was one quote from this movie that really made me think....

The seven deadly sins. Who can name the seven deadly sins? People! It was a very popular film with Brad Pitt, you have the ultimate cliff note.
The truth is, I don't really learn that much about your faith by asking questions like that... because those aren't really questions about faith, those are questions about religion. And it's very important to understand the difference between religion and faith. Because faith is not about having the right answers. Faith is a feeling. Faith is a hunch, really. It's a hunch that there is something bigger connecting it all... connecting us all together. And that feeling, that hunch, is God. And coming here tonight, on your Sunday evening... to connect with that feeling, that is an act of faith. And so all I have to do is look around the room at this packed church... to know that we're doing pretty well as a community. Even if all of you failed my pop quiz miserably.
~Keeping the Faith~

I think that what the priest in this movie was saying is true. Asking people questions about facts on their religion does not really show much about how fully that person believes in his/her faith. People can look up facts about religions, but just because they may know the answer to questions like "What are the seven deadly sins?" does not mean the believe the answer. To know how much a person believes in what their religion stands for, say Catholicism, for example, you have to watch how involved the person is with their faith... It is like those "Catholics" who come to Mass maybe once a year for Christmas or Easter. These people know deep down that they should be at church every week, but the fact that they only make time for Mass once a year tells me a lot more about their faith life then the facts that they can tell me...

So if you are looking for an interesting movie while bored, this one was actually pretty good... not to mention pretty entertaining to...