The whole approach is backward.
Imagine a slight change in emphasis. What would happen in just twenty years if we spent as much time and energy telling people that they are good, rather than bellowing about how wretched they are? Let’s even skip the obvious contributors – the media and the religious self-righteous – and just focus on the people we interact with every day. Our children and families, our coworker, our friends. Teachers to students, parents to infants, colleagues to each other, every day from birth forward, we share and reinforce the idea that “you are good”.
Can you even begin to imagine if that mentality is what we used to shape our policies? Our perspective of other people? Our daily interactions with each other?
What if the message from the pulpits mirrored this? What if every person in front of every congregation in America changed their focus and reminded people at every opportunity that yes, life is full of challenges, but you are good just because you are here and alive and part of the whole that makes up humanity?
What if? This doesn’t yield a perfect world – there’s more involved than simple positive reinforcement in curing that which ails us, but why in the hell do people keep using so much reinforcement of such a negative message while still expecting a positive outcome?
We frequently hear “god is love”. How much better off would we all be if instead we just say “love is love”, and then treat each other like we know what that means? In this, the existence or non-existence of a god, ANY god, doesn’t even matter, it’s a better message with a better outcome.