being a good Christian vs simply being good

You don't have to be a Christian to be a good person. There are many good individuals helping others, the environment, animals or other noble causes who are NOT Christian -- Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and some plainly gnostic. These other individuals have their own (religious or otherwise) reasons to be good citizens in this world and beyond. Needless to say, some of these people are even our dearest friends -- especially if living in NYC.

We -- as Christians -- are supposed to be good all the time as a way to be true ambassadors of God on earth and beyond our limited human capacity of understanding. The best practice to achieve this (or so I've been told numerous times) is to pray, talk to God, ask for favors, be true servants of God and do everything on God's behalf. As someone told me, you should start the day with a prayer, live that prayer through out the day and end the day with a prayer.

"There are many who recommend opening the day with a prayer, and then continuing to live that prayer. Or, put another way, to do what we do -- even, say, washing the dishes, riding the subway -- in a meditative sort of gift to God... Then closing each day with even a simple word of gratitude."
http://project05952381.blogspot.com/2010/10/then-how-much-more-response.html

Of course, this is something that many Christians fail to do or care not to do at times (myself included in the second group too many times). Said all this, if we dare to call ourselves CHRISTIANS, we've got a higher obligation to be good as we do good in God's name.

religious differences vs non-believers

The problem's not so much whatever group of religious differences between Judaism, Christianity, Islam and any other religion. It isn't whose god or interpretation of God is the "true" God.

Belief in the Godhead or its lack of is bigger issue. Nowadays we can't say "God bless America" without some idiot complaining about the word "God."

To make matters worse, non-believers do have their own gods -- money, greed (any or all of the seven deadly sins to be included in this list), Darwin (evolution) and themselves. This is such hypocrisy that punishes believers in order to make this little population of the nation happy.

Other cultures (even those within the US) make constant references to God (Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Krishna, Ra, etc) in their day-to-day speech. This is something rarely found nowadays in US English heavily tainted with political correctness. At least, it's good to know that this isn't true in other cultures.

The Muslim greeting "Salem malenku" is both a greeting and a blessing. The expression means "May the peace of God be with you."

The Arabic expression "Insh'allah" means "God willing" and it expresses the hope that God would allow something to happen. This expression was adopted in Spain as "Ojala."

At the same time, the Spanish goodbye expression "Adios" means "Go with God," which comes from the Latin expression "A Deus." The same remains true for similar expressions like "Adiu" in French. Unfortunately many of the people using this and similar expressions aren't aware of the religious meaning of these words and phrases.

In Hebrew, a person may say "Shalom" as greeting which means "May God be with you." Although Hebrew doesn't have as many references to God in its speech, worldwide most people consider Hebrew as the language of the People of God.

In English (American especially), the expressions "For God's sake" and "(May) God bless you" have rather been changed to accommodate atheists and others. These expressions have changed to "For Pete's sake" (even "For fuck's sake") and a generic "Bless you" or the German expression "Gesundheit," which means "healthiness." Expressions like "In the year of our Lord" are no longer common, but at least it survives in classic English literature and poetry.

At the least, the common expression "(May) Lord help us" or "(May) God help us" is still used as a reminder that this is a nation of believers (82.31% of Christians, 1.77% of Jews, 1.58 % of Muslims; 2006, http://www.thearda.com/internationalData/countries/country_234_1.asp) by many including Presidents.

friends from other books

As a continuation of http://project05952381.blogspot.com/2010/07/friends-from-afar.html I wanted to emphasize that distance doesn't always mean geographical position of two object or persons.

After living abroad about one third of my life and living in NYC for the other two thirds, not all my friends are Christian of whatever denomination.

For example, my friends I-An and I-Chun (sisters) are Buddhist.

Coto is atheist or so he calls himself. After all, his wife is Christian (Catholic perhaps).

Julian is non-practicing Jew and married to a non-practicing Christian.

Several of my friends are Muslim. As a matter of fact, my friend Sheila converted to Islam after spending most of her life as a Christian.

Of course, many are Christian although they don't practice their faith. If they do, it might be limited to several times a year.

After a while, religion is not too important when making friends for life. Nonetheless I must admit that some (if not all) the friends whom I've made in church might be my friends (http://project05952381.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-church-friends-unexpected-fellowship.html) for the rest our lives.

interesting video, 03/07/2010

The Christian-Muslim Summit
http://www.nationalcathedral.org/webcasts/summit2010.shtml