Forgiveness Factory?

Let me preface all of this before I get myself into trouble: I'm not in any way trying to throw out some holier-than-thou bull or anything like that, because God knows I have my vices. I'm just making an observation. I don't have all the answers and, as far as I can remember, I don't remember ever claiming that I did.

It's really no wonder to me that "the Church" is so ridiculously unattractive to people that don't believe that Jesus Christ was really the son of God. Every time the subject comes up, I'm immediately reminded of a quote by Mahatma Gandhi: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Lately I've been having trouble believing that people are even remotely as genuine as they let on. I can't tell you how many times I've seen something like this plastered all over people's MySpace/Facebook profiles: "I do everything I can to live my life like my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I'm ever so thankful that He is so forgiving and forgives my shortcomings."

Some of these people are completely genuine, and I see these people every day and can tell they're doing something different. Yet most of the people that plaster their profiles with this stuff are the people no one wants to be around because they're mean or rude or just downright unpleasant to be around. They're the people who have sex with every person they come into contact with who is moderately attractive and will give them the time of day, and they're the ones who can't remember what they did last night. And outside of the safety of MySpace/Facebookland, they have zero desire to follow Christ's example. And I know, who am I to say anything, because a lot of the time I'm just a downright asshole. But honestly, every once in a while the things I say to people keep me up at night. Not that it excuses any of my behavior, but I'm not exactly a fair judge of who I am outside of this blog or MySpace or Facebook or Twitter. But I'm trying.

So I guess my question is, who are we/you/whoever trying to fool? What are the motives of your heart, and if they're not what you're plastering all over the interwebs, why bother putting up that front? Or is there something bigger--that the desire to be that person is there, but there's just so much more to being a real person in the real world than what you can do from the safety your keyboard and monitor provide?

And again, I'm not going to put myself above any of these people. Who am I kidding? I'm the one sitting alone in my room, writing a blog that no one will read. Who's to say that who I am away from this blog is a person not worth blogging about?