As I sat in my over-sized bean bag, flipping page after page of Cold Mountain, I found Inman's trials and tribulations increasingly interesting. Despite the various physical challenges which Inman encounters, such as murderous rednecks and druggings, his true trials lie beneath the surface, in the confines of his mind.

Inman, for apparently the first time in his life, began to question the belief system which he was indoctrinated into unknowingly. As the world seemingly crumbled around him, as did his preconceived notions of God, heaven, and spirituality in general. He adopts a common atheistic argument: 'If God exists, how could He allow such horrors to engulf his people, his supposed children?'

Inman has done what a startling majority of people fail to even ponder in the entirety of their blind lives; question the believes one was brought up with, the beliefs one is intrinsically surrounded by. So many people believe the things they believe just because their parents believe it, or their church, or their comunity. Not for a second do they stop and try and formulate their own thoughts. Their belief system is validated, and pounded into their minds from a young age, from those that surround them. And whimsically, although people's behaviors, thoughts, and actions evolve with their age as they rightfully should, their belief system remain at the infantile stage of accepting whatever their legal guardians regurgitate, just as their guardians did before them. It creates a cycle of ignorance, whereas people believe what their community believes just because it's what everyone else believes.

I don't think that religion is all bad by any means. But when people base their belief systems on no more than what their parents, family, and community belief, it creates bigotry.